Photo. by Enos A. MillsA Beaver Canal
Photo. by Enos A. Mills
A Beaver Canal
A New Beaver Dam
A New Beaver Dam
Drawing by Will JamesThe Mountain Lion
Drawing by Will James
The Mountain Lion
Another mother coyote decoyed me into watching a vacant den. Her children were in another den a quarter of a mile away. In carrying food to them she went out of her way to enter the vacant den, then left it by a different entrance and proceeded by a circuitous route to the waiting puppies. Both of the old coyotes hunt and carry food to the den for their puppies.
Repeatedly I have seen a mother or a father coyote lure a hunter or trapper away from the den or spot where the young were hidden. I have also seen one or more coyotes stay near acrippled coyote as though taking care of him, and endeavour to lure away any hunter who approached.
Someone has said that a beautiful coyote hide wraps up more deviltry than any other hide of equal dimensions stretched over an animated form. His successful cunning and his relentless ways of getting a living cause him to be cursed by those whom he plunders. But he is always interesting and appears to enjoy life even in the midst of lean times.
The coyote is the Clown of the Prairie. He is wise, cynical, and a good actor. He has a liking for action and adventure. He really is a happy fellow, something of a philosopher and full of wit.
I have seen a coyote look at a deserted and tumble-down building and strike an attitude of mockery at the failures of man. Sometimes he catches a chicken while the family is away; and, carrying this to the back porch to feast, leaves the unconsumed feathers there. Two nights a coyote raided a settler’s hen roost and each time left the feathers near my camp. I was ordered out of the country!
Once I tried for more than half a day to get a picture of a coyote. He appeared to know that I was unarmed and harmless, and allowed me to approach moderately close, but not quiteclose enough. At last he laid down by a cliff and pretended to go to sleep. When I came almost near enough to photograph him he rose, looked at me, yawned as though bored, and ran away. A common prank of his is to lure a dog from a camp or ranch to a point where the coyote is safe, then to pounce upon the dog and chase him back in confusion.
As I sat one day on a hillside, watching the antics of calves among a herd of cattle, two coyotes trotted into the scene. They caused no alarm and did not receive even a second look from the cattle. Slowly and knowingly the coyotes walked here and there among them, as though selecting a victim or looking for one whose days were numbered. Near me was a crippled old cow that plainly did not have long to live. The instant the coyotes came within view of her one of them sat down, plainly satisfied with the outlook; and the other laid down with the easy, contemptuous air of a cynic before a waiting feast. To add to the effectiveness of the scene a number of magpies, which usually are watchful enough to arrive first at any promised feast, joined them.
On an Arizona desert I saw two coyotes walking along apparently without any heads. What scheme are they up to now? was my first thought as I stood looking at this magic scene.But off on the desert was a suspended lake mirage. Two coyotes appeared just beneath the near edge, their heads completely lost in the mirage, their headless bodies walking—a most startling exhibit, even for a desert.
The coyote has a peculiar mental make-up. He has all the keen alertness of the wolf and the audacious cunning of the fox. His fox-like face at times takes on a serio-comic expression. At other times he has a most expectant look as he sits and watches, or listens, with head tilted on one side and sharp ears pointing slightly forward. He has actions, characteristics, and attitudes that make him excel even the fox for the purpose of fable making.
There are numerous Indian myths concerning the coyote; in fact, he takes the place the fox has in primitive European folklore. Numerous tribes pay the coyote tribute in daily food. Their belief accredits him with the audacity and the cunning to seize fire from forbidden sources and deliver this enduring comfort to the fireless red men. Among most Indian tribes he is regarded with favour. Many Indian dogs are descendants of the coyote.
The coyote is a small, fleet-footed, keen-witted animal, tawny or yellowish brown in colour. He is, of course, a wolf; but he is only a little more than half the weight of his largerelative, the gray wolf. Originally he was scattered over most of North America. Though scientifically classified into a number of species and sub-species, they are very much alike in colour and habit.
The home range of the coyote is rarely ten miles across, except on the margin of mountains where sometimes it is twice this. In many localities a pair will have three or four square miles to themselves; in other localities there are a few pairs to the square mile.
Coyotes probably mate for life. A pair commonly hunt together, though each often hunts alone. They are said to live from eight to fifteen years. I kept track of one for eight years, who appeared mature when I first met him and showed no signs of decay when I saw him last.
The coyote usually lies up in a den when not hunting; but at times he simply hides in underbrush or in ravines. A den I measured lay nearly four feet below the surface and had a length of fourteen feet. It was expanded into a room-like place near the farther end and there were a number of small pockets extending from it. The den may be made by the coyotes themselves or it may be the den of a badger which they have re-shaped. Occasionally they take advantage of cave-like places between largestones. The den commonly is in an out-of-the-way place and the entrance to it is concealed by stones or bushes.
Coyotes often have three or more dens. A change is probably helpful in keeping down parasites, and I am certain that their use of more than one den confuses and defeats their pursuers. Many a man has dug into a coyote’s den and found it empty when only the day before he had seen it used by the entire family.
The young are born in April or May, in litters of from five to ten. They grow rapidly and in a few weeks show all the cunning ways and playfulness of puppies. When safe they spend hours outside the den, wrestling, digging, or sleeping in the sun. In two dens I examined each youngster had a separate compartment or pocket for himself; and, judging from claw marks, probably he had dug this himself. In July the youngsters are taken out into the world, where they learn the tactics of wresting a living from the fields.
