Chapter IV: Great Brown Bears (3)

Strange how wild beasts and all sorts of queer creatures are overrunning the region down there, too, growing like weeds, increasing as man decreases. I found a sort of marsh bear here. He looks like the sloth bear (Ursus Labiatus) of the Ganges, India, as you see him in the Zoo of London, only he is not a sloth, by any means. The negroes are superstitiously afraid of him, and their dogs, very numerous, and good coon dogs, too, will not touch him. His feet are large and flat, to accommodate him in getting over the soft ground, while his shaggy and misshapen body is very thin and light. His color is as unlovely as his shape--a sort of faded, dirty brown or pale blue, with a rim of dirty white about the eyes that makes him look as if he wore spectacles when he stops and looks at you.

As he is not fit to eat because he lives on fish and oysters, sportsmen will not fire at him; and as the poor, superstitious, voodoo-worshiping negroes, and their dogs, too, run away as soon as he is seen, he has quite a habit of stopping and looking at you through his queer spectacles as long as you are in sight. He looks to be a sort of second-hand bear, his shaggy, faded, dirty coat of hair looking as if he had been stuffed, like an old sofa, with the stuffing coming out--a very second-hand appearance, to be sure.

Now, as I have always had a fondness for skins--having slept on them and under them all my life, making both bed and carpet of them--I very much wanted a skin of this queer marsh bear which the poor negroes both adore and dread as a sort of devil. But, as no one liked him well enough to kill him, I must do it myself; and with this object, along with my duty to describe the drowning plantations, I left New Orleans with Colonel Bloom, two good guns, and something to eat and to drink, and swept down the great river to the landing in the outer edge of the timber belt.

And how strange this landing! As a rule you have to climb up to the shore from a ship. Here, after setting foot on the levee, we walked down, down, down to reach the level land--a vast field of fevers.

I had a letter of introduction to the "preacher." He was a marvel of rags, preached every day and night, up and down the river, and received 25 cents a day from the few impoverished white planters, too poor to get away, for his influence for good among the voodoo blacks. Not that they could afford to care for the negroes, those few discouraged and fever-stricken planters on their plantations of weeds and water, but they must, now and then, have these indolent and retrograding blacks to plant or cut down their cane, or sow and gather their drowning patches of rice, and the preacher could preach them into working a little, when right hungry.

The ragged black took my letter and pretended to read it. Poor fellow, he could not read, but pride, or rather vanity, made him act a lie. Seeing the fact, I contrived to tell him that it was from a colored clergyman, and that I had come to get him and his dogs to help me kill a bear. The blacks now turned white; or at least white around the lips. The preacher shuddered and shrugged his shoulders and finally groaned in his grief.

Let us omit the mosquitoes, the miserable babies, nude as nature, and surely very hungry in this beauteous place of fertility. They hung about my door, a "quarters" cabin with grass knee high through the cracks in the floor, like flies, till they got all my little store of supplies, save a big flask of "provisions" which General Beauregard had given me for Colonel Bloom, as a preventive against the deadly fever. No, it was not whiskey, not all whiskey, at least, for it was bitter as gall with quinine. I had to help the Colonel sample it at first, but I only helped him sample it once. It tasted so vilely that it seemed to me I should, as between the two, prefer fever.

And such a moon! The ragged minister stood whooping up his numerous dogs and gathering his sullen clan of blacks to get that bear and that promised $5.

Away from up toward New Orleans, winding, sweeping, surging, flashing like a mighty sword of silver, the Father of Waters came through the air, high above our heads and level with the topmost limit of his artificial banks. The blacks were silent, ugly, sullen, and so the preacher asked for and received the five silver dollars in advance. This made me suspicious, and, out of humor, I went into my cabin and took Colonel Bloom into a corner and told him what had been done. He did not say one word but took a long drink of preventive against the fever, as General Beauregard had advised and provided.

Then we set out for the woods, through weeds that reached to our shoulders, the negroes in a string, slow, silent, sullen and ugly, the brave bear dogs only a little behind the negroes. The preacher kept muttering a monotonous prayer.

But that moon and that mighty sword of silver in the air, the silence, the large solemnity, the queer line of black heads barely visible above the sea of weeds! I was not right certain that I had lost any bear as we came to the edge of the moss-swept cypress woods, for here the negroes all suddenly huddled up and muttered and prayed with one voice. Aye, how they prayed in their piteous monotone! How sad it all was!

The dogs had sat down a few rods back, a line of black dots along the path through the tall weeds, and did not seem to care for anything at all. I had to lay my hand on the preacher's shoulder and ask him to please get on; then they all started on together, and oh, the moon, through the swaying cypress moss, the mighty river above!

It was with great effort that I got them to cross a foot-log that lay across a lagoon only a little way in the moss-hung woods, the brave dogs all the time only a short distance behind us still. It was a hot night and the mosquitoes were terrible in the woods, but I doubt if they bite the blacks as they did me. Surely not, else they would not be even as nearly alive as they are.

