Hunting the grisly and other sketches; an account of the big game of the United States and its chase with horse, hound, and rifle

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THE DEATH OF THE GRISLY.

Hunting the Grisly
and Other Sketches

An Account of the Big Game of the United
States and its Chase with Horse

Hound, and Rifle

By

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Theodore Roosevelt

Author of ‘‘ The Winning of the West,” ‘‘ American Ideals,”
“Hunting Trips of a Ranchman,”’ etc.

“The Wilderness Hunter ”
Part hE

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G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London

1900

COPYRIGHT, 1893
BY

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G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

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CONTENTS.

CHAP VOR i
THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO.

Extermination of the bison—My brother and cou-
sin take a hunting trip in Texas—Hardships—
Hunting on the Brazos—Many buffalo slain—~
Following four bulls—A stampede—Splitting the
herd—Occasional charges—A Comanche war
party—Great herds on the Arkansas—Adven-
ture of Clarence King—The bison of the moun-
tains-—At the vanishing point—A hunt for moun-
tain bison—A trail discovered—Skilful tracking
—A band of six—Death of the bull—A camp in
TE eR CURTIN el 2Y cat oh Non) 2a) chs day albcy wit Send or St ster 6 tte isiel

CHAPTER Ti:
THE BLACK BEAR,

Habits of the black bear—Holds his own well in
the land—The old hunters—Hunting bear with
dogs —General Hampton’s hunting—Black bear
at bay—A bear catching mice and chipmunks—
Occasional raids on the farmyard—-Their weight
SS eiose lh Mave ied. ioe ie cele al eiareheleloie/ tials oie °

CHAPTER | LET:
OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR.

The king of American game—Varieties of the grisly
—Worthlessness of old hunters’ opinions—Grisly
contrasted with black bear—Size—Habits in old
times—Habits nowadays—Hybernating—Cattle

3

35

4 CONTENTS.

killing—Horse killing—Range cow repels bear—
Bear kills sheep and hogs—Occasional raids on
game—Killing bison, elk, and moose—Eats car-
rion—Old he’s sometimes kill cubs—Usually eats
roots and vegetables—Fondness for berries—Its
foes—Den—Fond of wallowing—She’s and cubs
—Trapping bears—Hunting them with dogs—
Ordinarily killed with rifle.............. Aer ae 6

CHAPTER LV:

HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Camp in the mountains—After the first snow—
Trailing and stalking a big bear—His death—
Lying in camp—Stalking and shooting a bear at
a moose carcass—Lying in wait for a bear by a
dead elk—He comes late in the evening—Is
killed—A successful hunting trip—A quarrel—I
start home alone—Get lost on second day—Shot
at a grisly—His resolute charge and death—
Danger in hunting the grisly—Exaggerated, but
real—Rogers charged—Difference in ferocity in
different bears—Dr. Merrill’s queer experience—
Tazewell Woody’s adventures—Various ways in
which bears attack—Examples—Men maimed
and slain—Instances—Mr. Whitney’s experience
—A bear killed on the round-up—Ferocity of old-
time bears—Occasional unprovoked attacks—A
French trapper attacked—Cowboys and bears—
Killing them with a revolver—Feat of General
JAGCKSOM Gee eras clay isc tiok' geiuls tale rqeetale bros oti aca ta CT

CHAPTER N.

THE COUGAR.

Difficulty of killing the cougar—My own failures—
Kill one in the mountains—Hunting the cougar
with hounds—Experience of General Wade
Hampton and Col. Cecil Clay—* Hold on,
Penny ”—What the cougar preys on—Its haunts
—Its calls—Rarely turns on man—Occasionally
dangerous—Instances ,.7iien/s sesh cs sce eoccse 23

CONTENTS. 5

CHAPTER, V1.
A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES.

A trip in Southern Texas—A ranch on the Frio—
Roping cattle—Extermination of the peccary—
Odd habits—Occasionally attacks unprovoked—

We drive south to the Nueces—Flower prairies
—Semi-tropical landscape—Hunting on horse-
back—Half-blood hounds—Find a small band of
peccaries—Kill two—How they act when at bay
—— el ‘OCCAaSIONal Treas.) snes 2)- 265 a4 = ehh 137

CHAPTER VEL:
HUNTING WITH HOUNDS.

Old-time hunters rarely used dogs—The packs of
the southern planters—Coursing in the West—
Hunting with greyhounds near my ranch—Jack-
rabbits, foxes, coyotes, antelope, and deer—An
original sportsman of the prairies—Colonel Wil-
liams’ greyhounds—Riding on the plains—Cross-
country riding—Fox-hunting at Geneseo—A day
with Mr. Wadsworth’s hounds—The Meadow-
brook drag hounds—High jumping—A meet at
Sagamore Hill— Fox-hunting and fetishism—
Prejudices uf sportsmen, foreign and native—
Piterent Styles: Of TICINe sie e cle la: j.'s! ss) 0/0) 4/06 eos ISE

CHARTER: VEL,
WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS.

The wolf—Contrasted with coyote—Variations in
color—Former abundance—The riddle of its ex-
termination—Inexplicable differences in habits
between closely related species—Size of wolf—
Animals upon which it preys—Attacking cattle ;
horses ; other animals ; foxes, dogs, and even
coyotes—Runs down deer and antelope—Co-
yotes catch jack-rabbits—Wolves around camp
—A wolf shot—Wolf-hunting with hounds—An
overmatch for most dogs—Decimating a pack—
Coursing wolves with greyhounds—A huntin the
foot-hills—Rousing the wolves—The chase—

6 CONTENTS.

The worry—Death of both wolves—Wolf hounds
near Fort Benton—Other packs—The Sun River
hounds—Their notable feats—Col. Williams’
PUGET is) tote ale! e'etalciaicio'e v.otelete viele toeters eecsevee 179

CHAPTER EX.
IN COWBOY LAND.

Development of archaic types of character—Cow-
boys and hunters—Rough virtues and faults—
Incidents—Hunting a horse-thief—Tale of the
ending of a desperado—Light-hearted way of re-
garding “broke horses ”—Hardness of the life
--Deaths from many causes—Fight of Indians
with trappers—The slaying of the Medicine
Chief Sword-Bearer—Mad feat and death of two
Cheyenne Dtaves.ciss eco vies siete «saieeinee eeeee 208

BUNTING THE: GRISEY.

CHAPTER. T:
THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO.

Ly ay we became a nation, in 1776, the
buffaloes, the first animals to vanish
when the wilderness is settled, roved to the
crests of the mountains which mark the
western boundaries of Pennsylvania, Virginia,
and the Carolinas. They were plentiful in
what are now the States of Ohio, Kentucky,
and Tennessee. But by the beginning of the
present century they had been driven beyond
the Mississippi ; and for the next eighty years
they formed one of the most distinctive and
characteristic features of existence on the
great plains. Their numbers were countless
—incredible. In vast herds of hundreds of
thousands of individuals, they roamed from
the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande and
westward to the Rocky Mountains. They
furnished all the means of livelihood to the
tribes of Horse Indians, and to the curious

7

8 HONING LHE iG RISLEY:

population of French Metis, or Half-breeds,
on the Red River, as well as to those daunt-
less and archtypical wanderers, the white
hunters andtrappers. Their numbers slowly
diminished, but the decrease was very gradual
until after the Civil War. They were not de-
stroyed by the settlers, but by the railways
and the skin hunters.

After the ending of the Civil War, the work
of constructing trans-continental railway lines
was pushed forward with the utmost vigor.
These supplied cheap and indispensable, but
hitherto wholly lacking, means of transpor-
tation to the hunters; and at the same time
the demand for buffalo robes and hides be-
came very great, while the enormous numbers
of the beasts, and the comparative ease with
which they were slaughtered, attracted throngs
of adventurers. ‘The result was sucha slaugh-
ter of big game as the world had never before
seen; never before were so many large animals
of one species destroyed in so short a time.
Several million buffaloes were slain. In fifteen
years from the time the destruction fairly
began the great herds were exterminated. In
all probability there are not now, all told, five
hundred head of wild buffaloes on the Ameri-
can continent; and no herd of a hundred
individuals has been in existence since 1884.

The first great break followed the building
of the Union Pacific Railway. All the buffa-
loes of the middle region were then destroyed,
and the others were split into two vast sets of
herds, the northern and the southern. The

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. g

latter were destroyed first, about 1878; the
former not until 1883. My own chief ex-
perience with buffaloes was obtained in the
latter year, among small bands and scattered
individuals, near my ranch on the Little Mis-
souri; Ihave related itelsewhere. But two of
my kinsmen were more fortunate, and took
part in the chase of these lordly beasts when
the herds still darkened the prairie as far as
the eye could see.

During the first two months of 1877, my
brother Elliott, then a lad not seventeen years
old, made a buffalo-hunt toward the edge of
the Staked Plains in northern Texas. He
was thus in at the death of the southern herds; |
for all, save a few scattering bands, were de-
stroyed within two years of this time. He
was with my cousin, John Roosevelt, and they
went out on the range with six other adven-
turers. It was a party of just such young men
as frequently drift to the frontier. All were
short of cash, and all were hardy, vigorous
fellows, eager for excitement and adventure.
My brother was much the youngest of the
party, and the least experienced; but he was
well-grown, strong and healthy, and very fond
of boxing, wrestling, running, riding, and
shooting ; moreover, he had served an appren-
ticeship in hunting deer and turkeys. ‘Their
mess-kit, ammunition, bedding, and provisions
were carried in two prairie-wagons, each drawn
by four horses. In addition to the teams they
had six saddle-animals—all of them shaggy,
unkempt mustangs. Three or four dogs, set-

ie) HUNTING THE GRISLY.

ters and half-bred greyhounds, trotted along
behind the wagons. Each man took his turn
for two days as teamster and cook; and there
were always two with the wagons, or camp, as
the case might be, while the other six were off
hunting, usually in couples. ‘The expedition
was undertaken partly for sport and partly
with the hope of profit; for, after purchasing
the horses and wagons, none of the party had
any money left, and they were forced to rely
upon selling skins and hides, and, when near
the forts, meat.

They started on January 2d, and shaped
their course for the head-waters of the Salt
Fork of the Brazos, the centre of abundance
for the great buffalo herds. During the first
few days they were in the outskirts of the set-
tled country, and shot only small game—quail
and prairie fowl; then they began to kill
turkey, deer, and antelope. These they
swapped for flour and feed at the ranches or
squalid, straggling frontier towns. On sev-
eral occasions the hunters were lost, spending
the night out in the open, or sleeping ata
ranch, if one was found. Both towns and
ranches were filled with rough customers ; all
of my brother’s companions were muscular,
hot-headed fellows; and as a consequence
they were involved in several savage free
fights, in which, fortunately, nobody was
seriously hurt. My brother kept a very brief
diary, the entries being fairly startling from
their conciseness. A number of times, the
mention of their arrival, either at a halting-

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 11

place, a little village, or a rival buffalo-camp
is followed by the laconic remark, “ big fight,”
or “big row”; but once they evidently con-
cluded discretion to be the better part of valor,
the entry for January 2oth being, “On the
road—passed through Belknap—too lively, so
kept on to the Brazos—very late.” The
buffalo-camps in particular were very jealous
of one another, each party regarding itself as.
having exclusive right to the range it was the
first to find; and on several occasions this‘
feeling came near involving my brother and
his companions in serious trouble.
While slowly driving the heavy wagons to
the hunting grounds they suffered the usual
hardships of plains travel. The weather, as
in most Texas winters, alternated between the
extremes of heat and cold. There had been
little rain ; in consequence water was scarce.
Twice they were forced to cross wild, barren
wastes, where the pools had dried up, and
they suffered terribly from thirst. On the
first occasion the horses were in good con-
dition, and they travelled steadily, with only
occasional short halts, for over thirty-six
hours, by which time they were across the
waterless: country.) The | journal, reads ;
“January 27th.—Big hunt—no water, and we
left Quinn’s blockhouse this morning 3 A. M.
—on the go all night—hot. January 28.—No
water—hot—at seven we struck water, and by
eight Stinking Creek—grand ‘ hurrah.’” On
the second occasion, the horses were weak
and travelled slowly, so the party went forty-

12 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

eight hours without drinking. “ February
rg9th.—Pulled on twenty-one miles—trail bad
—freezing night, no water, and wolves after
our fresh meat. 20.—Made nineteen miles
over prairie ; again only mud, no water,
freezing hard—frightful thirst. 21st.-—Thirty
miles to Clear Fork, fresh water.” ‘These en-
tries were hurriedly jotted down at the time,
by a boy who deemed it unmanly to make
any especial note of hardship or suffering ;
but every plainsman will understand the real
agony implied in working hard for two nights,
one day, and portions oftwo others, without
water, even in cool weather. During the last
few miles the staggering horses were only just
-able to drag the lightly loaded wagon,—for
they had but one with them at the time,—
while the men plodded along in sullen silence,
their mouths so parched that they could hardly
utter a word. My own hunting and ranching
were done in the north where there is more
water; so I have never had a similar experi-
ence. Once I took a team in thirty-six hours
across a country where there was no water ;
but by good luck it rained heavily in_ the
night, so that the horses had plenty of wet
grass, and I caught the rain in my slicker, and
so had enough water for myself. Personally,
I have but once been as long as twenty-six
hours without water.

The party pitched their permanent camp in
a canyon of the Brazos known as Canyon Blan-
co. The last few days of their journey they
travelled beside the river through a veritable

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 13

hunter’s paradise. The drought had forced
all the animals to come to the larger water-
courses, and the country was literally swarm-
ing with game. Every day, and all day long,
the wagons travelled through the herds of
antelopes that grazed on every side, while,
whenever they approached the canyon brink,
bands of deer started from the timber that
fringed the river’s course ; often, even the deer
wandered out on the prairie with the antelope.
Nor was the game shy ; for the hunters, both
red and white, followed only the buffaloes,
until the huge, shaggy herds were destroyed,
and the smaller beasts were in consequence
but little molested.

Once my brother shot five antelopes from
a single stand, when the party were short of
fresh venison ; he was out of sight and to
leeward, and the antelopes seemed confused
rather than alarmed at the rifle-reports and the
fall of their companions. As was to be ex-
pected where game was so plenty, wolves and
coyotes also abounded. At night they sus-
rounded the camp, wailing and howling ina
kind of shrieking chorus throughout the hours
of darkness ; one night they came up so close
that the frightened horses had to be hobbled
and guarded. On another occasion a large
wolf actually crept into camp, where he was
seized by the dogs, and the yelling, writhing
knot of combatants rolled over one of the
sleepers ; finally, the long-toothed prowler
managed to shake himself loose, and vanished
in the gloom. One evening they were almost

14 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

as much startled by a visit of a different kind.
They were just finishing supper when an
Indian stalked suddenly and silently out of
the surrounding darkness, squatted down in
the circle of firelight, remarked gravely, ‘“‘ Me
Tonk,” and began helping himself from the
stew. He belonged to the friendly tribe of
Tonkaways, so his hosts speedily recovered
their equanimity ; as for him, he had never
lost his, and he sat eating by the fire until
there was literally nothing left to eat. The
panic caused by his appearance was natural ;
for at that time the Comanches were a scourge
to the Buffalo-hunters, ambushing them and
raiding their camps; and several bloody fights
had taken place.

Their camp had been pitched near a deep
pool or water-hole. On both sides the bluffs
rose like walls, and where they had crumbled
and lost their sheerness, the vast buffalo herds,
passing and repassing for countless genera-
tions, had worn furrowed trails so deep that the
backs of the beasts were but little above the
surrounding soil. In the bottom, and in
places along the crests of the cliffs that
hemmed in the canyon-like valley, there
were groves of tangled trees, tenanted by great
flocks of wild turkeys. Once my brother made
two really remarkable shots at a pair of these
great birds. It was at dusk, and they were
flying directly overhead from one cliff to the
other. He had in his hand a thirty-eight cali-
bre Ballard rifle, and, as the gobblers winged
their way heavily by, he brought both down

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 15

with two successive bullets. This was of
course mainly a piece of mere luck ; but it
meant good shooting, too. ‘The Ballard was
a very accurate, handy little weapon ; it be-
longed to me, and was the first rifle I ever
owned or used. With it I had once killed
a deer, the only specimen of large game I
had then shot ; and I presented the rifle to
my brother when he went to Texas. In our
happy ignorance we deemed it quite good
enough for Buffalo or anything else ; but out
on the plains. my brother soon found himself
forced to procure a heavier and more deadly
weapon.

When camp was pitched the horses were
turned loose to graze and refresh them-
selves after their trying journey, during which
they had lost flesh wofully. They were
watched and tended by the two men who were
always left in camp, and, save on rare occa-
sions, were only used to haul in the buffalo
hides. ‘The camp-guards for the time being
acted as cooks; and, though coffee and flour
both ran short and finally gave out, fresh meat
of every kind was abundant. The camp was
never without buffalo-beef, deer and antelope
venison, wild turkeys, prairie-chickens, quails,
ducks, and rabbits. The birds were simply
“potted,” as occasion required’; when ‘the
quarry was deer or antelope, the hunters took
the dogs with them to run down the wounded
animals. But almost the entire attention of
the hunters was given to the buffalo. After
an evening spent in lounging round the camp-

16 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

fire and a sound night’s sleep, wrapped in
robes and blankets, they would get up before
daybreak, snatch a hurried breakfast, and
start off in couples through the chilly dawn.
The great beasts were very plentiful; in the
first day’s hunt twenty were slain; but the
herds were restless and ever on the move.
Sometimes they would be seen right by the
camp, and again it would need an all-day’s
tramp to find them. There was no difficulty
in spying them—the chief trouble with forest
game; for on the prairie a buffalo makes no
effort to hide and its black, shaggy bulk looms
up as far as the eyecan see. Sometimes they
were found in small parties of three or four
individuals, sometimes in bands of about two
hundred, and again in great herds of many
thousands; and solitary old bulls, expelled
from the herds, were common. If on broken
land, among hills and ravines, there was not
much difficulty in approaching from the lee-
ward; for, though the sense of smell in the
buffalo is very acute, they do not see well at
a distance through their overhanging frontlets
of coarse and matted hair. If, as was gener-
ally the case, they were out on the open,
rolling prairie, the stalking was far more diff-
cult. Every hollow, every earth hummock
and sagebush had to be used as cover. The
hunter wriggled through the grass flat on his
face, pushing himself along for perhaps a
quarter of a mile by his toes and fingers,
heedless of the spiny cactus. When near
enough to the huge, unconscious quarry the

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO, 17

hunter began firing, still keeping himself
carefully concealed. If the smoke was blown
away by the wind, and if the buffaloes caught
no glimpse of the assailant, they would often
stand motionless and stupid until many of
their number had been slain, the hunter being
careful not to fire too high, aiming just behind
the shoulder, about a third of the way up the
body, that his bullet might go through the
lungs. Sometimes, even after they saw the
man, they would act as if confused and panic-
struck, huddling together and staring at the
smoke puffs; but generally they were off at a
lumbering gallop as soon as they had an idea
of the point of danger. When once started,
they ran for many miles before halting, and
their pursuit on foot was extremely laborious.

One morning my cousin and brother had
been left in camp as guards. ‘They were
sitting idly warming themselves in the first
sunbeams, when their attention was. sharply
drawn to four buffaloes that were coming to
the pool to drink. The beasts came down a
game trail, a deep rut in the bluff, fronting
where they were sitting, and they did not dare
fost for fear, of) being discovered, The
buffaloes walked into the pool, and after drink-
ing their fill, stood for some time with the
water running out of their mouths, idly lashing
their sides with their short tails, enjoying the
bright warmth of the early sunshine; then,
with much splashing and the gurgling of soft
mud, they left the pool and clambered up the
bluff with unwieldy agility. As soon as they

2

18 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

turned, my brother and cousin ran for their
rifles, but before they got back the buffaloes
had crossed the bluff crest. Climbing after
them, the two hunters found, when they
reached the summit, that their game, instead
of halting, had struck straight off across the
prairie at a slow lope, doubtless intending to
rejoin the herd they had left. After a mo-
ment’s consultation the men went in pursuit,
excitement overcoming their knowledge that
they ought not, by rights, to leave camp.
They struck a steady trot, following the
animals by sight until they passed over a knoll,
and then trailing them. Where the grass was
long, as it was for the first four or five miles,
this was a work of no difficulty, and they did
not break their gait, only glancing now and
then at the trail. As the sun rose and the day
became warm, their breathing grew quicker ;
and the sweat rolled off their faces as they
ran across the rough prairie sward, up and
down the long inclines, now and then shifting
their heavy rifles from one shoulder to the
other. But they were in good training, and
they did not have to halt. At last they reached
stretches of bare ground, sun-baked and grass-
less, where the trail grew dim; and _ here they
had to go very slowly, carefully examining the
faint dents and marks made in the soil by the
heavy hoofs, and unravelling the trail from the
mass of old footmarks. It was tedious work,
but it enabled them to completely recover their
breath by the time that they again struck the
grassland ; and but a few hundred yards from

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO, 19

its edge, in a slight hollow, they saw the four
buffaloes just entering a herd of fifty or sixty
that were scattered out grazing. The herd
paid no attention to the new-comers, and these
immediately began to feed greedily. After
a whispered consultation, the two hunters crept
back, and madea long circle that brought
them well to leeward of the herd, in line with
a slight rise in the ground. ‘They then crawled
up to this rise and, peering through the tufts
of tall, rank grass, saw the unconscious beasts
a hundred and twenty-five or fifty yards away.
They fired together, each mortally wounding
his animal, and then, rushing in as the herd
halted in confusion, and following them as
they ran, impeded by numbers, hurry, and
panic, they eventually got three more.

On another occasion the same two hunters
nearly met with a frightful death, being over-
taken by a vast herd of stampeded buffaloes.
All animals that go in herds are subject to
these instanteous attacks of uncontrollable
terror, under the influence of which they be-
come perfectly mad, and rush headlong in
dense masses on any form of death. Horses,
and more especially cattle, often suffer from
stampedes ; it is a danger against which the
cowboys are compelled to be perpetually on
guard. A band of stampeded horses, sweep-
ing in mad terror up a valley, will dash against
a rock or tree with such violence as to leave
several dead animals at its base, while the
survivors race on without halting; they will
overturn and destroy tents and wagons, and a

20 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

man on foot caught in the rush has but a
small chance for his life. A buffalo stampede
is much worse—or rather was much worse, in
the old days—because of the great weight
and immense numbers of the beasts, which,
in a fury of heedless terror, plunged over
cliffs and into rivers, and bore down what-
ever was in their path. On the occasion in
question, my brother and cousin were on
their way homeward. ‘They were just mount-
ing one of the long, low swells, into which
the prairie was broken, when they heard a
low, muttering, rumbling noise, like far-off
thunder. It grew steadily louder, and, not
knowing what it meant, they hurried forward
tothe) top of the,rise.; As they \reached¥ay
they stopped short in terror and amazement,
for before them the whole prairie was black
with madly rushing buffaloes.

Afterward they learned that another couple
of hunters, four or five miles off, had fired
into and stampeded a large herd. This herd,
in its rush, gathered others, all thundering
along together in uncontrollable and increas-
ing panic.

The surprised hunters were far away from
any broken ground or other place of refuge,
while the vast herd of huge, plunging, mad-
dened beasts was charging straight down on
them not a quarter of a mile distant. Down
they came !—thousands upon thousands, their
front extending a mile in breadth, while the
earth shook beneath their thunderous gallop,
and, as they came closer, their shaggy front-

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 21

lets loomed dimly through the columns of
dust thrown up from the dry soil. The two
hunters knew that their only hope for life was
to split the herd, which, though it had so
broad a front, was not very deep. If they
failed they would inevitably be trampled to
death.

Waiting until the beasts were in close
range, they opened a rapid fire from their
heavy breech-loading rifles, yelling at the top
of their voices. For a moment the result
seemed doubtful. The line thundered steadily
down on them; then it swayed violently, as
two or three of the brutes immediately in
their front fell beneath the bullets, while
their neighbors made violent efforts to press
off sideways. ‘Then a narrow wedge-shaped
rift appeared in the line, and widened as it
came closer, and the buffaloes, shrinking from
their foes in front, strove desperately to edge
away from the dangerous neighborhood ; the
shouts and shots were redoubled ; the hunters
were almost choked by the cloud of dust,
through which they could see the stream of
dark huge bodies passing within rifle-length
on either side; and in a moment the peril was
over, and the two men were left alone on the
plain, unharmed, though with their nerves
terribly shaken. The herd careered on to-
ward the horizon, save five individuals which
had been killed or disabled by the shots.

On another occasion, when my brother was
out with one of his friends, they fired at a
small herd containing an old bull; the bull

22 HUNTING THE GRISLY,

charged the smoke, and the whole herd fol-
lowed him. Probably they were simply stam-
peded, and had no hostile intention; at any
rate, after the death of their leader, they
rushed by without doing any damage.

But buffaloes sometimes charged with the
utmost determination, and were then danger-
ous antagonists. My cousin, a very hardy
and resolute hunter, had a narrow escape
from a wounded cow which he followed up a
steep bluff or sand cliff. Just as he reached
the summit, he was charged, and was only
saved by the sudden appearance of his dog,
which distracted the cow’s attention. He
thus escaped with only a tumble and a few
bruises.

My brother also came in for a charge,
while killing the biggest bull that was slain
by any of the party. He was out alone, and
saw a small herd of cows and calves at some
distance, with a huge bull among them, tower-
ing above them like a giant. ‘There was no
break in the ground, nor any tree nor bush
near them, but, by making a half-circle, my
brother managed to creep up against the wind
behind a slight roll in the prairie surface, until
he was within seventy-five yards of the graz-
ing and unconscious beasts. There were
some cows and calves between him and the
bull, and he had to wait some moments be-
fore they shifted position, as the herd grazed
onward and gave him a fair shot; in the in-
terval they had moved so far forward that he
was in plain view. His first bullet struck

~~

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO, 23

just behind the shoulder; the herd started
and looked around, but the bull merely lifted
his head and took a step forward, his tail
curled up over his back. The next bullet
likewise struck fair, nearly in the same place,
telling with a loud “ pack!” against the thick
hide, and making the dust fly up from the
matted hair. Instantly the great bull wheeled
and charged in headlong anger, while the
herd fled in the opposite direction. On the
bare prairie, with no spot of refuge, it was
useless to try to escape, and the hunter, with
reloaded rifle, waited until the bull was not
far off, then drew up his weapon and fired.
Either he was nervous, or the bull at the mo-
ment bounded over some obstacle, for the
ball went a little wild; nevertheless, by good
luck, it broke a fore-leg, and the great beast
came crashing to the earth, and was slain be-
fore it could struggle to its feet.

Two days after this event, a war party of
Comanches swept down along the river.
They “jumped ” a neighboring camp, killing
one man and wounding two more, and at the
same time ran off all but three of the horses
belonging to our eight adventurers. Withthe
remaining three horses and one wagon they
set out homeward. The march was hard and
tedious ; they lost their way and were in
jeopardy from quicksands and cloudbursts ;
they suffered from thirst and cold, their shoes
gave out, and their feet were lamed by cactus
spines. At last they reached Fort Griffen in
safety, and great was their ravenous rejoicing

24. HUNTING THE GRISLY.

when they procured some bread—for during
the final fortnight of the hunt they had been
without flour or vegetables of any kind, or
even coffee, and had subsisted on fresh meat
straight.” ) Nevertheless, ./ 18) qwasvivay | very
healthy, as well as a very pleasant and excit-
ing experience; and I doubt if any of those
who took part in it will ever forget their great
buffalo-hunt on the Brazos.

My friend, Gen. W. H. Walker, of Virginia,
had an experience in the early ’50’s with buf-
faloes on the upper Arkansas River, which
gives some idea of their enormous numbers at
that time. He was camped with a scouting
party on the banks of the river, and had gone
out to try to shoot some meat. ‘There were
many buffaloes in sight, scattered, according
to their custom, in large bands. When he
was a mile or two away from the river a dull
roaring sound in the distance attracted his
attention, and he saw that a herd of buffalo
far to the south, away from the river, had
been stampeded and was running his way.
He knew that if he was caught in the open’
by the stampeded herd: his chance for life
would be small, and at once ran for the river.
By desperate efforts he reached the breaks in
the sheer banks just as the buffaloes reached
them, and got into a position of safety on the
pinnacle of a little bluff. From this point of
vantage he could see the entire plain. To
the very verge of the horizon the brown
masses of the buffalo bands showed through
the dust clouds, coming on with a thunderous

» THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 25

roar like that of surf. Camp was a mile
away, and the stampede luckily passed to one
side of it. Watching his chance he finally
dodged back to the tent, and all that after-
noon watched the immense masses of buffalo,
as band after band tore to the brink of the
bluffs on one side, raced down them, rushed
through the water, up the bluffs on the other
side, and again off over the plain, churning

the sandy, shallow stream into a ceaseless.

tumult. When darkness fell there was no ap-

parent decrease in the numbers that were pass-

ing, and all through that night the continuous
roar showed that the herds were still thresh-
ing across the river. ‘Towards dawn the sound
at last ceased, and General Walker arose
somewhat irritated, as he had reckoned on
killing an ample supply of meat, and he sup-
posed that there would be now no bison left
south of the river. To his astonishment,
when he strolled up on the bluffs and looked
over the plain, it was still covered far and
wide with groups of buffalo, grazing quietly.
Apparently there were as many on that side
as ever, in spite of the many scores of thou-
sands that must have crossed over the river
during the stampede of the afternoon and
night. The barren-ground caribou is the
only American animal which is now ever seen
in such enormous herds.

In 1862 Mr. Clarence King, while riding
along the overland trail through western Kan-
sas, passed through a great buffalo herd, and
was himself injured in an encounter with a

26 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

bull. The great herd was then passing north,
and Mr. King reckoned that it must have cov-
ered an area nearly seventy miles by thirty in
extent; the figures representing his rough
guess, made after travelling through the herd
crosswise, and upon knowing how long it took
to pass a given point going northward. ‘This
great herd of course was not a solid mass of
buffaloes ; it consisted of innumerable bands
of every size, dotting the prairie within the
limits given. Mr. King was mounted on a
somewhat unmanageable horse. On one oc-
casion in following a band he wounded a large
bull, and became so wedged in by the mad-
dened animals that he was unable to avoid
the charge of the bull, which was at its last
gasp. Coming straight toward him it leaped
into the air and struck the afterpart of the
saddle full with its massive forehead. The
horse was hurled to the ground with a broken
back, and King’s leg was likewise broken,
while the bull turned a complete somerset
over them and never rose again.

In the recesses of the Rocky Mountains,
from Colorado northward through Alberta,
and in the depths of the subarctic forest be-
yond the Saskatchewan, there have always
been found small numbers of the bison, locally
called the mountain buffalo and wood buffalo ;
often indeed the old hunters term these ani-
mals “ bison,” although they never speak of
the plains animals save as buffalo. They
form a slight variety of what was formerly the
ordinary plains bison, intergrading with it; on

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 27

the whole they are darker in color, with longer,
thicker hair, and in consequence with the ap-
pearance of being heavier-bodied and shorter-
legged. ‘They have been sometimes spoken
of as forming a separate species ; but, judging
from my own limited experience, and from a
comparison of the many hides I have seen, I
think they are really the same animal, many
individuals of the two so-called varieties being
quite indistinguishable. In fact the only
moderate-sized herd of wild bison in existence
to-day, the protected herd in the Yellowstone
Park, is composed of animals intermediate in
habits and coat between the mountain and
plains varieties—as were all the herds of the
Bighorn, Big Hole, Upper Madison, and Up-
per Yellowstone valleys.

However, the habitat of these wood and
mountain bison yielded them shelter from
hunters in a way that the plains never could,
and hence they have always been harder to
kill in the one place than in the other; for
precisely the same reasons that have held
good with the elk, which have been completely
exterminated from the plains, while still abun-
dant in many of the forest fastnesses of the
Rockies. Moreover, the bison’s dull eyesight
is no special harm in the woods, while it is
peculiarly hurtful to the safety of any beast
on the plains, where eyesight avails more than
any other sense, the true game of the plains
being the prong-buck, the most keen-sighted
of American animals. On the other hand the
bison’s hearing, of little avail on the plains, is

28 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

of much assistance in the woods; and its ex-
cellent nose helps equally in both places.

Though it was always more difficult to kill
the bison of the forests and mountains than
the bison of the prairie, yet now that the
species is, in its wild state, hovering on the
brink of extinction, the difficulty is immeasur-
ably increased. A merciless and terrible
process of natural selection, in which the
agents were rifle-bearing hunters, has left as
the last survivors in a hopeless struggle for
existence only the wariest of the bison and
those gifted with the sharpest senses. That
this was true of the last lingering individuals
that survived the great slaughter on the plains
is well shown by Mr. Hornaday in his graphic
account of his campaign against the few scat-
tered buffalo which still lived in 1886 between
the Missouri and the Yellowstone, along the
Big Dry. The bison of the plains and the
prairies have now vanished; and so few of
their brethren of the mountains and the north-
ern forests are left, that they can just barely
be reckoned among American game; but who-
ever is so fortunate as to find any of these
animals must work his hardest, and show all
his skill as a hunter if he wishes to get one.

In the fall of 1889 I heard that a very few
bison were still left around the head of Wis-
dom River. Thither I went and hunted faith-
fully; there was plenty of game of other kind,
but of bison not a trace did we see. Never-
theless a few days later that same year I came
across these great wild cattle at a time when
I had no idea of seeing them.

| THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 29

It was, as nearly as we could tell, in Idaho,
just south of the Montana boundary line, and
some twenty-five miles west of the line of
Wyoming. We were camped high among the
mountains, with a small pack-train. On the
day in question we had gone out to find moose,
but had seen no sign of them, and had then be-
gun to climb over the higher peaks with an idea
of getting sheep. The old hunter who was
with me was, very fortunately, suffering from
rheumatism, and he therefore carried a long
staff instead of his rifle; I say fortunately, for
if he had carried his rifle it would have been im-
possible to stop his firing at such game as bison,
nor would he have spared the cows and calves.

About the middle of the afternoon we
crossed a low, rocky ridge, above timber line,
and saw at our feet a basin or round valley
of singular beauty. Its walls were formed by
steep mountains. At its upper end lay a
small lake, bordered on one side by a meadow
of emerald green. The lake’s other side
marked the edge of the frowning pine forest
which filled the rest of the valley, and hung
high on the sides of the gorge which formed
its outlet. Beyond the lake the ground rose
in a pass evidently much frequented by game
in bygone days, their trails lying along it in
thick zigzags, each gradually fading out after
a few hundred yards, and then starting again
in a little different place, as game trails so
often seem to do.

We bent our steps towards these trails, and
no sooner had we reached the first than the

30 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

old hunter bent over it with a sharp excla-
mation of wonder. There in the dust were
the unmistakable hoof-marks of a small band
of bison, apparently but afew hours old. They
were headed towards the lake. ‘There had
been a half a dozen animals in the party; one
a big bull, and two calves.

We immediately turned and followed the
trail. It led down to the little lake, where
the beasts had spread and grazed on the ten- ©
der, green blades, and had drunk their fill.
The footprints then came together again,
showing where the animals had gathered and
walked off in single file to the forest. Evi-
dently they had come to the pool in the early
morning, walking over the game pass from
some neighboring valley, and after drinking
and feeding had moved into the pine forest to
find some spot for their noontide rest.

It was a very still day, and there were nearly
three hours of daylight left. Without a word
my silent companion, who had | een scanning
the whole country with hawk-eyed eagerness,
besides scrutinizing the sign on his hands and
knees, took the trail, motioning me to follow.
In a moment we entered the woods, breathing
a sigh of relief as we did so; for while in the
meadow we could never tell that the buffalo
might not see us, if they happened to be lying
in some place with a commanding lookout.

The old hunter was thoroughly roused, and
he showed himself a very skilful tracker. We
were much favored by the character of the
forest, which was rather open, and in most

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 31

places free from undergrowth and down tim-
ber. As in most Rocky Mountain forests the
timber was small, not only as compared to the
giant trees of the groves of the Pacific coast,
but as compared to the forests of the northeast.
The ground was covered with pine needles
and soft moss, so that it was not difficult to
walk noiselessly. Once or twice when I trod
on a small dry twig, or let the nails in my
shoes clink slightly against a stone, the hunter
turned to me with a frown of angry impatience ;
but as he walked slowly, continually halting to
look ahead, as well as stooping over to examine
the trail, I did not find it very difficult to move
silently. I kept a little behind him, and to one
side, save when he crouched to take advantage
of some piece of cover, and I crept in his foot-
steps. I did not look at the trail at all, but
kept watching ahead, hoping at any moment to
see the game.

It was not very long before we struck their
day beds, which were made on a knoll, where
the forest was open and where there was much
down timber. After leaving the day beds the
animals had at first fed separately around the
grassy base and sides of the knoll, and had
then made off in their usual single file, going
straight to a small pool in the forest. After
drinking they had left this pool, and travelled
down towards the gorge at the mouth of the
basin, the trail leading along the sides of the
steep hill, which were dotted by open glades ;
while the roar of the cataracts by which the
stream was broken ascended from below.