The coyote is a swift runner and easily outstrips the gray wolf. The average horse cannot catch him and probably the greyhound is the only dog that can overtake him. Swift as he is, however, the jack rabbit and the antelope leave him behind.
Coyotes often hunt in pairs and occasionallyin packs. When hunting in pairs one will leisurely hunt, or pretend to be hunting, in plain view of a prairie dog or other animal. While this active coyote holds the attention of the victim the other slips close and rushes or springs upon it. They often save their legs and their lives with their brains; they succeed by stealth instead of sheer physical endurance.
Antelopes, rabbits, and other animals are frequently captured by several coyotes taking part in the chase. Commonly they scatter in a rude circle and run in relays. Those near the place toward which the animal is running lie in concealment close to its probable course. As the victim weakens all unite to pull it down and are present at the feast.
They are not always successful, however. I have seen jack rabbits break the circle and escape across the prairie. Two pursuing coyotes quickly gave up the race with an antelope when it turned at a sharp angle and struck off at increased speed. A deer, which several coyotes had frightened into running, suddenly stopped in a little opening surrounded by bushes. Here he put up such an effective and successful fight that two of the attackers received broken ribs and the others drew off.
An antelope on the Wyoming plains started several times for water, but, without reachingit, turned and hurried back to the starting place. Going closer I discovered that she had a young kid with her. This was being watched by a near-by coyote. A part of the time he laid near. If the antelope drove him off he at once returned and paced back and forth dangerously near the kid. Some animal had already secured one of her young, and I fear that the coyote wore the mother out and feasted on the other.
The gray wolf often kills wantonly—kills for fun, when food is not needed. Rarely, I think, does the coyote do this. In times of plenty he becomes an actor and gives plays and concerts; but if fate provides an excess of food he is likely to cache or store it. A miner lost half a sheep from his pack horse. Half an hour later I went along his trail and discovered a coyote burying a part of this, covering it by means of his nose, like a dog. He had eaten to roundness and had nothing in his outlines to suggest the lean wolf.
He eats about everything that has any food value—meat, fruit, grasses, and vegetables in all stages of greenness and ripeness. He has the bad habit of killing young big game; capturing birds and robbing their nests; raiding barnyards for chickens, ducks, and turkeys; and sometimes he feeds on sheep and occasionally kills a calf. Often he catches a fish or frog,eats roots, tender shoots, or has a feast of fruit or melons.
The coyote is wise enough to keep near the trail and camp of hunters and trappers. Here he gets many a rich meal of camp scraps and cast-off parts of killed animals. I have known him to travel with a mountain lion and to follow the trail of a bear. In certain localities the chipmunks retire in autumn to their holes, fat and drowsy, and temporarily fall into a heavy sleep. Before the earth is frozen they are energetically dug out by the coyotes. But this is only one of the many bits of natural history known and made use of by the coyote.
But the coyote’s food habits are not all bad. At some time in every locality, and in a few localities at all times, he has a high rank in economic biology, and may be said to coöperate silently with the settlers in eradicating damaging pests. He is especially useful in fruit-growing sections. He is at the head of the list of mouse-catching animals. He is a successful ratter, and is the terror of prairie dogs, ground squirrels, and rabbits.
If scavengers are helpful, then he is a useful member of society. He has a liking for carcasses, no matter how smelly or ancient. I once saw a coyote feeding on a dead mule along with ravens and buzzards. He did appearto be a trifle ashamed of his companions; for, though he seeks adventure and is almost a soldier of fortune, he has a pride that does not sanction indiscriminate associates.
He is commonly considered a coward; but this does not appear to be a proper classification of his characteristics. Being shy and cautious is the very price of his existence. He displays both courage and fighting blood whenever there is anything to be gained by such display. Rarely is it cowardly to avoid being a target for the deadly long-range rifle or to slip away from an attack by dogs at overwhelming odds. Recklessness and rashness do not constitute bravery.
The coyote constantly uses his wits. In a Utah desert I often saw him watching the flights of buzzards. If the buzzards came down, the coyote made haste to be among those at the feast. In returning from a far-off expedition on plain or desert he seems to be guided by landmarks; appears to recognize striking objects seen before and to use them as guide posts.
That he is mentally above the average animal is shown in the quickness with which he adjusts himself to changes or to the demands of his environment. If constantly pursued with gun, dogs, and traps he becomes most wary; but if no one in the neighbourhood attempts to swat himhe shows himself at close range, and is often bold.
Near Canon City, Colorado, an apple grower showed me a three-legged coyote that used his orchard. The coyote had been about for four or five years and was quite tame. He was fed on scraps and was wise enough to stay in the small zone of safety round the house.
But the coyote never forgets. His keen senses and keen wits appear to be always awake, even though surroundings have long been friendly. For a time I stayed at an isolated cattle ranch upon which hunting was forbidden. But one day a man carrying a gun strolled into the field. While he was still a quarter of a mile away the coyotes became watchful and alarmed. To me the appearance of the man and gun differed little from that of the men carrying fishing poles; but the wise coyotes either scented or could distinguish the gun. Presently all hurried away. While the gunner remained, at least one of the coyotes sat where he could overlook the field. But all came strolling back within a few minutes after the gunner left.