Having got them across the lagoon, I gave them each 25 cents more, and this made them want to go home. The dogs had all sat down in a queer row on the foot-log. Such languor, such laziness, such idiotic helplessness I never saw before, even on the Nile. The blacks, as well as the dogs, seemed to be afraid to move now. The preacher again began to mumble a prayer, and the whole pack with him; and then they prayed again, this time not so loudly. And although there was melody of a sort in their united voices, I am certain they used no words, at least no words of any real language.

Suddenly the dogs got up and came across and hid among the men, and the men huddled up close; for right there on the other end of the log, with his broad right foot resting on it, was the shaggy little beast we were hunting for. We had found our bear, or rather, he had found us, and it was clear that he meant to come over and interview us at once.

The preacher crouched behind me as I cocked and raised my gun, the blacks hid behind the preacher, and I think, though I had not time to see certainly, that the dogs hid behind the blacks.

I fired at the dim white spot on the bear's breast and sent shot after shot into his tattered coat, for he was not ten lengths of an old Kentucky ramrod distant, and he fell dead where he stood, and I went over and dragged him safely up on the higher bank.

Then the wild blacks danced and sang and sang and danced, till one of them slipped and fell into the lagoon. They fished him out and all returned to where I was, with the dead bear, dogs and all in great good spirits. Tying the bear's feet together with a withe they strung him on a pole and we all went back home, the blacks singing all the way some barbaric half French song at the top of their melodious voices.

But Colonel Bloom was afraid that the one who had fallen in the river might take the fever, and so as soon as we got safe back he drank what was left in the bottle General Beauregard had sent him and he went to sleep; while the superstitious blacks huddled together under the great levee and skinned the bear in the silver moonlight, below the mighty river. I gave them each a silver dollar--very bright was the brand new silver from the mint of New Orleans, but not nearly so bright as the moon away down there by the glowing rim of the Mexican seas where the spectacled bear abides in the classic land, Barra Tarra, Kingdom of Sancho Panza.

XIV.

THE BEAR-SLAYER OF SAN DIEGO.

Let us now leave the great grizzly and the little marsh bear in spectacles behind us and tell about a boy, a bear-slayer; not about a bear, mind you. For the little fish-eating black bear which he killed and by which he got his name is hardly worth telling about. This bear lives in the brush along the sea-bank on the Mexican and Southern California coast and has huge feet but almost no hair. I don't know any name for him, but think he resembles the "sun bear" (Ursus Titanus) more than any other. His habit of rolling himself up in a ball and rolling down hill after you is like that of the porcus or pig bear.

You may not know that a bear, any kind of a bear, finds it hard work running down hill, because of his short arms, so when a man who knows anything about bears is pursued, or thinks he is pursued, he always tries, if he knows himself, to run down hill. A man can escape almost any bear by running down hill, except this little fellow along the foothills by the Mexican seas. You see, he has good bear sense, like the rest of the bear family, and gets along without regard to legs of any sort, sometimes.

This boy that I am going to tell about was going to school on the Mexican side of the line between the two republics, near San Diego, California, when a she bear which had lost her cub caught sight of the boys at play down at the bottom of a high, steep hill, and she rolled for them, rolled right among the little, half-naked fellows, and knocked numbers of them down. But before she could get the dust out of her eyes and get up, this boy jumped on her and killed her with his knife.

The governor remembered the boy for his pluck and presence of mind and he was quite a hero and was always called "The Bear-Slayer" after that.

Some rich ladies from Boston, hearing about his brave act, put their heads together and then put their hands in their pockets and sent him to a higher school, where the following incident took place.

I ought to mention that this little Mexican bear, though he has but little hair on his body, has a great deal on his feet, making him look as if he wore pantalets, little short pantalets badly frayed out at the bottoms.

San Diego is one of the great new cities of Southern California. It lies within only a few minutes' ride of Mexico. There is a pretty little Mexican town on the line between Mexico and California--Tia Juana--pronounced Te Wanna. Translated, the name means "Aunt Jane." In the center of one of the streets stands a great gray stone monument, set there by the government to mark the line between the United States and Mexico.

To the south, several hundred miles distant, stretches the long Sea of Cortez, as the conquerors of ancient Mexico once called the Gulf of California. Beyond the Sea of Cortez is the long and rock-bound reach of the west coast of Mexico. Then a group of little Central American republics; then Colombia, Peru and so on, till at last Patagonia points away like a huge giant's finger straight toward the South Pole.

But I must bear in mind that I set out in this story to tell you about "The Bear-Slayer of San Diego," and the South Pole is a long way from the subject in hand.

I have spoken of San Diego as one of the great new cities, and great it is, but altogether new it certainly is not, for it was founded by a Spanish missionary, known as Father Junipero, more than one hundred years ago.