32 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Here we moved with redoubled caution, for
the sign had grown very fresh and the animals
had once more scattered and begun feeding.
When the trail led across the glades we usually
skirted them so as to keep in the timber.

At last, on nearing the edge of one of these
glades we saw a movement among the young
trees on the other side, not fifty yards away.
Peering through the safe shelter yielded by
some thick evergreen bushes, we speedily
made out three bison, a cow,a calf, and a
yearling, grazing greedily on the other side of
the glade, under the fringing timber ; all with
their heads up hill. Soon another cow and
calf stepped out after them. I did not wish
to shoot, waiting for the appearance of the big
bull which I knew was accompanying them.

So for several minutes I watched the great,
clumsy, shaggy beasts, as all unconscious they
grazed in the open glade. Behind them rose
the dark pines. At the left of the glade the
ground fell away to form the side of a chasm;
down in its depths the cataracts foamed and
thundered; beyond, the huge mountains
towered, their crests crimsoned by the sinking
sun. Mixed with the eager excitement of the
hunter was a certain half meiancholy feeling
as I gazed on these bison, themselves part of
the last remnant of a doomed and nearly
vanished race. Few, indeed, are the men who
now have, or evermore shall have, the chance
of seeing the mightiest of American beasts,
in all his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremen-
dous desolation of his far-off mountain home.

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 33

At last, when I had begun to grow very
anxious lest the others should take alarm, the
bull likewise appeared on the edge of the
glade, and stood with outstretched head,
scratching his throat against a young tree,
which shook violently. I aimed low, behind |
his shoulder, and pulled trigger. At the
crack of the rifle all the bison, without the
momentary halt of terror-struck surprise so
common among game, turned and raced off
at headlong speed. The fringe of young
pines beyond and below the glade cracked
and swayed as if a whirlwind were passing,
and in another moment they reached the top
of a very steep incline, thickly strewn with
boulders and dead timber. Down this they
plunged with reckless speed ; their surefooted-
ness was a marvel in such seemingly unwieldy
beasts. A column of dust obscured their pas-
sage, and under its cover they disappeared in
the forest; but the trail of the bull was marked
by splashes of frothy blood, and we followed
it at atrot. Fifty yards beyond the border
of the forest we found the stark black body
stretched motionless. He was a splendid old
bull, still in his full vigor, with large, sharp -
horns, and heavy mane and glossy coat ; and
I felt the most exulting pride as I handled
and examined him; for I had procured a
trophy such as can fall henceforth to few hunt-
ers indeed.

It was too late to dress the beast that even-
ing; so, after taking out the tongue and cut-
ting off enough meat for supper and _ break-

3

34 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

fast, we scrambled down to near the torrent,
and after some search found a good spot for
camping. Hot and dusty from the day’s hard
tramp, I undressed and took a plunge in the
stream, the icy water making me gasp. ‘Then,
having built a slight lean-to of brush, and
dragged together enough dead timber to burn
all night, we cut long alder twigs, sat down
before some embers raked apart, and grilled
and ate our buffalo meat with the utmost rel-
ish. Night had fallen; a cold wind blew up
the valley; the torrent roared as it leaped
past us, and drowned our words as we strove
to talk over our adventures and success ; while
the flame of the fire flickered and danced,
lighting up with continual vivid flashes the
gloom of the forest round about.

THE BLACK BEAR 35

CHAPTER I:
THE BLACK BEAR.

EXT to the whitetail deer the black bear

is the commonest and most widely dis-
tributed of American big game. It is still
found quite plentifully in northern New Eng-
land, in the Adirondacks, Catskills, and along
the entire length of the Alleghanies, as well
asin the swamps and canebrakes of the south-
ern States. It is also common in the great
forests of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota, and throughout the Rocky Mount-
ains and the timbered ranges of the Pacific
coast. In the East it has always ranked
second only to the deer among the beasts of
chase. ‘The bear and the buck were the staple
.objects of pursuit of all the old hunters.
They were more plentiful than the bison and
. elk even in the long vanished days when these
two great monarchs of the forest still ranged
eastward to Virginia and Pennsylvania. The
wolf and the cougar were always too scarce
and too shy to yield much profit to the hunt-
er. The black bear is a timid, cowardly
animal, and usually a vegetarian, though it
sometimes preys on the sheep, hogs, and even
cattle of the settler, and is very fond of raid-

36 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

ing his corn and melons. Its meat is good
and its fur often valuable; and in its chase
there is much excitement, and occasionally a
slight spice of danger, just enough to render
it attractive; so it has always been eagerly
followed. Yet it still holds its own, though
in greatly diminished numbers, in the more
thinly settled portions of the country. One
of the standing riddles of American zoology
is the fact that the black bear, which is easier
killed and less prolific than the wolf, should
hold its own in the land better than the lat-
ter, this being directly the reverse of what
occurs in Europe, where the brown bear is
generally exterminated before the wolf.

In a few wild spots in the East, in northern
Maine for instance, here and there in the
neighborhood of the upper Great Lakes, in
the east Tennessee and Kentucky mountains
and the swamps of Florida and Mississippi,
there still lingers an occasional representative
of the old wilderness hunters. These men
live in log-cabins in the wilderness. They
do their hunting on foot, occasionally with the
help of a single trailing dog. In Maine they
are as apt to kill moose and caribou as bear
and deer; but elsewhere the two last, with an
occasional cougar or wolf, are the beasts of -
chase which they follow. Nowadays as these
old hunters die there is no one to take their
places, though there are still plenty of back-
woods settlers in all of the regions named who
do a great deal of hunting and trapping. Such
an old hunter rarely makes his appearance at

THE BLACK BEAR, 37

the settlements except to dispose of his peltry
and hides in exchange for cartridges and
provisions, and he leads a life of such lonely
isolation as to insure his individual character-
istics developing into peculiarities. Most of
the wilder districts in the eastern States still
preserve memories of some such old hunter
who lived his long life alone, waging ceaseless
warfare on the vanishing game, whose oddities,
as well as his courage, hardihood, and wood-
craft, are laughingly remembered by the older
settlers, and who is usually best known as
having killed the last wolf or bear or cougar
ever seen in the locality.

Generally the weapon mainly relied on by
these old hunters is the rifle; and occasion-
ally some old hunter will be found even to this
day who uses a muzzle loader, such as Kit
Carson carried in the middle of the century.
There are exceptions to this rule of the rifle
however. In the years after the Civil War one
of the many noted hunters of southwest Virginia
and east ‘Tennessee was Wilber Waters, some-
times called The Hunter of White Top. He
oiten killed black bear with a knife and dogs.
He spent all his life in hunting and was very
successful, killing the last gang of wolves to
be found in his neighborhood; and he slew
innumerable bears, with no worse results to
himself than an occasional bite or scratch.

In the southern States the planters living in
the wilder regions have always been in the
the habit of following the black bear with
horse and hound, many of them keeping regu-

38 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

lar packs of bear hounds. Such a pack in-
cludes not only pure-bred hounds, but also
cross-bred animals, and some sharp, agile,
hard-biting fierce dogs and terriers. ‘They
follow the bear and bring him to bay but do
not try to kill him, although there are dogs of
the big fighting breeds which can readily
master a black bear if loosed at him three or
four at a time; but the dogs of these southern
bear-hound packs are not fitted for such work,
and if they try to close with the bear he is
certain to play havoc with them, disembowelling
them with blows of his paws or seizing them
in his arms and biting through their spines or
legs. The riders follow the hounds through
the canebrakes, and also try to make cutoffs
and station themselves at open points where
they think the bear will pass, so that they
may geta shot at him. The weapons used
are rifles, shotguns, and occasionally revolvers.

Sometimes, however, the hunter uses the
knife. General Wade Hampton, who has
probably killed more black bears than any
other man living in the United States, fre-
quently used the knife, slaying thirty or forty
with this weapon. His plan was, when he
found that the dogs had the bear at bay, to
walk up close and cheer them on. They
would instantly seize the bear in a body, and
he would then rush in and stab it behind the
shoulder, reaching over so as to inflict the
wound on the opposite side from that where
he stood. He escaped scathless from all these
encounters save one, in which he was rather

THE BLACK BEAR. 39

severely torn in the forearm. Many other
hunters have used the knife, but perhaps none
so frequently as he; for he was always fond
of steel, as witness his feats with the ‘“ white
arm ” during the Civil War.

General Hampton always hunted with large
packs of hounds, managed sometimes by him-
self and sometimes by his negro hunters. He
occasionally took out forty dogs at a time.
He found that all his dogs together could not
kill a big fat bear, but they occasionally killed
three-year-olds, or lean and poor bears. During
the course of his life he has himself killed, or
been in at the death of, five hundred bears,
at least two thirds of them falling by his own
hand. In the year just before the war he had
on one occasion, in Mississippi, killed sixty-
eight bears in five months. Once he killed
four bears in a day; at another time three,
and frequently two. The two largest bears
he himself killed weighed, respectively, 408
and 410 pounds. ‘They were both shot in Miss-
issippi. But he saw at least one bear killed
which was much larger than either of these.
These figures were taken down at the time,
when the animals were actually weighed on
the scales. Most of his hunting for bear was
done in northern Mississippi, where one of
his plantations was situated, near Greenville.
During the half century that he hunted, on
and off, in this neighborhood, he knew of two
instances where hunters were fatally wounded
in the chase of the black bear. Both of the
men were inexperienced, one being a raftsman

40 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

who came down the river, and the other a
man from Vicksburg. He was not able to
learn the particulars in the last case, but the
raftsman came too close to a bear that was at
bay, and it broke through the dogs, rushed at
and overthrew him, then lying on hin, it bit
him deeply in the thigh, through the femoral
artery, so that he speedily bled to death.

But a black bear is not usually a formidable
opponent, and though he will sometimes
charge home he is much more apt to bluster
and bully than actually to come to close quar-
ters. I myself have but once seen a man who
had been hurt by one of these bears. ‘This was
an Indian. He had come on the beast close
up in a thick wood, and had mortally wounded
it with his gun; it had then closed with him,
knocking the gun out of his hand, so that he
was forced to use his knife. It charged him
on all fours, but in the grapple, when it had
failed to throw him down, it raised itself on
its hind legs, clasping him across the shoul-
ders with its fore-paws. Apparently it had
no intention of hugging, but merely sought to
draw him within reach of his jaws. He
fought desperately against this, using the knife
freely, and striving to keep its head back;
and the flow of blood weakened the animal,
so that it finally fell exhausted, before being
able dangerously to injure him. But it had
bitten his left arm very severely, and its claws
had made long gashes on his shoulders.

Black bears, like grislies, vary greatly in
their modes of attack. Sometimes they rush

LHE BLACK BEAR. 41

in and bite; and again they strike with their
fore-paws. Two of my cowboys were origi-
nally from Maine, where I knew them well.
There they were fond of trapping bears, and
caught a good many. The huge steel gins,
attached by chains to heavy clogs, prevented
the trapped beasts from going far; and when
found they were always tied tight round some
tree or bush, and usually nearly exhausted.
The men killed them either with a little 3 2-cali-
bre pistol or ahatchet. But once did they meet
with any difficulty. On this occasion one of
them incautiously approached a captured bear
to knock it on the head with his hatchet, but
the animal managed to partially untwist itself,
and with its free fore-arm made a rapid sweep
at him; he jumped back just in time, the
bear’s claws tearing his clothes—after which
he shot it. Bears are shy and have very keen
noses; they are therefore hard to kill by fair
hunting, living, as they generally do, in dense
forests or thick brush. ‘They are easy enough
to trap, however. Thus, these two men,
though they trapped so many, never but once
killed them in any other way. On this occa-
sion one of them, in the winter, found in a
great hollow log a den where ashe and two
well-grown cubs had taken up their abode,
and shot all three with his rifle as they burst
out.

Where they are much hunted, bear become
purely nocturnal ; but in the wilder forests I
have seen them abroad at all hours, though
they do not much relish the intense heat of

42 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

noon, They are rather comical animals to
watch feeding and going about the ordinary
business of their lives. Once I spent half an
hour lying at the edge of a wood and looking
at a black bear some three hundred yards off
across an open glade. It was in good stalk-
ing country, but the wind was unfavorable
and I waited for it to shift—waited too long
as it proved, for something frightened the
beast and he made off before I could get a
shot at him. When I first saw him he was
shuffling along and rooting in the ground,
so that he looked like a great pig. Then he
began to turn over the stones and logs to
hunt for insects, small reptiles, and the like.
A moderate-sized stone he would turn over
with a single clap of his paw, and then plunge
his nose down into the hollow to gobble up
the small creatures beneath while still dazed
by the light. The big logs and rocks he
would tug and worry at with both paws ;
once, over-exerting his clumsy strength, he
lost his grip and rolled clean on his back.
Under some of the logs he evidently fouud
mice and chipmunks ; then, as soon as the
log was overturned, he would be seen jump-
ing about with grotesque agility, and making
quick dabs here and there, as the little, scurry-
ing rodent turned and twisted, until at last he
put his paw on it and scooped it up into his
mouth. Sometimes, probably when he smelt
the mice underneath, he would cautiously turn
the log over with one paw, holding the other
lifted and ready to strike. Now and then he

THE BLACK BEAR. 43

would halt and sniff the air in every direction,
and it was after one of these halts that he
suddenly shuffied off into the woods.

Black bear generally feed on berries, nuts,
insects, carrion, and the like; but at times
they take to killing very large animals. In
fact, they are curiously irregular in their food.
They will kill deer if they can get at them;
but generally the deer are too quick. Sheep
and hogs are their favorite prey, especially
the latter, for bears seem to have a special
relish for pork. Twice I have known a black
bear kill cattle. Once the victim was a bull
which had got mired, and which the bear delib-
erately proceeded to eat alive, heedless of the
bellows of the unfortunate beast. On the
other occasion, a cow was surprised and slain
among some bushes at the edge of a remote pas-
ture. In the spring, soon after the long winter
sleep, they are very hungry, and are especially
apt to attack large beasts at this time; although
during the very first days of their appearance,
when they are just breaking their fast, they
eat rather sparingly, and by preference the
tender shoots of green grass and other herbs,
or frogs and crayfish ; it is not for a week or
two that they seem to be overcome by lean,
ravenous hunger. They will even attack and
master that formidable fighter the moose,
springing at it from an ambush as it passes—
for a bull moose would surely be an over-
match for one of them if fronted fairly in the
open. An old hunter, whom I could trust,
told me that he had seen in the snow in early

A4 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

spring the place where a bear had sprung at
two moose, which were trotting together ;
he missed his spring, and the moose got off,
their strides after they settled down into their
pace being tremendous, and showing how
thoroughly they were frightened. Another
time he saw a bear chase a moose into a lake,
where it waded out a little distance, and then
turned to bay, bidding defiance to his pursuer,
the latter not daring to approach in the water.
I have been told—but cannot vouch for it—
that instances have been known where the
bear, maddened by hunger, has gone in on a
moose thus standing at bay, only to be beaten
down under the water by the terrible fore-
hoofs of the quarry, and to yield its life in
the contest. A lumberman told me that he
once saw a moose, evidently much startled,
trot through a swamp, and immediately after-
wards a bear came up following the tracks.
He almost ran into the man, and was evidently
not in a good temper, for he growled and
blustered, and two or three times made feints
of charging, before he finally concluded to go
off.

Bears will occasionally visit hunters’ or
lumbermen’s camps, in the absence of the
owners, and play sad havoc with all that there-
in is, devouring everything eatable, especially
if sweet, and trampling into a dirty mess what-
ever they do not eat. The black bear does
not average more than a third the size of the
grisly ; but, like all its kind, it varies greatly
in weight. The largest I myself ever saw

THE BLACK BEAR. 48

weighed was in Maine, and tipped the scale at
346 pounds ; but I have a perfectly authentic
record of one in Maine that weighed 397, and
my friend, Dr. Hart Merriam, tells me that he
has seen several in the Adirondacks that when
killed weighed about 350.

I have myself shot but one or two black
bears, and these were obtained under circum-
stances of no special interest, as I merely
stumbled on them while after other game, and
killed them before they had a chance either
to run or show fight.

46 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

CHAP LER iii.
OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR.

fl Mines king of the game beasts of temperate

North America, because the most dan-
gerous to the hunter, is the grisly bear; known
to the few remaining old-time trappers of the
Rockies and the Great Plains, sometimes as
“Old Ephraim ’’ and sometimes as ‘“ Mocca-
sin Joe””—the last in allusion to his queer,
half-human footprints, which look as if made
by some mishapen giant, walking in mocca-
sins.

Bear vary greatly in size and color, no less
than intemper and habits. Old hunters speak
much of them in their endless talks over the
camp fires and in the snow-bound winter huts.
They insiston many species; not merely
the black and the grisly, but the brown, the
cinnamon, the gray, the silver-tip, and others
with names known only in certain localities,
such as the range bear, the roach-back, and
the smut-face. But, in spite of popular opin-
ion to the contrary, most old hunters are very
untrustworthy in dealing with points of natural
history. ‘They usually know only so much
about any given game animal as will enable
them to kill it. They study its habits solely

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 47

with this end in view ; and once slain they only
examine it to see about its condition and fur.
With rare exceptions they are quite incapable
of passing judgment upon questions of specific
identity or difference. When questioned, they
not only advance perfectly impossible theories
and facts in support of their views, but they
rarely even agree as to the views themselves.
One hunter will assert that the true grisly is
only found in California, heedless of the fact
that the name was first used by Lewis and
Clarke as one of the titles they applied to the
large bears of the plains country round the
Upper Missouri, a quarter of a century before
the California grisly was known to fame. An-
other hunter will call any big brindled bear a —
grisly no matter where it is found; and he and
his companions will dispute by the hour as to
whether a bear of large, but not extreme, size
is a grisly or a silver-tip. In Oregon the cin-
namon bear is a phase of the small black bear;
in Montana it is the plains variety of the large
mountain silver-tip. I have myself seen the
skins of two bears killed on the upper waters
of Tongue River ; one was that of a male, one
of a female, and they had evidently just mated ;
yet one was distinctly a “ silver-tip ” and the
other a “cinnamon.” The skin of one very big
bear which I killed inthe Bighorn has proved
a standing puzzle to almost allthe old hunters
to whom I have showed it; rarely do any two
of them agree as to whether it is a grisly, a
silver-tip, a cinnamon, or a ‘‘smut-face.”
Any bear with unusually long hair on the spine

48 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

and shoulders, especially if killed in the spring,
when the fur is shaggy, is forthwith dubbed a
“roach-back.”’ The average sporting writer
moreover joins with the more imaginative
members of the “old hunter” variety in as-
cribing wildly various traits to these different
bears. One comments on the superior prowess
of the roach-back; the explanation being that
a bear in early spring is apt to be ravenous
from hunger. The next insists that the Cali-
fornia grisly is the only really dangerous bear ;
while another stoutly maintains that it does
not compare in ferocity with what he calls the
“smaller” silver-tip or cinnamon. And so
on, and so on, without end. All of which is
mere nonsense.

Nevertheless, it is no easy task to determine
how many species or varieties of bear actually
do exist in the United States, and I cannot
even say without doubt that a very large set
of skins and skulls would not show a nearly
complete intergradation between the most
widely separated individuals. However, there
are certainly two very distinct types, which
differ almost as widely from each other as a
wapiti does from a mule deer, and which exist
in the same localities in most heavily timbered
portions of the Rockies. One is the small
black bear, a bear which will average about
two hundred pounds weight, with fine, glossy,
black fur, and the fore-claws but little longer
than the hinder ones; in fact the hairs of the
fore-paw often reach to their tips. This bear
is a tree climber. It is the only kind found

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 49

east of the great plains, and it is also plentiful
in the forest-clad portions of the Rockies,
being common in most heavily timbered tracts
throughout the United States. The other is
the grisly, which weighs three or four times as
much as the black, and has a pelt of coarse
hair, which is in color gray, grizzled, or brown
of various shades. It is not a tree climber,
and the fore-claws are very long, much longer
than the hinder ones. It is found from the
great plains west of the Mississippi to the
Pacific coast. This bear inhabits indifferent-
ly lowland and mountain ; the deep woods, and
the barren plains where the only cover is the
stunted growth fringing the streams. These
two types are very distinct in every way, and-
their differences are not at all dependent upon
mere geographical considerations ; for they are
often found in the same district. Thus I
found them both in the Bighorn Mountains,
each type being in extreme form, while the
specimens I shot showed no trace of intergra-
dation. Thehuge grizzled, long-clawed beast,
-and ts little glossy-coated, short-clawed, tree-
climbing brother roamed over exactly the same
country in those mountains ; but they were as
distinct in habits, and mixed as little together
as moose and caribou.

On the other hand, when a sufficient number
of bears, from widely separated regions are
examined, the various distinguishing marks are
found to be inconstant and to show a tendency
—exactly how strong I cannot say—to fade
into one another. The differentiation of the

4

50 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

two species seems to be as yet scarcely com-
pleted; there are more or less imperfect con-
necting links, and as regards the grisly it al-
most seems as if the specific characters were
still unstable. In the far northwest, in the
basin of the Columbia, the “ black” bear is as
often brown as any other color; and I have
seen the skins of two cubs, one black and one
brown, which were shot when following the
same dam. When these brown bears have
coarser hair than usual their skins are with
difficulty to be distinguished from those of
certain varieties of the grisly. Moreover, all
bears vary greatly in size; and I have seen
the bodies of very large black or brown bears
with short fore-claws which were fully as heavy
as, or perhaps heavier than, some small but
full-grown grislies with long fore-claws. These
very large bears with short claws are very re-
luctant to climb a tree; and are almost as
clumsy about it as is a young grisly. Among
the grislies the fur varies much in color and
texture even among bears of the same locality ;
it is of course richest in the deep forest, while
the bears of the dry plains and mountains are
of a lighter, more washed-out hue.

A full grown grisly will usually weigh from
five to seven hundred pounds; but exception-
al individuals undoubtedly reach more than
twelve hundredweight. The California bears
are said to be much the largest. This I think
is so, but I cannot say it with certainty—at
any rate I have examined several skins of
full-grown Californian bears which were no

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 51

larger than those of many I have seen from
the northern Rockies. ‘The Alaskan bears,
particularly those of the peninsula, are even
bigger beasts; the skin of one which I saw in
the possession of Mr. Webster, the taxider-
mist, was a good deal larger than the average
polar bear skin; and the animal when alive,
if in good condition, could hardly have weighed
less than 1,400 pounds.* Bears vary wonder-
fully in weight, even to the extent of becom-
ing half as heavy again, according as they are
fat or lean; in this respect they are more like
hogs than like any other animals.

The grisly isnow chiefly a beast of the high
hills and heavy timber; but this is merely be-
cause he has learned that he must rely on
cover to guard him from man, and has for-
saken the open ground accordingly. In old
days, and in one or two very out-of-the-way
places almost to the present time, he wandered
at will over the plains. It is only the we¢ari-
ness born of fear which nowadays causes him
to cling to the thick brush of the large river-
bottoms throughout the plains country. When
there were no rifle-bearing hunters in the land,
to harass him and make him afraid, he roved
hither and thither at will, in burly self-con-
fidence. ‘Then he cared little for cover, un-
less as a weather-break, or because it hap-
pened to contain food he liked. If the humor
seized him he would roam for days over the
rolling or broken prairie, searching for roots,

*Both this huge Alaskan bear and the entirely distinct bear of
the barren grounds differ widely from the true grisly, at least in
their extreme forms.

52 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

digging up gophers, or perhaps following the
great buffalo herds either to prey on some un-
wary straggler which he was able to catch at
a disadvantage in a washout, or else to feast
on the carcasses of those which died by acci-
dent. Old hunters, survivors of the loneg-
vanished ages when the vast herds thronged
the high plains and were followed by the wild
red tribes, and by bands of whites who were
scarcely less savage, have told me that they
often met bears under such circumstances ;
and these bears were accustomed to sleep in
a patch of rank sage bush, in the niche of a
washout, or under the lee of a boulder, seek-
ing their food abroad even in full daylight.
The bears of the Upper Missouri basin—
which were so light in color that the early ex-
plorers often alluded to them as gray or even
as “ white ”—were particularly given to this
life in the open. To this day that close kins-
man of the grisly known as the bear of the
barren grounds continues to lead this same
kind of life, in the far north. My friend Mr.
Rockhill, of Maryland, who was the first white
man to explore eastern Tibet, describes the
large, grisly-like bear of those desolate up-
lands as having similar habits.

However, the grisly is a shrewd beast and
shows the usual bear-like capacity for adapting
himself to changed conditions. He has in
most places become a cover-haunting animal,
sly in his ways, wary to a degree, and cling:
ing to the shelter of the deepest forests in the
mountains and of the most tangled thickets

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 83

in the plains. Hence he has held his own
far better than such game as the bison and
elk. He is much less common than formerly,
but he is still to be found throughout most
of his former range; save of course in
the immediate neighborhood of the large
towns.

In most places the grisly hibernates, or as

old hunters say “holes up,” during the cold '

season, precisely as does the black bear; but .

as with the latter species, those animals which
live farthest south spend the whole year abroad
in mild seasons. ‘The grisly rarely chooses
that favorite den of his little black brother, a
hollow tree or log, for his winter sleep, seek-
ing or making some cavernous hole in the
ground instead. The hole is sometimes in a
slight hillock in a river bottom, but more often
on a hill-side, and may be either shallow or
deep. In the mountains it is generally a
natural cave in the rock, but among the foot-
hills and on the plains the bear usually has to
take some hollow or opening, and then fashion
it into a burrow to his liking with his big dig-
ging claws.

Before the cold weather sets in the bear
begins to grow restless, and to roam about
seeking for a good place in which to hole up.
One will often try and abandon several caves
or partially dug-out burrows in succession
before finding a place to its taste. It always
endeavors to choose a spot where there is
little chance of discovery or molestation, taking
great care to avoid leaving too evident trace

54 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

of its work. Hence it is not often that the
dens are found.

Once in its den the bear passes the cold
months in lethargic sleep; yet, in all but the
. coldest weather, and sometimes even then, its
slumber is but light, and if disturbed it will
promptly leave its den, prepared for fight or
flight as the occasion may require. Many
times when a hunter has stumbled on the
winter resting-place of a bear and has left it,
as he thought, without his presence being dis-
covered, he has returned only to find that the
crafty old fellow was aware of the danger all
the time, and sneaked off as soon as the coast
was clear. But in very cold weather hibernat-
ing bears can hardly be wakened from their
torpid lethargy.

The length of time a bear stays in its den
depends of course upon the severity of the
season and the latitude and altitude of the
country. In the northernmost and coldest
regions all the bears hole up, and spend half
the year in a state of lethargy; whereas in the
south only the she’s with young and the fat
he-bears retire for the sleep, and these but for
a few weeks, and only if the season is severe.

When the bear first leaves its den the fur is
in very fine order, but it speedily becomes
thin and poor, and does not recover its con-
dition until the fall. Sometimes the bear does
not betray any great hunger for a few days
after its appearance; but in a short while it
becomes ravenous. During the early spring,
when the woods are still entirely barren and

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 55

lifeless, while the snow yet lies in deep drifts,
the lean, hungry brute, both maddened and
weakened by long fasting, is more of a flesh
eater than at any other time.» It is at this
period that it is most apt to turn true beast
of prey, and show its prowess either at the
expense of the wild game, or of the flocks of
the settler and the herds of the ranchman.
Bears are very capricious in this respect, how-
ever. Some are confirmed game, and cattle-
killers ; others are not ; while yet others either
are or are not accordingly as the freak seizes
them, and their ravages vary almost unac-
countably, both with the season and the
locality.

Throughout 1889, for instance, no cattle, so
far as I heard, were killed by bears anywhere
near my range on the Little Missouri in west-
ern Dakota ; yet I happened to know that
during that same season the ravages of the
bears among the herds of the cowmen in the
Big Hole Basin, in western Montana, were
very destructive.

In the spring and early summer of 1888,
the bears killed no cattle near my ranch ; but
in the late summer and early fall of that year
a big bear, which we well knew by its tracks,
suddenly took to cattle-killing. This was a
brute which had its headquarters on some
very large brush bottoms a dozen miles below
my ranch house, and which ranged to and fro
across the broken country flanking the river
on each side. It began just before berry
time, but continued its career of destruction

56 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

long after the wild plums and even buffalo
berries had ripened. I think that what started
it was a feast oh a cow which had mired and
died in the bed of the creek ; at least it was
not until after we found that it had been feed-
ing at the carcass and had eaten every scrap,
that we discovered traces of its ravages among
the livestock. It seemed to attack the animals
wholly regardless of their size and strength ;
its victims including a large bull and a beef;
steer, as well as cows, yearlings, and gaunt,
weak trail ‘“ doughgies,” which had _ been
brought in very late by a Texas cow-outfit—
for that year several herds were driven up
from the overstocked, eaten-out, and drought-
stricken ranges of the far south. Judging
from the signs, the crafty old grisly, as cun-
ning as he was ferocious, usually lay in wait
for the cattle when they came down to water,
choosing some thicket of dense underbrush
and twisted cottonwoods through which they
had to pass before reaching the sand banks on
the river’s brink. Sometimes he pounced on
them as they fed through the thick, low cover
of the bottoms, where an assailant could either
lie in ambush by one of the numerous cattle
trails, or else creep unobserved towards some
browsing beast. When within a few feet a
quick rush carried him fairly on the terrified
quarry ; and though but a clumsy animal com-
pared to the great cats, the grisly is far quicker
than one would imagine from viewing his
ordinary lumbering gait. In one or two in-
stances the bear had apparently grappled with

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 54

his victim by seizing it near the loins and
striking a disabling blow over the small of the
back; in at least one instance he had jumped
on the animal’s head, grasping it with his fore-
paws, while with his fangs he tore open the
throat or craunched the neck bone. Some of
his victims were slain far from the river, in
winding, brushy coulies of the Bad Lands,
where the broken nature of the ground ren-
dered stalking easy. Several of the ranch-
men, angered at their losses, hunted their foe
eagerly, but always with ill success; until one
of them put poison in a carcass, and thus at
last, in ignoble fashion, slew the cattle-killer.

Mr. Clarence King informs me that he was
once eye-witness to a bear’s killing a steer, in —
California. The steer wasin a small pasture,
and the bear climbed over, partly breaking
down, the rails which barred the gateway.
The steer started to run, but the grisly over-
took it in four or five bounds, and struck it a
tremendous blow on the flank with one paw,
knocking several ribs clear away from the
spine, and killing the animal outright by the
shock.

Horses no less than horned cattle at times
fall victims to this great bear, which usually
spring on them from the edge of a clearing as
they graze in some mountain pasture, or
among the foot-hills; and there is no other
animal of which horses seem so much afraid.
Generally the bear, whether successful or un-
successful in its raids on cattle and horses,
comes off unscathed from the struggle ; but

58 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

this is not always the case, and it has much
respect for the hoofs or horns of its should-be
prey. Some horses do not seem to know how
to fight at all; but others are both quick and
vicious, and prove themselves very formidable
foes, lashing out behind, and striking with
their fore-hoofs. I have elsewhere given an
instance of a stallion which beat off a bear,
breaking its jaw.

Quite near my ranch, once, a cowboy in
my employ found unmistakable evidence of the
discomfiture of a bear by a long-horned range
cow. It was in the early spring, and the cow
with her new-born calf was in a brush-bor-
dered valley. The footprints in the damp soil
were very plain, and showed all that had hap-
pened. The bear had evidently come out of
the bushes with a rush, probably bent merely
on seizing the calf; and had slowed up when
the cow instead of flying faced him. He had
then begun to walk round his expected dinner
in a circle, the cow fronting him and moving
nervously back and forth, so that her sharp
hoofs cut and trampled the ground. Finally
she had charged savagely; whereupon the
bear had bolted; and, whether frightened at
the charge, or at the approach of some one,
he had not returned.

The grisly is even fonder of sheep and pigs
than is its smaller black brother. Lurking
round the settler’s house until after nightfall,
it will vault into the fold or sty, grasp a help-
less, bleating fleece-bearer, or a shrieking,
struggling member of the bristly brotherhood,

OLDVWEPHRATI, LU ENGRISLY BEAR. 59

and bundle it out over the fence to its death.
In carrying its prey a bear sometimes holds
the body in its teeth, walking along on all-
fours and dragging it as a wolf does. Some-
times, however, it seizes an animal in its fore-
arms or in one of them, and walks awkwardly
on three legs or two, adopting this method in
lifting and pushing the body over rocks and
down timber.

When a grisly can get at domestic animals
it rarely seeks to molest game, the former
being far less wary and more helpless. Its
heaviness and clumsiness do not fit it well for
a life of rapine against shy woodland crea-
tures. Its vast strength and determined tem-
per, however, more than make amends for
lack of agility in the actual struggle with the
stricken prey ; its difficulty lies in seizing, not
in killing, the game. Hence, when a grisly
does take to game-killing, it is likely to attack
bison, moose, and elk; it is rarely able to
catch deer, still less sheep or antelope. In
fact these smaller game animals often show
but little dread of its neighborhood, and,
though careful not to let it come too near, go
on grazing when a bear is in full sight.
Whitetail deer are frequently found at home
in the same thicket in which a bear has its
den, while they immediately desert the tem-
porary abiding place of a wolf or cougar.
Nevertheless, they sometimes presume too
much on this confidence. A couple of years
before the occurrence of the feats of cattle-
killing mentioned above as happening near my

60 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

ranch, either the same bear that figured in
them, or another of similar tastes, took to
game-hunting. ‘The beast lived in the same
succession of huge thickets which cover for
two or three miles the river bottoms and the
mouths of the inflowing creeks ; and he sud-
denly made a raid on the whitetail deer which
were plentiful in the dense cover. The
shaggy, clumsy monster was cunning enough
to kill several of these knowing creatures.
The exact course of procedure I never could
find out; but apparently the bear laid in wait
beside the game trails, along which the deer
wandered.

In the old days when the innumerable bison
grazed free on the prairie, the grisly some-
times harassed their bands as it now does the
herds of the ranchman. ‘The bison was the
most easily approached of all game, and the
great bear could often get near some outlying
straggler, in its quest after stray cows, year-
lings, or calves. In default of a favorable
chance to make a prey of one of these weaker
members of the herds, it did not hesitate to
attack the mighty bulls themselves; and per-
haps the grandest sight which it was ever the
good fortune of the early hunters to witness,
was one of these rare battles between a hungry
erisly and a powerful buffalo bull. Nowadays,
however, the few last survivors of the bison are
vanishing even from the inaccessible mountain
fastnesses in which they sought a final refuge
from their destroyers.

At present the wapiti is of all wild game

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 61

that which is most likely to fall a victim to the
grisly, when the big bear is in the mood to
turn hunter. Wapiti are found in the same
places as the grisly, and in some spots they
are yet very plentiful; they are less shy and
active than deer, while not powerful enough
to beat off so ponderous a foe; and they live
in cover where there is always a good chance
either to stalk or to stumble on them. At al-
most any season bear will come and feast on an
elk carcass ; and if the food supply runs short,
in early spring, or in a fall when the berry
crop fails, they sometimes have to do their
own killing. Twice I have come across the
remains of elk, which had seemingly been
slain and devoured by bears. I have never
heard of elk making a fight against a bear;
yet, at close quarters and at bay, a bull elk
in the rutting season is an ugly foe.

A bull moose is even more formidable, being
able to strike the most lightning-like blows with
his terrible forefeet, his true weapons of defense.
I doubt if any beast of prey would rush in on
one of these woodland giants, when his horns
were grown, and if he was on his guard and
bent on fight. Nevertheless, the moose some-
times fall victims to the uncouth prowess of
the grisly, in the thick wet forests of the high
northern Rockies, where both beasts dwell.
An old hunter who a dozen years ago wintered
at Jackson Lake, in northwestern Wyoming,
told me that when the snows got deep on the
mountains the moose came down and took up
their abode near the lake, on its western side.

62 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Nothing molested them during the winter.
Early in the spring a grisly came out of its den,
and he found its tracks in many places, as it
roamed restlessly about, evidently very hungry.
Finding little to eat in the bleak, snow-drifted
woods, it soon began to depredate on the |
moose, and killed two or three, generally by
lying in wait and dashing out on them as they
passed near its lurking-place. Even the bulls
were at that season weak, and of course horn-
less, with small desire to fight; and in each
case the rush of the great bear—doubtless
made with the ferocity and speed which so
often belie the seeming awkwardness of the
animal—bore down the startled victim, taken
utterly unawares before it had a chance to
defend itself. In one case the bear had missed
its spring; the moose going off, for a few rods,
with huge jumps, and then settling down into
its characteristic trot. ‘The old hunter who
followed the tracks said he would never have
deemed it possible for any animal to make
such strides while in a trot.