In western Wyoming, not far from a ranch house, were three small hills. On these the wolves and coyotes frequently gathered and howled. One day a number of traps were set on each of these hills. That evening the wolvesand coyotes had their usual serenade; but they gathered in the depressions between the hills. Quickly they adjusted themselves to the new conditions, with “Safety first!” always the determining factor.
The coyote has a remarkable voice. It gives him a picturesque part. Usually his spoken efforts are in the early evening; more rarely in early morning. Often a number, in a pack or widely separated, will engage in a concert. It is a concert of clowns; in it are varying and changing voices; all the breaks in the evening song are filled with startling ventriloquistic effects. The voice may be thrown in many directions and over varying distances at once, so that the sounds are multiplied, and the efforts of two or three coyotes seem like those of a numerous and scattered pack.
However, the coyote uses his voice for other things than pleasure. He has a dialect with which he signals his fellows; he warns them of dangers and tells of opportunities; he asks for information and calls for assistance. He is constantly saving himself from danger or securing his needed food by coöperating with his fellows. These united efforts are largely possible through his ability to express the situation with voice and tongue.
Through repetition a coyote’s signals are ofttimesrelayed for miles. A leader mounts a lonely butte and proclaims his orders over the silent prairie. This proclamation is answered by repeating coyotes a mile or more away. Farther away, at all points of the compass, it is repeated by others. And so, within a fraction of a minute, most of the coyotes within a radius of miles have the latest news or the latest orders.
Sometimes the stratum of air above the prairie is a mellow sounding-board; it clearly and unresistingly transmits these wild wireless calls far across the ravines and hills of the prairie. The clear notes of a single coyote often ring distinctly across a radius of two or three miles. When groups congregate in valley concerts all the air between the near and the far-off hills vibrates with the wild, varying melody. This may reach a climax in a roar like the wind, then break up into a many-voiced yelping.
I love to hear the shoutings and the far-off cries of the coyote. These elemental notes are those of pure gladness and wildness. To me they are not melancholy. Their rollicking concerts remind me of the merry efforts of live boys.
The calls of the coyote have a distinct place in the strangeness and wildness of the Great Plains.
A blackbear came into a United States Survey camp one Sunday afternoon while all the men were lounging about, and walked into the cook’s tent. The cook was averse to bears; he tried to go through the rear of the tent at a place where there was no door. The tent went down on him and the bear. The bear, confused and not in the habit of wearing a tent, made a lively show of it—a sea in a storm—as he struggled to get out.
All were gathered round and watched the bear emerge from beneath the tent and climb a tree. Out on the first large limb he walked. He looked down on us somewhat puzzled and inclined to be playful.
This was at the Thumb in the Yellowstone National Park, in the summer of 1891. I was the boy of the party. For some years I had been interested in wild life, and while in the Park I used every opportunity to study tree and animal life. I frequently climbed trees to examine the fruit they bore, to learn about the insects thatwere preying on them or the birds that were eating the insects. I was naturally nicknamed the Tree Climber. There was now a unanimous call for the Tree Climber to go up and get the bear down!
Of course no one wants to climb a tree when it is full of bears. But at last I was persuaded to climb a tree near the one in which the bear reposed and try to rout him out. He had climbed up rapidly head foremost. He went down easily tail foremost. The instant he touched the earth there was such a yelling and slapping of coats that for a time the bear was confused as to whether he should fight or frolic. He decided to climb again. But in his confusion he took the wrong tree. He climbed up beneath me!
From long experience since that time I now realize that the bear simply wanted to romp, for he was scarcely more than one year of age. The black bear is neither ferocious nor dangerous. The most fitting name I have ever heard given him is The Happy Hooligan of the Woods. He is happy-go-lucky, and taking thought of the morrow is not one of his troubles.
The most surprising pranks I ever saw were those of a pet cub. During one of my rambles in the mountains of Colorado I came to the cabin of an eccentric prospector who alwayshad some kind of a pet. On this occasion it was a black bear cub. The cub was so attached to the place that unchained he stayed or played near by all day while his master was away at work.
With moccasined feet I approached the cabin quietly, and the first knowledge I had of the cub was his spying my approach from behind a tree in the rear of the cabin. He was standing erect, with his body concealed behind the tree; only a small bit of his head and an eye were visible. As I approached him he moved round, keeping the tree between us.
Finally he climbed up several feet; and as I edged round he sidled about like a squirrel, and though always peeking at me, kept his body well concealed on the opposite side of the tree. On my going to the front of the cabin he descended; and when I glanced round the front corner to see him, he was peeking round the rear corner at me.
As I had kept up a lively, pleasant conversation all this time, he evidently concluded that I was friendly, and, like a boy, proceeded to show off. Near by stood a barrel upright, with the top missing. Into this the bear leaped and then deliberately overturned it on the steep slope. Away down hill rolled the barrel at a lively pace with the bear inside. Thrustingout his forepaws he guided the course of the barrel and controlled its speed.
Once while two black bear cubs were fleeing before a forest fire they paused and true to their nature had a merry romp. Even the threatening flames could not make them solemn. Each tried to prevent the other from climbing a tree that stood alone in the open; round it they clinched, cuffed, and rolled so merrily that the near-by wild folk were attracted and momentarily forgot their fears.
The black bear has more human-like traits than any other animal I know. He is a boy in disguise, will not work long at anything unless at something to produce mischief. Occasionally he finds things dull, like a shut-in boy or a boy with a task to perform, and simply does not know what to do with himself—he wants company.