These old Spanish missionaries were great men in their day; brave, patient and very self-sacrificing in their attempts to settle the wild countries and civilize the Indians.

This Father Junipero walked all the way from the City of Mexico to San Diego, although he was more than fifty years old; and finally, after he had spent nearly a quarter of a century in founding missions up and down the coast of California, he walked all the way back to Mexico, where he died.

When it is added that he was a lame man, that he was more than threescore and ten years of age, and that he traveled all the distance on this last journey on foot and alone, with neither arms nor provisions, trusting himself entirely to Providence, one can hardly fail to remember his name and speak it with respect.

This new city, San Diego, with its most salubrious clime, is set all over and about with waving green palms, with golden oranges, red pomegranates, great heavy bunches of green and golden bananas, and silver-laden olive orchards. The leaf of the olive is of the same soft gray as the breast of the dove. As if the dove and the olive branch had in some sort kept companionship ever since the days of the deluge.

San Diego is nearly ten miles broad, with its base resting against the warm, still waters of the Pacific Ocean. The most populous part of the city is to the south, toward Mexico. Then comes the middle part of San Diego City. This is called "the old town," and here it was that Father Junipero planted some palm trees that stand to this day--so tall that they almost seem to be dusting the stars with their splendid plumes.

Here also you see a great many old adobe houses in ruins, old forts, churches, fortresses, barracks, built by the Mexicans nearly a century ago, when Spain possessed California, and her gaudy banner floated from Oregon to the Isthmus of Darien.

The first old mission is a little farther on up the coast, and the new college, known as the San Diego College of Letters, is still farther on up the warm sea bank. San Francisco lies several hundred miles on up the coast beyond Los Angeles. Then comes Oregon, then Washington, one of the newest States, and then Canada, then Alaska, and at last the North Pole, which, by the way, is almost as far as the South Pole from my subject: The Bear-Slayer of San Diego.

He was a little Aztec Indian, brown as a berry, slim and slender, very silent, very polite and not at all strong.

It was said that he had Spanish blood in his veins, but it did not show through his tawny skin. It is to be conceded, however, that he had all the politeness and serene dignity of the proudest Spanish don in the land.

He was now, by the kind favor of those good ladies who had heard of his daring address in killing the bear with his knife, a student of the San Diego College of Letters, where there were several hundred other boys of all grades and ages, from almost all parts of the earth.

A good many boys came here from Boston and other eastern cities to escape the rigors of winter. I remember one boy in particular from Philadelphia. He was a small boy with a big nose, very bright and very brave. He was not a friend of the little Aztec Indian, the Bear-Slayer of San Diego. The name of this boy from Philadelphia was Peterson; the Boston boys called him Bill Peterson. His name, perhaps, was William P. Peterson; William Penn Peterson, most likely. But this is merely detail, and can make but little difference in the main facts of the case.

As I said before, these college grounds are on the outer edge of the city. The ocean shuts out the world on the west, but the huge chaparral hills roll in on the east, and out of these hills the jack-rabbits come down in perfect avalanches at night, and devour almost everything that grows.

Wolves howl from these hills of chaparral at night by hundreds, but they are only little bits of shaggy, gray coyotes and do little or no harm in comparison with the innumerable rabbits. For these big fellows, on their long, bent legs, and with ears like those of a donkey, can cut down with their teeth a young orchard almost in a single night.

The new college, of course, had new grounds, new bananas, oranges, olives, all things, indeed, that wealth and good taste could contribute in this warm, sweet soil. But the rabbits! You could not build a fence so high that they would not leap over it.

"They are a sort of Jumbo grasshopper," said the smart boy from Boston.

The head gardener of the college campus and environment grew desperate.

"Look here, sir," he said to the president, "these big-eared fellows are lazy and audacious things. Why can't they live up in the chaparral, as they did before we came here to plant trees and try to make the world beautiful? Now, either these jack-rabbits must go or we must go."

"Very well," answered the president. "Offer a reward for their ears and let the boys destroy them."

"How much reward can I offer?"

"Five cents apiece, I think, would do," answered the head of the college, as he passed on up the great stone steps to his study.

The gardener got the boys together that evening and said, "I will give you five cents apiece for the ears of these dreadful rabbits."

"That makes ten cents for each rabbit, for each rabbit has two ears!" shouted the smart boy from Boston.

Before the dumfounded gardener could protest, the boys had broken into shouts of enthusiasm, and were running away in squads and in couples to borrow, buy or beg firearms for their work.

The smart boy from Boston, however, with an eye to big profits and a long job, went straight to the express office, and sent all the way to the East for a costly and first-class shotgun.

The little brown Aztec Indian did nothing of that sort; he kept by himself, kept his own counsel, and so far as any of the boys could find out, paid no attention to the proffered reward for scalps.