Nevertheless, the grisly is only occasionally,
not normally, a formidable predatory beast, a
killer of cattle and of large game. Although
capable of far swifter movement than is
promised by his frame of seemingly clumsy
strength, and in spite of his power of charging
with astonishing suddenness and speed, he yet
lacks altogether the supple agility of such
finished destroyers as the cougar and the wolf ;
and for the absence of this agility no amount
of mere hugemuscle can atone. He is more apt

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR, 63

to feast on animals which have met their
death by accident, or which have been killed by
other beasts or by man, than to do his own kill-
ing. Heis avery foul feeder, with a strong
relish for carrion, and possesses a grewsome
and cannibal fondness for the flesh of his
own kind; a bear carcass will toll a brother
bear to the ambushed hunter better than almost
any other bait, unless it is the carcass of a
horse.

Nor do these big bears always content them-
selves merely with the carcasses of their
brethren. A black bear would have a poor
chance if in the clutches of a large, hungry
grisly ; and an old male will kill and eat a
cub, especially if he finds it at a disadvantage.
A rather remarkable instance of this occurred
in the Yellowstone National Park, in the spring
of 1891. The incident is related in the follow-
ing letter written to Mr. William Haliett
Phillips, of Washington, by another friend,
Mr. Elwood Hofer. Hofer is an old moun-
tain-man ; I have hunted with him myself, and
know his statements to be trustworthy. He
was, at the time, at work in the Park getting
animals for the National Museum at Washing-
ton, and was staying at Yancey’s “hotel”
near Tower Falls. His letter which was dated
June 21st, 1891, runs in part as follows :

“T had a splendid Grizzly or Roachback
cub and was going to send him into the
Springs next morning the team was here, I
heard a racket outside went out and found
him dead an old bear that made an g 1-2

64 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

inch track had killed and partly eaten him.
Last night another one came, one that made
an 8 1-2 inch track, and broke Yancy up in
the milk business. You know how the cabins
stand here. ‘There isa hitching post between
the saloon and old house, the little bear was
killed there. Ina creek close by was a milk
house, last night another bear came there and
smashed the whole thing up, leaving nothing
but a few flattened buckets and pans and
boards. I was sleeping in the old cabin, I
heard the tin ware rattle but thought it was
all right supposed it was cows or horses about.
I don’t care about the milk but the damn cuss
dug up the remains of the cub I had buried
in the old ditch, he visited the old meat house
but found nothing. Bear are very thick in
this part of the Park, and are getting very
fresh. I sent in the game to Capt. Ander-
son, hear its doing well.”

Grislies are fond of fish; and on the
Pacific slope, where the salmon run, they, like
so many other beasts, travel many scores of
miles and crowd down to the rivers to gorge
themselves upon the fish which are thrown up
on the banks. Wading into the water a bear
will knock out the salmon right and left when
they are running thick.

Flesh and fish do not constitute the grisly’s
ordinary diet. At most times the big bear is
a grubber in the ground, an eater of insects,
roots, nuts, and berries. Its dangerous fore-
claws are normally used to overturn stones
and knock rotten logs to pieces, that it may

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 65

lap up the small tribes of darkness which
swarm under the one and in the other. Itdigs
up the camas roots, wild onions, and an occa-
sional luckless woodchuck or gopher. Iffood
is very plenty bears are lazy, but commonly
they are obliged to be very industrious, it be-
ing no light task to gather enough ants,
beetles, crickets, tumble-bugs, roots, and nuts
to satisfy the cravings of so huge a bulk.
The sign of a bear’s work is, of course, evi-
dent to the most unpractised eye; and in no
way can one get a better idea of the brute’s
power than by watching it busily working for
its breakfast, shattering big logs and upsetting
boulders by sheer strength. There is always
a touch of the comic, as well as a touch of the
strong and terrible, in a bear’s look and ac-
tions. It will tug and pull, now with one paw,
now with two, now on all fours, now on its
hind legs, in the effort to turn over a large log
or stone; and whenit succeeds it jumps round
to thrust its muzzle into the damp hollow and
lap up the affrighted mice or beetles while
they are still paralyzed by the sudden ex-
posure.

The true time of plenty for bears is the
berry season. ‘Then they feast ravenously on
huckleberries, blueberries, kinnikinic berries,
buffalo berries, wild plums, elderberries, and
scores of otherfruits. They often smash all the
bushes in a berry patch, gathering the fruit with
half-luxurious, half-laborious greed, sitting on
their haunches, and sweeping the berries into
their mouths with dexterous paws. Soabsorbed

5

66 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

do they become in their feasts on the luscious
fruit that they grow reckless of their safety,
and feed in broad daylight, almost at midday ;
while in some of the thickets, especially those
of the mountain haws, they make so much
noise in smashing the branches that it isa
comparatively easy matter to approach them
unheard. ‘That still-hunter is in luck who in
the fall finds an accessible berry-covered hill-
side which is haunted by bears; but, as arule,
the berry bushes do not grow close enough to-
gether to give the hunter much chance.

Like most other wild animals, bears which
have known the neighborhood of man are
beasts of the darkness, or at least of the dusk
and the gloaming. But they are by no means
such true night-lovers as the big cats and the
wolves. In regions where they know little of
hunters they roam about freely in the day-
light, and in cool weather are even apt to take
their noontide slumbers basking in the sun.
Where they are much hunted they finally al-
most reverse their natural habits and sleep
throughout the hours of light, only venturing
abroad after nightfall and before sunrise; but
even yet this is not the habit of those bears
which exist in the wilder localities where they
are still plentiful. In these places they sleep,
or at least rest, during the hours of greatest heat,
and again in the middle part of the night, un-
less there is a full moon. ‘They start on their
rambles for food about mid-afternoon, and end
their morning roaming soon after the sun is
above the horizon. If the moon is full, how-

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 67

ever, they may feed all night long, and then
wander but little in the daytime.

Aside from man, the full-grown grisly has
hardly any foe to fear. Nevertheless, in the
early spring, when weakened by the hunger
that succeeds the winter sleep, it behooves
even the grisly, if he dwells in the mountain
fastnesses of the far northwest, to beware ofa
famished troop of great timber wolves. These
northern Rocky Mountain wolves are most
formidable beasts, and when many of them
band together in time of famine they do not
hesitate to pounce on the black bear and
cougar; and even a full-grown grisly is not
safe from their attacks, unless he can back up
against some rock which will prevent them
from assailing him from behind. A _ small
ranchman whom I knew well, who lived near
Flathead Lake, once in April found where a
troop of these wolves had killed a good-sized
yearling grisly. Either cougar or wolf will
make a prey of a grisly which is but a few
months old; while any fox, lynx, wolverine,
or fisher will seize the very young cubs. ‘The
old story about wolves fearing to feast on game
killed by a grisly is all nonsense. Wolves
are canny beasts, and they will not approach
a carcass if they think a bear is hidden near by ©
and likely to rush out at them; but under or-
dinary circumstances they will feast not only
on the carcasses of the grisly’s victims, but on
the carcass of the grisly himself after he has
been slain and left bythe hunter. Ofcourse
wolves would only attack a grisly if in the

68 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

most desperate straits for food, as even a vic-
tory over such an antagonist must be pur-
chased with heavy loss of life; and a hungry
grisly would devour either a wolf ora cougar,
or any one of the smaller carnivora off-hand
if it happened to corner it where it could not
get away.

The grisly occasionally makes its den in a
cave and spends therein the midday hours.
But this is rare. Usually it lies in the dense
shelter of the most tangled piece of woods in
the neighborhood, choosing by preference some
bit where the young growth is thick and the
ground strewn with boulders and fallen logs.
Often, especially if in a restless mood and
roaming much over the country, it merely
makes a temporary bed, in which it les but
once or twice; and again it may make a more
permanent lair or series of lairs, spending
many consecutive nights in each. Usually
the lair or bed is made some distance from the
feeding ground; but bold bears, in very wild
localities, may lie close by a carcass, or in the
middle of a berry ground. ‘The deer-killing
bear above mentioned had evidently dragged
two or three of his victims to his den, which
was under an impenetrable mat of bull-berries
and dwarf box-alders, hemmed in by a cut
bank on one side and a wall of gnarled cot-
tonwoods on the other. Round this den, and
rendering it noisome,were scattered the bones
of several deer and a young steer or heifer.
When we found it we thought we could easily
kill the bear, but the fierce, cunning beast must

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 69

have seen or smelt us, for though we laid in wait
for it long and patiently, it did not come back
to its place; nor, on our subsequent visits,
did we ever find traces of its having done so.
Bear are fond of wallowing in the water,
whether in the sand, on the edge of a rapid
plains river, on the muddy margin of a pond,
or in the oozy moss of a clear, cold mountain
spring. One hot August afternoon, as I was
clambering down a steep mountain-side near
Pend’Oreille lake, I heard a crash some dis-
tance below, which showed that a large beast
was afoot. On making my way towards the
spot, I found I had disturbed a big bear as it
was lolling at ease in its bath; the discolored
water showed where it had scrambled hastily
out and galloped off as I approached. The
spring welled out at the base ofa high granite
rock, forming a small pool of shimmering
broken crystal. The soaked moss lay in a
deep wet cushion round about, and jutted
over the edges of the pool like a floating
shelf. Graceful, water-loving ferns swayed to
and fro. Above, the great conifers spread
their murmuring branches, dimming the light,
and keeping out the heat; their brown boles
sprang from the ground like buttressed col-
umns. On the barren mountain-side beyond
the heat was oppressive. Itwas small wonder
that Bruin should have sought the spot to cool
his gross carcass in the fresh spring water.
The bear is a solitary beast, and although
many may assemble together, in what looks
like a drove, on some favorite feeding-ground

70 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

—usually where the berries are thick, or by
the banks of a salmon-thronged river—the
association is never more than momentary,
each going its own way as soon as its hunger
is satisfied. ‘The males always live alone by
choice, save in the rutting season, when they
seek the females. Then two or three may
come together in the course of their pursuit
and rough courtship of the female ; and if the
rivals are well matched, savage battles follow,
so that many of the old males have their
heads seamed with scars made by their fellows’
teeth. Atsuch times they are evil tempered
and prone to attack man or beast on slight
provocation.

The she brings forth her cubs, one, two, or
three in number, in her winter den. They are
very small and helpless things, and it is some
time after she leaves her winter home before
they can follow her for any distance. They
stay with her throughout the summer and the
fall, leaving her when the cold weather sets in.
By this time they are well grown; and hence,
especially if an old male has joined the she,
the family may number three or four indi-
viduals, so as to make what seems like quite
a .ittle troop of bears. A small ranchman
who lived a dozen miles from me on the Little
Missouri once found a she-bear and _ three
half-grown cubs feeding at a berry-patch in a
ravine. He shot the old she in the small of
the back, whereat she made a loud roaring
and squealing. One of the cubs rushed to-
wards her; but its sympathy proved misplaced,

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 71

for she knocked it over with a hearty cuff,
either out of mere temper, or because she
thought her pain must be due to an unpro-
voked assault from one of her offspring.
The hunter then killed one of the cubs, and
the other two escaped. When bears are to-
gether and one is wounded by a bullet, but
does not see the real assailant, it often alls
tooth and nail upon its comrade, apparently
attributing its injury to the latter.

Bears are hunted in many ways. Some are
killed by poison ; but this plan is only prac-
tised by the owners of cattle or sheep who have
suffered from their ravages. Moreover, they
are harder to poison than wolves. Most often
they are killed in traps, which are sometimes
dead-falls, on the principle of the little figure-
4 trap familiar to every American country
boy, sometimes log-pens in which the animal
is taken alive, but generally huge steel gins.
In some states there is a bounty for the de-
struction of grislies; and in many places their
skins have a market price, although much
less valuable than those of the black bear.
The men who pursue them for the bounty, or
for their fur, as well as the ranchmen who
regard them as foes to stock, ordinarily use
steel traps. The trap is very massive, need-
ing no small strength to set, and it is usually
chained to a bar or log of wood, which does
not stop the bear’s progress outright, but
hampers and interferes with it, continually
catching in tree stumps and the like. The
animal when trapped makes off at once, bit-

72 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

ing at the trap and the bar; but it leaves a
broad wake and sooner or later is found tan-
gled up by the chain and bar. A bear is by
no means so difficult to trap as a wolf or fox
although more so than a cougar or a lynx.
In wild regions a skilful trapper can often
catch a great many with comparative ease. A
cunning old grisly however, soon learns the
danger, and is then almost impossible to trap,
as it either avoids the neighborhood alto-
gether or finds out some way by which to get
at the bait without springing the trap, or else
deliberately springs it first. I have been told
of bears which spring traps by rolling across
them, the iron jaws slipping harmlessly off
the big round body. An old horse is the
most common bait.

It is, of course, all right to trap bears when
they are followed merely as vermin or for the
sake of the fur. Occasionally, however,
hunters who are out merely for sport adopt
this method ; but this should never be done.
To shoot a trapped bear for sport is a
thoroughly unsportsmanlike proceeding. A
funny plea sometimes advanced in its favor is
that it is ‘“ dangerous.” No doubt in ex-
ceptional instances this is true; exactly as it
is true that in exceptional instances it is “ dan-
gerous”’ for a butcher to knock over a steer
in the slaughter-house. A bear caught only by
the toes may wrench itself free as the hunter
comes near, and attack him with pain-
maddened fury ; or if followed at once, and if
the trap and bar are light, it may be found in

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 73

some thicket, still free, and ina frenzy of rage.
But even in such cases the beast has been
crippled, and though crazy with pain and anger
is easily dealt with by a good shot; while or-
dinarily the poor brute is found in the last
stages of exhaustion, tied tight toa tree where
the log or bar has caught, its teeth broken to
splintered stumps by rabid snaps at the cruel
trap and chain. Some trappers kill the trapped
grislies with a revolver; so that it may easily
be seen that the sport is not normally danger-
ous. ‘Two of my own cowboys, Seawell and
Dow, were originally from Maine, where they
had trapped a number of black bears; and
they always killed them either with a hatchet _
or a small 32-calibre revolver. One of them,
Seawell, once came near being mauled by a
trapped bear, seemingly at the last gasp, which
he approached incautiously with his hatchet.
There is, however, one very real danger to
which the solitary bear-trapper is exposed, the
danger of being caught in his own trap. The
huge jaws of the gin are easy to spring and
most hard to open. If an unwary passer-by
should tread between them and be caught by
the leg, his fate would be doubtful, though he
would probably die under the steadily growing
torment of the merciless iron jaws, as they
pressed ever deeper into the sore flesh and
broken bones. But if caught by the arms,
while setting or fixing the trap, his fate would
be in no doubt at all, for it would be impossible
for the stoutest man to free himself by any
means. ‘Terrible stories are told of solitary

74. HUNTING THE GRISLY.

mountain hunters who disappeared, and were
found years later in the lonely wilderness, as
mouldering skeletons, the shattered bones of
the forearms still held in the rusty jaws of the
in.
; Doubtless the grisly could be successfully
hunted with dogs, if the latter were carefully
bred and trained to the purpose, but as yet
this has not been done, and though dogs are
sometimes used as adjuncts in grisly hunting
they are rarely of much service. It is some-
times said that very small dogs are the best
for this end. But this is only so with grislies
that have never been hunted. In such a case
the big bear sometimes becomes so irritated
with the bouncing, yapping little terriers or
fice-dogs that he may try to catch them and
thus permit the hunter to creep upon him.
But the minute he realizes, as he speedily does,
that the man is his real foe, he pays no further
heed whatever to the little dogs, who can then
neither bring him to bay nor hinder his flight.
Ordinary hounds, of the kinds used in the
South for fox, deer, wild-cat, and black bear,
are but little better. I have known one or
two men who at different times tried to hunt
the grisly with a pack of hounds and fice-dogs
wonted to the chase of the black bear, but
they never met with success. This was pro-
bably largely owing to the nature of the country
in which they hunted, a vast tangled mass of
forest and craggy mountain; but it was also
due to the utter inability of the dogs to stop
the quarry from breaking bay when it wished.

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 75

Several times a grisly was bayed, but always
in some inaccessible spot which it took hard
climbing to reach, and the dogs were never
able to hold the beast until the hunters came
up.
still a well-trained pack of large hounds
which were both bold and cunning could
doubtless bay even a grisly. Such dogs are
the big half-breed hounds sometimes used in
the Alleghanies of West Virginia, which are
trained not merely to nip a bear, but to grip
him by the hock as he runs and either throw
him or twirl him round. A grisly could not
disregard a wary and powerful hound capable
of performing this trick, even though he paid
small heed to mere barking and occasional
nipping. Nordo I doubt that it would be
possible to get together a pack of many large,
fierce dogs, trained to dash straight at the
head and hold on like a vice, which could
fairly master a grisly and, though unable, of
course, to kill him, would worry him breathless
and hold him down so that he could be slain
with ease. There have been instances in
which five or six of the big so-called blood-
hounds of the southern States—not pure blood-
hounds at all, but huge, fierce, ban-dogs, with
a cross of the ferocious Cuban blood-hound,
to give them good scenting powers—have by
themselves mastered the cougar and the black
bear. Such instances occurred in the hunting
history of my own forefathers on my mother’s
side, who during the last half of the eighteenth,
and the first half of the present, century lived

46 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

in Georgia and over the border in what are
now Alabama and Florida. These big dogs
can only overcome such foes by rushing in in
a body and grappling all together ; if they hang
back, lunging and snapping, a cougar or bear
will destroy them one by one. With a quarry
so huge and redoubtable as the grisly, no num-
ber of dogs, however large and fierce, could
overcome him unless they allrushed on himina
mass, the first in the charge seizing by the head
or throat. If the dogs hung back, or if there
were only a few of them, or if they did not
seize around the head, they would be des-
troyed without an effort. It is murder to slip
merely one or two close-quarter dogs at a grisly.
Twice I have known a man take a large bull-
dog with his pack when after one of these big
bears, and in each case the result was the
same. In one instance the bear was trotting
when the bulldog seized it by the cheek, and
without so much as altering its gait, it brushed
off the hanging dog with a blow from the fore-
paw that broke the latter’s back. In the other
instance the bear had come to bay, and when
seized by the ear it got the dog’s body up to
its jaws, and tore out the life with one crunch.
A small number of dogs must rely on.

their activity, and must hamper the bear’s
escape by inflicting a severe bite and avoid-
ing the counter-stroke. The only dog I ever
heard of which, single-handed, was really of
service in stopping a grisly, wasa big Mexican
sheep-dog, once owned by the hunter Tazewell
Woody. It was an agile beast with powerful

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 77

jaws, and possessed both intelligence and a
fierce, resolute temper. Woody killed three
grislies with its aid. It attacked with equal
caution and ferocity, rushing at the bear as
the latter ran, and seizing the outstretched
hock with a grip of iron, stopping the bear
short, but letting go before the angry beast
could whirl round and seize it. It was so
active and wary that it always escaped da-
mage ; and it was so strong and bit so severely
that the bear could not possibly run from it at
any speed. In consequence, if it once came
to close quarters with its quarry, Woody could
always get near enough for a shot.

Hitherto, however, the mountain hunters—
as distinguished from the trappers—who have
followed the grisly have relied almost solely on
their rifles. In my own case about half the
bears I have killed I stumbled across almost
by accident; and probably this proportion
holds good generally. The hunter may be.
after bear at the time, or he may be after black-
tail deer or elk, the common game in most of
the haunts of the grisly ; or he may merely be
travelling through the country or prospecting
for gold. Suddenly he comes over the edge of a
cut bank, or round the sharp spur of a mountain
or the shoulder of a cliff which walls in a ravine,
or else the indistinct game trail he has been
following through the great trees twists sharply
to one side to avoid a rock or a mass of down
timber, and behold he surprises old Ephraim
digging for roots, or munching berries, or
slouching along the path, or perhaps rising

78 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

suddenly from the lush, rank plants amid which’
he has been lying. Or it may be that the bear '
will be spied afar rooting in an open glade or
on a bare hill-side. |

In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to
find some favorite feeding ground, where there
are many roots or berry-bearing bushes, or
else to lure the grisly to a carcass. This last
method of “ baiting ”’ for bear is under ordinary
circumstances the only way which affords even
a moderately fair chance of killing them.
They are very cunning, with the sharpest of
noses, and where they have had experience of
hunters they dwell only in cover where it is al-
most impossible for the best of still-hunters to
approach them.

Nevertheless, in favorable ground a man
can often find and kill them by fair stalking,
in berry time, or more especially in the early
spring, before the snow has gone from the
mountains, and while the bears are driven by
hunger to roam much abroad and sometimes
to seek their food in the open. In such cases
the still-hunter is stirring by the earliest dawn,
and walks with stealthy speed to some high
point of observation from which he can over-
lookthe feeding-grounds where he has previ-
ously discovered sign. From the coign of
vantage he scans the country far and near,
either with his own keen eyes or with powerful
glasses; and he must combine patience and
good sight with the ability to traverse long dis-
tances noiselessly and yet at speed. He may
spend two or three hours sitting still and look-

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 79

ing over avast tract of country before he will
suddenly spy a bear; or he may see nothing
after the most careful search in a given place,
and must then go on half a dozen miles to an-
other, watching warily as he walks, and con-
tinuing this possibly for several days before
getting a glimpse of his game. If the bear
are digging roots, or otherwise procuring their
food on the bare hill sides and table-lands, it is
of course comparatively easy to see them ; and
it is under such circumstances that this kind
of hunting is most successful. Once seen, the
actual stalk may take two or three hours, the
nature of the ground and the direction of
the wind often necessitating a long circuit ;
perhaps a gully, a rock, or a fallen log offers
a chance for an approach to within two hun-
dred yards, and although the hunter will, if
possible, get much closer than this, yet even
at such a distance a bear is a large enough mark
to warrant risking a shot.

Usually the berry grounds do not offer such
favorable opportunities, as they often lie in
thick timber, or are covered so densely with —
bushes as to obstruct the view ; and they are
rarely commanded by a favorable spot from
which to spy. On the other hand, as already
said, bears occasionally forget all their watch-
fulness while devouring fruit, and make such
a noise rending and tearing the bushes that, if
once found, a man can creep upon them un-
observed.

80 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

CHAPTER IV.
HUNTING THE GRISLY.

i out in the late fall or early spring, it is

often possible to follow a bear’s trail in
the snow ; having come upon it either by
chance or hard hunting, or else having found
where it leads from some carcass on which the
beast has been feeding. In the pursuit one
must exercise great caution, as at such times
the hunter is easily seen a long way off, and
game is always especially watchful for any foe
that may follow its trail.

Once I killed a grisly in this manner. It
was early in the fall, but snow lay on the
ground, while the gray weather boded a storm.
My camp was in a bleak, wind-swept valley,
high among the mountains which form the
divide between the head-waters of the Salmon
and Clarke’s Fork of the Columbia. All night
I had lain in my buffalo-bag, under the lea of
a windbreak of branches, in the clump of fir-
trees, where I had halted the preceding eve-
ning. At my feet ran a rapid mountain tor-
rent, its bed choked with ice-covered rocks ; I
had been lulled to sleep by the stream’s
splashing murmur, and the loud moaning of
the wind along the naked cliffs. At dawn I

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 81

rose and shook myself free of the buffalo robe,
coated with hoar-frost. ‘The ashes of the fire
were lifeless ; in the dim morning the air was
bitter cold. I did not linger a moment, but
snatched up my rifle, pulled on my fur cap
and gloves, and strode off up a side ravine ;
as I walked I ate some mouthfuls of venison,
left over from supper.

Two hours of toil up the steep mountain
brought me tothe topofa spur. Thesun had
risen, but was hidden behind a bank of sullen
clouds. On the divide I halted, and gazed
out over a vast landscape, inconceivably wild
and dismal. Around me towered the stupen-
dous mountain masses which make up the
backbone of the Rockies. From my feet, as
far as I could see, stretched a rugged and
barren chaos of ridges and detached rock
masses. Behind me, far below, the stream
wound like a silver ribbon, fringed with dark
conifers and the changing, dying foliage of
poplar and quaking aspen. In front the bot-
toms of the valleys were filled with the som-
bre evergreen forest, dotted here and there
with black, ice-skimmed tarns ; and the dark
spruces clustered also in the higher gorges,
and were scattered thinly along the mountain
sides. The snow which had fallen lay in drifts
and streaks, while, where the wind had scope
it was blown off, and the ground left bare.

For two hours I walked onwards across the
ridges and valleys. Then among some scat-
tered spruces, where the snow lay to the depth
of half a foot, I suddenly came on the fresh,

82 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

broad trail of a grisly. The brute was evi-
dently roaming restlessly about in search of a
winter den, but willing, in passing, to pick up
any food that lay handy. At once I took the
trail, travelling above and to one side, and
keeping a sharp look-out ahead. The bear was
going across wind, and this made my task
easy. I walked rapidly, though cautiously ;
and it was only in crossing the large patches
of bare ground that I had to fear making a
noise. Elsewhere the snow muffled my foot-
steps, and made the trail so plain that I
scarcely had to waste a glance upon it, bending
my eyes always to the front.

At last, peering cautiously over a ridge
crowned with broken rocks, I saw my quarry,
a big, burly bear, with silvered fur. He had
halted on an open hill-side, and was busily dig-
ging up the caches of some rock gophers or
squirrels. He seemed absorbed in his work,
and the stalk was easy. Slipping quietly back,
I ran towards the end of the spur, and in ten
minutes struck a ravine, of which one branch
ran past within seventy yards of where the
bear was working. In this ravine was a rath-
er close growth of stunted evergreens, afford-
ing good cover, although in one or two places
I had to lie down and crawl through the snow.
When I reached the point for which I was
aiming, the bear had just finished rooting, and
was starting off. A slight whistle brought him
to a standstill, and I drew a bead behind his
shoulder, and low down, resting the rifle across
the crooked branch of a dwarf spruce. At

HUNTING THE: GRISLY. 83

the crack he ran off at speed, making no
sound, but the thick spatter of blood splashes,
showing clear on the white snow, betrayed the
mortal nature of the wound. For some min-
utes I followed the trail ; and then, topping a.
ridge, I saw the dark bulk lying motionless in
a snow drift at the foot of a low rock-wall,
down which he had tumbled.

The usual practice of the still-hunter who
is after grisly is to toll it to baits. The hun-
ter either lies in ambush near the carcass, or
approaches it stealthily when he thinks the
bear is at its meal.

One day while camped near the Bitter Root
Mountains in Montana I found that a bear
had been feeding on the carcass of a moose
which lay some five miles from the little open
glade in which my tent was pitched, and I
made up my mind to try to get a shot at it
that afternoon. I stayed in camp till about
three o’clock, lying lazily back on the bed of
sweet-smelling evergreen boughs, watching the
pack ponies as they stood under the pines on
the edge of the open, stamping now and then,
and switching their tails. The air was still,
the sky a glorious blue; at that hour in the
afternoon even the September sun was hot.
The smoke from the smouldering logs of the
camp fire curled thinly upwards. Little chip-
munks scuttled out from their holes to the
packs, which lay in a heap on the ground, and
then scuttled madly back again. A couple
of drab-colored whisky-jacks, with bold mien
and fearless bright eyes, hopped and fluttered

84 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

round, picking up the scraps, and uttering an
extraordinary variety of notes, mostly discord-
ant; so tame were they that one of them lit
on my outstretched arm as I half dozed, bask-
ing in the sunshine.

When the shadows began to lengthen, I
shouldered my rifle and plunged into the woods.
At first my route lay along a mountain side;
then for half a mile over a windfall, the dead
timber piled about in crazy confusion. After
that I went up the bottom of a valley bya
little brook, the ground being carpeted with a
sponge of soaked moss. At the head of this
brook was a pond covered with water-lilies ;
and a scramble through a rocky pass took me
into a high, wet valley, where the thick growth
of spruce was broken by occasional strips of
meadow. In this valley the moose carcass
lay, well at the upper end.

In moccasined feet I trod softly through the
soundless woods. Under the dark branches
it was already dusk, and the air had the cool
chill of evening. As I neared the clump
“where the body lay, I walked with redoubled
caution, watching and listening with strained
alertness. Then I heard a twig snap; and
my blood leaped, for I knew the bear was at
his supper. In another moment I saw his
shaggy, brown form. He was working with
all his awkward giant strength, trying to bury
the carcass, twisting it to one side and the
other with wonderful ease. Once he got
angry and suddenly gave it a tremendous cuff
with his paw; in his bearing he had something

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 85

half humorous, half devilish. I crept up
within forty yards; but for several minutes
he would not keep his head still. Then some-
thing attracted his attention in the forest, and
he stood motionless looking towards it, broad-
side to me, with his fore-paws planted on the
carcass. ‘This gave me my chance. I drew
a very fine bead between his eye and ear, and
pulled trigger. He dropped like a steer when
struck with a pole-axe.

If there is a good hiding-place handy it is
better to lie in wait at the carcass. One day
on the head-waters of the Madison, I found
that a bear was coming to an elk I had shot
some days before; and I at once determined to
ambush the beast when he came back that
evening. ‘The carcass lay in the middle of a
valley a quarter of amile broad. The bottom
of this valley was covered by an open forest
of tall pines; a thick jungle of smaller ever+
greens marked where the mountains rose on
either hand. There were a number of large
rocks scattered here and there, one, of very
convenient shape, being only some seventy or
eighty yards from the carcass. Up this I
clambered. It hid me perfectly, and on its
top was a carpet of soft pine needles, on which
I could lie at my ease.

Hour after hour passed by. A little black
woodpecker with a yellow crest ran nimbly
up and down the tree-trunks for some time
and then flitted away with a party of chicka-
dees and nut-hatches. Occasionally a Clarke’s
crow soared about overhead or clung in any

86 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

position to the swaying end of a pine branch,
chattering and screaming. Flocks of cross-
bills, with wavy flight and plaintive calls, flew
to a small mineral lick near by, where they
scraped the clay with their queer little beaks.
As the westering sun sank out of sight be-
yond the mountains these sounds of bird-life
gradually died away. Under the great pines
the evening was still with the silence of prime-
val desolation. The sense of sadness and
loneliness, the melancholy of the wilderness,
came over me like a spell. Every slight noise
made my pulses throb as I lay motionless on
the rock gazing intently into the gathering
gloom. I began to fear that it would grow
too dark to shoot before the grisly came.
Suddenly and without warning, the great
bear stepped out of the bushes and trod across
the pine needles with such swift and silent
footsteps that its bulk seemed unreal. It was
very cautious, continually halting to peer
around; and once it stood up on its hind legs
and looked long down the valley towards the
red west. As it reached the carcass I put a
bullet between its shoulders. It rolled over,
while the woods resounded with its savage
roaring. Immediately it struggled to its feet
and staggered off; and fell again to the next
shot, squalling and yelling. Twice this was
repeated; the brute being one of those bears
which greet every wound with a great outcry,
and sometimes seem to lose their feet when hit
—although they will occasionally fight as
savagely as their more silent brethren. In

HUNTING THE GRISLY, 87:

this case the wounds were mortal, and the
bear died before reaching the edge of the
thicket.

I spent much of the fall of 1889 hunting on
the head-waters of the Salmon and Snake in
Idaho, and along the Montana boundary line
from the Big Hole Basin and the head of the
Wisdom River to the neighborhood of Red
Rock Pass and to the north and west of
Henry’s Lake. During the last fortnight my
companion was the old mountain man, already
mentioned, named Griffeth or Griffin—I can-
not tell which, as he was always called either
ani 7 or Grn. Wi Feimvasivay) cralobediiy
honest old fellow, and a very skilful hunter ;
but he was worn out with age and rheumatism,
and his temper had failed even faster than his
bodily strength. He showed me a greater
variety of game than Thad ever seen before
in so short a time; nor did I ever before or
after make so successful a hunt. But he was
an exceedingly disagreeable companion on
account of his surly, moody ways. I gener-
ally had to get up first, to kindle the fire and
make ready breakfast, and he was very quarrel-
some. Finally, during my absence from camp
one day, while not very far from Red Rock
_pass, he found my whisky-flask, which I kept
purely for emergencies, and drank all the con-
tents. When I came back he was quite drunk.
This was unbearable, and after some high
words I left him, and struck off homeward
through the woods on my own account. We
had with us four pack and saddle horses ; and

88 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

of these I took a very intelligent and gentle
little bronco mare, which possessed the in-
valuable trait of always staying near camp,
even when not hobbled. I was not hampered
with much of an outfit, having only my buffalo
sleeping-bag, a fur coat, and my washing kit,
with a couple of spare pairs of socks and
some handkerchiefs. <A frying-pan, some salt,
flour, baking-powder, a small chunk of salt
pork, and a hatchet, made up a light pack,
which, with the bedding, I fastened across the
stock saddle by means of a rope and a spare
packing cinch. My cartridges and knife were
in my belt; my compass and matches, as al-
ways, in my pocket. I walked, while the little
mare followed almost like a dog, often without
my having to hold the lariat which served as
halter.

The country was for the most part fairly
open, as I kept near the foot-hills where
glades and little prairies broke the pine
forest.) ‘The trees were of small'size. “Ehere
was no regular trail, but the course was easy
to keep, and I had no trouble of any kind
save on the second day. ‘That afternoon I
was following a stream which at last ‘“can-
yoned up,” that is, sank to the bottom of a
canyon-like ravine impassable for a horse. I
started up a side valley, intending to cross
from its head coulies to those of another valley
which would lead in below the canyon.

However, I got enmeshed in the tangle of
winding valleys at the foot of the steep moun-
tains, and as dusk was coming on I halted

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 89

and camped in a little open spot by the side
of a small, noisy brook, with crystal water.
The place was carpeted with soft, wet, green
moss, dotted red with the kinnikinnic berries,
and at its edge, under the trees where the
ground was dry, I threw down the buffalo bed
on the mat of sweet-smelling pine needles.
Making camp took but a moment. I opened
the pack, tossed the bedding on a smooth
spot, knee-haltered the little mare, dragged up
a few dry logs, and then strolled off, rifle on
shoulder, through the frosty gloaming, to see
if I could pick up a grouse for supper.

For half a mile I walked quickly and silently
over the pine needles, across a succession of
slight ridges separated by narrow, shallow
valleys. The forest here was composed of
lodge-pole pines, which on the ridges grew
close together, with tall slender trunks, while
in the valleys the growth was more open.
Though the sun was behind the mountains
there was yet plenty of light by which to shoot,
but it was fading rapidly.

At last, as I was thinking of turning towards
camp, I stole up to the crest of one of the
ridges, and looked over into the valley some
sixty yards off. Immediately I caught the
loom of some large, dark object; and another
glance showed me a big grisly walking slowly
off with his head down. He was quartering
to me, and I fired into his flank, the bullet, as
I afterwards found, ranging forward and
piercing one lung. At the shot he uttered a
loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at

go HUNTING THE GRISLY.

a heavy gallop, while I raced obliquely down
the hill to cut him off. After going a few
hundred feet he reached a laurel thicket, sorne
thirty yards broad, and two or three times as
long which he did not leave. Iran up to the
edge and there halted, not liking to venture
into the mass of twisted, close-growing stems
and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, I
heard him utter a peculiar, savage kind of
whine from the heart of the brush. Accord-
ingly, I began to skirt the edge, standing on
tiptoe and gazing earnestly to see if I could
not catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was
at the narrowest part of the thicket, he sud-
denly left it directly opposite, and then wheeled
and stood broadside to me on the hill-side, a
little above. He turned his head stiffly to-
wards me; scarlet strings of froth hung
from his lips; his eyes burned like embers in
the gloom.

I held true, aiming behind the shoulder,
and my bullet shattered the point or lower
end of his heart, taking out a big nick. In-
stantly the great bear turned with a harsh
roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody
foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam
of his white fangs; and then he charged
straight at me, crashing and bounding through
the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim.
I waited until he came to a fallen tree, raking
him as he topped it with a ball, which entered
his chest and went through the cavity of his
body, but he neither swerved nor flinched,
and at the moment I did not know that I had

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 9

struck him. He came steadily on, and in
another second was almost upon me. I fired
for his forehead, but my bullet went low,
entering his open mouth, smashing his lower
jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one
side almost as I pulled trigger; and through
the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was
his paw as he made a vicious side blow at
me. The rush of his charge carried him
past. As he struck he lurched forward, leav-
ing a pool of bright blood where his muzzle
hit the ground; but he recovered himself and
made two or three jumps onwards, while I
hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into
the magazine, my rifle holding only four, all of
which I had fired. ‘Then he tried to pull up,
but as he did so his muscles seemed suddenly
to give way, his head drooped, and he rolled
over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of
my first three bullets had inflicted a mortal
wound. :

It was already twilight, and I merely opened
the carcass, and then trotted back to camp.
Next morning I returned and with much labor
took off the skin. The fur was very fine, the
animal being in exceilent trim, and unusually
bright-colored. Unfortunately, in packing it
out I lost the skull, and had to supply its
place with one of plaster. ‘The beauty of the
trophy, and the memory of the circumstances
under which I procured it, make me value it
perhaps more highly than any other in my
house.