He is shy and bashful as a child. He plans no harm. He does not eat bad children; nor does he desire to do so. Nothing would give him greater delight than to romp with rollicking, irrepressible children whose parents have blackened his character.
In other words, the black bear is just the opposite in character of what he has long been and still is almost universally thought to be. A million written and spoken stories have it that heis ferocious—a wanton, cruel killer. He fights or works only when compelled to do so. He is not ferocious. He avoids man as though he were a pestilence.
One day in climbing out on a cliff I accidentally dislodged a huge rock. This as it fell set a still larger rock going. The second rock in its hurtling plunge struck a tree in which a young black bear was sleeping. As the tree came to the earth the bear made haste to scamper up the nearest tree. But unfortunately the one up which he raced had lost its top by the same flying ton of stone, and he was able to get only a few yards above the earth.
To get him to come down I procured a long pole and prodded him easily. At first, on the defensive, he slapped and knocked the pole to right and left. He was plainly frightened and being cornered was determined to fight. I proceeded gently and presently he calmed down and began playing with the pole. He played just as merrily as ever a kitten played with a moving, tickling twig or string.
The black bear is the most plausible bluffer I have ever seen. His hair bristling, upper lip stuck forward, and onrushing with a rapid volley of champing K-woof-f-f’s, he appears terrible. He pulls himself out of many a predicament and obtains many an unearned morselin this way. Most of his bluffs are for amusement; he will go far out of his way for the purpose of running one. In any case, if the bluff is ineffective—and most often it is—he moves on with unbelievable indifference at the failure, and in a fraction of a second is so interested in something else, or so successfully pretends to be, that the bluff might have been yesterday judging from his appearance. Often, like a boy, he has a merry or a terrible make-believe time, in which the bluff is exhibited.
Bears are fond of swimming, and during the summer often go for a plunge in a stream or lake. This is followed by a sunning on the earth or an airing in a treetop.
The grizzly does not climb trees, but the black bear climbs almost as readily as a cat. With its cat-like forepaws it can simply race up a tree trunk. He climbs a small pole or a large tree with equal ease.
The black bear might be called a perching animal. Much of his time, both asleep and awake, is spent in treetops. Often he has a special tree, and he may use this tree for months or even years. When closely pursued by dogs, or the near-by appearance of a grizzly, or if anything startling happen, instantly a black bear climbs a tree. The black bear is afraid of the grizzly.
In case of danger or when leaving on a long foraging expedition the mother usually sends her cubs up a tree. They faithfully remain in the tree until she returns. One day in Wild Basin, Colorado, while watching a mother and two cubs feeding on travelling ants, the mother quietly raised her head then pointed her nose at the cubs. Though there was not a sound the cubs instantly, though unwillingly, started toward the foot of a tree. The mother raised her forepaws as though to go toward them. At that the cubs made haste toward the tree. At the bottom they hesitated; then the mother with rush and champing Whoof! simply sent them flying up the trunk. Then she walked away into the woods.
In the treetop the cubs remained for hours, not once descending to the earth. It was a lodgepole pine sixty or seventy feet away and several feet lower than my stand, on the side of a moraine. For some minutes the cubs stood on the branches looking in the direction in which their mother had disappeared. They explored the entire tree, climbing everywhere on the branches, then commenced racing and playing through the treetop.
At times their actions were very cat-like; now and then squirrel-like; frequently they were very monkey-like; but at all times lively, interesting,and bear-like. Occasionally they climbed and started wrestling far out on a limb. Sometimes they fell off, but caught a limb below with their claws, and without a pause, swung up again or else dropped to another limb. Once they scrambled down the trunk within a few feet of the bottom; and as they raced up again the lower one snapped at the hind legs of the upper one and finally, attaching himself to the other with a forepaw, pulled him loose from the tree trunk. The upper one thus exchanged places with the lower one and the lively scramble up the trunk continued.
After a while one curled up in a place where three or four limbs intersected the tree trunk and went to sleep. The other went to sleep on his back on a flattened limb near the top of the tree.
Realizing that the cubs would stay in the tree, no matter what happened, I concluded to capture them. Though they had been having lively exercise for two hours they were anything but exhausted. Climbing into the tree I chased them round from the bottom to the top; from the top out on limbs, and from limbs to the bottom—but was unable to get within reach of them.
Several times I drove one out on top of a limb and then endeavoured to shake him off and give him a tumble to the earth. A number oftimes I braced myself on a near-by large limb and shook with all my might. Often I was able to move the end of the limb rapidly back and forth, but the cubs easily clung on. At times they had hold with only one paw—occasionally with only a single claw; but never could I shake them free.
The affair ended by my cutting a limb—to which a cub was clinging—nearly off with my hatchet. Suddenly breaking the remaining hold of the limb I tossed it and the tenacious little cub out, tumbling toward the earth. The cub struck the earth lightly, and before I had fully recovered from nearly tumbling after him came scrambling up the tree trunk beneath me!
One spring day while travelling in the mountains I paused in a whirl of mist and wet snow to look for the trail. I could see only a few feet ahead. As I looked closely a bear emerged from the gloom heading straight for me. Behind her were two cubs. I caught an impatient expression when she first saw me. She stopped, and with a growl of anger wheeled and boxed the cubs right and left like a worried, unpoised mother. They vanished in the direction from which they had come, the cubs being urged on with lively spanks.