Bill Peterson borrowed his older brother's gun and brought in two rabbits the next day. The Boston boy, with an eye wide open to future profits to himself, went with Peterson to the head gardener, and holding up first one dead jack-rabbit by the ear, and then the other, coolly and deliberately counted off four ears.

The gardener grudgingly counted out two dimes, and then, with a grunt of satisfaction, carried away the two big rabbits by their long hind legs.

As the weeks wore by, several other dead rabbits were reported, and despite the grumbling of the head gardener, the tumultuous and merry students had quite a revenue, and their hopes for the future were high, especially when that artillery should arrive from Boston!

Meantime, the little brown Aztec boy had done nothing at all. However, when Friday afternoon came, he earnestly begged, and finally obtained, leave to go down to his home at Tia Juana. He wanted very much to see his Mexican mother and his six little Mexican brothers, and his sixty, more or less, little Mexican cousins.

But lo! on Saturday morning, bright and early, back came the little Bear-Slayer, as he was called by the boys, and at his heels came toddling and tumbling not only his six half-naked little brown brothers, but dozens of his cousins.

Each carried a bundle on his back. These bundles were long, finely woven bird-nets, and these nets were made of the fiber of the misnamed century plant, the agave.

This queer looking line of barefooted, bareheaded, diminutive beings, headed by the silent little Aztec, hastily dispersed itself along the outer edge of the grounds next to the chaparral abode of the jack-rabbits, and then, while grave professors leaned from their windows, and a hundred curious white boys looked on, these little brown fellows fastened all their long bird-nets together, and stretched two wide wings out and up the hill.

Very quiet but very quick they were, and when all the nets had been unwound and stretched out in a great letter V far up the hill, it was seen that each brown boy had a long, heavy manzanita wood club in his hand.

Suddenly and silently as they had come they all disappeared up and over the hills beyond, and in the dense black chaparral.

Where had they gone and what did all this silent mystery mean? One, two, three hours! What had become of this strange little army of silent brown boys?

Another hour passed. Not a boy, not a sign, not a sound. What did it all mean?

Suddenly, down came a rabbit, jumping high in the air, his huge ears flapping forward and back, as if they had wilted in the hot sun.

Then another rabbit, then another! Then ten, twenty, forty, fifty, five hundred, a thousand, all jumping over each other and upon each other, and against the nets, with their long legs thrust through the meshes, and wriggling and struggling till the nets shook as in a gale.

Then came the long lines of half-naked brown boys tumbling down after them out of the brush, and striking right and left, up and down, with their clubs.

In less than ten minutes from the time they came out of the brush, the little fellows had laid down their clubs and were dragging the game together.

The grave professors shook their hats and handkerchiefs, and shouted with delight from their windows overhead, and all the white boys danced about, wild with excitement.

That is, all but one or two. The boy from Boston said savagely to the little Aztec, as he stood directing the counting of the ears, "You're a brigand! You're the black brigand of San Diego City, and I can whip you!"

The brigand said nothing, but kept on with his work.

In a little time the president and head gardener came forward, and roughly estimated that about one thousand of the pests had been destroyed. Then the kindly president went to the bank and brought out one hundred silver dollars, which he handed to the little Bear-Slayer of San Diego in a cotton handkerchief.

The poor, timid little fellow's lips quivered. He had never seen so much money in all his life. He held his head down in silence for a long time and seemed to be thinking hard. His half-naked little brothers and cousins grouped about and seemed to be waiting for a share of the money.

The boy's schoolmates also crowded around, just as boys will, but they did not want any of the silver, and I am sure that all, save only one or two, were very glad because of his good luck.

Finally, lifting up his head and looking about the crowd of his school-fellows, he said, "Now, look here; I want every one of you to take a dollar apiece, and I will take what is left." He laid the handkerchief that held the silver dollars down on the grass and spread it wide open.

Hastily but orderly, his schoolmates began to take up the silver, his own little brown fellows timidly holding back. Then one of the white boys who had hastily helped himself saw, after a time, that the bottom was almost reached, and, with the remark that he was half ashamed of himself for taking it, he quietly put his dollar back. Then all the others, fine, impulsive fellows who had hardly thought what they were about at first, did the same; and then the little brown boys came forward.

They kept coming and kept taking, till there was not very much but his handkerchief left. One of the professors then took a piece of gold from his pocket and gave it to the little Bear-Slayer. The boy was so glad that tears came into his eyes and he turned to go.

"See here! I'm sorry for what I said. Yes, I am. I ought to be ashamed, and I am ashamed."

It was the smart boy from Boston who had been looking on all this time, and who now came forward with his hand held out.

"See here!" he said. "I've got a forty-dollar shotgun to give away, and I want you to have it. Yes, I do. There's my hand on it. Take my hand, and you shall have the gun just as soon as it gets here."

The two shook hands, and the boys all shouted with delight; and on the very next Saturday one of these two boys went out hunting quail with a fine shotgun on his shoulder.

It was the silent little hero, The Bear-Slayer of San Diego.