This is the onlv instance in which I have

92 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

been regularly charged by a grisly. On the
whole, the danger of hunting these great bears
has been much exaggerated. At the begin-
ning of the present century, when white
hunters first encountered the grisly, he was
doubtless an exceedingly savage beast, prone
to attack without provocation, and a redoubt-
able foe to persons armed with the clumsy,
small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles of the day.
But at present bitter experience has taught
him caution. Hehas been hunted for sport,
and hunted for his pelt, and hunted for the
bounty, and hunted as a dangerous enemy to
stock, until, save in the very wildest districts,
he has learned to be more wary than a deer, and
to avoid man’s presence almost as carefully
as the most timid kind of game. Except in
rare cases he will not attack of his own ac-
cord, and, as a rule, even when wounded his
object is escape rather than battle.

Still, when fairly brought to bay, or when
moved by a sudden fit of ungovernable anger,
the grisly is beyond peradventure a very
dangerous antagonist. ‘The first shot, if taken
at a bear a good distance off and previously
unwounded and unharried, is not usually
fraught with much danger, the startled animal
being at the outset bent merely on flight. It
is always hazardous, however, to track a
wounded and worried grisly into thick cover,
and the man who habitually follows and kills
this chief of American game in dense timber,
never abandoning the bloody trail whitherso-
ever it leads, must show no small degree of

HUNTING THE GRISLY, 93

skill and hardihood, and must not too closely
count the risk to life) or limb.’ Bears difier
widely in temper, and occasionally one may
be found who will not show fight, no matter
how much he is bullied; but, as a rule, a
hunter must be cautious in meddling with a
wounded animal which has retreated into a
dense thicket, and has been once or twice
roused ; and such a beast, when it does turn,
will usually charge again and again, and fight
to the last with unconquerable ferocity. The
short distance at which the bear can be seen
through the underbrush, the fury of his charge,
and his tenacity of life make it necessary for
the hunter on such occasions to have steady
nerves and a fairly quick and accurate aim.
It is always well to have two men in follow-
ing a wounded bear under such conditions.
This is not necessary, however, and a good
hunter, rather than lose his quarry, will, under
ordinary circumstances, follow and attack it,
no matter how tangled the fastness in which
it has sought refuge; but he must act warily
and with the utmost caution and resolution,
if he wishes to escape a terrible and probably
fatal mauling. An experienced hunter is
rarely rash, and never heedless ; he will not,
when alone, follow a wounded bear into a
thicket, if by the exercise of patience, skill,
and knowledge of the game’s habits he can
avoid the necessity ; but it is idle to talk
of the feat as something which ought in no
case to be attempted. While danger ought
never to be needlessly incurred, it is yet true

94 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

that the keenest zest in sport comes from its
presence, and from the consequent exercise
of the qualities necessary to overcome it.
The most thrilling moments of an American
hunter’s life are those in which, with every
sense on the alert, and with nerves strung to
the highest point, he is following alone into
the heart of its forest fastness the fresh and
bloody footprints of an angered grisly ; and
no other triumph of American hunting can
compare with the victory to be thus gained.
These big bears will not ordinarily charge
from a distance of over a hundred yards; but
there are exceptions to this rule. In the fall
of 1890 my friend Archibald Rogers was hunt-
ing in Wyoming, south of the Yellowstone
Park, and killed seven bears. One, an old
he, was out on a bare table-land, grubbing for
roots, when he was spied. It was early in the
afternoon, and the hunters, who were ona
high mountain slope, examined him for some
time through their powerful glasses before
making him out to be a bear. They then
stalked up to the edge of the wood which
fringed the table-land on one side, but could
get no nearer than about three hundred yards,
the plains being barren of all cover. After
waiting for a couple of hours Rogers risked
the shot, in despair of getting nearer, and
wounded the bear, though not very seriously.
The animal made off, almost broadside to,
and Rogers ran forward to intercept it. As
soon as it saw him it turned and rushed
straight for him, not heeding his second shot,

HUNTING |THE GkKISLY. 95

and evidently bent on charging home.
Rogers then waited until it was within twenty
yards, and brained it with his third bullet.

In fact bears differ individually in courage
and ferocity precisely as men do, or as the
Spanish bulls, of which it is said that not more
than one in twenty is fitto stand the combat of
the arena. ‘One grisly can scarcely be bullied
into resistance ; the next may fight to the end,
against any odds, without flinching, or even at-
tack unprovoked. Hence men of limited ex-
perience in this sport, generalizing from the
actions of the two or three bears each has
happened to see or kill, often reach diametri-
cally opposite conclusions as to the fighting
temper and capacity of the quarry. Even old
hunters—who indeed, as a class, are very nar-
row-minded and opinionated—often genera-
lize just as rashly as beginners. One will
portray all bears as very dangerous; another
will speak and act as if he deemed them of no
more consequence than so many rabbits. I
knew one old hunter who had killed a score
without ever seeing one show fight. On the
other hand, Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A.,
who has had about as much experience with
bears as I have had, informs me that he has
been charged with the utmost determination
three times. In each case the attack was de-
livered before the bear was wounded or even
shot at, the animal being roused by the ap-
proach of the hunters from his day bed, and
charging headiong at them from a distance of
twenty or thirty paces. All three bears were

96 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

killed before they could do any damage.
There was a very remarkable incident con-
nected with the killing of one of them. It
occurred in the northern spurs of the Bighorn
range. Dr. Merrill, in company with an old
hunter, had climbed down into a deep, nar-
row canyon. The bottom was threaded with
well-beaten elk trails. While following one
of these the two men turned a corner of the
canyon and were instantly charged by an old
she-grisly, so close that it was only by good
luck that one of the hurried shots disabled
her and caused her to tumble over a cut
bank where she was easily finished. They
found that she had been lying directly across
the game trail, on a smooth well beaten patch
of bare earth, which looked as if it had been
dug up, refilled, and trampled down. Look-
ing curiously at this patch they saw a bit of
hide only partially covered at one end; dig-
ging down they found the body of a well grown
grisly cub. Its skull had been crushed, and
the brains licked out, and there were signs of
other injuries. The hunters pondered long
over this strange discovery, and hazarded
many guesses as to its meaning. At last they
decided that probably the cub had been killed,
and its brains eaten out, either by some old
male-grisly or by a cougar, that the mother
had returned and driven away the murderer,
and that she had then buried the body and
lain above it, waiting to wreak her vengeance
on the first passer-by.

Old Tazewell Woody, during his thirty

HUNTING THE GRISLY, 97

years’ life as a hunter in the Rockies and on
the great plains, killed very many grislies.
He always exercised much caution in dealing
with them; and, as it happened, he was by
some suitable tree in almost every case when
he was charged. He would accordingly climb
the tree (a practice of which I do not approve
however) ; and the bear would look up at him
and pass on without stopping. Once, when
he was hunting in the mountains with a com-
panion, the latter, who was down in a valley,
~while Woody was on the hillside, shot at a
bear. The first thing Woody knew the
wounded grisly, running up-hill, was almost
on him from behind. As he turned it seized
his rifle in its jaws. He wrenched the rifle
round, while the bear still gripped it, and
pulled trigger, sending a bullet into its shoul-
der; whereupon it struck him with its paw,
and knocked him over the rocks. By good
luck he fell in a snow bank and was not hurt
in the least. Meanwhile the bear went on
and they never got it.

Once he had an experience with a bear
which showed a very curious mixture of rash-
ness and cowardice. He and a companion
were camped in a little tepee or wigwam, with
a bright fire in front of it, lighting up the
night. ‘There was an inch of snow on the
ground. Just after they went to bed a grisly
came close to camp. Their dog rushed out
and they could hear it bark round in the dark-
ness for nearly an hour; then the bear drove
it off and came right into camp. It went

7

98 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

close to the fire, picking up the scraps of meat
and bread, pulled a haunch of venison down
from a tree, and passed and repassed in front
of the tepee, paying no heed whatever to the
two men, who crouched in the doorway talk-
ing to one another. Once it passed so close
that Woody could almost have touched it.
Finally his companion fired into it, and off
it ran, badly wounded, without an attempt at
retaliation. Next morning they followed its
tracks in the snow, and found it a quarter of
a mile away. It was near a pine and had
buried itself under the loose earth, pine
needles, and snow; Woody’s companion al-
most walked over it, and putting his rifle to
its ear blew out its brains.

In all his experience Woody had personally
seen but four men who were badly mauled by
bears. Three of these were merely wounded.
One was bitten terribly in the back. Another
had an arm partially chewed off. ‘The third
was a man named George Dow, and the acci-
dent happened to him on the Yellowstone,
about the year 1878. He was with a pack
animal at the time, leading it ona trail through
a wood. Seeing a big she-bear with cubs he
yelled at her; whereat she ran away, but only
to cache her cubs, and in a minute, having
hidden them, came racing back at him. His
pack animal being slow he started to climb a
tree; but before he could get far enough up
she caught him, almost biting a piece out of
the calf of his leg, pulled him down, bit and

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 99

cuffed him two or three times, and then went
on her way.

The only time Woody ever sawa man killed
by a bear was once when he had given a touch
of variety to his life by shipping on a New
Bedford whaler which had touched at one of
the Puget Sound ports. ‘The whaler went up
toa part of Alaska where bears were very
plentiful and bold. One day a couple of
boats’ crews landed; and the men, who were
armed only with an occasional harpoon or
lance, scattered over the beach, one of them,
a Frenchman, wading into the water after
shell-fish. Suddenly a bear emerged from
some bushes and charged among the aston-
ished sailors, who scattered in every direction ;
but the bear, said Woody, “ just had it in for
that Frenchman,” and went straight at him.
Shrieking with terror he retreated up to his
neck in the water; but the bear plunged in
after him, caught him, and disembowelled him.
One of the Yankee mates then fired a bomb
lance into the bear’s hips, and the savage
beast hobbled off into the dense cover of the
low scrub, where the enraged sailor folk were
unable to get at it.

The truth is that while the grisly generally
avoids a battle if possible, and often acts with
great cowardice, it is never safe to take liberties
with him; he usually fights desperately and
dies hard when wounded and cornered, and
exceptional individuals take the aggressive on
small provocation.

' During the years I lived on the frontier I

’ rm
iM OT wv
' ine a)

100 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

came in contact with many persons who had
been severely mauled or even crippled for life
by grislies; and a number of cases where
they killed men outright were also brought
under my ken. Generally these accidents, as
was natural, occurred to hunters who had
roused or wounded the game.

A fighting bear sometimes uses his claws
and sometimes his teeth. I have never known
one to attempt to kill an antagonist by hug-
ging, in spite of the popular belief to this
effect; though he will sometimes draw an
enemy towards him with his paws the better
to reach him with his teeth, and to hold him
so that he cannot escape from the biting.
Nor does the bear often advance on his hind
legs to the attack; though, if the man has
come close to him in thick underbrush, or has
stumbled on him in his lair unawares, he will
often rise up in this fashion and strike a single
blow. He will also rise in clinching with a
man on horseback. In 1882 a mounted In-
dian was killed in this manner on one of the
river bottoms some miles below where my
ranch house now stands, not far from the junc-
tion of the Beaver and Little Missouri. The
bear had been hunted into a thicket by a band
of Indians, in whose company my informant,
a white squaw-man, with whom I afterward
did some trading, was travelling. One of
them in the excitement of the pursuit rode
across the end of the thicket; as he did sothe
great beast sprang at him with wonderful
quickness, rising on its hind legs, and knock-

HIUNTING THE GRISLY. IOI

ing over the horse and rider with a single
sweep of its terrible fore-paws. Itthen turned
on the fallen man and tore him open, and
though the other Indians came promptly to
his rescue and slew his assailant, they were
not in time to save their comrade’s life.

A bear is apt to rely mainly on his teeth or
claws according to whether his efforts are
directed primarily to killing his foe or to mak-
ing good his own escape. In the latter event
he trusts chiefly to his claws. If cornered, he
of course makes arush for freedom, and in that
case he downs any man who is in his way
with a sweep of his great paw, but passes on
without stopping to bite him. If while sleep-
ing or resting in thick brush some one suddenly
stumbles on him close up he pursues the same
course, less from anger than from fear, being
surprised and startled. Moreover, if attacked
at close quarters by men and dogs he strikes
right and left in defence.

Sometimes what is called a charge is rather
_an effort to get away. In localities where he
has been hunted, a bear, like every other kind
of game, is always on the look-out for an at-
tack, and is prepared at any moment for im-
mediate flight. He seems ever to have in his
mind, whether feeding, sunning himself, or
merely roaming around, the direction—usually
towards the thickest cover or most broken
ground—in which he intends to run if molested.
When shot at he instantly starts towards this
place ; or he may be so confused that he simply
runs he knows not whither; and in either

102 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

event he may take a line that leads almost
directly to or by the hunter, although he had
at first no thought of charging. Insuchacase
he usually strikes a single knock-down blow
and gallops on without halting, though that
one blow may have taken life. If the claws
are long and fairly sharp (as in early spring,
or even in the fall, if the animal has been work-
ing over soft ground) they add immensely to
the effect of the blow, for they cut like blunt
axes. Often, however, late in the season, and
if the ground has been dry and hard, or rocky,
the claws are worn down nearly to the quick,
and the blow is then given mainly with the
under side of the paw; although even under
this disadvantage a thump from a big bear
will down a horse or smash in a man’s breast.
The hunter Hofer once lost a horse in this
manner. He shot at and wounded a bear
which rushed off, as ill luck would have it,
past the place where his horse was picketed ;
probably more in fright than in anger it struck
the poor beast a blow which, in the end, proved
mortal.

If a bear means mischief and charges not to
escape but to do damage, its aim is to grapple
with or throw down its foe and bite him to
death. The charge is made at a gallop, the
animal sometimes coming on silently, with the
mouth shut, and sometimes with the jaws open,
the lips drawn back and teeth showing, utter-
ing at the same time a succession of roars or
of savage rasping snarls. Certain bears charge
without any bluster and perfectly straight;

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 103

while others first threaten and bully, and even
when charging stop to growl, shake the head,
and bite at a bush or knock holes in the
ground with their fore-paws. Again, some of
them charge home with a ferocious resolution
which their extreme tenacity of life renders
especially dangerous; while others can be
turned or driven back even by a shot which is
not mortal. They show the same variability
in their behavior when wounded. Often a big
bear, especially if charging, will receive a bul-
let in perfect silence, without flinching or seem-
ing to pay any heed to it; while another will
cry out and tumble about, and if charging,
even though it may not abandon the attack,
will pause for a moment to whine or bite at
the wound.

Sometimes a single bite causes death. One
of the most successful bear hunters I ever
knew, an old fellow whose real name I never
heard as he was always called Old Ike, was
killed in this way in the spring or early sum-
mer of 1886 on one of the head-waters of the
Salmon. He was a very good shot, had killed
nearly a hundred bears with the rifle, and, al-
though often charged, had never met with any
accident, so that he had grown somewhat care-
less. Onthe day in question he had met a
couple of mining prospectors and was travelling
with them, when a grisly crossed his path. The
old hunter immediately ran after it, rapidly gain-
ing, as the bear did not hurry when it saw itself
pursued, but slouched slowly forwards, occas-
ionally turning its head to grin and growl. It

104 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

soon went into a dense grove of young spruce,
and as the hunter reached the edge it charged
fiercely out. He fired one hasty shot, evi-
dently wounding the animal, but not seriously
enough to stop or cripple it; and as his two
companions ran forward they saw the bear
seize him with its wide-spread jaws, forcing
him to the ground. ‘They shouted and fired,
and the beast abandoned the fallen man on the
instant and sullenly retreated into the spruce
thicket, whither they dared not follow it.
Their friend was at his last gasp; for the
whole side of the chest had been crushed in
by the one bite, the lungs showing between
the rent ribs.

Very often, however, a bear does not killa
man by one bite, but after throwing him lies on
him, biting him todeath. Usually, ifno assis-
tance is at hand, such a man is doomed; al-
though if he pretends to be dead, and has the
nerve to lie quiet under very rough treatment,
it is just possible that the bear may leave him
alive.perhaps after half burying what it believes
tobe the body. In a very few exceptional in-
stances men of extraordinary prowess with the
knife have succeeded in beating off a bear, and
even in mortally wounding it, but in most cases
a single-handed struggle, at close quarters,
with a grisly bent on mischief, means death.

Occasionally the bear, although vicious, is
also frightened, and passes on after giving one
or two bites; and frequently a man who is
knocked down is rescued by his friends before
he is killed, the big beast mayhap using his

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 105,

weapons with clumsiness. So a bear may kill
a foe with a single blow of its mighty fore-arm,
either crushing in the head or chest by sheer
force of sinew, or else tearing open the body
with its formidable claws ; and so on the other
hand he may, and often does, merely disfigure
or maim the foe by a hurried stroke. Hence
it is common to see men who have escaped
the clutches of a grisly, but only at the cost of
features marred beyond recognition, or a body
rendered almost helpless for life. Almost
every old resident of western Montana or
northern Idaho has known two or three unfor-
tunates who have suffered in this manner. I
have myself met one such man in Helena, and
another in Missoula; both were living at least
as late as 1889, the date at which I last saw
them. One had been partially scalped by a
bear’s teeth; the animal was very old and so
the fangs did not enterthe skull. The other
had been bitten across the face, and the wounds
never entirely healed, so that his disfigured
visage was hideous to behold.

Most of these accidents occur in following
a wounded or worried bear into thick cover ;
and under such circumstances an animal ap-
parently hopelessly disabled, or in the death
throes, may with a last effort kill one or more
of its assailants. In 1874 my wife’s uncle,
Captain Alexander Moore, U.S. A., and my
friend Captain Bates, with some men of the
2d and 3d Cavalry, were scouting in Wyom-
ing, near the Freezeout Mountains. One
morning they roused a bear in the open prairie

106 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

and followed it at full speed as it ran towardsa
small creek. At one spot in the creek beavers
had built a dam, and as usual in such places
there was athick growth of bushes and willow
saplings. Just as the bear reached the edge of
this little jungle it was struck by several balls,
both of its forelegs being broken. Neverthe-
less, it managed to shove itself forward on its
hind-legs, and partly rolled, partly pushed itself
into the thicket, the bushes though low being
so dense that its body was at once completely
hidden. ‘The thicket was a mere patch of
brush, not twenty yards across in any direction.
The leading troopers reached the edge almost
as the bear tumbled in. One of them, a tall
and powerful man named Miller, instantly
dismounted and prepared to force his way in
among the dwarfed willows, which were but
breast-high. Among the men who had ridden
up were Moore and Bates, and also the two
famous scouts, Buffalo Bill—long a companion
of Captain Moore,—and California Joe, Cus-
ter’s faithful follower. California Joe had
spent almost all his life on the plains and in
the mountains, as a hunter and Indian fighter ;
and when he saw the trooper about to rush
into the thicket he called out to him not to do
so, warning him of the danger. But the man
was a very reckless fellow and he answered by
jeering at the old hunter for his over-caution
in being afraid of a crippled bear. California
Joe made no further effort to dissuade him, re-
marking quietly: ‘“ Very well, sonny, go ins
it’s your own affair.” Miller then leaped off

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 107

the bank on which they stood and strode into
the thicket, holding his rifle at the port.
Hardly had he taken three steps when the
bear rose in front of him, roaring with rage
and pain. It was so close that the man had
no chance to fire. Its fore-arms hung useless
and as it reared unsteadily on its hind-legs,
lunging forward at him, he seized it by the
ears and strove to hold it back. His strength
was very great, and he actually kept the huge
head from his face and braced himself so that
he was not overthrown; but the bear twisted
its muzzle from side to side, biting and tear-
ing the man’s arms and shoulders. Another
soldier jumping down slew the beast with a
single bullet, and rescued his comrade; but
though alive he was too badly hurt to recover
and died after reaching the hospital. Buffalo
Bill was given the bear-skin, and I believe has
it now.

The instances in which hunters who have
rashly followed grislies into thick cover have
been killed or severely mauled might be multi-
plied indefinitely. I have myself known of
eight cases in which men have met their deaths
in this manner.

It occasionally happens that a cunning old
grisly will lie so close that the hunter almost
steps on him; and he then rises suddenly with
a loud, coughing growl and strikes down or
seizes the man before the latter can fire off
his rifle. More rarely a bear which is both
vicious and crafty deliberately permits the
hunter to approach fairly near to, or perhaps

108 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

pass by, its hiding-place, and then suddenly
charges him with such rapidity that he has
barely time for the most hurried shot. The
danger in such a case is of course great.

Ordinarily, however, even in the brush, the
bear’s object is toslink away, not to fight, and
very many are killed even under the most unfav-
orable circumstances without accident. If an
unwounded bear thinks itselt unobserved it is
not apt to attack; and in thick cover it is
really astonishing to see how one of these
large animals can hide, and how closely it will
lie when there is danger. About twelve miles
below my ranch there are some large river
bottoms and creek bottoms covered with a
matted mass of cottonwood, box-alders, bull-
berry bushes, rosebushes, ash, wild plums, and
other bushes. ‘These bottoms have harbored
bears ever since I first saw them ; but, though
often in company with a large party, I have
repeatedly beaten through them, and though
we must at times have been very near indeed
to the game, we never so much as heard it
run.

When bears are shot, as they usually must
be, in open timber or on the bare mountain,
the risk is very much less. Hundreds may
thus be killed with comparatively little danger ;
yet even under these circumstances they will
often charge, and sometimes make their charge
good. The spice of danger, especially to a
man armed with a good repeating rifle, is only
enough to add zest to the chase, and the chief
triumph is in outwitting the wary quarry and

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 109

getting within range. Ordinarily the only ex-
citement is in the stalk, the bear doing noth-
ing more than keep a keen look-out and mani-
fest the utmost anxiety to get away. As is
but natural, accidents occasionally occur; yet
they are usually due more to some failure in
man or weapon than to the prowess of the
bear. A good hunter whom I once knew, at
a time when he was living in Butte, received
fatal injuries from a bear he attacked in open
woodland. ‘The beast charged after the first
shot, but slackened its pace on coming almost
up tothe man. The latter’s gun jambed, and
as he was endeavoring to work it he kept step-
ping slowly back, facing the bear which fol-
lowed a few yards distant, snarling and
threatening. Unfortunately while thus walk-
ing backwards the man struck a dead log and
fell over it, whereupon the beast instantly
sprang on him and mortally wounded him be-
fore help arrived.

On rare occasions men who are not at the
time hunting it fall victims to the grisly.
This is usuaily because they stumble on it un-
awares and the animal attacks them more in
fear than in anger. One such case, resulting
fatally, occurred nearmy ownranch. The man
walked almost over a bear while crossing a
little point of brush, in a bend of the river,
and was brained with a single blow of the paw.
In another instance which came to my knowl-
edge the man escaped with a shaking up, and
without evena fright. His name was Perkins,
and he was out gathering huckleberries in the

110 HONTING THE GRISLY.

woods on a mountain side near Pend’ Oreille
Lake. Suddenly he was sent flying head over
heels, by a blow which completely knocked
the breath out of his body; and so instantan-
eous was the whole affair that all he could ever
recollect about it was getting a vague glimpse
of the bear just as he was bowled over. When
he came to he found himself lying some dis-
tance down the hill-side, much shaken, and
without his berry pail, which had rolled a
hundred yards below him, but not otherwise
the worse for his misadventure ; while the foot-
prints showed that the bear, after delivering
the single hurried stroke at the unwitting dis-
turber of its day-dreams, had run off up-hill
as fast as it was able.

A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dan-
gerous beast ; yet even under such conditions
different grislies act in directly opposite ways.
Some she-grislies, when their cubs are young,
but are able to follow them about, seem al-
ways worked up to the highest pitch of anxious
and jealous rage, so that they are likely to at-
tack unprovoked any intruder or even passer-
by. Others when threatened by the hunter
leave their cubs to their fate without a visible
qualm of any kind, and seem to think only of
their own safety.

In 1882 Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, now of
New York, met with a very singular adventure
with a she-bear andcub. He was in Harvard
when I was, but left it and, like a good many
other Harvard men of that time, took to cow-
punching in the West. He went on a ranch

HUNTING THE GRISLY. Tit

in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, and was
a keen hunter, especially fond of the chase of
cougar, bear, and elk. One day while riding
a stony mountain trail he saw a little grisly
cub watching him from the chaparral above,
and he dismounted to try to capture it; his
rifle was a 40-90 Sharp’s. Just as he neared
the cub, he heard a growl and caught a glimpse
of the old she, and he at once turned up-hill,
and stood under some tall, quaking aspens.
From this spot he fired at and wounded the
she, then seventy yards off; and she charged
furiously. He hit her again, but as she kept
coming like a thunderbolt he climbed hastily
up the aspen, dragging his gun with him, asit
had a strap. When the bear reached the foot
of the aspen she reared, and bit and clawed
the slender trunk, shaking it for a moment,
and he shot her through the eye. Off she
sprang for a few yards, and then spun round
a dozen times, as if dazed or partially
stunned ; for the bullet had not touched the
brain. Then the vindictive and resolute beast
came back to the tree and again reared up
against it; this time to receive a bullet that
dropped her lifeless. Mr. Whitney then
climbed down and walked to where the cub
had been sitting as a looker-on. The little
animal did not move until he reached out his
hand; when it suddenly struck at him like an
angry cat, dove into the bushes, and was seen
no more.

In the summer of 1888 an old-time trapper,
named Charley Norton, while on Loon Creek,

112 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

of the middle fork of the Salmon, meddled
with a she and her cubs. Sheran at him and
with one blow of her paw almost knocked off
his lower jaw ; yet he recovered, and was alive
when I last heard of him.

Yet the very next spring the cowboys with
my own wagon on the Little Missouri round-
up killed a mother bear which made but little
more fight than a coyote. She had two cubs,
and was surprised in the early morning on the
prairie far from cover. ‘There were eight or
ten cowboys together at the time, just starting
off on a long circle, and of course they all got
down their ropes in a second, and putting
spurs to their fiery little horses started toward
the bears at a run, shouting and swinging
their loops round theirheads. For a moment
the old she tried to bluster and made a half-
hearted threat of charging; but her courage
failed before the rapid onslaught of her yell-
ing, rope-swinging assailants; and she took
to her heels and galloped off, leaving the cubs
to shift for themselves. The cowboys were
close behind, however, and after half a mile’s
run she bolted into a shallow cave or hole in
the side of a butte, where she stayed cowering
and growling, until one of the men leaped off
his horse, ran up to the edge of the hole, and
killed her witha single bullet from his revolver,
fired so close that the powder burned her hair.
The unfortunate cubs were roped, and then so
dragged about that they were speedily killed
instead of being brought alive to camp, as.
ought to have been done.

HUNTING THE GRISLY. 113

In the cases mentioned above the grisly at-
tacked only after having been itself assailed,
or because it feared an assault, for itself or
for its young. In the old days, however, it
may almost be said that a grisly was more apt
to attack than to flee. Lewis and Clarke and
the early explorers who immediately succeeded
them, as well as the first hunters and trappers,
the “Rocky Mountain men” of the early
decades of the present century, were repeat-
edly assailed in this manner; and not a few
of the bear hunters of that period found that
it was unnecessary to take much trouble about
approaching their quarry, as the grisly was
usually prompt to accept the challenge and to
advance of its own accord, as soon as it discov-
ered the foe. All this is changed now. Yet
even at the present day an occasional vicious old
bear may be found, in some far-off and little-trod
fastness, which still keeps up the former habit
of its kind. All old hunters have tales of this
sort to relate, the prowess, cunning, strength,
and ferocity of the grisly being favorite topics
for camp-fire talk throughout the Rockies ;
but in most cases it is not safe to accept these
stories without careful sifting.

Still, it is just as unsafe to reject them all.
One of my own cowboys was once attacked by
a grisly, seemingly in pure wantonness. He
was riding up a creek bottom, and had just
passed a clump of rose and bullberry bushes
when his horse gave such a leapas almost to un-
seat him, and then darted madly forward.
Turning round inthe saddle to his utter aston-

8

Trg HUNTING THE GRISLY.

ishment he saw a large bear galloping after him,
at the horse’s heels. For a few jumps the
race was close, then the horse drew away and
the bear wheeled and went into a thicket of
wild plums. The amazed and indignant cow-
boy, as soon as he could rein in his steed, drew
his revolver and rode back to and around the
thicket, endeavoring to provoke his late pur-
suer to come out and try conclusions on more
equal terms; but prudent Ephraim had ap-
parently repented of his freak of ferocious
bravado, ‘and declined) to ‘leave the secure
shelter of the jungle.

Other attacks are of amuch more explicable
nature. Mr. Huffman, the photographer of
Miles City, informed me that once when butch-
ering some slaughtered elk he was charged
twice by a she-bear and two well-grown cubs.
This was a piece of sheer bullying, undertaken
solely with the purpose of driving away the
man and feasting on the carcasses ; for in each
charge the three bears, after advancing with
much blustering, roaring, and growling, halted
just before coming to close quarters. In an-
other instance a gentleman I once knew, a
Mr. S. Carr, was charged by a grisly from
mere ill temper at being disturbed at meal-
time. The man was riding up a valley; and
the bear was at an elk carcass, near a clump
of firs. As soon as it became aware of the
approach of the horseman, while he was yet
over a hundred yards distant, it jumped on
the carcass, looked at him a moment, and then
ran straight for him. ‘There was no particular

HUNTING THE GRISLY. I15

reason why it should have charged, for it was
fat and in good trim, though when killed its
head showed scars made by the teeth of rival
grislies. Apparently it had been living so well,
principally on flesh, that it had become
quarrelsome ; and perhaps its not over sweet
disposition had been soured by combats with
others of its own kind. In yet another case,
a grisly charged with even less excuse. An
old trapper, from whom I occasionally bought
fur, was toiling up a mountain pass when he
spied a big bear sitting on his haunches on
the hill-side above. The trapper shouted and
waved his cap; whereupon, to his amazement,
the bear uttered a loud “ wough ” and charged
straight down on him—only to fall a victim
to misplaced boldness.

I am even inclined to think that there have
been wholly exceptional occasions when a
grisly has attacked a man with the deliberate
purpose of making a meal of him; when, in
other words, it has started on the career of a
man-eater. At least, on any other theory I
find it difficult to account for an attack which
once came to my knowledge. I was at Sand
Point, on Pend’ Oreille Lake, and met some
French and Méti trappers, then in town with
their bales of beaver, otte., and sable. One
of them, who gave his name as Japtiste La-
moche, had his head twisted over to one side,
the result of the bite of a bear. When the
accident occurred he was out on a trapping
trip with two companions. ‘They had pitched
camp right on the shore of a cove in a little

116 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

lake, and his comrades were off fishing in a
dugout or pirogue. He himself was sitting
near the shore, by a little lean-to, watching some
beaver meat which was sizzling over the dying
embers. Suddenly, and without warning, a
great bear, which had crept silently up beneath
the shadows of the tall evergreens, rushed at
him, with a guttural roar, and seized him be-
fore he could rise to his feet. It grasped him
with its jaws at the junction of the neck and
shoulder, making the teeth meet through bone,
sinew, and muscle; and turning, tracked off
towards the forest, dragging-with it the helpless
and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men in
the canoe had just paddled round the point, in
sight of, and close to, camp. ‘The man inthe
bow, seeing the plight of their comrade, seized
his rifle and fired at the bear. The bullet
went through the beast’s lungs, and it forth-
with dropped its prey, and running off some two
hundred yards, lay down on its side and died.
The rescued man recovered full health and
streneth, but never again carried his head
straight.

Old hunters and mountain-men tell many
stories, not only of malicious grislies thus at-
tacking men in camp, but also of their even
dogging the footsteps of some solitary hunter
and killing him when the favorable opportun-
ity occurs. Most of these tales are mere
fables ; but it is possible that in altogether ex-
ceptional instances they rest on a foundation
of fact. One old hunter whom I knew told me
such a story. He was a truthful old fellow,

A

HUNTING THE GRISLY. i Gy

and there was no doubt that he believed what
he said, and that his companion was actually
killed by a bear; but itis probable that he was
mistaken in reading the signs of his comrade’s
fate, and that the latter was not dogged by
the bear at all, but stumbled on him and was
slain in the surprise of the moment.

At any rate, cases of wanton assaults by
grislies are altogether out of the common.
The ordinary hunter may lve out his whole
life in the wilderness and never know aught of
a bear attacking a man unprovoked; and the
great majority of bears are shot under cir-
cumstances of no special excitement, as they
either make no fight at all, or, if they do fight,
are killed before there is any risk of their doing
damage. If surprised on the plains, at some
distance from timber or from badly broken
ground, it is no uncommon feat for a single
horseman to kill them with arevolver. Twice
of late years it has been performed in the
neighborhood of myranch. In both instances
the men were not hunters out after game, but
simply cowboys, riding over the range in early
morning in pursuance of their ordinary duties
among the cattle. I knew bothmenand have
worked with them on the round-up. Like
most cowboys they carried 44-calibre Colt re-
volvers, and were accustomed to and fairly
expert in their use, and they were mounted on
ordinary cow-ponies—quick, wiry, plucky little
beasts. In one case the bear was seen from
quite a distance, lounging across a_ broad
table-land. The cowboy, by taking advantage

118 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

of a winding and rather shallow coulie, got
quite close to him. He then scrambled out
of the coulie, put spurs to his pony, and raced
up to within fifty yards of the astonished bear
ere the latter quite understood what it was
that was running at him through the gray
dawn. He made no attempt at fight, but ran
at top speed towards a clump of bruslr not faz
off at the head of a creek. Before he could
reach it, however, the galloping horseman
was alongside, and fired three shots into his
broad back. He did not turn, but ran on in-
to the bushes and then fell over and died.

In the other case the cowboy, a Texan, was
mounted on a good cutting pony, a spirited,
handy, agile little animal, but excitable, and
with a habit of dancing, which rendered it
difficult to shoot from its back. ‘The man was
with the round-up wagon, and had been sent
off by himself to make a circle through some
low, barren buttes, where it was not thought
more than a few head of stock would be found.
On rounding the corner of a small washout he
almost ran over a bear which was feeding on
the carcass of a steer that had died in an alkali
hole. After a moment of stunned surprise
the bear hurled himself at the intruder with
furious impetuosity ; while the cowboy, wheel-
ing his horse on its haunches and dashing in
the spurs, carried it just clear of his assail-
ant’s headlong rush. After a few springs he
reined in and once more wheeled half round,
having drawn his revolver, only to find the
bear again charging and almost on him.

HUNTING |THE GRISLY. 119

‘This time he fired into it, near the joining of
the neck and shoulder, the bullet going down-
wards into the chest hollow ; and again by a
quick dash to one side he just avoided the
rush of the beast and the sweep of its mighty
forepaw. . The bear then halted for a minute,
and he rode close by it at arun, firing a couple
of shots, which brought on another resolute
charge. ‘The ground was somewhat rugged
and broken, but his pony was as quick on its
feet as a cat, and never stumbled, even when
going at full speed to avoid the bear’s first
mad rushes. It speedily became so excited,
however, as to render it almost impossible for
the rider to take aim. Sometimes he would
come up close tothe bear and wait for it to
charge, which it would do, first at a trot, or
rather rack, and then at a lumbering but
swift gallop; and he would fire one or two
shots before being forced torun. At other
times, if the bear stood still in a good place,
he would run by it, firing as he rode. He
spent many cartridges, and though most of
them were wasted occasionally a bullet went
home. ‘The bear fought with the most savage
courage, champing its bloody jaws, roaring
with rage, and looking the very incarnation of
evil fury. For some minutes it made no effort
to flee, either charging or standing at bay.
Then it began to move slowly towards a patch
of ash and wild plums in the head of a coulie,
some distance off. Its pursuer rode after it,
and when close enough would push by it and
fire, while the bear would spin quickly round

120 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

and charge as fiercely as ever, though evi-
dently beginning to grow weak. At last, when
still a couple of hundred yards from cover the
man found he had used up all his cartridges,
and then merely followed at a safe distance.
The bear no longer paid heed to him, but
walked slowly forwards, swaying its great head
from side to side, while the blood streamed
from between its half-opened jaws. On reach-
ing the cover he could tell by the waving of
the bushes that it walked to the middle and
then halted. A few minutes afterwards some
of the other cowboys rode up, having been
attracted by the incessant firing. They sur-
rounded the thicket, firing and throwing stones
into the bushes. Finally, as nothing moved,
they ventured in and found the indomitable
grisly warrior lying dead.