Like most animals, the black bear has a local habitation. His territory is twenty miles orless in circumference. In this territory he is likely to spend his years, but in springtime he may descend to feed on the earliest wild gardens of the foothills. I have tracked black bears across mountain passes, and on one occasion I found a bear track on the summit of Long’s Peak.
The black bear eats everything that is edible, although his food is mainly that of a vegetarian. He digs out rich willow and aspen roots in the shallow and soft places, and tears up numerous plants for their roots or tubers. He eats grass and devours hundreds of juicy weeds. In summer he goes miles to berry patches and with the berries browses off a few inches of thorny bush; he bites off the end of a plum-tree limb and consumes it along with its leaves and fruit.
During summer I have seen him on the edge of snowfields and glaciers consuming thousands of unfortunate grasshoppers, flies, and other insects there accumulated. He is particularly fond of ants—tears ant hills to pieces and licks up the ants as they come storming forth to bite him. He tears hundreds of rotten logs and stumps to pieces for grubs, ants and their eggs. He freely eats honey, the bees and their nests. He often amuses himself and makes a most amusing and man-like spectacle by chasing and catching grasshoppers.
In a fish country he searches for fish and occasionally catches live ones; but he is too restless or shiftless to be a good fisherman. I have seen him catch fish by thrusting his nose in root entanglements in the edge of a brook; sometimes he captures salmon or trout that are struggling through shallow ripples.
Occasionally he catches a rabbit or a bird. But most of his meat is stale, with the killing of which he had nothing to do. He will devour carrion that has the accumulated smell of weeks of corruption. He catches more mice than a cat; and in the realm of economic biology he should be rated as useful. He consumes many other pests.
The black bear is—or was—pretty well distributed over North America. His colour and activities vary somewhat with the locality, this being due perhaps to a difference of climate and food supply.
Everywhere, however, he is very much the same. Wherever found he has the hibernating habit. This is most developed in the colder localities. Commonly he is fat at the close of autumn; and as a preliminary to his long winter rest he makes a temporary nest where for a few days he fasts and sleeps.
With his stomach completely empty he retires into hibernating quarters for the winter.This place may be dug beneath the base of a fallen tree, close to the upturned roots, or a rude cave between immense rocks, or a den beneath a brush heap. Sometimes he sleeps on the bare earth or on the rocks of a cave; but he commonly claws into his den a quantity of litter or trash, then crawls into this and goes to sleep. The time of his retiring for the winter varies with the latitude; but usually all bears of the same locality retire at about the same date, early December being the most common time.
The grizzly bear is more particular in his choice of sleeping quarters and desires better protection and concealment than the black bear. Bears sometimes come forth in fair weather for a few hours and possibly for a few days. I have known them to come out briefly in mid-winter.
With the coming of spring—anywhere between the first of March and the middle of May—the bears emerge, the males commonly two weeks or more earlier than the females. Usually they at once journey down the mountain. They eat little or nothing for the first few days. They are likely to break their fast with the tender shoots of willow, grass, and sprouting roots, or a bite of bark from a pine.
The cubs are born about mid-winter. Commonly there are three at a birth, but the number varies from one to four. At the time of birththese tiny, helpless little bears rarely weigh more than half a pound. I suppose if they were larger their mother would not be able to nourish them, on account of having to endure the hibernating fast for a month or so after their birth.
In May, when the cubs and their mother emerge from the dark den, the cubs are most cunning, and lively little balls of fur they are! By this time they are about the weight and size of a cottontail rabbit. In colour they may be black, cinnamon, or cream.
As with the grizzly, the colour has nothing to do with the species. With black bears, however, if the fur is black his claws are also black; or if brown the claws match the colour of the fur. With the grizzly the colour of claws and fur often do not match.
Few more interesting exhibitions of play are to be seen than that of cubs with their mother. Often, for an hour at a time, the mother lies in a lazy attitude and allows the cubs to romp all over her and maul her to their hearts’ content.
The mother will defend her cubs with cunning, strength, and utmost bravery. Nothing is more pathetic in the wild world than the attachment shown by the actions of the whimpering cubs over the body of their dead mother. They will struggle with utmost desperation to prevent being torn away from it.
In the majority of cases the mother appears to wean the cubs during the first autumn of their lives. The cubs then den up together that winter. In a number of cases, whenever the cubs are not weaned until the second autumn, they are certain to den up with their mother the first winter. The second winter the young den up together. Though eager for play, brother and sister cubs do not play together after the second summer. When older than two years they play alone or with other bears of the same age.
Young black bears have good tempers and are playful in captivity. But if teased or annoyed they become troublesome and even dangerous with age. If thine enemy offend thee present him with a black bear cub that has been mistreated. He is an intense, high-strung animal, and if subjected to annoyances, teasing, or occasional cruelty, becomes revengeful and vindictive. Sometimes he will even look for trouble, and once in a fight has the tenacity of a bulldog.
Two bears that I raised were exceedingly good-tempered and never looked for trouble. I have known other similar instances. I am inclined to conclude that with uniformly kind treatment the black bear would always have a kind disposition.