XV.

ALASKAN AND POLAR BEAR.

"And round about the bleak North Pole
Glideth the lean, white bear."

Nearly forty years ago, when down from the Indian country to sell some skins in San Francisco, I saw a great commotion around a big ship in the bay, and was told that a Polar bear had been discovered floating on an iceberg in the Arctic, and had been taken alive by the ship's crew.

I went out in a boat, and on boarding the ship, just down from Alaska with a cargo of ice, I saw the most beautiful specimen of the bear family I ever beheld. A long body and neck, short legs, small head, cream-white and clean as snow, this enormous creature stood before us on the deck, as docile as a lamb. This is as near as ever I came to encountering the Polar bear, although I have lived in the Arctic and have more than one trophy of the bear family from the land of everlasting snows.

Bear are very plenty in Alaska and the Klondike country, and they are, perhaps, a bit more ferocious than in California, for I have seen more than one man hobbling about the Klondike mines on one leg, having lost the other in an argument with bear.

As a rule, the flesh is not good, here, in the salmon season, for the bear is in all lands a famous fisherman. He sits by the river and, while you may think he is asleep, he thrusts his paw deep down, and, quick as wink, he lands a huge salmon in his bunch of long, hooded claws.

A friend and I watched a bear fishing for hours on the Yukon, trying to learn his habits. I left my friend, finally, and went to camp to cook supper. Then, it seems, my friend shot him, for his skin, I think. Thinking the bear dead, he called to me and went up to the bear, knife in hand. But the bear rose up when he felt the knife, caught the man in his arms and they rolled in the river together. The poor man could not get away. When we recovered his body far down the river next day, the bear still held him in her arms. She was a long, slim cinnamon, said to be the most savage fighter in that region.

All the bear of the far north seem to me to have longer bodies and shorter legs than in other lands. The black bear (there are three kinds of them) are bow-legged, I think; at least they "toe in," walk as an Indian walks, and even step one foot over the other when taking their time on the trail. We cultivated the acquaintance of a black bear for some months, on the Klondike, in the winter of '97-'98, and had a good chance to learn his habits. He was a persistent robber and very cunning. He would eat anything he could get, which was not much, of course, and when he could not get anything thrown to him from a door he would go and tear down a stump and eat ants. I don't know why he did not hibernate, as other bears in that region do. He may have been a sort of crank. No one who knew about him, or who had been in camp long, would hurt him; but a crowd of strangers, passing up the trail near our Klondike cabin, saw him, and as he did not try to get away he was soon dead. He weighed 400 pounds, and they sold him where he lay for one dollar a pound.

I fell in with a famous bear-hunter, a few miles up from the mouth of the Klondike early in September, before the snow fell, and with him made a short hunt. He has wonderful bear sense. He has but one eye and but one side of a face, the rest of him having been knocked off by the slash of a bear's paw. He is known as Bear Bill.

The moss is very deep and thick and elastic in that region, so that no tracks are made except in a worn trail. But Bill saw where a bit of moss had been disturbed away up on a mountain side, and he sat right down and turned his one eye and all his bear sense to the solution of the mystery.

At last he decided that a bear had been gathering moss for a bed. Then he went close up under a cliff of rocks and in a few minutes was peering and pointing down into a sunken place in the earth. And behold, we could see the moss move! A bear had covered himself up and was waiting to be snowed under. Bill walked all around the spot, then took position on a higher place and shouted to the bear to come out. The bear did not move. Then he got me to throw some rocks. No response. Then Bill fired his Winchester down into the moss. In a second the big brown fellow was on his hind feet looking us full in the face and blinking his little black eyes as if trying to make us out. Bill dropped him at once, with a bullet in his brain.

I greatly regret that I never had the good fortune to encounter a Polar bear, so that I might be able to tell you more about him and his habits; for men of science and writers of books are not bear-hunters, as a rule, and so real information about this white robber-monk of the cold, blue north is meager indeed. But here is what the most eminent English authority says about the nature and habits of this one bear that I have not shaken hands with, or encountered in some sort of way on his native heath:

"The great white bear of the Arctic regions--the 'Nennok' of the Eskimo--is the largest as well as one of the best known of the whole family. It is a gigantic animal, often attaining a length of nearly nine feet and is proportionally strong and fierce. It is found over the whole of Greenland; but its numbers seem to be on the decrease. It is distinguished from other bears by its narrow head, its flat forehead in a line with its prolonged muzzle, its short ears and long neck. It is of a light, creamy color, rarely pure white, except when young, hence the Scottish whalers call it the 'brounie' and sometimes the 'farmer,' from its very agricultural appearance as it stalks leisurely over the furrowed fields of ice. Its principal food consists of seals, which it persecutes most indefatigably; but it is somewhat omniverous in its diet, and will often clear an islet of eider duck eggs in the course of a few hours. I once saw it watch a seal for half a day, the seal continually escaping, just as the bear was about putting his foot on it, at the atluk (or escape hole) in the ice. Finally, it tried to circumvent its prey in another maneuver. It swam off to a distance, and when the seal was again half asleep at its atluk, the bear swam under the ice, with a view to cut off its retreat. It failed, however, and the seal finally escaped. The rage of the animal was boundless; it moaned hideously, tossing the snow in the air, and at last trotted off in a most indignant state of mind.