Cowboys delight in nothing so much as the
chance to show their skill as riders and rop-
ers ; and they always try to ride down and
rope any wild animal they come across in
favorable ground and close enough up. If a
party of them meets a bear in the open they
have great fun ; and the struggle between the
shouting, galloping rough-riders and their
shaggy quarry is full of wild excitement and
not unaccompanied by danger. ‘The bear
often throws the noose from his head so rap-
idly that it is a difficult matter to catch him;
and his frequent charges scatter his tormentors
in every direction while the horses become
wild with fright over the roaring, bristling
beast—for horses seem to dread a bear more

HUNTING THE GRISLY. I2I

than any other animal. If the bear cannot
reach cover. however, his fate is sealed.
Sooner or later, the noose tightens over one
leg, or perchance over the neck and fore-paw,
and as the rope straightens with a “ pluck,”
the horse braces itself desperately and the
bear tumbles over. Whether he regains his
feet or not the cowboy keeps the rope taut ;
soon another noose tightens over a leg, and
the bear is speedily rendered helpless.

I have known of these feats being per-
formed several times in northern Wyoming,
although never in the immediate neighbor-
hood of my ranch. Mr. Archibald Roger’s
cowhands have in this manner caught several
bears, on or near his ranch on the Gray Bull,
which flows into the Bighorn ; and those of
Mr. G. B. Grinnell have also occasionally
done so. Any set of moderately good ropers
and riders, who are accustomed to back one
another up and act together, can accomplish
the feat if they have smooth ground and
plenty of room. It is, however, indeed a feat
of skill and daring for a single man; and
yet I have known of more than one instance
in which it has been accomplished by some
reckless knight of the rope and the saddle.
One such occurred in 1887 on the Flathead
Reservation, the hero being a half-breed ; and
another in 1890 at the mouth of the Bighorn,
where a cowboy roped, bound, and killed a
large bear single-handed.

My friend General “Red” Jackson, of
Bellemeade, in the pleasant mid-county of

122 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Tennessee, once did a feat which casts into
the shade even the feats of the men of the
lariat. General Jackson, who afterwards be-
came one of the ablest and most renowned
of the Confederate cavalry leaders, was at the
time a young officer in the Mounted Rifle
Regiment, now known as the 3d United States
Cavalry. It was some years before the Civil
War, and the regiment was on duty in the
Southwest, then the debatable land of Co-
manche and Apache. While on a scout after
hostile Indians, the troops in their march
roused a large grisly which sped off across
the plain in front of them. Strict orders had
been issued against firing at game, because
of the nearness of the Indians. Young Jack-
son was a man of great strength, a keen
_ swordsman, who always kept the finest edge
on his blade, and he was on a swift and met-
tled Kentucky horse, which luckily had but
one eye. Riding at full speed he soon over-
took the quarry. As the horse hoofs sounded
nearer, the grim bear ceased its flight, and
whirling round stood at bay, raising itself on
its hind-legs and threatening its pursuer with
bared fangs and spread claws. Carefully rid-
ing his horse so that its blind side should be
towards the monster, the cavalryman swept
by at a run, handling his steed with such dar-
ing skill that he just cleared the blow of the
dreaded fore-paw, while with one mighty
sabre stroke he cleft the bear’s skull, slaying
the grinning beast as it stood upright.

THE COUGAR, 123

CHAP TE Rai Ne:
THE COUGAR.

O animal of the chase is so difficult to

kill by fair still-hunting as the cougar—

that beast of many names, known in the East

as panther and painter, in the West as moun-

tain lion, in the Southwest as Mexican lion,

and in the southern continent as lion and
puma.

Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain
that from the still-hunter’s standpoint it hardly
deserves to rank as game at all—though, by
the way, it is itself a more skilful still-hunter
than any human rival. It prefers to move
abroad by night or at dusk ; and in the day-
time usually lies hid in some cave or tangled
thicket where it is absolutely impossible even
to stumble on it by chance. It is a beast of
stealth and rapine; its great, velvet paws,
never make a sound, and it is always on the
watch whether for prey or for enemies, while
it rarely leaves shelter even when it thinks
itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements and
uniformity of color make it difficult to dis-
cover at best, and its extreme watchfulness
helps it ; but it is the cougar’s reluctance to

124 FUNTING THE, GRISLY.

leave cover at any time, its habit of slinking
off through the brush, instead of running in
the open, when startled, and the way in which
it lies motionless in its lair even when a man
is within twenty yards, that render it so diffi-
cult to still-hunt.

In fact it is next to impossible with any
hope of success regularly to hunt the cougar
without dogs or bait. Most cougars that are
killed by still-hunters are shot by accident
while the man is after other game. This has
been my own experience. Although not com-
mon, cougars are found near my ranch, where
the ground is peculiarly favorable for the
solitary rifleman ; and for ten years I have,
off and on, devoted a day or two to their pur-
suit; but never successfully. One Decem-
ber a large cougar took up his abcde on a
densely wooded bottom two.miles above the
ranch house. I did not discover his existence
until I went there one evening to kill a deer,
and found that he had driven all the deer off
the bottom, having killed several, as well as
a young heifer. Snow was falling at the time,
but the storm was evidently almost over; the
leaves were all off the trees and bushes ; and
I felt that next day there would be such a
chance to follow the cougar as fate rarely
offered. In the morning by dawn I was atthe
bottom, and speedily found his trail. Fol-
lowing it I came across his bed, among some
cedars in a dark, steep gorge, where the buttes
bordered the bottom. He had evidently just
left it, and I followed his tracks allday. But

THE COUGAR. 126

I never caught a glimpse of him, and late in
the afternoon I trudged wearily homewards.
When I went out next morning I found that
as soon as I abandoned the chase, my quarry,
according to the uncanny habit sometimes
displayed by his kind, coolly turned likewise,
and deliberately dogged my footsteps to with-
ia a mile of the ranch house; his round foot-
prints being as clear as writing in the snow.

This was the best chance of the kind that
I ever had; but again and again I have
found fresh signs of cougar, such as a lair
which they had just left, game they had
killed, or one of our venison caches which
they had robbed, and have hunted for them
all day without success. My failures were
doubtless due in part to various shortcomings
in hunter’s-craft on my own part; but equally
without doubt they were mainly due to the
quarry’s wariness and its sneaking ways.

I have seen a wild cougar alive but twice,
and both times by chance. On one occasion
one of my men, Merrifield, and I surprised
one eating a skunk in a bullberry patch; and
by our own bungling frightened it away from
its unsavory repast without getting a shot.

On the other occasion luck befriended me.
I was with a pack train in the Rockies, and
one day, feeling lazy, and as we had no meat
in camp, I determined to try for deer by
lying in wait beside a recently travelled game
trail. The spot I chose was a steep, pine-
clad slope leading down to a little mountain
lake. I hid behind a breastwork of rotten

126 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

logs, with a few young evergreens in front
—an excellent ambush. A broad game trail
slanted down the hill directly past me. I lay
perfectly quiet for about an hour, listening to
the murmur of the pine forests, and the occa-
sional call of a jay or woodpecker, and gaz-
ing eagerly along the trail in the waning light
of the late afternoon. Suddenly, without
noise or warning of any kind, a cougar stood
in the trail before me. The unlooked-for
and unheralded approach of the beast was
fairly ghost-like. With its head lower than
its shoulders, and its long tail twitching, it
slouched down the path, treading as softly as
a kitten. I waited until it had passed and
then fired into the short ribs, the bullet rang-
ing forward. Throwing its tail up in the air,
and giving a bound, the cougar galloped off
over a slight ridge. But it did not go far;
within a hundred yards I found it stretched
on its side, its jaws still working convulsively.

The true way to hunt the cougar is to follow
it with dogs. If the chase is conducted in
this fashion, it is very exciting, and resembles
on a larger scale the ordinary method of
hunting the wildcat or small lynx, as practised
by the sport-loving planters of the southern
States. With a very little training, hounds
readily and eagerly pursue the cougar, show-
ing in this kind of chase none of the fear and
disgust they are so prone to exhibit when put
on the trail of the certainly no more danger-
ous wolf. The cougar, when the hounds are
on its track, at first runs, but when hard-

THE COUGAR. 127

pressed takes to a tree, or possibly comes to
bay in thick cover. Its attention is then so
taken up with the hounds that it can usually
be approached and shot without much diff-
culty ; though some cougars break bay when
the hunters come near, and again make off,
when they can only be stopped by many large
and fierce hounds. Hounds are often killed ~
in these fights; and if hungry a cougar will.
pounce on any dog for food; yet, as I have else- -
where related, I know of one instance in which
a small pack of big, savage hounds killed a
cougar unassisted. General Wade Hampton,
who with horse and hound has been the
mightiest hunter America has ever seen, in-
forms me that he has killed with his pack
some sixteen cougars, during the fifty years
he has hunted in South Carolina and Missis-
sippi. I believe they were all killed in the
latter State. General Hampton’s hunting
has been chiefly for bear and deer, though
his pack also follows the lynx and the gray
fox; and, of course, if good fortune throws
either a wolf or a cougar in his way it is
followed as the game of all others. All the
cougars he killed were either treed or brought
to bay in a canebrake by the hounds; and
they often handled the pack very roughly in
the death struggle. He found them much
more dangerous antagonists than the black
bear when assailed with the hunting knife, a
weapon of which he was very fond. How-
ever, if his pack had held a few very large,
savage dogs, put in purely for fighting when

128 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

the quarry was at bay, I think the danger
would have been minimized.

General Hampton followed his game on
horseback ; but in following the cougar with
dogs this is by no means always necessary.
Thus Col. Cecil Clay, of Washington, killed
a cougar in West Virginia, on foot with only
three or four hounds. The dogs took the
cold trail, and he had to run many miles over
the rough, forest-clad mountains after them.
Finally they drove the cougar upa tree; where
he found it, standing among the branches,
in a half-erect position, its hind-feet on one
limb and its fore-feet on another, while it
glared down at the dogs, and switched its
tail from side to side. He shot it through
both shoulders, and down it came in a heap,
whereupon the dogs jumped in and worried
it, for its fore-legs were useless, though it
managed to catch one dog in its jaws and
bite him severely.

A wholly exceptional instance of the kind
was related to me by my old hunting friend
Willis. In his youth, in southwest Missouri,
he knew a half-witted ‘“‘ poor white ”’ who was
very fond of hunting coons. He hunted at
night, armed with an axe, and accompanied
by his dog Penny, a large, savage, half-starved
cur. One dark night the dog treed an animal
which he could not see; so he cut down the
tree, and immediately Penny jumped in and
grabbed the beast. The man sung out “ Hold
on, Penny,’ seeing that the dog had seized
some large, wild animal; the next moment

THE COUGAR. 129

the brute knocked the dog endways, and at
the same instant the man split open its head
with the axe. Great was his astonishment,
and greater still the astonishment of the
neighbors next day when it was found that
he had actually killed a cougar. These great
cats often take to trees in a perfectly foolish
manner. My friend, the hunter Woody, in
all his thirty years’ experience in the wilds
never killed but one cougar. He was lying
out in camp with two dogs at the time; it was
about midnight, the fire was out, and the
night was pitch-black. He was roused by
the furious barking of his two dogs, who had
charged into the gloom, and were apparently
baying at something in a tree close by. He
kindled the fire, and to his astonishment
found the thing in the tree to be a cougar.
Coming close underneath he shot it with his
revolver; thereupon it leaped down, ran some
forty yards, and climbed up another tree,
where it died among the branches.

If cowboys come across a cougar in open
ground they invariably chase and try to rope
it—as indeed they do with any wild animal.
I have known several instances of cougars
being roped in this way; in one the animal
was brought into camp alive by two strapping
cowpunchers.

The cougar sometimes stalks its prey, and
sometimes lies in wait for it beside a game-
trail or drinking pool—very rarely indeed does
it crouch on the limb of atree. When excited
by the presence of game it is sometimes very

9

130 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

bold. Willisonce fired at some bighorn sheep,
on a steep mountain-side ; he missed, and im-
mediately after his shot, a cougar made a dash
into the midst of the flying band, in hopes to
secure a victim. ‘The cougar roams over long
distances, and often changes its hunting
ground, perhaps remaining in one place two
or three months, until the game is exhausted,
and then shifting to another. When it does not
lie in wait it usually spends most of the night,
winter and summer, in prowling restlessly
around the places where it thinks it may come
across prey, and it will patiently follow an
animal’s trail. There is no kind of game,
save the full-grown grisly and buffalo, which it
does not at times assail and master. It readily
snaps up grisly cubs or buffalo calves ; and in
at least one instance, I have known of it
springing on, slaying, and eating a full-grown
wolf. I presume the latter was taken by sur-
prise. On the other hand, the cougar itself
has to fear the big timber wolves when
maddened by the winter hunger and gathered
in small parties ; while a large grisly would of
course be an overmatch for it twice over,
though its superior agility puts it beyond the
grisly’s power to harm it, unless by some un-
lucky chance taken ina cave. Nor could a
cougar overcome a bull moose, or a bull elk
either, if the latter’s horns were grown, save
by taking it unawares. By choice, with such
big game, its victims are the cows and young.
The prong-horn rarely comes within reach of
its spring; but it is the dreaded enemy of big-

THE COUGAR. 131

horn, white goat, and every kind of deer, while
it also preys on all the smaller beasts, such
as foxes, coons, rabbits, beavers, and even
gophers, rats, and mice. It sometimes makes a
thorny meal of the porcupine, and if sufficiently
hungry attacks and eats its smaller cousin the
lynx. It is not a brave animal; nor does it
run its prey down in open chase. It always
make its attacks by stealth, and if possible
from behind, and relies on two or three tre-
mendous springs to bring it on the doomed
creature’s back. It uses its claws as well as
its teeth in holding and killing the prey. If
possible it always seizes a large animal by the
throat, whereas the wolf’s point of attack is
more often the haunch or flank. Small deer
or sheep it will often knock over and kill,
merely using its big paws ; sometimes it breaks
their necks. It has a small head compared to
the jaguar, and its bite is much less danger-
ous. Hence, as compared to its larger and
bolder relative, it places more trust in its claws
and less in its teeth.

Though the cougar prefers woodland, it is
not necessarily a beast of the dense forests
only ; for it is found in all the plains country,
living in the scanty timber belts which fringe
the streams, or among the patches of brush in
the Bad Lands. ‘The persecution of hunters
however always tends to drive it into the most
thickly wooded and broken fastnesses of the
mountains. ‘The she has from one to three
kittens, brought forth in a cave or a secluded
lair, under a dead log or in very thick brush.

132 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

It is said that the old he’s kill the small male
kittens when they get a chance. They cer-
tainly at times during the breeding season
fight desperately among themselves. Cougars
are very solitary beasts; it is rare to see more
than one at a time, and then only a mother
and young, ora mated male and female. While
she has kittens, the mother is doubly des-
tructive to game. The young begin to kill
for themselves very early. The first fall, after
they are born, they attack large game, and
from ignorance are bolder in making their
attacks than their parents; but they are clumsy
and often let the prey escape. Like all cats,
cougars are comparatively easy to trap, much
more so than beasts of the dog kind, such as
the fox and wolf.

They are silent animals; but old hunters
say that at mating time the males call loudly,
while the females have a very distinct answer.
They are also sometimes noisy at other seasons.
I am not sure that I ever heard one; but one
night, while camped in a heavily timbered
coulie near Kildeer Mountains, where, as their
footprints showed, the beasts were plentiful,
I twice heard a loud, wailing scream ring-
ing through the impenetrable gloom which
shrouded the hills around us. My companion,
an old plainsman, said that this was the cry
of the cougar prowling for its prey. Cer-
tainly no man could well listen to a stranger
and wilder sound.

Ordinarily the rifleman is in no danger from
a hunted cougar; the beast’s one idea seems

THE COUGAR. 133

to be flight, and even if its assailant is very
close, it rarely charges if there is any chance
for escape. Yet there are occasions when it
will show fight. In the spring of 1890,a man
with whom I had more than once worked on
the round-up—though I never knew his name
—was badly mauled by a cougar near my ranch.
He was hunting with a companion and they
unexpectedly came on the cougar on a shelf
of sandstone above their herds, only some ten
feet off. It sprang down on the man, mangled
him with teeth and claws for a moment, and
then ran away. Another man I knew, a
hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a small
ranch near Helena, was once charged by a
wounded cougar; he received a couple of deep
scratches, but was not seriouly hurt.

Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the
cougar’s occasionally itself making the attack,
and dogging to his death some unfortunate
wayfarer. Many others laugh such tales to
scorn. It is certain that if such attacks occur
they are altogether exceptional, being indeed
of such extreme rarity that they may be en-
tirely disregarded in practice. I should have
no more hesitation in sleeping out in a wood
where there were cougars, or walking through it
after nightfall, than I should ,have if the
cougars were tomcats.

Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional
instances attacks may occur. Cougars vary
wonderfully in size, and no less in temper.
Indeed I think that by nature they are as
ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are

134 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

cowardly ; and that their habit of sometimes
dogging wayfarers for miles is due to a desire
for bloodshed which they lack the courage to
realize. In the old days, when all wild beasts
were less shy than at present, there was more
danger from the cougar; and this was es-
pecially true in the dark canebrakes of some
of the southern States, where the man a cougar
was most likely to encounter was a nearly
naked and unarmed negro. General Hampton
tells me that near his Mississippi plantation,
many years ago, a negro who was one of a
gang engaged in building a railroad through
low and wet ground was_ waylaid and killed
by a cougar late one night as he was walking
alone through the swamp.

I knew two men in Missoula who were once
attacked by cougars in a very curious manner.
It was in January, and they were walking home
through the snow after a hunt, each carrying
on his back the saddle, haunches, and hide of
a deer he had slain. Just at dusk, as they
were passing through a narrow ravine, the
man in front heard his partner utter a sudden
loud call for help. ‘Turning, he was dumb-
founded to see the man lying on his face in
the snow, with a cougar which had evidently
just knocked him down standing over him,
grasping the deer meat; while another cougar
was galloping up to assist. Swinging his rifle
round he shot the first one in the brain, and it
dropped motionless, whereat the second halted,
wheeled, and bounded into the woods. His
companion was not in the least hurt or even

THE COUGAR. 135

frightened, though greatly amazed. The
cougars were not full grown, but young of the
year.

Now in this case I do not believe the beasts
had any real intention of attacking the men.
They were young animals, bold, stupid, and
very hungry. The smell of the raw meat ex-
cited them beyond control, and they probably
could not make out clearly what the men were,
as they walked bent under their burdens, with
the deer skins on their backs. Evidently the
cougars were only trying to get at the venison.

In 1886 a cougar killed an Indian near
Flathead Lake. ‘Two Indians were hunting
together on horseback when they came on the
cougar. It fell at once to their shots, and
they dismounted and ran towards it. Just as
they reached it it came to, and seized one,
killing him instantly with a couple of savage
bites in the throat and chest; it then raced
after the other, and, as he sprung on his horse,
struck him across the buttocks, inflicting a
deep but not dangerous scratch. I saw this
survivor a year later. He evinced great re-
luctance to talk of the event, and insisted that
the thing which had slain his companion was
not really a cougar at ali, but a devil.

A she-cougar does not often attempt to
avenge the loss of her young, but sometimes
she does. A remarkable instance of the kind
happened to my friend, Professor John Bache
McMaster, in 1875. He was camped near the
head of Green River, Wyoming. One after-
noon he found a couple of cougar kittens, and

136 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

took them into camp; they were clumsy,
playful, friendly little creatures. The next
afternoon he remained in camp with the cook.
Happening to look up he suddenly spied the
mother cougar running noiselessly down on
them, her eyes glaring and tail twitching.
Snatching up his rifle, he killed her when she
was barely twenty yards distant.

A ranchman, named Trescott, who was at
one time my neighbor, told me that while he
was living on a sheep-farm in the Argentine,
he found pumas very common, and killed many.
They were very destructive to sheep and colts,
but were singularly cowardly when dealing
with men. Not only did they never attack
human beings, under any stress of hunger, but
they made no effective resistance when brought
to bay, merely scratching and cuffing like a big
cat; so that if found in a cave, it was safe to
creep in and shootthem with a revolver. Jag-
uars, on the contrary, were very dangerous
antagonists.

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 137

CHAPTER. VI.
A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES.

{" the United States the peccary is only found

in the southernmost corner of Texas. In
April 1892, I made a flying visit to the ranch
country of this region, starting from the town of
Uvalde with a Texan friend, Mr. John Moore.
My trip being very hurried, I had but a couple
of days to devote to hunting.

Our first halting-place was at a ranch on the
Frio ; a low, wooden building, of many rooms,
with open galleries between them, and verandas
round about. ‘The country was in some re-
spects like, in others strangely unlike, the
northern plains with which I was so well
acquainted. It was for the most part covered
with a scattered growth of tough, stunted mes-
quite trees, not dense enough to be called
a forest, and yet sufficiently close to cut off
the view. It was very dry, even as compared
with the northern plains. The bed of the
Frio was filled with coarse gravel, and for the
most part dry as a bone on the surface,
the water seeping through underneath,
and only appearing in occasional deep holes.
These deep holes or ponds never fail, even
after a year’s drouth ; they were filled with fish.

138 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

One lay quite near the ranch house, under
a bold rocky bluff; at its edge grew giant
cypress trees. In the hollows and by the
watercourses were occasional groves of pecans,
live-oaks, and elms. Strange birds hopped
among the bushes; the chaparral cock—a
big, handsome ground-cuckoo of remarkable
habits, much given to preying on small snakes
and lizards—ran over the ground with ex-
traordinary rapidity. Beautiful swallow-tailed
king-birds with rosy plumage perched on the
tops of the small trees, and soared and flitted
in graceful curves above them. Blackbirds
of many kinds scuttled in flocks about the
corrals and outbuildings around the ranches.
Mocking-birds abounded, and were very noisy,
singing almost all the daytime, but with their
usual irritating inequality of performance,
wonderfully musical and powerful snatches of
song being interspersed with imitations of
other bird notes and disagreeable squalling.
Throughout the trip I did not hear one of them
utter the beautiful love song in which they
sometimes indulge at night.

The country was all under wire fence, unlike
the northern regions, the pastures however
being sometimes many miles across. When
we reached the Frio ranch a herd of a thou-
sand cattle had just been gathered, and two
or three hundred beeves and young stock were
being cut out to be driven northward over the
trail. The cattle were worked in pens much
more than in the North, and on all the ranches
there were chutes with steering gates, by

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 139

means of which the individuals of a herd
could be dexterously shifted into various
corrals. The branding of the calves was
done ordinarily in one of these corrals and on
foot, the calf being always roped by both fore-
legs; otherwise the work of the cowpunchers
was much like that of their brothers in the
North. As a whole, however, they were dis-
tinctly more proficient with the rope, and at
least half of them were Mexicans.

There were some bands of wild cattle living
only in the densest timber of the river bot-
toms which were literally as wild as deer, and
moreover very fierce and dangerous. The
pursuit of these was exciting and hazardous
in the extreme. The men who took part in
it showed not only the utmost daring but the
most consummate horsemanship and wonder-
ful skill in the use of the rope, the coil being
hurled with the force and precision of an iron
quoit; a single man speedily overtaking,
roping, throwing, and binding down the fiercest
steer or bull.

There had been many peccaries, or, as the
Mexicans and cowpunchers of the border
usually call them, javalinas, round this ranch
a few years before the date of my visit. Until
1886, or thereabouts, these little wild hogs
were not much molested, and abounded in
the dense chaparral around the lower Rio
Grande. In that year, however, it was sud-
denly discovered that their hides had a market
value, being worth four bits—that is, half a
dollar—apiece ; and many Mexicans and not

140 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

a few shiftless Texans went into the business
of hunting them as a means of livelihood.
They were more easily killed than deer, and,
as a result, they were speedily exterminated
in many localities where they had formerly
been numerous, and even where they were
left were to be found only in greatly dimin-
ished numbers. On this particular Frio
ranch the last little band had been killed
nearly a year before. There were three of
them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of
the cowboys stumbled on them early one
morning while out with a dog. After half a
mile’s chase the three peccaries ran into a
hollow pecan tree, and one of the cowboys,
dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his
knife to the end of a pole, and killed them
all.

Many anecdotes were related to me of what
they had done in the old days when they were
plentiful on the ranch. They were then
usually found in parties of from twenty to
thirty, feeding in the dense chaparral, the
sows rejoining the herd with the young very
soon after the birth of the latter, each sow
usually having but one or two at a litter. At.
night they sometimes lay in the thickest
cover, but always, where possible, preferred
to house in a cave or big hollow log, one in-
variably remaining as a sentinel close to the
mouth, looking out. If this sentinel were shot,
another would almost certainly take his place.
They were subject to freaks of stupidity, and
were pugnacious toa degree. Not only would

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. tat

they fight if molested, but they would often at-
tack entirely without provocation.

Once my friend Moore himself, while out
with another cowboy on horseback, was at-
tacked in sheer wantonness by a drove of
these little wild hogs. The two men were
riding by a grove of live-oaks along a wood-
cutter’s cart track, and were assailed without
a moment’s warning. The little creatures
completely surrounded them, cutting fiercely
at the horses’ legs and jumping up at the
riders’ feet. The men, drawing their revolv-
ers, dashed through and were closely followed
by their pursuers for three or four hundred
yards, although they fired right and left with
good effect. Both of the horses were badly
cut. On another occasion the bookkeeper of
the ranch walked off to a water hole but a
quarter of a mile distant, and came face to
face with a peccary on a cattle trail, where
the brush was thick. Instead of getting out
of his way the creature charged him instantly,
drove him up a small mesquite tree, and kept
him there for nearly two hours, looking up at
him and champing its tusks.

I spent two days hunting round this ranch
but saw no peccary sign whatever, although
deer were quite plentiful. Parties of wild
geese and sandhill cranes occasionally flew
overhead. At nightfall the poor-wills wailed
everywhere through the woods, and coyotes
yelped and yelled, while in the early morning
the wild turkeys gobbled loudly from their
roosts in the tops of the pecan trees.

142 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Having satisfied myself that there were no
javalinas left on the Frio ranch, and being
nearly at the end of my holiday, I was about
to abandon the effort to get any, when a
passing cowman happened to mention the fact
that some were still to be found on the Nueces
River thirty miles or thereabouts to the south-
ward. ‘Thither I determined to go, and next
morning Moore and I started in a_ buggy
drawn by a redoubtable horse, named Jim
Swinger, which we were allowed to use be-
cause he bucked so under the saddle that
nobody on the ranch could ride him. We
drove six or seven hours across the dry,
waterless plains. ‘There had been a heavy
frost a few days before, which had blackened
the budding mesquite trees, and their twigs still
showed no signs of sprouting. Occasionally
we came across open spaces where there was
nothing but short brown grass. In most
places, however, the leafless, sprawling mes-
quites were scattered rather thinly over the
ground, cutting off an extensive view and
_merely adding to the melancholy barrenness of
the landscape. ‘The road was nothing but a
couple of dusty wheel-tracks ; the ground was
parched, and the grass cropped close by the
gaunt, starved cattle. As we drove along
buzzards and great hawks occasionally soared
overhead. Now and then we passed lines of
wild-looking, long-horned steers, and once we
came on the grazing horses of a cow-outfit,
just preparing to start northward over the
trail to the fattening pastures. Occasionally

0

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 143

we encountered one or two cowpunchers:
either Texans, habited exactly like their
brethren in the North, with broad-brimmed
gray hats, blue shirts, silk neckerchiefs, and
leather leggings ; or else’ ;/Mexicans,),' more
gaudily dressed, and wearing peculiarly stiff,
very broad-brimmed hats, with conical tops.

Toward the end of our ride we got where
the ground was more fertile, and there had
recently been a sprinkling of rain. Here we
came across wonderful flower prairies. In
one spot I kept catching glimpses through the
mesquite trees of lilac stretches which I had
first thought must be ponds of water. On
coming nearer they proved to be acres on
acres thickly covered with beautiful lilac-
colored flowers. Farther on we came to
where broad bands of red flowers covered the
ground for many furlongs; then their places
were taken by yellow blossoms, elsewhere by
white. Generally each band or patch of
ground was covered densely by flowers of the
same color, making a great vivid streak across
the landscape ; but in places they were mixed
together, red, yellow, and purple, interspersed
in patches and curving bands, carpeting the
prairie in a strange, bright pattern.

Finally, toward evening we reached the
Nueces. Where we struck it first the bed was
dry, except in occasional deep, malarial-look-
ing pools, but a short distance below there
began to be a running current. Great blue
herons were stalking beside these pools, and
from one we flushed a white ibis. In the

144 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

woods were reddish cardinal birds, much less
brilliant in plumage than the true cardinals
and the scarlet tanagers; and yellow-headed
titmice which had already built large domed
nests.

In the valley of the Nueces itself, the brush
grew thick. There were great groves of pe-
can trees, and ever-green live-oaks stood in
many places, long, wind-shaken tufts of gray
moss hanging from their limbs. Many of the
trees in the wet spots were of giant size, and
the whole landscape was semi-tropical in char-
acter. High ona bluff shoulder overlooking
the course of the river was perched the ranch
house, toward which we were bending our
steps; and here we were received with the
hearty hospitality characteristic of the ranch
country everywhere.

The son of the ranchman, a tall, well-built
young fellow, told me at once that there were
peccaries in the neighborhood, and that he
had himself shot one but two or three days
before, and volunteered to lend us horses and
pilot us to the game on the morrow, with the
help of histwo dogs. The last were big black
curs with, as we were assured, “ considerable
hound” in them. One was at the time stay-
ing at the ranch house, the other was four or
five miles off with a Mexican goat-herder,
and it was arranged that early in the morning
we should ride down to the latter place, tak-
ing the first dog with us and procuring his
companion when we reached the goat-herder’s
house.

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 145

We started after breakfast, riding powerful
cow-ponies, well trained to gallop at full speed
through the dense chaparral. The big black
hound slouched at our heels. We rode down
the banks of the Nueces, crossing and recross-
ing the stream. Here and there were long,
deep pools in the bed of the river, where
rushes and lilies grew and huge mailed garish
swam slowly just beneath the surface of the
water. Once my two companions stopped to
pull a mired cow out of a slough, hauling
with ropes from their saddle horns. In places
there were half-dry pools, out of the regular
current of the river, the water green and fetid.
The trees were very tall and large. The
streamers of pale gray moss hung thickly from
the branches of the live-oaks, and when many
trees thus draped stood close together they
bore a strangely mournful and desolate look.

We finally found the queer little hut of the
Mexican goat-herder in the midst of a grove
of giant pecans. On the walls were nailed
the skins of different beasts, raccoons, wild-
cats, and the tree-civet, with its ringed tail.
The Mexican’s brown wife and children were
in the hut, but the man himself and the goats
were off in the forest, and it took us three or
four hours’ search before we found him.
Then it was nearly noon, and we lunched in
his hut, a square building of split logs, with
bare earth floor, and roof of clap-boards and
bark. Our lunch consisted of goat’s meat
and pan de mais. The Mexican, a broad-
chested man with a stolid Indian face, was

se)

146 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

evidently quite a sportsman, and had two or
three half-starved hounds, besides the funny,
hairless little house dogs, of which Mexicans
seem so fond.

Having borrowed the javalina hound of
which we were in search, we rode off in quest
of our game, the two dogs trotting gayly
ahead. The one which had been living at
the ranch had evidently fared well, and was
very fat; the other was little else but skin and
bone, but as alert and knowing as any New
York street-boy, with the same air of disreput-
able capacity. It was this hound which always
did most in finding the javalinas and bringing
them to bay, his companion’s chief use being
to make a noise and lend the moral support of
his presence.

We rode away from the river on the dry up-
lands, where the timber, though thick, was
small, consisting almost exclusively of the
thorny mesquites. Mixed among them were
prickly pears, standing as high as our heads
on horseback, and Spanish bayonets, look-
ing in the distance like small palms; and
there were many other kinds of cactus, all
with poisonous thorns. Two or three times
the dogs got on an old trail and rushed off
giving tongue, whereat we galloped madly af-
ter them, ducking and dodging through and
among the clusters of spine-bearing trees and
cactus, not without getting a considerable
number of thorns in our hands and legs. It
was very dry and hot. Where the javalinas
live in droves in the river bottoms they often

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 147

drink at the pools; but when some distance
from water they seem to live quite comfort-
ably on the prickly pear, slaking their thirst
by eating its hard, juicy fibre.

At last, after several false alarms, and gal-
lops which led to nothing, when it lacked but
an hour of sundown we struck a band of five
of the little wild hogs. They were running off
through the mesquites with a peculiar hopping
or bounding motion, and we all, dogs andmen,
tore after them instantly.

Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred
yards, but speedily tire, lose their wind, and
cometo bay. Almost immediately one of these,
a sow, as it turned out, wheeled and charged at
Mooreas he passed. Moore never seeing her
but keeping on after another. The sow then
stopped and stood still, chattering her teeth
savagely, and I jumped off my horse and
dropped her dead with a shot in the spine,
over the shoulders. Moore meanwhile had
dashed off after his pig in one direction, and
killed the little beast with a shot from the sad-
dle when it had come to bay, turning and going
straight athim. Two of the peccaries got off ;
the remaining one, a rather large boar, was fol-
lowed by the two dogs, and as soon as I had
killed the sow I leaped again on my horse and
made after them,guided by the yelping and bay-
ing. Inless thana quarter ofa mile they were
on his haunches, and he wheeled and stood un-
der a bush, charging at them when they came
near him, and once catching one, inflicting an
ugly cut. All the while his teeth kept going

148 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

like castanets, with a rapid champing sound.
I ran up close and killed him by a shot through
the backbone where it joined the neck. His
tusks were fine.

The few minutes’ chase on horseback was
great fun, and there wasa certain excitement
in seeing the fierce little creatures come to bay ;
but the true way to kill these peccaries would
be with the spear. They could often be
speared on horseback, and where this was im-
possible, by using dogs to bring them to bay
they could readily be killed on foot; though,
as they are very active, absolutely fearless, and
inflict a most formidable bite, it would usually
be safest to have two men go at one together.
Peccaries are not difficult beasts to kill, because
their short wind and their pugnacity make them
come to bay before hounds so quickly. ‘Two
or three good dogs can bring to a halt a herd
of considerable size. ‘They then all stand in
a bunch, or else with their sterns against a
bank, chattering their teeth at their antagonists.
When angry and at bay, they get their legs
close together, their shoulders high, and their
bristles all ruffled and look the very incarnation
of anger, and they fight with reckless indiffer-
ence to the very last. Hunters usually treat
them with a certain amount of caution; but,
as a matter of fact, I know of but one case
where a man was hurt by them. He had shot
at and wounded one, was charged both by it
and by its two companions, and started to climb
a tree; but as he drew himself from the ground,
one sprang at him and bit him through the

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 149

calf, inflicting a very severe wound. I have
known of several cases of horses being cut,
however, and dogs are very commonly killed.
Indeed, a dog new to the business is almost
certain to get very badly scarred, and no dog
that hunts steadily can escape without some
injury. If it runs in right at the heads of the
animals, the probabilities are that it will get
killed; and, as a rule, even two good-sized
hounds cannot kill a peccary, though it is no
larger than either of them. However, a wary,
resolute, hard-biting dog of good size speedily
gets accustomed to the chase, and can kill a
peccary single-handed, seizing it from behind
and worrying it to death, or watching its chance
and grabbing it by the back of the neck where
it joins the head.

Peccaries have delicately moulded short legs,
and their feet are small, the tracks looking
peculiarly dainty in consequence. Hence,
they do not swim well, though they take to the
mater) th) necessary. hey" feed) on)))\roots;
prickly pears, nuts, insects, lizards, etc. They
usually keep entirely separate from the droves
of half-wild swine that are so often found in the
same neighborhoods ; but in one case, on this
very ranch where I was staying, a peccary
deliberately joined a party of nine pigs and
associated with them. When the owner of
the pigs came up to them one day the peccary
manifested great suspicion at his presence,
and finally sidled close up and threatened to
attack him, so that he had to shoot it. The
ranchman’s son told me that he had never but

150 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

once had a peccary assail him unprovoked,
and even in this case it was his dog that was
the object of attack, the peccary rushing out
at it as it followed him home one evening
through the chaparral. Even around this ranch
the peccaries had very greatly decreased in
numbers, and the survivors were learning some
caution. In the old days it had been no un-
common thing for a big band to attack entire-
ly of their own accord, and keep a hunter up a
tree for hours at a time.

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. a

CHAPTER WL
HUNTING WITH HOUNDS.

N hunting American big game with hounds,
several entirely distinct methods are pur-
sued. The true wilderness hunters, the men
who in the early days lived alone in, or moved
in parties through, the Indian-haunted sol-
itudes, like their successors of to-day, rarely
made use of a pack of hounds, and, as a rule,
did not use dogs at all. In the eastern for-
ests occasionally an old time hunter would
own one or two track-hounds, slow, with a good
nose, intelligent and obedient, of use mainly
in following wounded game. Some Rocky
Mountain hunters nowadays employ the same
kind of a dog, but the old-time trappers of the
great plains and the Rockies led such wander-
ing lives of peril and hardship that they could
not readily take dogs withthem. ‘The hunters
of the Alleghanies and the Adirondacks have,
however, always used hounds to drive deer,
killing the animal in the water or at a run-
away.

As soon, however, as the old wilderness
hunter type passes away, hounds come into
use among his successors, the rough border
settlers of the backwoods and the plains.