For a year or two a dissipated cruiser and hisloyal black bear were familiar figures in the West. The pranks of the bear easily brought drinks enough to enable the cruiser to be drunk most of the time. Many times, when going to my room in the early morning after work on a night shift, I found the cruiser asleep in the street entrance to my lodging house. The faithful bear—Tar Baby—sat by the cruiser’s side, patiently waiting for his awakening.
The black bear has a well-developed brain and may be classed among the alert animals of the wild. Its senses are amazingly developed; they seem to be ever on duty. When a possible enemy is yet a mile or so distant they receive by scent or by sound a threatening and wireless message on the moving or through the stationary air. Therefore it is almost impossible to approach closely a wild bear.
With the black bear, as with every living thing, every move calls for safety first; and this exceedingly alert animal is among the very first to appreciate a friendly locality.
The black bear has never been protected as a game animal; through all the seasons of the year, with gun and dogs, the hunter is allowed to pursue him. As he is verging on extinction, and as he gives to the wilds much of its spirit, there ought to be a closed season for a few years to protect this rollicking fellow of the forest.
A skunkpassed by me going down the trail. In sight was a black bear coming up. Which of these wilderness fellows would give or be forced to give the right-of-way? There must be trail rights. I sat near the trail an innocent and concealed by-stander—a bump on a log—wondering about the wilderness etiquette for the occasion.
The black bear is happy-go-lucky. This one was pre-occupied until within two lengths of the skunk. A three-length side-leap and he stood watchful and ready to escape. The solemn, slow-moving skunk held the right-of-way and passed by without a turn of his head toward the curious and watching black bear. The skunk ever has his own way. His influence is most far reaching.
The wilderness has a web of wild life trails. Many of these are dim. The unobserved of all observers, I often sat in hiding close to a worn, much-trampled wild life trail—a highway—where it crossed a high point.
Before me just at sunrise a grizzly and amountain lion met. The grizzly—the dignified master of the wilds—was shuffling along, going somewhere. He saw the lion afar but shuffled indifferently on. Within fifty feet the lion bristled and, growling, edged unwillingly from the trail. At the point of passing he was thirty feet from his trail-treading foe. With spitting, threatening demonstration he dashed by; while the unmoved, interested grizzly saw everything as he shuffled on, except that he did not look back at the lion which turned to show teeth and to watch him disappear.
It was different the day the grizzly met a skunk. This grizzly, as I knew from tracking him, was something of an adventurer. His home territory was more than forty miles to the southeast. He had travelled this trail a number of times. On mere notion sometimes he turned back and ambled homeward.
But this day the grizzly saw the slow-walking skunk coming long minutes before the black and white toddler with shiny plume arrived. The skunk is known and deferred to by wild folk big and little. Regardless of his trail rights the grizzly went on to a siding to wait. This siding which he voluntarily took was some fifty feet from the trail. Here the grizzly finally sat down. He waited and waited for the easy-going skunk to arrive and pass.
The approaching presence of the solemn, slow-going skunk was too much and the grizzly just could not help playing the clown. He threw a somersault; he rolled over. Then, like a young puppy, he sat on an awkwardly held body to watch the skunk pass. He pivoted his head to follow this unhastening fellow who was as dead to humour as the log by the trail.
Along the trail friend meets friend, foe meets enemy, stranger meets stranger, they linger, strangers not again. The meetings may be climaxes, produce clashes, or friendly contact; and in the passing high-brows and common folks rub elbows. To meet or not to meet ever is the question with them.
One old trail which I many times watched was on a ridge between two deep cañons. At the west the ridge expanded into the Continental Divide and the trail divided into dimmer footways. The east end terraced and the trail divided. Stretches of the trail were pine shadowed, spaces were in sunlight.
Where the trail went over a summit among the scattered trees travellers commonly paused for a peep ahead. Often, too, they waited and congested, trampling a wide stretch bare and often to dust. On this summit were scoutings, lingerings, and fighting. Lowlanders and highlanders, singly, in pairs and in strings, stamped the dustwith feet shod in hoofs or in claws and pads.
One of the meetings of two grizzlies which I witnessed was on this ridge trail. A steady rain was falling. Each saw the other coming in the distance and each gave the right-of-way as though accidentally, by showing interest in fallen logs and boulder piles away from the trail. Each ludicrously pretending not to see the other, finally a passing was achieved, the trail regained without a salute.
A meeting of two other grizzlies revealed a different though a common form. Each saw the other coming but each held to the trail. At less than a length apart both rose and roared—feigned surprise—and soundly blamed the other for the narrowly averted and well-nigh terrible collision. But no delay for the last word. Each well pleased with the meeting hastened on, too wise to look back.
One day nothing came along this highway and I looked at the tracks in the wide, dusty trail. The multitude of tracks in it overlapped and overlaid each other. A grizzly track, like the footprint of a shoeless primitive man, was stamped with deer tracks, stitched and threaded with mice tails and tracks and scalloped with wolf toes. But its individuality was there.
For three days I had been a bump on a log by this place and no big travellers had passed. The birds, chipmunks, and a squirrel were entertaining as ever, but I had hoped for something else. I had just started for camp when dimly through the trees I saw something coming down the trail.
Photo. by E. R. WarrenThe Prairie Dog
Photo. by E. R. Warren
The Prairie Dog
Photo. by E. R. WarrenThe Cony
Photo. by E. R. Warren
The Cony
Drawing by Will JamesLooking for Small Favours
Drawing by Will James
Looking for Small Favours
A dignified grizzly and a number of pompous, stiff-necked rams met and were so filled with curiosity that everyone forgot reserve and good form. They stopped and turned for looks at one another and thus merged a rude, serious affair into a slowly passing, successful meeting.