"Being so fond of seal-flesh, the Polar bear often proves a great nuisance to sealhunters, whose occupation he naturally regards as a catering to his wants. He is also glad of the whale carcasses often found floating in the Arctic seas, and travelers have seen as many as twenty bears busily discussing the huge body of a dead whalebone whale.

"As the Polar bear is able to obtain food all through the Arctic winter, there is not the same necessity, as in the case of the vegetable-eating bears, for hibernating. In fact, the males and young females roam about through the whole winter, and only the older females retire for the season. These--according to the Eskimo account, quoted by Captain Lyon--are very fat at the commencement of winter, and on the first fall of snow lie down and allow themselves to be covered, or else dig a cave in a drift, and then go to sleep until the spring, when the cubs are born. By this time the animal's heat has melted the snow for a considerable distance, so that there is plenty of room for the young ones, who tumble about at their ease and get fat at the expense of their parent, who, after her long abstinence, becomes gradually very thin and weak. The whole family leave their abode of snow when the sun is strong enough to partially melt its roof.

"The Polar bear is regularly hunted with dogs by the Eskimo. The following extract gives an account of their mode of procedure:

"Let us suppose a bear scented out at the base of an iceberg. The Eskimo examines the track with sagacious care, to determine its age and direction, and the speed with which the animal was moving when he passed along. The dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter courses over the ice in silence. As he turns the angle of the berg his game is in view before him, stalking along, probably, with quiet march, sometimes snuffing the air suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a nest of broken hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening a wild, wolfish yell, the driver shrieking 'Nannook! Nannook!' and all straining every nerve in pursuit.

"The bear rises on his haunches, then starts off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs, leaning over his sledge, seizes the traces of a couple of his dogs and liberates them from their burthen. It is the work of a minute, for the motion is not checked, and the remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease.

"Now, pressed more severely, the bear makes for an iceberg, and stands at bay, while his two foremost pursuers halt at a short distance and await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance, and, tumbling through the snow and ice, prepares for the encounter.

"If there be two hunters, the bear is killed easily; for one makes a feint of thrusting the spear at the right side, and, as the animal turns with his arms toward the threatened attack, the left is unprotected and receives the death wound."

XVI.

MONNEHAN, THE GREAT BEAR-HUNTER OF OREGON.

He wore a tall silk hat, the first one I had ever seen, not at all the equipment of "a mighty hunter before the Lord;" but Phineas Monnehan, Esq., late of some castle (I forget the name now), County of Cork, Ireland, would have been quite another personage with another sort of hat. And mighty pretension made he to great estates and titles at home, but greatest of all his claims was that of "a mighty hunter."

Clearly he had been simply a schoolmaster at home, and had picked up all his knowledge of wild beasts from books. He had very impressive manners and had come to Oregon with an eye to political promotion, for he more than once hinted to my quiet Quaker father, on whose hospitality he had fastened himself, that he would not at all dislike going to Congress, and would even consent to act as Governor of this far-off and half-savage land known as Oregon. But, as observed a time or two before, Monnehan most of all things desired the name and the renown, like Nimrod, the builder of Babylon, of a "mighty hunter."

He had brought no firearms with him, nor was my father at all fond of guns, but finally we three little boys, my brother John, two years older than I, my brother James, two years younger, and myself, had a gun between us. So with this gun, Monnehan, under his tall hat, a pipe in his teeth and a tremendously heavy stick in his left hand would wander about under the oaks, not too far away from the house, all the working hours of the day. Not that he ever killed anything. In truth, I do not now recall that he ever once fired off the gun. But he got away from work, all the same, and a mighty hunter was Monnehan.

He carried this club and kept it swinging and sweeping in a semi-circle along before him all the time because of the incredible number of rattlesnakes that infested our portion of Oregon in those early days. I shall never forget the terror in this brave stranger's face when he first found out that all the grass on all our grounds was literally alive with snakes. But he had found a good place to stay, and he was not going to be driven out by snakes.

You see, we lived next to a mountain or steep stony hill known as Rattlesnake Butte, and in the ledges of limestone rock here the rattlesnakes hibernated by thousands. In the spring they would crawl out of the cracks in the cliffs, and that was the beginning of the end of rattlesnakes in Oregon. It was awful!

But he had a neighbor by the name of Wilkins, an old man now, and a recent candidate for Governor of Oregon, who was equal to the occasion. He sent back to the States and had some black, bristly, razor-backed hogs brought out to Oregon. These hogs ate the rattlesnakes. But we must get on with the bear story; for this man Monnehan, who came to us the year the black, razor-backed hogs came, was, as I may have said before, "a mighty hunter."