152 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Every such settler is apt to have four or five
large mongrel dogs with hound blood in them,
which serve to drive off beasts of prey from
the sheepfold and cattle-shed, and are also
used, when the occasion suits, in regular hunt-
ing, whether after bear or deer.

Many of the southern planters have always
kept packs of fox-hounds, which are used in
the chase, not only of the gray and the red fox,
but also of the deer, the black bear, and the
wildcat. The fox the dogs themselves run
down and kill, but as arule in this kind of
hunting, when after deer, bear, or even wild-
cat, the hunters carry guns with them on their
horses, and endeavor either to get a shot at
the fleeing animal by hard and dexterous rid-
ing, or else to kill the cat when treed, or the
bear when it comes to bay. Such hunting is
great sport.

Killing driven game by lying in wait for it
to pass is the very poorest kind of sport that
can be called legitimate. This is the way the
deer is usually killed with hounds in the East.
In the North the red fox is often killed in
somewhat the same manner, being followed by
a slow hound and shot at as he circles before
the dog. Although this kind of fox-hunting
is inferior to hunting on horseback, it never-
theless has its merits, as the man must walk
and run well, shoot with some accuracy, and
show considerable knowledge both of the
country and of the habits of the game.

During the last score of years an entirely
different type of dog from the fox-hound has

—

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 1o3

firmly established itself in the field of Amer-
ican sport. This is the greyhound, whether
the smooth-haired, or the rough-coated Scotch
deer-hound. For half a century the army
officers posted in the far West have occasion-
ally had greyhounds with them, using the dogs
to course jack-rabbit, coyote, and sometimes
deer, antelope, and gray wolf. Many of them
were devoted to this sport,—General Custer,
for instance. I have myself hunted with many
of the descendants of Custer’s hounds. In
the early, 70’s the ranchmen of the great plains
themselves began to keep greyhounds for
coursing (as indeed they had already been
used for a considerable time in California,
after the Pacific coast jack-rabbit), and the
sport speedily assumed large proportions and
a permanent form. Nowadays the ranchmen
of the cattle country not only use their grey-
hounds after the jack-rabbit, but also after
every other kind of game animal to be found
there, the antelope and coyote being especial
favorites. Many ranchmen soon grew to own
fine packs, coursing being the sport of all
sports for the plains. In Texas the wild tur-
key was frequently an object of the chase, and
wherever the locality enabled deer to be fol-
lowed in the open, as for instance in the In-
dian territory, and in many places in the
neighborhood of the large plains rivers, the
whitetail was a favorite quarry, the hunters
striving to surprise it in the early morning
when feeding on the prairie.

I have myself generally coursed with scratch

154 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

packs, including perhaps a couple of grey-
hounds, a wire-haired deer-hound, and two or
three long-legged mongrels. However, we
generally had at least one very fast and sav-
age dog—a strike dog—in each pack, and the
others were of assistance in turning the game,
sometimes in tiring it, and usually in helping
to finish it at the worry. With such packs I
have had many a wildly exciting ride over
the great grassy plains lying near the Little
Missouri and the Knife and Heart rivers.
Usually our proceedings on such a hunt were
perfectly simple. We started on horseback
and when reaching favorable ground beat
across it in a long scattered line of men and
dogs. Anything that we put up, from a fox
to a coyote or a prong-buck, was fair game,
and was instantly followed at fullspeed. The
animals we most frequently killed were jack-
rabbits. ‘They always gave good runs, though
like other game they differed much individu-
ally in speed. The foxes did not run so
well, and whether they were the little swift, or
the big red prairie fox, they were speedily
snapped up if the dogs had a fair showing.
Once our dogs roused a blacktail buck close
up out of a brush coulie where the ground was
moderately smooth, and after a headlong chase
of a mile they ran into him, threw him, and
killed him before he could rise. (His stiff-
legged bounds sent him along at a tremendous
pace at first, but he seemed to tire rather
easily.) On two or three occasions we killed
whitetail deer, and several times antelope.

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 155

Usually, however, the antelopes escaped.
The bucks sometimes made a good fight, but
generally they were seized while running,
some dogs catching by the throat, others by
the shoulders, and others again by the flank
just in front of the hind-leg. Wherever the
hold was obtained, if the dog made his spring
cleverly, the buck was sure to come down with
a crash, and if the other dogs were anywhere
near he was probably killed before he could
rise, although not infrequently the dogs them-
selves were more or less scratched in the con-
tests. Some greyhounds, even of high breed-
ing, proved absolutely useless from timidity,
being afraid to take hold; but if they got ac-
customed to the chase, being worked with old
dogs, and had any pluck at all, they proved
singularly fearless. A big ninety-pound grey-_
hound or Scotch deer-hound isa very formid-
able fighting dog; I saw one whip a big mas-
tiff in short order, his wonderful agility being
of more account than his adversary’s superior
weight.

The proper way to course, however, is to
take the dogs out in a wagon and drive them
thus until the game is seen. ‘This prevents
their being tired out. In my own hunting, most
of the antelope aroused got away, the dogs
being jaded when the chase began. But really
fine greyhounds, accustomed to work together
and to hunt this species of game, will usually
render a good account of a prong-buck if two
or three are slipped at once, fresh, and within
a moderate distance.

156 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Although most Westerners take more kindly
to the rifle, now and then one is found who is
a devotee of the hound. Such a one was an
old Missourian, who may be called Mr. Cow-
ley, whom I knew when he was living ona
ranch in North Dakota, west of the Missouri.
Mr. Cowley was a primitive person, of much
nerve, which he showed not only in the hunt-
ing field but in the startling political conven-
tions of the place and period. He was quite
well off, but he was above the niceties of per-
sonal vanity. His hunting garb was that in
which he also paid his rare formal calls—calls
throughout which he always preserved the
gravity of an Indian, though having a discon-
certing way of suddenly tip-toeing across the
room to some unfamiliar object, such as a
peacock screen or a vase, feeling it gently
with one forefinger, and returning with noise-
less gait to his chair, unmoved, and making
no comment. On the morning of a hunt he
would always appear on a stout horse, clad in
a long linen duster, a huge club in his hand,
and his trousers working half-way up his legs.
He hunted everything on all possible occa-
sions; and he never under any circumstances
shot an animal that the dogs could kill. Once
when a skunk got into his house, with the
direful stupidity of its perverse kind, he turned
the hounds on it; a manifestation of sporting
spirit which aroused the ire of even his long-
suffering wife. As for his dogs, provided
they could run and fight, he cared no more
for their looks than for his own; he preferred

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 157

the animal to be half greyhound, but the other
half could be fox-hound, colley, or setter, it
mattered nothing tohim. ‘They were a wicked,
hardbiting crew for all that, and Mr. Cowley,
in his flapping linen duster, was a first-class
hunter and a good rider. He went almost
mad with excitement in every chase. His
pack usually hunted coyote, fox, jack-rabbit,
and deer; and | have had more than one
good run with it.

My own experience is too limited to allow
me to pass judgment with certainty as to the
relative speed of the different beasts of the
chase, especially as there is so much individ-
ual variation. I consider the antelope the
fleetest of all however; and in this opinion I
am sustained by Col. Roger D. Willams, of
Lexington, Kentucky, who, more than any
other American, is entitled to speak upon
coursing, and especially upon coursing large
game. Col. Williams, like a true son of Ken-
tucky, has bred his own thoroughbred horses
and thoroughbred hounds for many years; and
during a series of long hunting trips extending
over nearly a quarter of a century he has tried
his pack on almost every game animal to be
found among the foot-hills of the Rockies and
on the great plains. His dogs, both smooth-
haired greyhounds and _ rough-coated deer-
hounds, have been bred by him for generations
with a special view to the chase of big game
—not merely of hares; they are large animals,
excelling not only in speed but in strength,
endurance, and ferocious courage. ‘The sur-

158 HONTIING THE GRISLY.

vivors of his old pack are literally seamed all
over with the scars of innumerable battles.
When several dogs were together they would
stop a bull-elk, and fearlessly assail a bear or
cougar. ‘This pack scored many a triumph
over blacktail, whitetail, and prong-buck.
For a few hundred yards the deer were very
fast; but in a run of any duration the ante-
lope showed much greater speed, and gave the
dogs far more trouble, although always over-
taken in the end, if a good start had been
obtained. Col. Williams is a firm believer in
the power of the thoroughbred horse to out-
turn any animal that breathes, in a long chase ;
he has not infrequently run down deer, when
they were jumped some miles from cover;
and on two or three occasions he ran down
uninjured antelope, but in each case only after
a desperate ride of miles, which in one in-
stance resulted in the death of his gallant
horse.

This coursing on the prairie, especially
after big game, is an exceedingly manly and
attractive sport; the furious galloping, often
over rough ground with an occasional deep
washout or gully, the sight of the gallant
hounds running and tackling, and the exhilar-
ation of the pure air and wild surrounding, all
combine to give it a peculiar zest. But there
is really less need of bold and _ skilful horse-
manship than in the otherwise less attractive
and more artificial sport of fox-hunting, or
riding to hounds, in a closed and long-settled
country.

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 159

Those of us who are in part of southern
blood have a hereditary right to be fond of
cross-country riding; for our forefathers in
Virginia, Georgia, or the Carolinas, have for
six generations followed the fox with horse,
horn, and hound. In the long-settled North-
ern States the sport has been less popular,
though much more so now than formerly ; yet
it has always existed, here and there, and in
€ertain places has ‘been | followed.) quite
steadily.

In no place in the Northeast is hunting the
wild red fox put on a more genuine and healthy
basis than in the Genesee Valley, in central
New York. There has always been fox-hunt-
ing in this valley, the farmers having good
horses and being fond of sport ; but it was
conducted in a very irregular, primitive man-
ner, until some twenty years ago Mr. Austin
- Wadsworth turned his attention to it. Hehas
been master of fox-hounds ever since, and no
pack in the country has yielded better sport
than his, or has brought out harder riders
among the men and stronger jumpers among
the horses. Mr. Wadsworth began his hunt-
ing by picking up some of the various trencher-
fed hounds of the neighborhood, the hunting of
that period being managed on the principle of
each farmer bringing to the meet the hound
or hounds he happened to possess, and ap-
pearing on foot or horseback as his fancy dic-
tated. Having gotten together some of these
native hounds and started fox-hunting in local-
ities where the ground was so open as to

160 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

necessitate following the chase on horseback,
Mr. Wadsworth imported a number of dogs
from the best English kennels. He found
these to be much faster than the American
dogs and more accustomed to work together,
but less enduring, and without such good
noses. The American hounds were very
obstinate and self-willed. Each wished to
work out the trail for himself. But once
found, they would puzzle it out, no matter
how cold, and would follow it if necessary for
a day and night. By a judicious crossing of
the two Mr. Wadsworth finally got his present
fine pack, which for its own particular work
on its own ground would be hard to beat.
The country ridden over is well wooded, and
there are many foxes. The abundance of
cover, however, naturally decreases the num-
ber of kills. It is a very fertile Jand, and
there are few farming regions more beautiful,
for it is prevented from being too tame in
aspect by the number of bold hills and deep
ravines. Most of the fences are high posts-
and-rails or “‘ snake ”’ fences, although there is
an occasional stone wall, haha, or water-jump.
The steepness of the ravines and the density
of the timber make it necessary for a horse to
be sure-footed and able to scramble anywhere,
and the fences are so high that none but very
good jumpers can possibly follow the pack.
Most of the horses used are bred by the farm-
ers in the neighborhood, or are from Canada,
and they usually have thoroughbred or trot-
ting-stock blood in them.

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 161

One of the pleasantest days I ever passed
in the saddle was after Mr. Wadsworth’s
hounds. I was staying with him at the time,
in company with my friend Senator Cabot
Lodge, of Boston. The meet was about
twelve miles distant from the house. It was
only a small field of some twenty-five riders,
but there was not one who did not mean
going. I was mounted on a young horse, a
powerful, big-boned black, a great jumper,
though perhaps a trifle hot-headed. Lodge
was on a fine bay, which could both run and
jump. There were two or three other New
Yorkers and Bostonians present, several men
who had come up from Buffalo for the run, a
couple of retired army officers, a number of
farmers from the neighborhood ; and finally
several members of a noted local family of
hard riders, who formed a class by themselves,
all having taken naturally to every variety
of horsemanship from earliest infancy.

It was a thoroughly democratic assemblage ;
every one was there for sport, and nobody
cared an ounce how he or anybody else was
dressed. Slouch hats, brown coats, corduroy
breeches, and leggings, or boots, were the
order of the day. We cast off in a thick
wood. ‘The dogs struck a trail almost imme-
diately and were off with clamorous yelping,
while the hunt thundered after them like a
herd of buffaloes. We went headlong down
the hill-side into and across a brook. Here
the trail led straight up a sheer bank. Most
of the riders struck off to the left for an easier

It

162 HUNTING THE GRISLY,

place, which was unfortunate for them, for the
eight of us who went straight up the side (one
man’s horse falling back with him) were the
only ones who kept on terms with the hounds.
Almost as soon as we got to the top of the
bank we came out of the woods over a low
but awkward rail fence, where one of our
number, who was riding a very excitable sor-
rel colt, got a fall. This left but six, including
the whip. ‘There were two or three large fields
with low fences ; then we came to two high,
stiff doubles, the first real jumping of the day,
the fences being over four feet six, and so close
together that the horses barely had a chance
to gather themselves. We got over, however,
crossed two or three stump-strewn fields, gal-
loped through an open wood, picked our way
across «marshy spot, jumped a small brook
and two or three stiff fences, and then came a
check. Soon the hounds recovered the line
and swung off to the right, back across four or
five fields, so as to enable the rest of the hunt,
by making an angle, to come up. Then we
jumped over a very high board fence into the
main “road/vout fof it vagain, and on’ over
ploughed fields and grass lands, separated by
stiff snake fences. ‘The run had been fast and
the horses were beginning to tail. By the
time we suddenly rattled down into a deep ra-
vine and scrambled up the other side through
thick timber there were but four of us left,
Lodge and myself being two of the lucky ones.
Beyond this ravine we came to one of the
worst jumps of the day, a fence out of the

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 163.

wood, which was practicable only at one spot,
where a kind of cattle trail led up to a panel.
It was within an inch or two of five feet
high. However, the horses, thoroughly trained
to timber jumping and to rough and _ hard
scrambling in awkward places, and by this
time well quieted, took the bars without mis-
take, each one in turn trotting or cantering up
to within a few yards, then making a couple of
springs and bucking over with a great twist
of the powerful haunches. I may explain
that there was not a horse of the four that
had not a record of five feet six inches in the
ring. We now got into a perfect tangle of
ravines, and the fox went to earth; and
though we started one or two more in the
course of the afternoon, we did not get another
really first-class run.

At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoy-
ment of this sport are exceptionally favorable.
In the Northeast generally, although there are
now a number of well-established hunts, at
least nine out of ten runs are after a drag.
Most of the hents are in the neighborhood of
great cities, and are mainly kept up by young
men who come from them. <A few of these
are men of leisure, who can afford to devote
their whole time to pleasure ; but much the
Jarger number are men in business, who work
hard and are obliged to make their sports ac-
commodate themselves to their more serious
occupations. Once or twice a week they can
get off for an afternoon’s ride across country,
and they then wish to be absolutely certain of

164 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

having their run, and of having it at the
appointed time; and the only way to insure
this is to have a drag-hunt. It is not the lack
of foxes that has made the sport so commonly
take the form of riding to drag-hounds, but
rather the fact that the majority of those who
keep it up are hard-working business men who
wish to make the most out of every moment
of the little time they can spare from their
regular occupations. A single ride across
country, or an afternoon at polo, will yield
more exercise, fun, and excitement than can
be got out of a week’s decorous and dull rid-
ing in the park, and many young fellows have
waked up to this fact.

At one time I did a good deal of hunting
with the Meadowbrook hounds, in the north-
ern part of Long Island. ‘There were plenty
of foxes around us, both red and gray, but
partly for the reasons given above, and partly
because the covers were so large and so nearly
continuous, they were not often hunted, al-
though an effort was always made to have one
run every week or so after a wild fox, in order
to give a chance for the hounds to be properly
worked and to prevent the runs from becom-
ing a mere succession of steeple-chases. The
sport was mainly drag-hunting, and was most
exciting, as the fences were high and the pace
fast. ‘The Long Island country needs a pecu-
liar style of horse, the first requisite being
that he shall be a very good and high timber
jumper. Quite a number of crack English
and Irish hunters have at different times been

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 165

imported, and some of them have turned out
pretty well; but when they first come over
they are utterly unable to cross our country,
blundering badly at the high timber. Few of
them have done as well as the American
horses. I have hunted half a dozen times in
England, with the Pytchely, Essex, and North
Warwickshire, and it seems to me probable
that English thoroughbreds, in a grass coun-
try, and over the peculiar kinds of obstacles
they have on the other side of the water, would
gallop away from a field of our Long Island
horses; for they have speed and bottom, and
are great weight carriers. But on our own
ground, where the cross-country riding is more
_ like leaping a succession of five and six-bar
gates than anything else, they do not as arule,
in spite of the enormous prices paid for them,
show themselves equal to the native stock.
The highest recorded jump, seven feet two
inches, was made by the American horse File-
maker, which I saw ridden in the very front
by Mr. H. L. Herbert, in the hunt at Saga-
more Hill, about to be described.

When I was amember of the Meadowbrook
hunt, most of the meets were held within a
dozen miles or so of the kennels: at Farm-
ingdale, Woodbury, Wheatly, Locust Valley,
Syosset, or near any one of twenty other queer,
quaint old Long Island hamlets. ‘They were
almost always held in the afternoon, the busi-
ness men who had come down from the city
jogging over behind the hounds to the ap-
pointed place, where they were met by the

166 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

men who had ridden over direct from their
country-houses. If the meet was an important
one, there might be a crowd of onlookers in
every kind of trap, from a four-in-hand drag
to a spider-wheeled buggy drawn by a pair of
long-tailed trotters, the money value of which
many times surpassed that of the two best hun-
ters in the whole field. Now and then a break-
fast would be given the hunt at some country-
house, when the whole day was devoted to the
sport ; perhaps after wild foxes in the morn-
ing, with a drag in the afternoon.

After one meet, at Sagamore Hill, I had the
curiosity to go on foot over the course we had
taken, measuring the jumps; for it is very
difficult to form a good estimate of a fence’s
height when in the field, and five feet of tim-
ber seems a much easier thing to take when
sitting around the fire after dinner than it does
when actually faced while the hounds are run-
ning. On the particular hunt in question we
ran about ten miles, at a rattling pace, with
only two checks, crossing somewhat more than
sixty fences, most of them post-and-rails, stiff
as steel, the others being of the kind called
“Virginia ” or snake, and not more than ten
or a dozen in the whole lot under four feet in
height. The highest measured five feet and
half an inch, two others were four feet eleven,
and nearly a third of the number averaged
about four and a half. There were also sev-
eral rather awkward doubles. When the
hounds were cast off some forty riders were
present, but the first fence was a savage one,

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 167

and stopped all who did not mean genuine
hard going. ‘Twenty-six horses crossed it,
one of them ridden by a lady. A mile or so
farther on, before there had been a chance
for much tailing, we came to a five-bar gate,
out of a road—a jump of just four feet five
inches from the take-off. Up to this, of
course, we went one at a time, at a trot or
hand-gallop, and twenty-five horses cleared it
in succession without a single refusal and with
but one mistake. Owing to the severity of
the pace, combined with the average height
of the timber (although no one fence was of
phenomenally noteworthy proportions), a good
many falls took place, resulting in an unusu-
ally large percentage of accidents. The mas-
ter partly dislocated one knee, another man
broke two ribs, and another—the present
writer—broke his arm. However, almost all
of us managed to struggle through to the end
in time to see the death.

On this occasion I owed my broken arm to
the fact that my horse, a solemn animal origin-
ally taken out of a buggy, though a very clever
fencer, was too coarse to gallop alongside the
blooded beasts against which he was pitted.
But he was so easy in his gaits, and so quiet,
being ridden with only a snaffle, that there
was no difficulty in following to the end of
the run. I had divers adventures on this
horse. Once I tried a pair of so-called
“safety ” stirrups, which speedily fell out, and
I had to ride through the run without any, at
the cost of several tumbles. Much the best

168 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

hunter I ever owned was a sorrel horse named
Sagamore. He was from Geneseo, was fast,
a remarkably good jumper, of great endurance,
as quick on his feet as a cat, and with a daunt-
less heart. He never gave me a fall, and
generally enabled me to see all the run.

It would be very unfair to think the sport
especially dangerous on account of the occa-
sional accidents that happen. A man who is
fond of riding, but who sets a good deal of
value, either for the sake of himself, his
family, or his business, upon his neck and
limbs, can hunt with much safety if he gets a
quiet horse, a safe fencer, and does not try to
stay in the front rank. Most accidents occur
to men on green or wild horses, or else to
those who keep in front only at the expense
of pumping their mounts; and a fall witha
done-out beast is always peculiarly disagree-
able. Most falls, however, do no harm what-
ever to either horse or rider, and after they
have picked themselves up and shaken them-
_ selves, the couple ought to be able to go on
just as well as ever. Of course a man who
wishes to keep in the first flight must expect
to face acertain number of tumbles; but even
he will probably not be hurt at all, and he
can avoid many a mishap by easing up his
horse whenever he can—that is, by always
taking a gap when possible, going at the lowest
panel of every fence, and not calling on his
animal for all there is in him unless it cannot
possibly be avoided. It must be remembered
that hard riding is a very different thing from

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 169

good riding; though a good rider to hounds
must also at times ride hard.

Cross-country riding in the rough is not a
difficult thing to learn; always provided the
would-be learner is gifted with or has acquired
a fairly stout heart, for a constitutionally timid
person is out of place in the hunting field. A
really finished cross-country rider, a man who
combines hand and seat, heart and head, is of
course rare; the standard is too high for most
of us to hope to reach. But it is compara-
tively easy to acquire a light hand and a
capacity to sit fairly well down in the saddle;
and when a man has once got these, he will
find no especial difficulty in following the
hounds on a trained hunter.

Fox-hunting is a great sport, but it is as
foolish to make a fetish of it as it is to decry it.
The fox is hunted merely because there is no
larger game to follow. As long as wolves,
deer, or antelope remain in the land, and ina
country where hounds and horsemen can work,
no one would think of following the fox. It
is pursued because the bigger beasts of the
chase have been killed out. In England it
has reached its present prominence only within
two centuries; nobody followed the fox while
the stag and the boar were common. At the
present day, on Exmoor, where the wild stag
is still found, its chase ranks ahead of that of
the fox. It is not really the hunting proper
which is the point in fox-hunting. It is the
horsemanship, the galloping and jumping, and
the being out inthe openair. Very naturally,

170 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

however, men who have passed their lives as
fox-hunters grow to regard the chase and the
object of it alike with superstitious venera-
tion. ‘They attribute almost mythical charac-
ters to the animal. I know some of my good
Virginian friends, for instance, who seriously
believe that the Virginia red fox is a beast
quite unparalleled for speed and endurance
no less than for cunning. ‘This is of coursea
mistake. Compared with a wolf, an antelope,
or even a deer, the fox’s speed and endurance
do not stand very high. A good pack of
hounds starting him close would speedily run
into him in the open. ‘The reason that the
hunts last so long in some cases is because of
the nature of the ground which favors the fox
at the expense of the dogs, because of his
having the advantage in the start, and because
of his cunning in turning to account every-
thing which will tell in his favor and against
his pursuers. In the same way I know plenty
of English friends who speak with bated
breath of fox-hunting but look down upon rid-
ing to drag-hounds. Of course there is a
difference in the two sports, and the fun of
actually hunting the wild beast in the one
case more than compensates for the fact that
in the other the riding is apt to be harder and
the jumping higher; but both sports are really
artificial, and in their essentials alike. To
any man who has hunted big game in a wild
country the stress laid on the differences be-
tween them seems a little absurd, in fact cock-
ney. It is of course nothing against either

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. EVE

that it is artificial; so are all sports in long-
civilized countries, from lacrosse to ice yacht-
ing.

It is amusing to see how natural it is for
each man to glorify the sport to which he has
been accustomed at the expense of any other.
The old-school French sportsman, for instance,
who followed the boar, stag, and hare with his
hounds, always looked down upon the chase
of the fox; whereas the average Englishman
not only asserts but seriously believes that no
other kind of chase can compare with it, al-
though in actual fact the very points in which
the Englishman is superior to the continental
sportsman—that is, in hard and straight riding
and jumping—are those which drag-hunting
tends to develop rather more than fox-hunt-
ing proper. In the mere hunting itself the
continental sportsman is often unsurpassed.

Once, beyond the Missouri, I met an ex-
patriated German baron, an unfortunate who
had failed utterly in the rough life of the
‘frontier. He was living in a squalid little
hut, almost unfurnished, but studded around
with the diminutive horns of the European
roebuck. ‘These were the only treasures he
had taken with him to remind him of his
former life, and he was never tired of describ-
ing what fun it was to shoot roebucks when
driven by the little crooked-legged dachshunds.
There were plenty of deer and antelope round-
about, yielding good sport to any rifleman,
but this exile cared nothing for them; they
were not roebucks, and they could not be

172 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

chased with his beloved dachshunds. So,
among my neighbors in the cattle country, is
a gentleman from France, a very successful
ranchman, and a thoroughly good fellow; he
cares nothing for hunting big game, and will
not go after it, but is devoted to shooting
cotton-tails in the snow, this being a pastime
having much resemblance to one of the recog-
nized sports of his own land.

However, our own people afford precisely
similar instances. I have met plenty of men
accustomed to killing wild turkeys and deer
with small-bore rifles in the southern forests
who, when they got on the plains and in the
Rockies, were absolutely helpless. They not
only failed to become proficient in the art of
killing big game at long ranges with the large-
bore rifle, at the cost of fatiguing tramps, but
they had a positive distaste for the sport
and would never allow that it equalled their
own stealthy hunts in eastern forests. Sol
know plenty of men, experts with the shot-
gun, who honestly prefer shooting quail in the
East over well-trained setters or pointers, to
the hardier, manlier sports of the wilderness.

As it is with hunting, so it is with riding.
The cowboy’s scorn of every method of riding
save his own is as profound and as ignorant
as is that of the school rider, jockey, or fox-
hunter. The truth is that each of these is
best in his own sphere and is at a disadvant-
age when made to do the work of any of the
others. For all-around riding and horseman-
ship, I think the West Point graduates is

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. Ly fe

somewhat ahead of any of them. Taken as
a class, however, and compared with other
classes aS numerous, and not with a few ex-
ceptional individuals, the cowboy, like the
Rocky Mountain stage-driver, has no supe-
riors anywhere for his own work; and they
are fine fellows, these iron-nerved reinsmen
and rough-riders.

When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to
Europe they made a practice in England,
France, Germany, and Italy of offering to
break and ride, in their own fashion, any horse
given them. They were frequently given
spoiled animals from the cavalry services in
the different countries through which they
passed, animals with which the trained horse-
breakers of the European armies could do
nothing; and yet in almost all cases the cow-
punchers and bronco-busters with Buffalo Bill
mastered these beasts as readily as they did
their own western horses. At their own work
of mastering and riding rough horses they
could not be matched by their more civilized
rivals ; but I have great doubts whether they
in turn would not have been beaten if they
had essayed kinds of horsemanship utterly
alien to their past experience, such as riding
mettled thoroughbreds in a steeple-chase, or.
the like. Other things being equal (which,
however, they generally are not), a bad, big
horse fed on oats offers a rather more diff-
cult problem than a bad little horse fed on
grass. After Buffalo Bill’s men had returned,
I occasionally heard it said that they had

174 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

tried cross-country riding in England, and
had shown themselves pre-eminently skilful
thereat, doing better than the English fox-
hunters, but this I take the liberty to disbe-
lieve. I was in England at the time, hunted
occasionally myself, and was with many of
the men who were all the time riding in the
most famous hunts; men, too, who were
greatly impressed with the exhibitions of
rough riding then being given by Buffalo Bill
and his men, and who talked of them much ;
and yet I never, at the time, heard of an in-
stance in which one of the cowboys rode to
hounds with any marked success.’ In the
same way I have sometimes in New York or
London heard of men who, it was alleged, had
been out West and proved better riders than
the bronco-busters themselves, just as I have
heard of similar men who were able to go out
hunting in the Rockies or on the plains and
get more game than the western hunters; but
in the course of a long experience in the West
I have yet to see any of these men, whether
from the eastern States or from Europe, act-
tually show such superiority or perform such
feats.

It would be interesting to compare the per-
formances of the Australian stock-riders with
those of our own cowpunchers, both in cow-
work and in riding. The Australians have
an entirely different kind of saddle, and the

1JItis, however, quite possible, now that Buffalo Bill’s company
has crossed the water several times, that a number of the cowboys

have by practice become proficient in riding to hounds, and in
steeple-chasing.

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 175

use of the rope is unknown among them. A
couple of years ago the famous western rifle-
shot, Carver, took some cowboys out to Aus-
tralia, and 1 am informed that many of the
Australians began themselves to practise with
the rope after seeing the way it was used by
the Americans. An Australian gentleman,
Mr. A. J. Sage, of Melbourne, to whom I had
written asking how the saddles and styles of
riding compared, answered me as follows:

‘With regard to saddles, here it is a moot
question which is the better, yours or ours, for
buck-jumpers. Carver’s boys rode in their
own saddles against our Victorians in theirs,
all on Australian buckers, and honors seemed
easy. Each was good in his own style, but
the horses were not what I should call really
good buckers, such as you might get on a
back station, and so there was nothing in the
show that could unseat the cowboys. It is
only back in the bush that you can get a
really good bucker. I have often seen one of
them put both man and saddle off.”

This last is a feat I have myself seen per-
formed in the West. I suppose the amount
Of it is) that both the American and) ‘the
Australian rough riders are, for their own
work, just as good as men possibly can be.

One spring I had to leave the East in the
midst of the hunting season, to join a round-
up in the cattle country of western Dakota,
and it was curious to compare the totally dif-
ferent styles of riding of the cowboys and the
cross-country men. A _ stock-saddle weighs

176 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

thirty or forty pounds instead of ten or fifteen
and needs an utterly different seat from that
adopted in the East. A cowboy rides with
very long stirrups, sitting forked well down
between his high pommel and cantle, and de-
pends upon balance as well as on the grip of
his thighs. In cutting outa steer from a herd,
in breaking a vicious wild horse, in sitting a
bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede
of many hundred maddened animals, or in the
performance of a hundred other feats of reck-
less and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is
absolutely unequalled ; and when he has his
own horse gear he sits his animal with the
ease of a’ centaur. Yet he is quite helpless
the first time he gets astride one of the small
eastern saddles. One summer, while pur-
chasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch fore-
men had to get on an ordinary saddle to
ride out of town and see a bunch of steers.
He is perhaps the best rider on the ranch,
and will without hesitation mount and master
beasts that I doubt if the boldest rider in one
of our eastern hunts would care to tackle ;
yet his uneasiness on the new saddle was
fairly comical. At first he did not dare to
trot, and the least plunge of the horse bid
fair to unseat him, nor did he begin to get
accustomed to the situation until the very end
of the journey. In fact, the two kinds of
riding are so very different that a man only
accustomed to one, feels almost as ill at ease
when he first tries the other asif he had never
sat on a horse’s back before. It is rather

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 177

funny to see a man who only knows one kind,
and is conceited enough to think that that is
really the only kind worth knowing, when
first he is brought into contact with the other.
Two or three times I have known men try
to follow hounds on stock-saddles, which are
about as ill-suited for the purpose as they well
can be; while it is even more laughable to
see some young fellow from the East or from
England who thinks he knows entirely too
much about horses to be taught by barbar-
ians, attempt in his turn to do cow-work with
his ordinary riding or hunting rig. It must
be said, however, that in all probability
cowboys would learn to ride well across
country much sooner than the average cross-
country rider would master the dashing and
peculiar style of horsemanship shown by those
whose life business is to guard the wandering
herds of the great western plains.

Of course, riding to hounds, like all sports
in long settled, thickly peopled countries,
fails to develop in its followers some of the
hardy qualities necessarily incident to the
wilder pursuits of the mountain and the forest.
While I was on the frontier I was struck by
the fact that of the men from the eastern
States or from England who had shown them-
selves at home to be good riders to hounds
or had made their records as college athletes,
a larger proportion failed in the life of the
wilderness than was the case among those
who had gained their experience in such
rough pastimes as mountaineering in the high

12

178 4LUNTING THE GRISLY.

Alps, winter caribou-hunting in Canada, or
deer-stalking —not deer-driving—in Scotland.

Nevertheless, of all sports possible in civ-
ilized countries, riding to hounds is perhaps
the best if followed as it should be, for the
sake of the strong excitement, with as much
simplicity as possible, and not merely as a
fashionable amusement. It tends to develop
moral no less than physical qualities ; the
rider needs nerve and head ; he must possess
daring and resolution, as well as a good deal
of bodily skill and a certain amount of wiry
toughness and endurance.

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 179

CHAPTER, WEI.
WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS.

HE wolf is the arch type of ravin, the
beast of waste and desolation. It is still
found scattered thinly throughout all the
wilder portions of the United States, but has
everywhere retreated from the advance of
civilization.

Wolves show an infinite variety in color,
size, physical formation, and temper. Al-
most all the varieties intergrade with one
another, however, so that it is very difficult to
draw a hard and fast line between any two of
them. Nevertheless, west of the Mississippi
there are found two distinct types. One is
the wolf proper, or big wolf, specifically akin to
the wolves of the eastern States. The other
is the little coyote, or prairie wolf. The
coyote and the big wolf are found together in
almost all the wilder districts irom “the Rio
Grande to the valleys of the upper Missouri
and the upper Columbia. ‘Throughout this
region there is always a sharp line of demark-
ation, especially in size, between the coyottes
and the big wolves of any given district; but
in certain districts the big wolves are very
much larger than their brethren in other dis-

180 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

tricts. In the upper Columbia country, for
instance, they are very large ; along the Rio-
Grande they are small. Dr. Hart Merriam
informs me that, according to his experience,
the coyote is largest in southern California.
In many respects the coyote differs altogether
in habits from its big relative. For one thing
itis far more tolerant of man. In some lo-
calities coyotes are more numerous around
settlements, and even in the close vicinity of
large towns, than they are in the frowning and
desolate fastnesses haunted by their grim
elder brother.

Big wolves vary far more in color than the
coyotes do. I have seen white, black, red,
yellow, brown, gray, and grizzled skins, and
others representing every shade between, al-
though usually each locality has its prevailing
tint. The grizzled, gray, and brown often
have precisely the coat of the coyote. The
difference in size among wolves of different
localities, and even of the same locality, is
quite remarkable, and so, curiously enough, is
the difference in the size of the teeth, in some
cases even when the body of one wolf is as big
as that of another. J have seen wolves from
Texas and New Mexico which were under-
sized, slim animals with rather small tusks, in
no way to be compared to the long-toothed
giants of their race that dwell in the heavily
timbered mountains of the Northwest and in
the far North. Asa rule, the teeth of the co-
yote are relatively smaller than those of the
gray wolf.

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 18r

Formerly wolves were incredibly abundant
in certain parts of the country, notably on the
great plains, where they were known as buffalo
wolves, and were regular attendants on the
great herds of the bison. Every traveller and
hunter of the old days knew them as among
the most common sights of the plains, and
they followed the hunting parties and emigrant
trains for the sake of the scraps left in camp.
Now, however, there is no district in which they
are really abundant. The wolfers, or profes-
sional wolf-hunters, who killed them by poison-
ing for the sake of their fur, and the cattle-
men, who likewise killed them by poisoning
because of their raids on the herds, have doubt-
less been the chief instruments in working their
decimation on the plains. In the ’70’s, and
even in the early ’8c’s, many tens of thousands
of wolves were killed by the wolfers inMontana
and northern Wyoming and western Dakota.
Nowadays the surviving wolves of the plains
have learned caution; they no longer move
abroad at midday, and still less do they dream
of hanging on the footsteps of hunter and
traveller. Instead of being one of the most
common they have become one of the rarest
sights of the plains. A hunter may wander far
and wide through the plains for months now-
adays and never see a wolf, though he will
probably see many coyotes. However, the
diminution goes on, not steadily but by fits and
starts, and, moreover, the beasts now and then
change their abodes, and appear in numbers
in places where they have been scarce for a

182 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

long period. Inthe present winter of 1892-
’°93, big wolves are more plentiful in the neigh-
borhood of my ranch than they have been for
ten years, and have worked some havoc among
the cattle and young horses. The cowboys
have been carrying on the usual vindictive
campaign against them; a number have been
poisoned, and a number of others have fallen
victims to their greediness, the cowboys sur-
prising them when gorged to repletion on the
carcass of a colt or calf, and, in consequence,
unable to run, so that they are easily ridden
down, roped, and then dragged to death.