I sometimes sat at a point on this ridge trail so that the passing animal was in silhouette. The background was a lone black spruce against the shifting sky scenery. Horns and whiskers, coats of many colours, and exhibits of leg action went by. Horned heads, short-arched necks, and held-in chins abundantly told of pride and pomposity. But the character topography was in each back line. From nose tip to tail, plateau, cañon, hill, and slope stories stood against the sky.
The tail, though last, was the character clue to the passing figure. Regardless of curve, kink, or incline, it ever was story revealing: sometimes long and flowing, but the short tail attitude incited most imaginative interest in the attached individual.
From treetop I watched one trail where it was crossed by a stream. Generally deer andsheep went through the stream without a stop. In it bears often rolled. Sometimes they used the wilderness bridge—the beaver dam, and occasionally they splashed through the pond. Coyotes, porcupine, squirrels, rabbits, and lynx used the dam. A porcupine backed a lynx off this into the water, the lynx threatening and spitting. But the lynx met a rabbit near the other end and the rabbit went back with the lynx.
A grizzly was about to cross when three fun-loving grizzly cubs appeared. He stood aside and watched, perhaps enjoyed, their pranks in the water before coming across. On the bank the cubs hesitated for a moment before passing a sputtering squirrel who was denouncing them for youthful pranks. A few inches of the first snow was on the ground. I went back along the trail and examined tracks. At one point a lion had come out of the woods and given the cubs a scare; and still farther back they had stood on hind feet one behind the other, evidently watching a black bear go well around them.
Two flocks of bighorn mountain sheep passed by in single file like two lines of proud, set wooden figures. One of these flocks was down from the heights to visit a far-off salt lick. The other evidently was returning to its local territory on the high range by a circuitous routeafter being driven off by hunters. A few days later I saw these flocks meet on a high plateau. They stopped to visit. Then one flock turned back with the other and both edged over to an outlook rim of the plateau where I left them, racing and playing in the on-coming darkness.
In numberless places I saw a single wild fellow meet his species. Two coyotes advanced bristling and passed snarling. Another time two coyotes met, eyed, and then turned off in the woods together. Two wild cats advanced with declaration of war, made the forest aisles hideous with whoops and threats, struck attitudes which go with blood and gore—but nothing happened. Two squirrels approached, each loudly demanding the right-of-way. They blustered, backed-up, threatened, raced tempestuously up and down trees, and finally boastingly passed.
Many a time two rabbits speeded silently by without a slowing, a signal, or a look. Others kicked as they passed. One mid-winter day two rabbits leaped to meet mid-air; then like bucking bronchos they leaped high for action and like miniature mules turned here and there to kick at the target with two feet. If this was fight or frolic only rabbits know.
It often happened that the breeze was favourable and I watched the passing processions frommy camp. Near camp two otters met and turned aside and later I followed their trail to otter slide. Two woodchucks met by a boulder on which I sat quietly. They counter-marched in half war-like half circles. A pause, then with apparently friendly negotiations progressing, they discovered a coyote slipping toward them.
Many times through the years I waited for odd hours, and days, at a promising place on a trail a few miles from my cabin. The tracks along this showed it to be in constant use, but never have I seen a traveller pass along it. My being at many a meeting elsewhere was just a coincidence. Years of wilderness wanderings often made me almost by chance an uninvited guest—I was among those present.
Dull fellows well met were skunk and porcupine. These dull-brained but efficiently armed fellows are conceded the right-of-way by conventional wilderness folk. They blundered to head-on clash. Never before had this occurred. Each was surprised and wrathy. There was a gritting of teeth. Each pushed and became furious. Then the skunk received several quills in the side and in turn the porcupine a dash of skunk spray. Both abandoned the trail, sadder but not wiser.
Deer, bear, beavers, and wolves travel becausethey need to do so, or for the fun of it. Deer shift for miles from a summer to a winter range, travelling a regular migration route. A number of enemy wolves may follow this moving food supply. Beavers may be seeking a home in new scenes and a bear may be off on an adventure.
Wild life trails were worn by generation after generation of wild animals using the same route, the line of least resistance long followed from one territory to another. Trampling feet assisted by wind and water maintained a plain trail. Indian trails often were wild life trails. Stretches of buffalo trails on the plains and bear trails in Alaska were abandoned because so deeply worn and washed.
From a low cliff by a mountain stream I watched the wild life along the trail on the other side of the stream. The cañon was wooded but the trail immediately opposite was in the open.
Two packs of wolves met on the trail across the river. The leaders rushed to grips and a general mix-up was on. But this was surprisingly brief. There was an outburst of snarling and the gangs passed with but little loss of time and with but one limping.
Often as these travellers passed out of sight after a meeting I wondered what and whenwould be their next adventure. Around a turn of the trail within five minutes after the black bear met the skunk he clashed with a lion, so tracks by the trail showed.
I often wondered, too, what experience an animal had been through immediately before he trailed into my sight. The peevish lion was just from her fat, safe, happy kittens. One of the two cross grizzlies was from a row with another grizzly, while the other had been playing along the trail and was on good terms with himself and the world.