The great high hills back of our house, black and wild and woody, were full of bear. There were several kinds of bear there in those days.

"How big is this ere brown bear, Squire?" asked Monnehan.

"Well," answered my father, "almost as big as a small sawmill when in active operation."

"Oi think Oi'll confine me operations, for this hunting sayson, to the smaller spacies o' bear," said Mr. Monnehan, as he arose with a thoughtful face and laid his pipe on the mantel-piece.

A few mornings later you would have thought, on looking at our porch, that a very large negro from a very muddy place had been walking bare-footed up and down the length of it. This was not a big bear by the sign, only a small black cub; but we got the gun out, cleaned and loaded it, and by high noon we three little boys, my father and Monnehan, the mighty hunter, were on the track of that little black bear. We had gone back up the narrow canyon with its one little clump of dense woods that lay back of our house and reached up toward the big black hills.

Monnehan took the gun and his big club and went along up and around above the edge of the brush. My father took the pitchfork and my younger brother James kept on the ridge above the brush on the other side of the canyon, while my older brother John and myself were directed to come on a little later, after Mr. Monnehan had got himself in position to do his deadly work, and, if possible, drive the terrible beast within range of his fatal rifle.

Slowly and cautiously my brother and I came on, beating the brush and the tall rye grass. As we advanced up the canyon, Mr. Monnehan was dimly visible on the high ridge to the right, and father now and then was to be seen with little brother and his pitchfork to the left. Suddenly there was such a shout as almost shook the walls of the canyon about our ears. It was the voice of Monnehan calling from the high ridge close above the clump of dense wood; and it was a wild and a desperate and a continuous howl, too. At last we could make out these words:

"Oi've thrade the bear! Oi've thrade the bear! Oi've thrade the bear!"

Down the steep walls came father like an avalanche, trailing his pitchfork in one hand and half dragging little brother James with the other.

"Run, boys, run! right up the hill! He's got him treed, he's got him treed! Keep around the bush and go right up the hill, fast as you can. He's got him treed, he's got him treed! Hurrah for Monnehan, at last! He's got him treed, he's got him treed!"

Out of breath from running, my father sat down at the foot of the steep wall of the canyon below Monnehan and we boys clambered on up the grassy slope like goats.

Meantime, Monnehan kept shouting wildly and fearfully as before. Such lungs as Monnehan had! A mighty hunter was Monnehan. At last we got on the ridge up among the scattering and storm-bent and low-boughed oaks; breathless and nearly dead from exhaustion.

"Here, byes, here!"

We looked up the hill a little ahead of us from where the voice came, and there, straddled across the leaning bough of a broad oak tree hung Monnehan, the mighty hunter. His hat was on the ground underneath him, his club was still in his daring hand, but his gun was in the grass a hundred yards away.

"Here, boys, right up here. Come up here an' get a look at 'im! Thot's vaght Oi got up 'ere fur, to get a good look at 'im! Right up now, byes, an' get a good look at 'im! Look out fur me hat there!"

My brother hastily ran and got and handed me the gun and instantly was up the tree along with Monnehan, peering forward and back, left and right, everywhere. But no sign, no sound or scent of any bear anywhere.

By this time my father had arrived with his pitchfork and a very tired little boy. He sat down on the grass, and, wearily wiping his forehead, he said to Monnehan,

"Mr. Monnehan, how big was the bear that you saw?"

"Well, now, Squire, upon the sowl o' me, he was fully the size of a very extraordinary black dog," answered Mr. Monnehan, as he descended and came and stood close to my father, as if to defend him with his club. Father rose soon after and, with just the least tinge of impatience and vexation in his voice, said to brother John and me,

"Boys, go up and around the thicket with your gun and beat the bush down the canyon as you come down. Mr. Monnehan and I will drop down to the bottom of the canyon here between the woods and the house and catch him as he comes out."

Brother and I were greatly cheered at this; for it was evident that father had faith that we would find the bear yet. And believing that the fun was not over, we, tired as we were, bounded forward and on and up and around the head of the canyon with swift feet and beating hearts. Here we separated, and each taking a half of the dense copse of wood and keeping within hailing distance, we hastily descended through the steep tangle of grapevine, wild hops, wild gourdvines and all sorts of things, shouting and yelling as we went. But no bear or sign of bear as yet.

We were near the edge of the brush. I could see, from a little naked hillock in the copse where I paused to take breath, my father with his pitchfork standing close to the cow path below the brush, while a little further away and a little closer to the house stood Mr. Monnehan, club in hand and ready for the raging bear.

Suddenly I heard the brush break and crackle over in the direction of my brother. I dropped on my knee and cocked my gun. I got a glimpse of something black tearing through the brush like a streak, but did not fire.