Yet even the slaughter wrought by man in
certain localities does not seem adequate to
explain the scarcity or extinction of wolves,
throughout the country at large. In most
places they are not followed any more eagerly
than are the other large beasts of prey, and
they are usually followed with less success. Of
all animals the wolf is the shyest and hardest to
slay. It is almost or quite as difficult to still-
hunt as the cougar, and is far more difficult
~ to kill with hounds, traps, or poison; yet it
scarcely holds its own as well as the great cat,
and it does not begin to hold its own as well
as the bear, a beast certainly more readily
killed, and one which produces fewer young
at a birth. Throughout the East the black
bear is common in many localities from which
the wolf has vanished completely. It at pres-
ent exists in very scanty numbers in northern
Maine and the Adirondacks; is almost or
quite extinct in Pennsylvania; lingers here

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 183

and there in the mountains from West Virginia
to east Tennessee, and is found in Florida; but
is everywhere less abundant thanthe bear. It
is possible that this destruction of the wolves
is due to some disease among them, perhaps to
hydrophobia, a terrible malady from which it
is known that they suffer greatly at times.
Perhaps the bear is helped by its habit of
hibernating, which frees it from most dangers
during winter; but this cannot be the com-
plete explanation, for in the South it does not
hibernate, and yet holds its own as well as in
the North. What makes it all the more curi-
ous that the American wolf should disappear
sooner than the bear is that the reverse is the
case with the allied species of Europe, where
the bear is much sooner killed out of the
land.

Indeed the differences of this sort between
nearly related animals are literally inexplicable.
Much of the difference in temperament be-
tween such closely allied species as the Amer-
ican and European bears and wolves is doubt-
less due to their surroundings and to the
instincts they have inherited through many
generations; but for much of the variation it
is not possible to offer any explanation. In
the same way there are certain physical dif-
ferences for which it is very hard to account,
as the same conditions seem to operate in
directly reverse ways with different animals.
No one can explain the process of natural
selection which has resulted in the otter of
America being larger than the otter of Europe,

184 HUNIING THE (GRISLY.

while the badger is smaller ; in the mink being
with us a much stouter animal than its Scan-
dinavian and Russian kinsman, while the re-
verse is true of our sable or pine marten. No
one can say why the European red deer
should be a pigmy compared to its giant
brother, the American wapiti; why the Old
World elk should average smaller in size than
the almost indistinguishable New World
moose ; and yet the bison of Lithuania and
the Caucasus be on the whole larger and more
formidable than its American cousin. In the ©
same way no one can tell why under like con-
ditions some game, such as the white goat and
the spruce grouse, should be tamer than other
closely allied species, like the mountain sheep
and ruffed grouse. Noone can say why on
the whole the wolf of Scandinavia and north-
ern Russia should be larger and more danger-
ous than the average wolf of the Rocky
Mountains, while between the: bears of the
same regions the comparison must be exactly
reversed.

The difference even among the wolves of.
different sections of our own country is very
notable. It may be true that the species as a
whole is rather weaker and less ferocious than
the European wolf; but it is certainly not true
of the wolves of certain localities. The great
timber wolf of the central and northern chains
of the Rockies and coast ranges is in every
way a more formidable creature than the buf-
falo wolf of the plains, although they inter-
grade. The skins and skulls of the wolves of

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS, 185

north-western Montana and Washington which
I have seen were quite as large and showed
quite as stout claws and teeth as the skins and
skulls of Russian and Scandinavian wolves,
and I believe that these great timber wolves
are in every way as formidable as their Old
World kinsfolk. However, they live where
they come in contact with a population of rifle-
bearing frontier hunters, who are very different
from European peasants or Asiatic tribesmen ;
and they have, even when most hungry, a
wholesome dread of human beings. Yet I
doubt if an unarmed man would be entirely safe
should he, while alone in the forest in mid-
winter encounter a fair-sized pack of ravenous-
ly hungry timber wolves.

A full-grown dog-wolf of the northern Rock-
ies, In exceptional instances, reaches a height
of thirty-two inches and a weight of 130 pounds;
a big buffalo wolf of the upper Missouri stands
thirty or thirty-one inches at the shoulder and
weighs about 110 pounds. A Texan wolf may
not reach over eighty pounds. The _ bitch-
wolves are smaller; and moreover there is of-
ten great variation even in the wolves of closely
neighboing localities.

The wolves of the southern plains were not
often formidable to large animals, even in the
days when they most abounded. ‘They rarely
attacked the horses of the hunter, and indeed
were but little regarded by these experienced
animals. ‘They were much more likely to gnaw
off the lariat with which the horse was tied,
than to try to molest the steed himself. They

186 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

preferred to prey on young animals, or on the
weak and disabled. They rarely molested a
full-grown cow or steer, still less a full-grown
buffalo, and, if they did attack such an animal,
it was only when emboldened by numbers. In
the plains of the upper Missouri and Saskatch-
ewan the wolf was, and is, more dangerous,
while in the northern Rockies his courage and
ferocity attain their highest pitch. Near my
own ranch the wolves have sometimes com-
mitted great depredations on cattle, but they
seem to have queer freaks of slaughter. Us-
ually they prey only upon calves and sickly
animals ; but in midwinter I have known one
single-handed to attack and kill a well-grown
steer or cow, disabling its quarry by rapid
snaps at the hams or flanks. Only rarely have
I known it to seize by the throat. Colts are
likewise a favorite prey, but with us wolves
rarely attack full-grown horses. They are
sometimes very bold in their assaults, falling
on the stock while immediately around the
ranch houses. They even venture into the
hamlet of Medora itself at night—as the coy-
otes sometimes do by day. In the spring of
’92 we put on some eastern two-year-old steers ;
they arrived, and were turned loose from the
stock-yards, in a snowstorm, though it was in
early May. Next morning we found that one
had been seized, slain, and partially devoured
by a big wolf at the very gate of the stockyard ;
probably the beast had seen it standing near
the yard after nightfall, feeling miserable after
its journey, in the storm and its unaccustomed

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 187

surroundings, and had been emboldened to
make the assault so near town by the evident
helplessness of the prey.

The big timber wolves of the northern Rocky
Mountains attack every four-footed beast to be
found where they live. They are far from
contenting themselves with hunting deer and
snapping up the pigs and sheep of the farm.
When the weather gets cold and food scarce
they band together in small parties, perhaps
of four or five individuals, and then assail any-
thing, even a bear ora panther. A bull elk
or bull moose, when on its guard, makes a most
dangerous fight; but a single wolf will fre-
quently master the cow of either animal, as well
as domestic cattle and horses. In attacking
such large game, however, the wolves like to
act in concert, one springing at the animal’s
head, and attracting its attention, while the
other hamstrings it. Nevertheless, one such
big wolf will kill an ordinary horse. A manlI
knew, who was engaged in packing into the
the Cceur d’Alénes, once witnessed such a feat
onthe part of a wolf. He was taking his pack
train down into a valley when he saw a horse
grazing therein ; it had been turned loose by
another packing outfit, because it became ex-
hausted. He lost sight of it as the trail went
down a zigzag, and while it was thus out of
sight he suddenly heard it utter the appalling
scream, unlike and more dreadful than any
other sound, which a horse only utters in ex-
treme fright or agony. The scream was re-
peated, and as he came in sight again he saw

188 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

that a great wolf had attacked the horse. The
poor animal had been bitten terribly in its
haunches and was cowering upon them,
while the wolf stood and looked at it a few
paces off. In a moment or two the horse
partially recovered and made a desperate
bound forward, starting at full galiop. Im-
mediately the wolf was after it, overhauled it
in three or four jumps, and then seized it by
the hock, while its legs were extended, with
such violence as to bring it completely back
on itshaunches. It again screamed piteously ;
and this time with a few savage snaps the wolf
hamstrung and partially disembowelled it, and
it fell over, having made no attempt to defend
itself. I have heard of more than one incident
of this kind. If a horse is a good fighter,
however, as occasionally, though not often,
happens, it is a most difficult prey for any wild
beast, and some veteran horses have no fear
of wolves whatsoever, well knowing that they
can either strike them down with their fore-
feet or repulse them by lashing out behind.
Wolves are cunning beasts and will often
try to lull their prey into unsuspicion by play-
ing round and cutting capers. I once sawa
young deer and a wolf-cub together near the
hut of the settler who had captured both. The
wolf was just old enough to begin to feel vi-
cious and bloodthirsty, and to show symptoms
of attacking the deer. On the occasion in
question he got loose and ran towards it, but
it turned, and began to hit him with its fore-
feet, seemingly in sport ; whereat he rolled

WOLVES AND WOLLHOUNDS. 189

over on his back before it, and acted like a
puppy at play. Soon it turned and walked
off ; immediately the wolf, with bristling hair,
crawled after, and with a pounce seized it by
the haunch, and would doubtless have mur-
dered the bleating, struggling creature, had
not the bystanders interfered.

Where there are no domestic animals, wolves
feed on almost anything from a mouse to an
elk. They are redoubted enemies of foxes.
They are easily able to overtake them in fair
chase, and kill numbers. If the fox can get
into the underbrush, however, he can dodge
around much faster than the wolf, and so
escape pursuit. Sometimes one wolf will try
to put a fox out of a cover while another waits
outside to snap him up. Moreover, the wolf
kills even closer kinsfolk than the fox. When
pressed by hunger it will undoubtedly some-
tumes seize a coyote, tear it in pieces and de-
vour it, although during most of the year the
two animals live in perfect harmony. I once
myself, while out in the deep snow, came
across the remains of a coyote that had been
killed in this manner. Wolves are also very
fond of the flesh of dogs, and if they get a
chance promptly kill and eat any dog they can
master—and there are but few that they can-
not. Nevertheless, I have been told of one
instance in which a wolf struck up an extraor-
dinary friendship with a strayed dog, and the
two lived and hunted together for many
months, being frequently seen by the settlers

Igo HUNTING THE GRISLY.

of the locality. This occurred near Thomp-
son’s Falls, Montana.

Usually wolves are found singly, in pairs, or
in family parties, each having a large beat over
which it regularly hunts, and also at times
shifting its ground and travelling immense dis-
tances in order to take up a temporary abode
in some new locality—for they are great
wanderers. It is only under stress of severe
weather that they band together in packs.
They prefer to creep on their prey and seize
it by a sudden pounce, but, unlike the cougar,
they also run it down in fair chase. Their
slouching, tireless gallop enables them often
to overtake deer, antelope, or other quarry ;
though under favorable circumstances, espe-
cially if near a lake, the latter frequently
escape. Whether wolves run cunning I do
not know ; but I think they must, for coyotes
certainly do. A coyote cannot run down a
jack-rabbit ; but two or three working to-
gether will often catch one. OncelI saw three
start a jack, which ran right away from them ;
but they spread out, and followed. Pretty
soon the jack turned slightly, and ran near one
of the outside ones, saw it, became much
frightened, and turned at right angles, so as
soon to nearly run into the other outside one,
which had kept straight on. This happened
several times, and then the confused jack lay
down under a sage-bush and was seized. So
I have seen two coyotes attempting to get at
a newly dropped antelope kid. One would
make a feint of attack, and lure the dam into

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 191

a rush at him, while the other stole round to
get at the kid. The dam, as always with
these spirited little prong-bucks, made a good
fight, and kept the assailants at bay; yet I
think they would have succeeded in the end,
had I not interfered. Coyotes are bold and
cunning in raiding the settlers’ barn-yards for
lambs and hens ; and they have an especial
liking for tame cats. If there are coyotes in
the neighborhood a cat which gets into the
habit of wandering from home is surely lost.

Though, I have never known wolves to
attack a man, yet in the wilder portion of the
‘far Northwest I have heard them come around
camp very close, growling so savagely as to
make one almost reluctant to leave the camp
fire and go out into the darkness unarmed.
Once I was camped in the fall near a lonely
little lake in the mountains, by the edge of
_ quite a broad stream. Soon after nightfall
three or four wolves came around camp and
kept me awake by their sinister and dismal
howling. Two or three times they came so
close to the fire that I could hear them snap
their jaws and growl, and at one time I posi-
tively thought that they intended to try to get
into camp, so excited were they by the smell
of the fresh meat. After a while they stopped
howling ; and then all was silent for an hour
or so. I let the fire go out and was turning
into bed when I suddenly heard some animal
of considerable size come down to the stream
nearly opposite me and begin to splash across,
first wading, then swimming. It was pitch

192 HUNTING THE GRISLY.
|
dark and I could not possibly see, but I felt
sure it was a wolf. However after coming
half-way over it changed its mind and swam
back to the opposite bank ; nor did I see or
hear anything more of the night marauders.
Five or six times on the plains or on my
ranch I have had shots at wolves, always
obtained by accident and always, I regret to
say, missed. Often the wolf when seen was
running at full speed for cover, or else was so
far off that though motionless my shots went
wide of it. But once have I with my own rifle
killed a wolf, and this was while travelling
with a pack train in the mountains. We had
been making considerable noise, and I never
understood how an animal so wary permitted
our near approach. He did, nevertheless, and
just as we came to a little stream which we
were to ford I saw him get on a dead log
some thirty yards distant and walk slowly off
with his eyes turned toward us. The first
shot smashed his shoulders and brought him
down.
| The wolf is one of the animals which can
only be hunted successfully with dogs. Most
‘dogs however do not take at all kindly to the
pursuit. A wolf is aterrible fighter. He will
decimate a pack of hounds by rabid snaps
with his giant jaws while suffering little dam-
age himself; nor are the ordinary big dogs,
supposed to be fighting dogs, able to tackle
him without special training. JI have known
one wolf to kill a bulldog which had rushed
at it with a single snap, while another which

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 193

had entered the yard of a Montana ranch
house slew in quick succession both of the
large mastiffs by which it was assailed. The
immense agility and ferocity of the wild beast,
the terrible snap of his long-toothed jaws, and
the admirable training in which he always is,
give him a great advantage over fat, small-
toothed, smooth-skinned dogs, even though
they are nominally supposed to belong to the
fighting classes. In the way that bench com-
petitions are arranged nowadays this is but
natural, as there is no temptation to producea
worthy class of fighting dog when the rewards
are given upon technical points wholly uncon-
nected with the dog’s usefulness. A prize-
winning mastiff or bulldog may be almost use-
less for the only purposes for which his kind
is ever useful at all. A mastiff, if properly
trained and of sufficient size, might possibly
be able to meet a young or undersized Texan
wolf ; but I have never seen a dog of this
variety which I would esteem a match single-
handed for one of the huge timber wolves of
western Montana. Even if the dog was the
heavier of the two, his teeth and claws would
be very much smaller and weaker and his hide
less tough. Indeed I have known of but one
dog which single-handed encountered and slew
a wolf; this was the large vicious mongrel
whose feats are recorded in my Hunting Trips
of a Ranchman.

General Marcy of the United States Army
informed me that he once chased a huge wolf
which had gotten away with a small trap on

a

194 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

its foot. It was, I believe, in Wisconsin, and
he had twenty or thirty hounds with him,
but they were entirely untrained to wolf-
hunting, and proved unable to stop the crippled
beast. Few of them would attack it at all,
and those that did went at it singly and with
a certain hesitation, and so each in turn was
disabled by a single terrible snap, and left
bleeding on the snow. General Wade Hamp-
ton tells me that in the course of his fifty
years’ hunting with horse and hound in Mis-
sissippi, he has on several occasions tried his
pack of fox-hounds (southern deer-hounds)
after a wolf. He found that it was with the
greatest difficulty, however, that he could per-
suade them to so much as follow the trail.
Usually, as soon as they came across it, they
would growl, bristle up, and then retreat with
their tails between their legs. But one of his
dogs ever really tried to master a wolf by
itself, and this one paid for its temerity with
its life; for while running a wolf in a cane-
brake the beast turned and tore it to pieces.
Finally General Hampton succeeded in get-
ting a number of his hounds so they would
at any rate follow the trail in full cry, and
thus drive the wolf out of the thicket, and
give a chance to the hunter to get a shot. In
this way he killed two or three.

The true way to kill wolves, however, is to
hunt them with greyhounds on the great
plains. Nothing more exciting than this sport
can possibly be imagined. It is not always
necessary that the greyhounds should be of

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 195

absolutely pure blood. Prize-winning dogs
of high pedigree often prove useless for the
purposes. If by careful choice, however, a
ranchman can get together a pack composed
both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the
rough-haired Scotch deer-hound, he can have
excellent sport. The greyhounds sometimes
do best if they have a slight cross of bulldog
in their veins ; but this is not necessary. If
once a greyhound can be fairly entered to the
sport and acquires confidence, then its won-
derful agility, its sinewy strength and speed,
and the terrible snap with which its jaws come
together, render it a most formidable assail-
ant. Nothing can possibly exceed the gallan-
try with which good greyhounds, when their
blood is up, fling themselves on a wolf or
any other) foe.)\(/Phere.)doesimob \exist,)\and
there never has existed on the wide earth, a
more perfect type of dauntless courage than
such a hound. Not Cushing when he steered
his little launch through the black night
against the great ram Albemarle, not Custer
dashing into the valley of the Rosebud to die
with all his men, not Farragut himself lashed
in the rigging of the Hartford as she forged
past the forts to encounter her iron-clad foe,
can stand as a more perfect type of dauntless
valor.

Once I had the good fortune to witness a
very exciting hunt of this character among the
foot-hills of the northern Rockies. I was
staying at the house of a friendly cowman,
whom I will call Judge Yancy Stump. Judge

196 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Yancy Stump was a Democrat who, as he
phrased it, had fought for his Democracy ;
that is, he had been in the Confederate
Army. He was at daggers drawn with his
nearest neighbor, a cross-grained mountain
farmer, who may be known as old man
Prindle. Old man Prindle had been in the
Union Army, and his Republicanism was of
the blackest and most uncompromising type.

here was one point, however, on which the
two came together. They were exceedingly
fond of hunting with hounds. The Judge
had three or four track-hounds, and four of
what he called swift-hounds, the latter includ-
ing one pure-bred greyhound bitch of won-
derful speed and temper, a dun-colored yelp-
ing animal which was a cross between a grey-
hound and a fox-hound, and two others that
were crosses between a greyhound and a wire-
haired Scotch deer-hound. Old man Prindle’s
contribution to the pack consisted of two im-
mense brindled mongrels of great strength
and ferocious temper. ‘They were unlike any
dogs I have ever seen inthis country. Their
mother herself was a cross between a bull
mastiff and a Newfoundland, while the father
was described as being a big dog that be-
longed to a “Dutch Count.” The “ Dutch
Count’? was an outcast German noble, who
had drifted to the West, and, after failing in
the mines and foiling in the cattle country,
had died in a squalid log shanty while striv-
ing to eke out an existence as a hunter among
the foot-hills. His dog, I presume, from the

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 197

description given me, must have been a boar-
hound or Ulm dog.
| As I was very anxious to see a wolf-hunt
the Judge volunteered to get one up, and
asked old man Prindle to assist, for the sake
of his two big fighting dogs; though the very
names of the latter, General Grant and Old
Abe, were gall and wormwood to the unrecon-
structed soul of the Judge. Still they were
the only dogs anywhere around capable of
tackling a savage timber wolf, and without
their aid the Judge’s own high-spirited animals
ran a serious risk of injury, for they were al-
together too game to let any beast escape
without a struggle.

Luck favored us. Two wolves had killed
a calf and dragged it into a long patch of
dense brush where there was a little spring,
the whole furnishing admirable cover for any
wild beast. Early in the morning we started
on horseback for this bit of cover, which was
some three miles off. The party consisted of
the Judge, old man Prindle, a cowboy, myself,
. and the dogs. The judge and I carried our
rifles and the cowboy his revolver, but old
man Prindle had nothing but a heavy whip,
for he swore, with many oaths, that no one
should interfere with his big dogs, for by
themselves they would surely “make the wolf
feel sicker than a stuck hog.” Our shaggy
ponies racked along at a five-mile gait over
the dewy prairie grass. The two big dogs
trotted behind their master, grim and fero-
cious. The track-hounds were tied in couples,

198 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

and the beautiful greyhounds loped lightly and
gracefully alongside the horses. ‘The coun-
try was fine. A mile to our right a small
plains river wound in long curves between
banks fringed with cottonwoods. Two or
three miles to our left the foot-hills rose sheer
and bare, with clumps of black pine and cedar
in their gorges. We rode over gently rolling
prairie, with here and there patches of brush
at the bottoms of the slopes around the dry
watercourses.

At last we reached a somewhat deeper val-
ley, in which the wolves were harbored.
Wolves lie close in the daytime and will not
leave cover if they can help it; and as they
had both food and water within we knew it
was most unlikely that this couple would be
gone. The valley was a couple of hundred
yards broad and three or four times as long,
filled with a growth of ash and dwarf elm and
cedar, thorny underbrush choking the spaces
between. Posting the cowboy, to whom he
gave his rifle, with two greyhounds on one
side of the upper end, and old man Prindle
with two others on the opposite side, while I
was left at the lower end to guard against the
possibility of the wolves breaking back, the
Judge himself rode into the thicket near me
and loosened the track-hounds to let them
find the wolves’ trail. The big dogs also were
uncoupled and allowed to go in with the
hounds. Their power of scent was very poor,
but they were sure to be guided aright by the
baying of the hounds, and their presence

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 199

would give confidence to the latter and make
them ready to rout the wolves out of the
thicket, which they would probably have
shrunk from doing alone. There was a mo-
ment’s pause of expectation after the Judge
entered the thicket with his hounds. We sat
motionless on our horses, eagerly looking
through the keen fresh morning air. Then a
clamorous baying from the thicket in which
both the horseman and dogs had disappeared
showed that the hounds had struck the trail
of their quarry and were running on a hot
scent. For a couple of minutes we could not
be quite certain which way the game was go-
ing to break. The hounds ran zigzag through
the brush, as we could tell by their baying,
and once some yelping and a great row
showed that they had come rather closer than
they had expected upon at least one of the
wolves.

In another minute, however, the latter found
it too hot for them and bolted from the thicket.
My first notice of this was seeing the cowboy,
who was standing by the side of his horse,
suddenly throw up his rifle and fire, while the
greyhounds who had been springing high in
the air, half maddened by the clamor in the
thicket below, for a moment dashed off the
wrong way, confused by the report of the gun.
I rode for all I was worth to where the cow-
boy stood, and instantly caught a glimpse of
two wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which
having been turned by his shot had started
straight over the hill across the plain toward

200 HUNTING THE GRISLY,

the mountains three miles away. As soon as
I saw them I saw also that the rearmost of
the couple had been hit somewhere in the
body and was lagging behind, the blood run-
ning from its flanks, while the two greyhounds
were racing after it; andat the same moment
the track-hounds and the big dogs burst out
of the thicket, yelling savagely as they struck
the bloody trail. The wolf was hard hit, and
staggered as he ran. He did not have a hun-
dred yards’ start of the dogs, and in less than
a minute one of the greyhounds ranged up
and passed him with a savage snap that
brought him too; and before he could recover
the whole pack rushed at him. Weakened as
he was he could make no effective fight
against so many foes, and indeed had a chance
for but one or two rapid snaps before he was
thrown down and completely covered by the
bodies of his enemies. Yet with one of these
snaps he did damage, as a shrill yell told, and
in a second an over-rash track-hound came
out of the struggle with a deep gash across
his shoulders. The worrying, growling, and
snarling were terrific, but in a minute the
heaving mass grew motionless and the dogs
drew off, save one or two that still continued
to worry the dead wolf asit lay stark and stiff
with glazed eyes and rumpled fur.

No sooner were we Satisfied that it was
dead than the Judge, with cheers and oaths
and crackings of his whip, urged the dogs
after the other wolf. The two greyhounds
that had been with old man Prindle had for-

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 201

tunately not been able to see the wolves when
they first broke from the cover, and never saw
the wounded wolf at all, starting off at full
speed after the unwounded one the instant he
topped the crest of the hill. He had taken
advantage of a slight hollow and turned, and
now the chase was crossing us half a mile
away. With whip and spur we flew towards
them, our two greyhounds stretching out in
front and leaving us as if we were standing
still, the track-hounds and big dogs running
after them just ahead of the horses. Fortu-
nately the wolf plunged for a moment into a
little brushy hollow and again doubled back,
and this gave us a chance to see the end of
the chase from nearby. The two greyhounds
which had first taken up the pursuit were
then but a short distance behind. Nearer
they crept until they were within ten yards,
and then with a tremendous race the little
bitch ran past him and inflicted a vicious bite
in the big beast’s ham. He whirled around
like a top and his jaws clashed like those of a
sprung bear-trap, but quick though he was
she was quicker and just cleared his savage
rush. In another moment he resumed his
flight at full speed, a speed which only that of
the greyhounds exceeded ; but almost immedi-
ately the second greyhound ranged along-
side, and though he was not able to bite, be-
cause the wolf kept running with its head
turned around threatening him, yet by his
feints he delayed the beast’s flight so that in
a moment or two the remaining couple of

202 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

swift hounds arrived on the scene. For a
moment the wolf and all four dogs galloped
along in a bunch; then one of the greyhounds,
watching his chance, pinned the beast cleverly
by the hock and threw him completely over.
The others jumped on it in an instant; but
rising by main strength the wolf shook himself
free, catching one dog by the ear and tearing
it half off. ‘Then he sat down on his haunches
and the greyhounds ranged themselves around
him some twenty yards off, forming a ring
which forbade his retreat, though they them-
selves did not dare touch him. However
the end was at hand. In another moment
Old Abe and General Grant came running up
at headlong speed and smashed into the wolf
like a couple of battering-rams. He rose on
his hind-legs like a wrestler as they came at
him, the greyhounds also rising and bouncing
up and down like rubber balls. I could just
see the wolf and the first big dog locked to-
gether, as the second one made good his
throat-hold. In another moment over all three
tumbled, while the greyhounds and one or
two of the track-hounds jumped in to take
part in the killing. The big dogs more than
occupied the wolf’s attention and took all the
punishing, while in a trice one of the grey-
hounds, having seized him by the hind-leg,
stretched him out, and the others were biting
his undefended belly. The snarling and yel-
ling of the worry made a noise so fiendish
that it was fairly bloodcurdling ; then it grad-
ually died down, and the second wolf lay limp

WOLVES AND WOCLF-HOUNDS. 203

on the plain, killed by the dogs unassisted.
This wolf was rather heavier and decidedly
taller than either of the big dogs, with more
sinewy feet and longer fangs.

I have several times seen wolves run down
and stopped by greyhounds after a break-neck
gallop and a wildly exciting finish, but this
was the only occasion on which I ever saw
the dogs killa big, full-grown he-wolf unaided.
Nevertheless various friends of mine own
packs that have performed the feat again and
again. One pack, formerly kept at Fort Ben-
ton, until wolves in that neighborhood became
scarce, had nearly seventy-five to its credit,
most of them killed without any assistance
from the hunter; killed moreover by the grey-
hounds alone, there being no other dogs with
the pack. These greyhounds were trained to
the throat-hold, and did their own killing in
fine style; usually six or eight were slipped
together. General Miles informs me that he
once had great fun in the Indian Territory
hunting wolves with a pack of greyhounds.
They had with the pack a large stub-tailed
mongrel, of doubtful ancestry but most un-
doubted fighting capacity. When the wolf
was started the greyhounds were sure to over-
take it in a mile or two; they would then
bring it to a halt and stand around it in a ring
until the fighting dog came up. The latter
promptly tumbled on tke wolf, grabbing him
anywhere, and often getting a terrific wound
himself at the same time. As soon as he had
seized the wolf and was rolling over with him

204 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

in the grapple the other dogs joined in the
fray and dispatched the quarry without much
danger to themselves.

During the last decade many ranchmen in
Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, have de-
veloped packs of greyhounds able to kill a
wolf unassisted. Greyhounds trained for this
purpose always seize by the throat; and the
light dogs used for coursing jack-rabbits are
not of much service, smooth or rough-haired
greyhounds and deer-hounds standing over
thirty inches at the shoulder and weighing
over ninety pounds being the only ones that,
together with speed, courage, and endurance,
possess the requisite power.

One of the most famous packs in the West
was that of the Sun River Hound Club, in
Montana, started by the stockmen of Sun
River to get rid of the curse of wolves which
infested the neighborhood and worked very
serious damage to the herds and flocks. The
pack was composed of both greyhounds and
deerhounds, the best being from the kennels
of Colonel Williams and of Mr. Van Hummel,
of Denver; they were handled by an old
plainsman and veteran wolf-hunter named
Porter. In the season of ’86 the astonishing
number of 146 wolves were killed with these
dogs. Ordinarily, as soon as the dogs seized
a wolf, and threw or held it, Porter rushed in
and stabbed it with his hunting-knife; one
day, when out with six hounds, he thus killed no
less than twelve out of the fifteen wolves start-
ed, though one of the greyhounds was killed,

-

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS 205

and all the others were cut and exhausted.
But often the wolves were killed without his
aid. ‘The first time the two biggest hounds
—deer-hounds or wire-haired greyhounds—
were tried, when they had been at the ranch
only three days, they performed such a feat.
A large wolf had killed and partially eaten a
sheep in a corral close to the ranch house,
and Porter started on the trail, and followed
him at a jog-trot nearly ten miles before the
hounds sighted him. Running but a few rods,
he turned viciously to bay, and the two great
greyhounds struck him like stones hurled from
a catapult, throwing him as they fastened on
his throat; they held him down and strangled
him before he could rise, two other hounds
getting up just in time to help at the end of
the worry.

Ordinarily, however, no two greyhounds or
deer-hounds are a match for a gray wolf,
but I have known of several instances in Col-
orado, Wyoming, and Montana, in which three
strong veterans have killed one. The feat
can only be performed by big dogs of the
highest courage, who all act together, rush in
at top speed, and seize by the throat ; for the
strength of the quarry is such that otherwise
he will shake off the dogs, and then speedily
kill them by rabid snaps with his terribly
armed jaws. Where possible, half a dozen
dogs should be slipped at once, to minimize
the risk of injury to the pack; unless this is
done, and unless the hunter helps the dogs in
the worry, accidents will be frequent, and an

206 HONTING THE GRISE®X.

occasional wolf will be found able to beat off,
maiming or killing, a lesser number of assail-
ants. Some hunters prefer the smooth grey-
hound, because of its great speed, and others
the wire-coated animal, the rough deer-hound,
because of its superior strength; both, if of
the right kind, are dauntless fighters.

Colonel Williams’ greyhounds have _per-
formed many noble feats in wolf-hunting. He
spent the winter of 1875 in the Black Hills,
which at that time did not contain a single
settler, and fairly swarmed with game.
Wolves were especially numerous and very
bold and fierce, so that the dogs of the party
were continually in jeopardy of their lives.
On the other hand they took an ample ven-
geance, for many wolves were caught by the
pack. Whenever possible, the horsemen kept
close enough to take an immediate hand in
the fight, if the quarry was a full-grown wolf,
and thus save the dogs from the ferrible pun-
ishment they were otherwise certain to receive.
The dogs invariably throttled, rushing straight
at the throat, but the wounds they themselves
received were generally in the flank or belly ;
in several instances these wounds resulted
fatally. Once or twicea wolf was caught, and
held by two greyhounds until the horsemen
came up; but it took at least five dogs to
overcome and slay unaided a big timber wolf.
Several times the feat was performed by a
party of five, consisting of two greyhounds,
one rough-coated deer-hound, and two cross-
bloods; and once by a litter of seven young

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 207

greyhounds, not yet come to their full
strength.

Once or twice the so-called Russian wolf-
hounds or silky coated greyhounds, the
‘“‘borzois,” have been imported and tried in
wolf-hunting on the western plains; but hith-
erto they have not shown themselves equal, at
either running or fighting, to the big American-
bred greyhounds of the type produced by
Colonel Williams and certain others of our best
western breeders. Indeed I have never known
any foreign greyhounds, whether Scotch,
English, or from continental Europe, to per-
form such feats of courage, endurance, and
strength, in chasing and killing dangerous
game, as the homebred greyhounds of Colonel
Williams.

208 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

CELAP DR tie
IN COWBOY LAND.

Cy on the frontier, and generally among
those who spend their lives in, or on the
borders of, the wilderness, life is reduced to
its elemental conditions. The passions and
emotions of these grim hunters of the moun-
tains, and wild rough-riders of the plains, are
simpler and stronger than those of people
dwelling in more complicated states of society.
As soon as the communities become settled
and begin to grow with any rapidity, the
American instinct for law asserts itself; but
in the earlier stages each individual is obliged
to be a law to himself and to guard his rights
with a strong hand. Of course the transition
periods are full of incongruities. Men have
not yet adjusted their relations to morality and
law with any niceness. They hold strongly by
certain rude virtues, and on the other hand
they quite fail to recognize even as shortcom-
ings not a few traits that obtain scant mercy
in older communities. Many of the despera-
does, the man-killers, and road-agents have
good sides to their characters. Often they
are people who, in certain stages of civiliza-
tion, do, or have done, good work, but who,

IN COWBOY LAND. 209

when these stages have passed, find themselves
surrounded by conditions which accentuate
their worst qualities, and make their best qual-
ities useless. ‘The average desperado, for in-
stance, has, after all, much the same standard
of morals that the Norman nobles had in the
days of the battle of Hastings, and, ethically
and morally, he is decidedly in advance of the
vikings, who were the ancestors of these same
nobles—and to whom, by the way, he himself
could doubtless trace a portion of his blood.
If the transition from the wild lawlessness of
life in the wilderness or on the border toa
higher civilization were stretched out over a
term of centuries, he and his descendants
would doubtless accommodate themselves by
degrees to the changing circumstances. But
unfortunately in the far West the transition
takes place with marvellous abruptness, and at
an altogether unheard-of speed, and many a
man’s nature is unable to change with suff-
cient rapidity to allow him to harmonize with
his environment. In consequence, unless he
leaves for still wilder lands, he ends by getting
hung instead of founding a family which would
revere his name as that of a very capable, al-
though not in all respects a conventionally
moral, ancestor.

Most of the men with whom I was inti-
mately thrown during my life on the frontier
and in the wilderness were good fellows, hard-
working, brave, resolute, and truthful. At
times, of course, they were forced of necessity
to do deeds which would seem startling to

210 HUNTING: THE GRISLY.

dwellers in cities and in old settled places;
and though they waged a very stern and re-
lentless warfare upon evil-doers whose mis-
deeds had immediate and tangible bad results,
they showed a wide toleration of all save the
most extreme classes of wrong, and were not
given to inquiring too curiously into a strong
man’s past, or to criticising him over-harshly
for a failure to discriminate in finer ethical
questions. Moreover, not a few of the men
with whom I came in contact—with some of
whom my relations were very close and
friendly—had at different times led rather
tough careers. This fact was accepted by
them and by their companions as a fact, and
nothing more. ‘There were certain offences,
such as rape, the robbery of a friend, or mur-
der under circumstances of cowardice and
treachery, which were never forgiven; but
the fact that when the country was wild a
young fellow had gone on the road—that is,
become a highwayman, or had been chief of a
gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves, and cattle-
killers, was scarcely held to weigh against
him, being treated as a regrettable, but cer-
tainly not shameful, trait of youth. He was
regarded by his neighbors with the same
kindly tolerance which respectable medizval
Scotch borderers doubtless extended to their
wilder young men who would persist in raid-
ing English cattle even in time of peace.

Of course if these men were asked outright
as to their stories they would have refused
to tell them or else would have lied about

IN COWBOY LAND. 211

them; but when they had grown to regard
a man as a friend and companion they would
often recount various incidents of their past
lives with perfect frankness, and as they com-
bined in a very curious degree both a decided
sense of humor, and a failure to appreciate
that there was anything especially remarkable
in what they related, their tales were always
entertaining.

Karly one spring, now nearly ten years ago,
I was out hunting some lost horses. They
had strayed from the range three months be-
fore, and we had in a roundabout way heard
that they were ranging near some broken
country, where a man named Brophy hada
ranch, nearly fifty miles from my own. When
I started thither the weather was warm, but
the second day out it grew colder anda heavy
snowstorm came on. Fortunately I was able
to reach the ranch all right, finding there one
of the sons of a Little Beaver ranchman, and
a young cowpuncher belonging to a Texas
outfit, whom I knew very well. After putting
my horse into the corral and throwing him
down some hay I strode into the low hut,
made partly of turf and partly of cottonwood
logs, and speedily warmed myself before the
fire. We had a good warm supper, of bread,
potatoes, fried venison, and tea. My two
companions grew very sociable and began to
talk freely over their pipes. ‘There were two
bunks one above the other. I climbed into
the upper, leaving my friends, who occupied
the lower, sitting together on a bench recount-

212 HUNTING THE GRISLY,

ing different incidents in the careers of them-
selves and their cronies during the winter that
had just passed. Soon one of them asked
the other what had become of acertain horse,
a noted cutting pony, which I had myself
noticed the preceding fall. The question
aroused the other to the memory of a wrong
which still rankled, and he began (I alter one
or two of the proper names) :

“Why, that was the pony that got stole.
I had been workin’ him on rough ground
when I was out with the Three Bar outfit and
he went tender forward, so I turned him loose
by the Lazy B ranch, and when I come back
to git him there wasn’t anybody at the ranch
and I couldn’t find him. ‘The sheep-man who
lives about two miles west, under Red Clay
butte, told me he seen a fellow in a wolfskin
coat, ridin’ a pinto bronco, with white eyes,
leadin’ that pony of mine just two days be-
fore; and I hunted round till I hit his trail
and then I followed to where I’d reckoned he
was headin’ for—the Short Pine Hills. When
I got there a rancher told me he had seen the
man pass on towards Cedartown, and sure
enough when I struck Cedartown I found he
lived there in a’ dobe house, just outside the
town. There was a boom on the town and
it looked pretty slick. ‘There was two hotels
and I went into the first, and I says, ‘ Where’s
the justice of the peace?’ says I to the bar-
tender.