When skunk and mink—the more offensive of the smelly family—meet in contest, then smells to heaven their meeting. Driven into a corner, the mink will spread high-power musk in the only avenue of advance. He then is in an impregnable position—no fellow has nose sufficiently strong to pass. Or, if the mink place a guarding circle of musk around a prize kill this makes a time lock and will hold his prize for hours against all comers.
A skunk and mink clashed by the trail across the river. The skunk was leisurely advancing to seize a flopping, misguided trout on the bank when a mink rushed as though to close with the skunk. The skunk hesitated—and lost the fish. The mink in the delay of action made musk screen near the trout. The skunk wentinto action and drove the mink off with vile skunk spray. The musk of mink caused his advance to pause, he edged around to the other side, but too much, gave up the fish, and walked off gritting his teeth.
Beavers commonly leave stuffy house and spend summer vacation miles up or down stream. They travel by water. The swift water of a rapids forced two companies of beaver travellers to use the trail of land-lubbers on the bank. Here the company going up visited with another company going down. They mingled, smelled, and rubbed noses. The company going up turned back and both went off to frolic in a beaver pond. Later one company went on down and the other up the stream. Tracks showed that ten left the pond going down; this company had numbered twelve when it met the other company. The up-bound company numbered fourteen at the meeting. Late that day I counted those going up stream as they left the trail and took to the water at the head of the rapids. They had increased their number to sixteen.
Two droves of deer met one October on the trail by stream and a beaver pond. They stopped, mingled, visited, and then laid down together. One drove was migrating from summer range on the peaks and high plateaus to winter range milesbelow. It was following along a trail generations old. The other drove was home-seeking. A forest fire with smoke still in the sky had laid barren their home territory.
From my treetop observation tower I saw a single coyote coming, and wondered what would be his attitude concerning the blockading of the trail by superior numbers, and also how these superior numbers would receive a single ancient enemy. But the deer were indifferent to the lone little wolf. They utterly ignored him.
The coyote walked leisurely around the vast assemblage with an air of ownership. Then he sat down before them and eyed them with a display of cynical satisfaction. He turned from this inspection and with a leisurely, contented air walked by with, “I haven’t time to-day—but I should worry.”
I had my camp by a cliff a short distance up stream and of mornings birds were numerous. A waterfall was at its best in the night. I had planned to watch this place another day or two but the wind was from the wrong quarter—it would carry my scent and warn travellers that a possible killer was in ambush. So I travelled away on this trail.
Many a time in the wilds I “met up” unexpectedly with wild life. And as I recall these meetings I plan again to be among thosepresent. Unexpected meetings and near meetings were had with most large and leading species of animals on the Continent. The alert grizzly, realizing I was one of the super-killer species, generally avoided me. I travelled alone and unarmed, and before I had satisfied myself that the grizzly is not a ferocious animal I most unexpectedly met one. I was his bogie—both acted on the impulse.
In the wilds one may meet a skunk or a bear. Either gives concentration—one’s every-day faculties take a vacation, and the Imagination has the stage. A bear adventure is telling. You meet the bear, he escapes, and eager listeners hear your graphic story.
The skunk is a good fellow—a good mixer. His policy is to meet or be met—the other fellow will attend to the running. The war-filled wilderness of tooth and claw ceases to be aggressive in the pacifying process of the little black and white skunk. When a skunk goes into reverse thus runs the world away. From the met skunk you absorb story material—local colour, carry off enduring evidence; your friends scent the story, they shrink from you; from registered fragments their creative faculties have restored a movie scene.
In passingthe Meadow Beaver Colony one July afternoon I saw an old beaver come up out of the water with a ball of mud in his forepaws. He jammed this mud into a low spot in the dam. Tracks in the mud along the top of this old dam, and a number of green aspen sticks with the bark eaten off lying on the side of the house, showed that a number of beavers had been using this old house and pond for several days.
This was interesting because the place had been abandoned fifteen years before and most of the old beaver works were in ruins. One house, now a mound overgrown with willows, retained its form. The pond it was in had not filled with sediment.
Did this repairing of the dam mean that this old colony was to be resettled by beavers? It probably did, for the beavers ever work for a purpose and not just to be working. It was mid-summer and all beavers who were not making emergency repairs or extensive improvements were off on a summer vacation.
Beavers, like people, occasionally settle in scenes formerly occupied by their kind, and build among the ruins of the long ago. Many a beaver colony, like many an ancient city, has one or more cities buried beneath it.
A few days after seeing the big old beaver at work on the dam I discovered him digging in a canal all alone. Tracks showed that other beavers had been working in the canal, but just why this one was so bold and showed himself during the daytime I could not guess.
That these beavers were at work on a canal left no doubt about their having come to stay. Meantime, the beavers occupied the old house and pond while making this canal and doing other pioneer settlement work. They cleaned it out and patched it up for a temporary camp only.
A canal is one of the best exhibitions of beaver skill. About twenty feet of this canal was finished and it was about three feet wide and eighteen inches deep. It began in the northeast corner of the old pond and was being dug across a filled-in grass-grown pond which had been washed full of mud and sand. It pointed at an aspen grove out in the pines two hundred feet away. It was probable that this canal would be dug as close as possible to the aspen grove, then the canal filled with water fromsomewhere and used to float aspen poles down to the beginning—the lower end—of the canal. And close to the lower end a house was almost certain to be built.