Then I heard my brother shout, and I thought I heard him laugh, too. Just then there burst out of the thicket and on past my father and his pitchfork a little black, razor-backed sow, followed by five black, squealing pigs! Monnehan's bear!

XVII.

THE BEAR "MONARCH."

HOW HE WAS CAPTURED.

Much having been said about bears of late, a young Californian of great fortune and enterprise resolved to set some questions at rest, and, quite regardless of cost or consequences, sent into the mountains for a live grizzly. The details of his capture, the plain story of the long, wild quest, the courage, the cunning, the final submission of the monster, and then the last bulletin about his health, habits and all that, make so instructive and pleasing a narrative that I have asked for permission to add it to my own stories. The bear described is at present in our San Francisco Zoo, a fine and greatly admired monarch.

* * * * *

"Are there any true grizzly bears in California?"

"Undoubtedly there are."

"I don't know about it. I have a great deal of doubt. Where are they?"

"In the Sierra Madre, in Touloumne Canyon, in Siskiyou County and probably in many other mountain districts."

"That may be so, but nobody can find them. Now, do you think you could find them?"

"I think I could if I should try."

"Would you undertake to get a genuine grizzly in this State?"

"Yes, if you want one. How will you have him--dead or alive?"

"Alive."

This conversation was held last May between the proprietor of the Examiner and special reporter Allen Kelly.

A week ago Kelly brought home an enormous grizzly bear, lodged the animal temporarily in one of the cages in Woodward's Gardens and reported to the editor that he had finished that assignment.

The following is his account of the hunt and capture.

The Examiner expedition began the search for a grizzly early in June, starting from Santa Paula and striking into the mountains at Tar Creek, where the Sespe oil wells are bored. The Examiner correspondent detailed to catch a bear was accompanied by De Moss Bowers of Ventura, who was moved by love of adventure to offer his assistance.

During the first part of the trip the party numbered five persons, including Dad Coffman, a spry old gentleman of seventy-two years, who was out for the benefit of his health, a packer and guide, and a person from Santa Paula called "Doc," who was loaded to the muzzle with misinformation and inspired with the notion that it was legitimate to plunder the expedition because the Examiner had plenty of money. The packer was "Doc's" son, a good man to work, but unfortunately afflicted with similar hallucinations. The expedition was plundered because these persons were trusted on the recommendation of a gentleman who ought to have known better.

At Tar Creek the correspondent was told that the Stone Corral bear, a somewhat noted grizzly that had killed his man, had been recently on Squaw Flat, and had prowled about an old cabin at night, sorting over the garbage heap and pile of tin cans at the door, but when the expedition passed the cabin no fresh sign was found, and the tracks on Squaw Flat were at least a week old.

The first camp was in a clump of chincapin brush at Stone Corral. There were bear tracks in the soft ground at the edge of the creek, which induced the hunters to spend two days in prospecting that part of the country. One of the proposed plans for capturing the bear was to run him out of the rocks and brush to some reasonably open bit of country like Squaw Flat or one of the small level patches near camp and lasso him, but the impracticable nature of that scheme was soon demonstrated. On the next day after making camp the Examiner's own bear catcher went out on a nervous black horse called "Nig" to find out where the Stone Corral bear was spending the summer and incidentally to get some venison. The Stone Corral bear was there or thereabouts beyond any doubt. He ran the correspondent out of the brush and showed a perverse disposition to do all the hunting himself. "Nig" would not stand to let his rider take a shot, but when the bear gave notice of his presence by growling and smashing down the brush twenty yards away, he wheeled and bolted towards camp. Near the camp Dad was found rounding up the other horses, who had just been scared from their pasturage by another wandering bear. It was clear that not a horse in the outfit could be ridden to within roping distance of a bear, and it is doubtful if three horses fit for such a job could be found in the country. Some years ago the ranchmen and vaqueros frequently caught bears with a rope, but even then it was difficult to train horses to the work, and only one horse out of a hundred could be cured of his instinctive dread of a grizzly.

It was clear also that there were some defects in the plan of driving the Stone Corral bear out of the brush, chief of which was the bear's inconsiderate desire to do the driving himself. As the hunting would have to be done afoot, the prospects incident to an attempt to round up a big grizzly among the rocks and chaparral were not peculiarly alluring. Trapping was the only other method that could be suggested, but the absence of any heavy timber would make that difficult.

The Stone Corral is a singular arrangement of huge sandstone ledges on the slope of a mountain, forming a rough inclosure about a quarter of a mile wide and three or four times as long. The country is very rugged and broken for miles around, and except along the creek and on the trail a horse cannot be ridden through it. The problem of how to catch a bear in such a place was not solved, because the bear cut short its consideration by marching past the camp and lumbering down the creek bed toward the Alder Creek Canyon and the Sespe country. The correspondent stood upon the sandstone ledge as he went by, and yelled at him, but he did not quicken his pace.