“¢There ain’t no justice of the peace,’
says he,‘ the justice of the peace got shot.’

IN COWBOY LAND. 213

««<« Well, where ’s the constable?’ says I.

“© ¢ Why, it was him that shot the justice of
the peace!’ says he; ‘he’s skipped the coun-
try with a bunch of horses.’

““¢ Well, ain’t there no officer of the law left
in this town ?’ says I.

““ «Why, of course,’ says he, ‘ there ’s a pro-
bate judge; he is over tendin’ bar at the Last
Chance Hotel.’

“So I went over to the Last Chance Hotel
and I walked in there. ‘Mornin’,’ says I.

*¢¢ Mornin’,’ says he.

“«* You ’re the probate judge ?’ says I.

“¢ That ’s what I am,’ says he. ‘What do
you want ?’ says he.

«¢] want justice,’ says I.

“<«What kind of justice do you want?’ says
hess Whats ’s 1 fone

‘©¢ It ’s for stealin’ a horse,’ says I.

ec vhen | by)! God you Il) git, it,’ says he.
‘Who stole the horse?’ says he.

‘‘¢It is a man that lives in a ’dobe house,
just outside the town there,’ says I.

‘¢* Well, where do you come from your-
self?’ said he.

‘From Medory,’ said I.

“With that he lost interest and settled kind
o’ back, and says he, ‘ There won’t no Cedar-
town jury hang a Cedartown man for stealin’
a Medory man’s horse,’ said he.

“¢ Well, what am I to do about my horse ?’
says I.

“*Do?’ says he; ‘well, you know where
the man lives, don’t you ?’ says he ; ‘ then sit

214 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

up outside his house to-night and shoot him
when he comes in,’ says he, ‘and skip out
with the horse.’

«< All right,’ says I, ‘that is what I ’ll do,’
and I walked off.

“So I went off to his house and I laid down
behind some sage-brushes to wait for him.
He was not at home, but I could see his wife
movin’ about inside now and then, and I
waited and waited, and it growed darker, and
I begun to say to myself, ‘Now here you are
lyin’ out to shoot this man when he comes
home ; and it’s gettin’ dark, and you don’t
know him, and if you do shoot the next man
that comes into that house, like as not it
won’t be the fellow you’re after at all, but
some perfectly innocent man a-comin’ there
after the other man’s wife!’

‘“‘So I up and saddled the bronc’ and lit
out for home,’ concluded the narrator with
the air of one justly proud of his own self-
abnegating virtue.

The “ town” where the judge above-
mentioned dwelt was one of those squalid,
pretentiously named little clusters of make-
shift dwellings which on the edge of the wild
country spring up with the rapid growth of
mushrooms, and are often no longer lived.
In their earlier stages these towns are fre-
quently built entirely of canvas, and are sub-
ject to grotesque calamities. When the terri-
tory purchased from the Sioux, in the Dakotas,
a couple of years ago, was thrown open to
settlement, there was a furious inrush of men

LN COWBOY LAND. 215

on horseback and in wagons, and various am-
bitious cities sprang up overnight. The new
settlers were all under the influence of that
curious craze which causes every true western-
er to put unlimited faith in the unknown and
untried ; many had left all they had in a far
better farming country, because they were true
to their immemorial belief that, wherever they
were, their luck would be better if they went
somewhere else. They were always on the
move, and headed for the vague beyond. As
miners see visions of all the famous mines of
history in each new camp, so these would-be
city founders saw future St. Pauls and Oma-
has in every forlorn group of tents pitched by
some muddy stream in a desert of gumbo and
sage-brush ; and they named both the towns
and the canvas buildings in accordance with
their bright hopes for the morrow, rather
than with reference to the mean facts of the
day. One of these towns, which when twenty-
four hours old boasted of six saloons, a ‘‘ court-
house,” and an “opera house,” was over-
whelmed by early disaster. The third day
of its life a whirlwind came along and took
off the opera house and half the saloons ;
and the following evening lawless men nearly
finished the work of the elements. The riders
of a huge trail-outfit from Texas, to their glad
surprise discovered the town and abandoned
themselves to a night of roaring and lethal
carousal. Next morning the city authorities
were lamenting, with oaths of bitter rage, that
“them hell-and-twenty Flying A cowpunchers

216 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

had cut the court-house up into pants.” It
was true. The cowboys were in need of
shaps, and with an admirable mixture of ad-
venturousness, frugality, and ready adapta-
bility to circumstances, had made substitutes
therefor in the shape of canvas overalls, cut
from the roof and walls of the shaky temple
of justice.

One of my valued friends in the mountains,
and one of the best hunters with whom I ever
travelled, was a man who had a peculiarly
light-hearted way of looking at conventional
social obligations. ‘Though in some ways a
true backwoods Donatello, he was a man of
much shrewdness and of great courage and
resolution. Moreover, he possessed what
only afew men do possess, the capacity to
tell the truth, He saw facts as they were,
and could tell them as they were, and he never
told an untruth unless for very weighty
reasons. He was pre-eminently a _philoso-
pher, of a happy, sceptical turn of mind. He
had no prejudices. He never looked down,
as so many hard characters do, upon a per-
son possessing a different code of ethics.
His attitude was one of broad, genial toler-
ance. He saw nothing out of the way in the
fact that he had himself been a road-agent,
a professional gambler, and a desperado at
different stages of his career. On the other
hand, he did not in the least hold it against
any one that he had always acted within the
law. At the time that I knew him he had
become a man of some substance, and

IN COWBOY LAND. 217

naturally a staunch upholder of the existing
order of things. But while he never boasted
of his past deeds, he never apologized for
them, and evidently would have been quite
as incapable of understanding that they
needed an apology as he would have been in-
capable of being guilty of mere vulgar boast-
fulness. He did not often allude to his
past career at all. When he did, he recited
its incidents perfectly naturally and simply,
as events, without any reference to or regard
for their ethical significance. It was this
quality which made him at times a specially
pleasant companion, and always an agreeable
narrator. The point of his story, or what
seemed to him the point, was rarely that which
struck me. It was the incidental sidelights
the story threw upon his own nature and the
somewhat lurid surroundings amid which he
had moved.

On one occasion when we were out to-
gether we killed a bear, and after skinning it,
took a bath in a lake. I noticed he had a
scar on the side of his foot and asked him
how he got it, to which he responded, with in-
difference :

‘Oh, that? Why, a man shootin’ at me to
make me dance, that was all.”

I expressed some curiosity in the matter,
and he went on:

“Well, the way of it was this: It was
when I was keeping a saloon in New Mexico,
and there was a man there by the name of

218 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Fowler, and there was a reward on him of
three thousand dollars y

‘“oPutvon jhim by ithe stater 7

“ No, put on by his wife,” said my friend ;
‘and there was this ¥ ?

‘“ Hold on,” I interrupted ; “ put on by his
wife did you say?”

“Yes, by his wife. Him and her had been
keepin’ a faro bank, you see, and they quar-
relled about it, so she just put a reward on
him, and so——”’

‘Excuse me,” I said, “‘ but do you mean to
say that this reward was put on publicly?” to
which my friend answered, with an “air of gen-
tlemanly boredom at being interrupted to
gratify my thirst for irrelevant detail :

‘Oh, no, not publicly. She just mentioned
it to six or eight intimate personal friends.”

‘Go on,” I responded, somewhat overcome
by this instance of the primitive simplicity
with which New Mexican matrimonial disputes
were managed, and he continued:

‘‘Well, two men come ridin’ in to see me to
borrow my guns. My guns was Colt’s self-
cockers. It was a new thing then, and they
was the only ones in town. ‘These come to
me, and ‘ Simpson,’ says they, ‘we want to
borrow your guns; weare goin’ to kill Fowler.’

“¢ Hold on for a moment,’ said I, ‘I am
willin’ to lend you them guns, but I ain’t go-
in’ to know what you ’r’ goin’ to do with
them, no sir; but of course you can have the
guns.’ ’”’? Here my friend’s face lightened
pleasantly, and he continued:

IN COWBOY LAND. 219

“Well, you may easily believe I felt sur-
prised next day when Fowler come ridin’ in,
and, says he, ‘Simpson, here’s your guns!’
He had shot them two men! ‘ Well, Fowler,’
says I, ‘if I had known them men was after
you, I ’d never have let them have them guns
nohow,’ says I. That was n’t true, for I did
know it, but there was no cause to tell him
that.” I murmured my approval of such
prudence, and Simpson continued, his eyes
gradually brightening with the light of agree-
able reminiscence :

“Well, they up and they took Fowler before
the justice of the peace. The justice of the
peace was a Turk.”

“Now, Simpson, what do you mean by
that ?”’ I interrupted :

“Well, he come from Turkey,” said Simp-
son, and I again sank back, wondering briefly
what particular variety of Mediterranean out-
cast had drifted down to New Mexico to be
made a justice of the peace. Simpson laughed
and continued :

‘That Fowler was a funny fellow. The
Turk, he committed Fowler, and Fowler, he
riz up and knocked him down and tromped
all over him and made him let him go!”

“That was an appeal to a higher law,” I
observed. Simpson assented cheerily, and
continued :

‘Well, that Turk, he got nervous for fear
Fowler he was goin’ to kill him, and so he
comes to me and offers me twenty-five dollars
a day to protect him from Fowler; and I went

220 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

to Fowler, and ‘ Fowler,’ says I, ‘that Turk ’s
offered me twenty-five dollars a day to protect
him from you. Now, I ain’t goin’ to get shot
for no twenty-five dollars a day, and if youare
goin’ to kill the Turk, just say so and go and
do it; but if you ain’t goin’ to kill the Turk,
there ’s no reason why I should n’t earn that
twenty-five dollars a day!’ and Fowler, says
he, ‘I ain’t goin’ to touch the Turk; you just
go right ahead and protect him.’”’

So Simpson “ protected ” the Turk from
the imaginary danger of Fowler, for about a
week, at twenty-five dollars a day. Then one
evening he happened to go out and met Fow-
ler, “¢ and,” said he, “ the moment I saw him
I knowed he felt mean, for he begun to shoot
at my feet,” which certainly did seem to offer
presumptive evidence of meanness. Simpson
continued :

“T didn’t have no gun, so I just had to
stand there and take it until something dis-
tracted his attention, and I went off home to
get my gun and kill him, but I wanted to do
it perfectly lawful; soI went up to the mayor
(he was playin’ poker with one of the judges),
and says I to him, ‘ Mr. Mayor,’ says I, ‘I
am goin’ to shoot Fowler. And the mayor he
riz out of his chair and he took me by the
hand, and says he, ‘ Mr. Simpson, if you do I
will stand by you;’ and the judge, he says,
‘T’ll go on your bond.’”’

Fortified by this cordial approval of the ex-
ecutive and judicial branches of the govern-
ment, Mr. Simpson started on his quest.

IN COWBOY LAND. 221

Meanwhile, however, Fowler had cut up an-
other prominent citizen, and they already had
him in jail. The friends of law and order
feeling some little distrust as to the perma-
nency of their own zeal for righteousness,
thought it best to settle the matter before there
was time for cooling, and accordingly, headed
by Simpson, the mayor, the judge, the Turk,
and other prominent citizens of the town,
they broke into the jail and hanged Fowler.
The point in the hanging which especially
tickled my friend’s fancy, as he lingered over
the reminiscence, was one that was rather too
ghastly to appeal to our own sense of humor.
In the Turk’s mind there still rankled the
memory of Fowler’s very unprofessional con-
duct while figuring before him as a criminal.
Said Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the
eye: “ Do you know that Turk, he was a right
funny fellow too after all. Just as the boys
were going to string up Fowler, says he,
‘Boys, stop; one moment, gentlemen,—Mr.
Fowler, good-by,’ and he blew a kiss to
> him!”

In the cow-country, and elsewhere on the
wild borderland between savagery and civiliz-
ation, men go quite as often by nicknames as
by those to which they are lawfully entitled.
Half the cowboys and hunters of my acquaint-
ance are known by names entirely unconnected
with those they inherited or received when
they were. christened. Occasionally some
would-be desperado or make-believe mighty
hunter tries to adopt what he deems a title

2212 HIUNTING THE GRISLY.

suitable to his prowess; but such an effort is
never attempted in really wild places, where it
would be greeted with huge derision; for all
of these names that are genuine are bestowed
by outsiders, with small regard to the wishes
of the person named. Ordinarily the name
refers to some easily recognizable accident of
origin, occupation, or aspect ; as witness the
innumerable Dutcheys, Frencheys, Kentucks,
Texas Jacks, Bronco Bills, Bear Joes, Buck-
skins, Red Jims, and the like. Sometimes it
is apparently meaningless; one of my cow-
puncher friends is always called “Sliver ” or
«¢ Splinter ’—-why, I have no idea. At other
times some particular incident may give rise
to the title: a clean-looking cowboy formerly
in my employ was always known as “ Muddy
Bill,” because he had once been bucked off
his horse into a mud hole.

The grewsome genesis of one such name is
given in the following letter which I have just
received from an old hunting-friend in the
Rockies, who took a kindly interest in a fron-
tier cabin which the Boone and Crockett Club
was putting up at the Chicago World’s Fair.

“Feb 16th 1893; Der Sir: I see in the newspapers
that your club the Daniel Boon and Davey Crockit you
Intend to erect a fruntier Cabin at the world’s Far at
Chicago to represent the erley Pianears of our coun-
try I would like to see you maik a success I have
all my life been a fruntiersman and feel interested in
your undertaking and I hoap you wile get a good assort-
ment of relicks I want to maik one suggestion to you
that is in regard to geting a good man and a genuine

Mauntanner to take charg of your haus at Chicago I
want to recommend a man for you to getit is Liver-

LN COWBOY LAND. 223

eating Johnson that is the naim he is generally called
he is an olde mauntneer and large and fine looking and
one of the Best Story Tellers in the country and Very
Polight genteel to every one he meets I wil tel you
how he got that naim Liver-eating in a hard Fight
with the Black Feet Indians thay Faught ail day John-
son and a few Whites Faught a large Body of Indians
all day after the fight Johnson cam in contact with a
wounded Indian and Johnson was aut of ammunition
and thay faught it out with thar Knives and Johnson
got away with the Indian and in the fight cut the livver
out of the Indian and said to the Boys did thay want
any Liver to eat that is the way he got the naim of
Liver-eating Johnson
** Yours truly ” etc., etc.

Frontiersmen are often as original in their
theories of life as in their names; and the
originality may take the form of wild savagery,
of mere uncouthness, or of an odd combina-
tion of genuine humor with simple acceptance
of facts as they are. On one occasion I ex-
pressed some surprise at learning that a cer-
tain Mrs. P. had suddenly married, though
her husband was alive and in jail in a neigh-
boring town; and received for answer:
“ Well, you see, old man Pete he skipped the
country, and left his widow behind him, and
so Bob Evans he up and married her !”’—
which was evidently felt to be a proceeding
requiring no explanation whatever.

In the cow-country there is nothing more
refreshing than the light-hearted belief enter-
tained by the average man to the effect that
any animal which by main force has been sad-
dled and ridden, or harnessed and driven a
couple of times, is a “ broke horse.” My

224 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

present foreman is firmly wedded to this idea,
as well as to its complement, the belief that
any animal with hoofs, before any vehicle
with wheels, can be driven across any coun-
try. One summer on reaching the ranch I
was entertained with the usual accounts of the
adventures and misadventures which had be-
fallen my own men and my neighbors since I
had been out last. In the course of the con-
versation my foreman remarked: “ We had
a great time out here about six weeks ago.
There was a professor from Ann Arbor came
out with his wife to see the Bad Lands, and
they asked if we could rig them up a team,
and we said we guessed we could, and Foleys
boy and I did ; but it ran away with him and
broke his leg! Hewas here fora month. I
guess he did n’t mind it though.” Of this I
was less certain, forlorn little Medora being a
‘‘ busted ” cow-town, concerning which I once
heard another of my men remark, in reply to
an inquisitive commercial traveller: “ How
many people lives here? Eleven—counting
the chickens—when they’re all in town!”

My foreman continued: ‘“ By George, there
was something that professor said afterwards
that made me feel hot. I sent word up to him
by Foley’s boy that seein’ as how it had come
out we would n’t charge him nothin’ for the
rig ; and that professor he answered that he
was glad we were showing him some sign of
consideration, for he’d begun to believe he’d
fallen into a den of sharks, and that we gave
him a runaway team a purpose. ‘That made

LIN COWBOY LAND. 225

me hot, calling that a runaway team. Why,
there was one of them horses never coudd have
run away before; it had n’t never been druv
but twice! and the other horse maybe had run
away a few times, but there was lots of times
he fad wt run away. I esteemed that team
full as hable not to run away as it was to run
away,’ concluded my foreman, evidently deem-
ing this as good a warranty of gentleness as
the most exacting could require.

The definition of good behavior on the
frontier is even more elastic for a saddle-horse
than for a team. Last spring one of the
Three-Seven riders, a magnificent horseman
was killed on the round-up near Belfield, his
horse bucking and falling on him. “It was
accounted a plumb gentle horse too,” said my
informant, ‘‘only it sometimes sulked and
acted a little mean when it was cinched up
behind.” The unfortunate rider did not know
of this failing of the “plumb gentle horse,”
and as soon as he was in the saddle it threw
itself over sideways with a great bound, and
he fell on his head, and never spoke again.

Such accidents are too common in the wild
country to attract very much attention ; the men
accept them with grim quiet, as inevitable in
such lives as theirs—lives that are harsh and
narrow in their toil and their pleasure alike,
and that are ever-bounded by an iron horizon
of hazard and hardship. During the last year
and a half three other men from the ranches
in my immediate neighborhood have met
their deaths in the coutse of their work. One,

15

226 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

a trail boss of the O X, was drowned while
swimming his herd across a swollen river.
Another, one of the fancy ropers of the W Bar,
was killed while roping cattle in a corral; his
saddle turned, the rope twisted round him, he
was pulled off, and was trampled to death by
his own horse.

‘The fourth man, a cowpuncher named
Hamilton, lost his life during the last week of
October, 1891, in the first heavy snowstorm of
the season. Yet he was a skilled plainsman,
on ground he knew well, and just before
straying himself, he successfully instructed
two men who did not know the country how
to get tocamp. ‘They were all three with the
round-up, and were making a circle through
the Bad Lands; the wagons had camped on
the eastern edge of these Bad Lands, where
they merged into the prairie, at the head of
an old disused road, which led about due east
from the Little Missouri. It was a gray,
lowering day, and as darkness came on
Hamilton’s horse played out, and he told his
two companions not to wait, as it had begun
to snow. but to keep on towards the north,
skirting some particularly rough buttes, and
as soon as they struck the road to turn to the
right and follow it out to the prairie, where
they would find camp ; he particularly warned
them to keep a sharp look-out, so as not to
pass over the dim trail unawares in the dusk
and the storm. They followed his advice, and
reached camp safely; and after they had left
him nobody ever agaih saw him alive. Evi-

IN COWBOY LAND. 227

dently he himself, plodding northwards, passed
over the road without seeing it in the gather-
ing gloom; probably he struck it at some
point where the ground was bad, and the dim
trail in consequence disappeared entirely, as
is the way with these prairie roads—making
them landmarks to be used with caution. He
must then have walked on and on, over rugged
hills and across deep ravines, until his horse
came to a standstill; he took off its saddle
and picketed it to a dwarfed ash. Its frozen
carcass was found with the saddle near by,
two months later, He now evidently recog-
nized some landmark, and realized that he
had passed the road, and was far to the north
of the round-up wagons; but he was a res-
olute, self-confident man, and he determined
to strike out for a line camp, which he knew
lay about due east of him, two or three miles
out on the prairie, on one of the head branches
of Knife River. Night must have fallen by
this time, and he missed the camp, probably
passing it within less than a mile; but he did
pass it, and with it all hopes of life, and walked
wearily on to his doom, through the thick
darkness and the driving snow. At last his
strength failed, and he lay down in the tall
grass of a little hollow. Five months later, in
the early spring, the riders from the line camp
found his body, resting face downwards, with
the forehead on the folded arms.

Accidents of less degreearecommon. Men
break their collar-bones, arms, or legs by fall-
ing when riding at speed over dangerous

228 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

‘round, when cutting cattle or trying to con-
trol a stampeded herd, or by being thrown
or rolled on by bucking or rearing horses;
or their horses, and on rare occasions even
they themselves, are gored by fighting steers.
Death by storm or in flood, death in striving
to master a wild and vicious horse, or in
handling maddened cattle, and too often death
in brutal conflict with one of his own fellows
—any one of these is the not unnatural end
of the life of the dweller on the plains or in
the mountains.

But a few years ago othey risks had to be
run from savage beasts, and from the Indians.
Since I have been ranching on the Little
Missouri, two men have been killed by bears
in the neighborhood of my range; and in the
early years of my residence there, several men
living or travelling in the country were slain
by small war-parties of young braves. All the
old-time trappers and hunters could tell stir-
ring tales of their encounters with Indians.

My friend, Tazewell Woody, was among the
chief actors in one of the most noteworthy
adventures of this kind. Hewasa very quiet
man, and it was exceedingly difficult to get
him to talk over any of his past experiences ;
but one day, when he was in high good-humor
with me for having made three consecutive
straight shots at elk, he became quite com-
municative, and I was able to get him to tell
me one story which I had long wished to hear
from his lips, having already heard of it
through one of the other survivors of the in-

LN COWBOY LAND. 229

cident. When he found that I already knew
a good deal old Woody told me the rest.

It was in the spring of 1875, and Woody
and two friends were trapping on the Yellow-
stone. ‘The Sioux were very bad at the time
and had killed many prospectors, hunters, cow-
boys, and settlers ; the whites retaliated when-
ever they got a chance, but, as always in Indian
warfare, the sly, lurking, bloodthirsty savages
inflicted much more loss than they suffered.

The three men, having a dozen horses with
them, were camped by the river-side in a tri-
angular patch of brush, shaped a good deal
like a common flat-iron. On reaching camp
they started to put out their traps; and when
he came back in the evening Woody informed
his companions that he had seen a great deal
of Indian sign, and that he believed there were
Sioux in the neighborhood. His companions
both laughed at him, assuring him that they
were not Sioux at all but friendly Crows, and
that they would be in camp next morning ; “ and
sure enough,” said Woody, meditatively, “ they
were in camp next morning.” By dawn one
of the men went down the river to look at
some of the traps, while Woody started out to
where the horses were, the third man remaining
in camp to get breakfast. Suddenly two shots
were heard down the river, and in another
moment a mounted Indian swept towards the
horses. Woody fired, but missed him, and he
drove off five while Woody, running forward,
succeeded in herding the other seven into camp.
Hardly had this been accomplished before the

230 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

man who had gone down the river appeared,
out of breath with his desperate run, having
been surprised by several Indians, and just
succeeding in making his escape by dodging
from bush to bush, threatening his pursuers
with his rifle.

These proved to be but the forerunners of
a great war party, for when the sun rose the
hills around seemed black with Sioux. Had
they chosen to dash right in on the camp,
running the risk of losing several of their men
in the charge, they could of course have eaten
up the three hunters in a minute; but such a
charge is rarely practised by Indians, who,
although they are admirable in defensive war-
fare, and even in certain kinds of offensive
movements, and although from their skill in
hiding they usually inflict much more loss than
they suffer when matched against white troops,
are yet very reluctant to make any movement
where the advantage gained must be offset by
considerable loss of life. The three men
thought they were surely doomed, but being
veteran frontiersmen and long inured to every
kind of hardship and danger, they set to work
with cool resolution to make as effective a de-
fence as possible, to beat off their antagonists
if they might, and if this proved impracticable,
to sell their lives as dearly as they could.
Having tethered the horses in a slight hollow,
the only one which offered any protection,
each man crept out to a point of the triangular
brush patch and lay down to await events.

In a very short while the Indians began

LIN COWBOY LAND. 231

closing in on them, taking every advantage of
cover, and then, both from their side of the
river and from the opposite bank, opened a
perfect fusillade, wasting their cartridges with
a recklessness which Indians are apt to show
when excited. The hunters could hear the
hoarse commands of the chiefs, the war-whoops
and the taunts in broken English which some
of the warriors hurled at them. Very soon all
of their horses were killed, and the brush was
fairly riddled by the incessant volleys ; but the
three men themselves, lying flat on the ground
and well concealed, were not harmed. ‘The
more daring young warriors then began to
creep toward the hunters, going stealthily
from one piece of cover to the next; and now
the whites in turn opened fire. They did not
shoot recklessly, as did their foes, but coolly
and quietly, endeavoring to make each shot
tell. Said Woody: ‘I only fired seven times
all day; I reckoned on getting meat every time
I pulled trigger.”” They had an immense.ad-
vantage over their enemies, in that whereas
they lay still and entirely concealed, the Indians
of course had to move from cover to cover in
order to approach, and so had at times to
expose themselves. When the whites fired at
all they fired at a man, whether moving or
motionless, whom they could clearly see, while
the Indians could only shoot at the smoke,
which imperfectly marked the position of their
unseen foes. In consequence the assailants
speedily found that it was a task of hopeless
danger to try in such a manner to close in on

232 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

three plains veterans, men of iron nerve and
skilled in the use of the rifle. Yet some of
the more daring crept up very close to the
patch of brush, and one actually got inside it,
and was killed among the bedding that lay by
the smouldering camp-fire. The wounded and
such of the dead as did not lie in too exposed
positions were promptly taken away by their
comrades ; but seven bodies fell into the hands
ofthe three hunters. J asked Woody how many
he himself had killed. He said he could only
be sure of two that he got; one he shot in the
head as he peeped over a bush, and the other
he shot through the smoke as he attempted to
rush in. ‘My, how that Indian did yell,”
said Woody, retrospectively , ‘ Ze was no great
of a Stoic.” After two or three hours of this
deadly skirmishing, which resulted in nothing
more serious to the whites than in two of them
being slightly wounded, the Sioux became
disheartened by the loss they were suffering
and withdrew, confining themselves thereafter
to a long range and harmless fusillade. When
it was dark the three men crept out to the river
bed, and taking advantage of the pitchy night
broke through the circle of their foes; they
managed to reach the settlements without
further molestation, having lost everything ex-
cept their rifles.

For many years one of the most important
of the wilderness dwellers was the West Point
officer, and no man has played a greater part
than he in the wild warfare which opened the
regions beyond the Mississippi to white settle-

LN COWBOY LAND. 233

ment. Since 1879, there has been but little
regular Indian fighting in the North, though
there have been one or two very tedious and
wearisome campaigns waged against the
Apaches in the South. Even in the North,
however, there have been occasional upris-
ings which had to be quelled by the regular
troops.

After my elk hunt in September, 1891, I
came out through the Yellowstone Park, as
I have elsewhere related, riding in company
with a surveyor of the Burlington and Quincy
railroad, who was just coming in from his
summer’s work. It was the first of October.
There had been a heavy snow-storm and the
snow was still falling. Riding a stout pony
each, and Jeading another packed with our
bedding, etc., we broke our way from the
upper to the middle geyser basin. Here we
found a troop of the ist Gavalry camped,
under the command of old friends of mine,
Captain Frank Edwards and Lieutenant (now
Captain) John Pitcher. They gave us hay
for our horses and insisted upon our stopping
to lunch, with the ready hospitality always
shown by army officers. After lunch we be-
gan exchanging stories. My travelling com-
panion, the surveyor, had that spring per-
formed a feat of note, going through one of
the canyons of the Big Horn for the first time.
He went with an old mining inspector, the
two of them dragging a cottonwood sledge
over the ice. The walls of the canyon are
so sheer and the water so rough that it can be

234 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

descended only when the stream is frozen.
However, after six days’ labor and hardship
the descent was accomplished ; and the sur-
veyor, in concluding, described his experience
in going through the Crow Reservation.

This turned the conversation upon Indians,
and it appeared that both of our hosts had
been actors in Indian scrapes which had
attracted my attention at the time they oc-
curred, as they took place among tribes that I
knew and in a country which I had sometime
visited, either when hunting or when _ pur-
chasing horses for the ranch. The first,
which occurred to Captain Edwards, happened
late in 1886, at the time when the Crow
Medicine Chief, Sword-Bearer, announced
himself as the Messiah of the Indian race,
during one of the usual epidemics of ghost
dancing. Sword-Bearer derived his name
from always wearing a medicine sword—that
is, a sabre painted red. He claimed to pos-
sess magic power, and, thanks to the perfor-
mance of many dextrous feats of juggling,
and the lucky outcome of certain prophecies,
he deeply stirred the Indians, arousing the
young warriors in particular to the highest
pitch of excitement. They became sullen,
began to paint, and armed themselves; and
the agent and the settlers nearby grew
so apprehensive that the troops were order-
ed to go to the reservation. A body of
cavalry, including Captain Edwards’ troop,
was accordingly marched thither, and found the
Crow warriors, mounted on their war ponies

IN COWBOY LAND. 228

and dressed in their striking battle-garb, wait-
ing on a hill.

The position of troops at the beginning of
such an affair is always peculiarly difficult.
The settlers round-about are sure to clamor
bitterly against them, no matter what they
do, on the ground that they are not thorough
enough and are showing favor to the savages,
while on the other hand, even if they fight
purely in self-defence, a large number of
worthy but weak-minded sentimentalists in
the East are sure to shriek about their having
brutally attacked the Indians. The war
authorities always insist that they must not
fire the first shot under any circumstances,
and such were the orders at this time. The
Crows on the hill-top showed a sullen and
threatening front, and the troops advanced
slowly towards them and then halted fora
parley. Meanwhile a mass of black thunder-
clouds gathering on the horizon threatened
one of those cloudbursts of extreme severity
and suddenness so characteristic of the plains
country. While still trying to make arrange-
ments for a parley, a horseman started out
of the Crow ranks and galloped headlong
down towards the troops. It was the medi-
cine chief, Sword-Bearer. He was painted
and in his battle-dress, wearing his war-bonnet
of floating, trailing eagle feathers, while the
plumes of the same bird were braided in the
mane and tail of his fiery little horse. On he
came at a gallop almost up to the troops and
then began to circle around them, calling and

236 HONING THE ‘GRISLY.

singing and throwing his crimson sword into
the air, catching it by the hilt as it fell.
Twice he rode completely around the soldiers,
who stood in uncertainty, not knowing what
to make of his performance, and expressly
forbidden to shoot at him. Then paying no
further heed to them he rode back towards
the Crows. It appears that he had told them
that he would ride twice around the hostile
force, and by his incantations would call down
rain from heaven, which would make the
hearts of the white men like water, so that
they should go back to their homes. Sure
enough, while the arrangements for the parley
were still going forward, down came the
cloudburst, drenching the command and mak-
ing the ground on the hills in front nearly
impassable; and before it dried a courier ar-
rived with orders to the troops to go back to
camp.

This fulfilment of Sword-Bearer’s prophecy
of course raised his reputation to the zenith
and the young men of the tribe prepared for
war, while the older chiefs, who more fully
realized the power of the whites, still hung
back. When the troops next appeared they
came upon the entire Crow force, the women
and children with their tepees being off to one
side beyond a little stream while almost all
the warriors of the tribe were gathered in front.
Sword-Bearer started to repeat his former ride,
to the intense irritation of the soldiers.
Luckily, however, this time some of his
young men could not be restrained. They

IN COWBOY LAND. 237

too began to ride near the troops, and one
of them was unable to refrain from firing
on Captain Edwards’ troop, which was in the
van. This gave the soldiers their chance.
They instantly responded with a volley, and
Captain Edwards’ troop charged. The fight
lasted but a minute or two, for Sword-Bearer
was struck by a bullet and fell, and as he
had boasted himself invulnerable, and
promised that his warriors should be invulner-
able also if they would follow him, the hearts
of the latter became as water and they broke
in every direction. One of the amusing,
though irritating, incidents of the affair was
to see the plumed and painted warriors race
headlong for the camp, plunge into the stream,
wash off their war paint, and remove their
feathers; in another moment they would be
stolidly sitting on the ground, with their
blankets over their shoulders, rising to greet
the pursuing cavalry with unmoved composure
and calm assurances that they had always
been friendly and had much disapproved the
conduct of the young bucks who had just
been scattered on the field outside. It was
much to the credit of the discipline of the
army that no bloodshed followed the fight
proper. The loss to the whites was small.
The other incident, related by Lieutenant
Pitcher, took place in 1890, near Tongue
River, in northern Wyoming. The command
with which he was serving was camped near
the Cheyenne Reservation. One day two
young Cheyenne bucks, met one of the govern-

238 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

ment herders, and promptly killed him—in a
. sudden fit, half of ungovernable blood lust,
half of mere ferocious lightheartedness. They
then dragged his body into the brush and left
it. ‘The disappearance of the herder of course
attracted attention, and a search was organ-
ized by the cavalry. At first the Indians stout-
ly denied all knowledge of the missing man;
but when it became evident that the search
party would shortly find him, two or three
of the chiefs joined them, and piloted them
to where the body lay; and acknowledged
that he had been murdered by two of their
band, though at first they refused to give their
names. ‘The commander of the post de-
manded that the murderers be given up.
The chiefs said that they were very sorry, that
this could not be done, but that they were
willing to pay over any reasonable number of
ponies to make amends for the death. ‘This
offer was of course promptly refused, and the
commander notified them that if they did not
surrender the murderers by a certain time he
would hold the whole tribe responsible and
would promptly move out and attack them.
Upon this the chiefs, after holding full counsel
with the tribe, told the commander that they
had no power to surrender the murderers, but
that the latter had said that sooner than see
their tribe involved in a hopeless struggle they
would of their own accord come in and meet
the troops anywhere the latter chose to appoint,
and die fighting. To this the commander
responded: “All right; let them come into

LN COWBOY LAND. 239

the agency in half an hour.” The chiefs ac-
quiesced, and withdrew.

Immediately the Indians sent mounted
messengers at speed from camp to camp, sum-
moning all their people to witness the act of
fierce self-doom; and soon the entire tribe of
Cheyennes, many of them having their faces
blackened in token of mourning, moved
down and took up a position on the hill-side
close to the agency. At the appointed hour
both young men appeared in their handsome
war dress, galloped to the top of the hill near
the encampment, and deliberately opened fire
on the troops. ‘The latter merely fired a few
shots to keep the young desperadoes off, while
Lieutenant Pitcher and a score of cavalrymen
left camp to make a circle and drive them in;
they did not wish to hurt them, but to capture
and give them over to the Indians, so that the
latter might be forced themselves to inflict
the punishment. However, they were unable
to accomplish their purpose; one of the young
braves went straight at them, firing his rifle
and wounding the horse of one of the cavalry-
men, so that, simply in self-defence, the latter
had to fire a volley, which laid low the assail-
ant; the other, his horse having been shot,
was killed in the brush, fighting to the last.
All the while, from the moment the two doomed
braves appeared until they fell, the Chey-
ennes on the hill-side had been steadily sing-
ing the death chant. When the young men
had both died, and had thus averted the fate
which their misdeeds would else have brought

240 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

upon the tribe, the warriors took their bodies
and bore them away for burial honors, the
soldiers looking on in silence. Where the
slain men were buried the whites never knew;
but all that night they listened to the dismal
wailing of the dirges with which the tribesmen
celebrated their gloomy funeral rites.

Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be
very superstitious. They lead lives too hard
and practical, and have too little imagination
in things spiritual and supernatural. I have
heard but few ghost stories while living on
the frontier, and these few were of a perfectly
commonplace and conventional type.

But I once listened to a goblin story which
rather impressed me. Itwas told bya grisled,
weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named
Bauman, who was born and had passed all his
life on the frontier. He must have believed
what he said, for he could hardly repress a
shudder at certain points of the tale; but he
was of German ancestry, and in childhood
had doubtless been saturated with all kinds
of ghost and goblin lore, so that many fear-
some superstitions were latent in his mind;
besides, he knew well the stories told by the
Indian medicine men in their winter camps,
of the snow-walkers, and the spectres, and the
formless evil beings that haunt the forest
depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wan-
derer who after nightfall passes through the
regions where they lurk; and it may be that
when overcome by the horror of the fate that
befell his friend, and when oppressed by the

LIN COWBOY LAND, 241

awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attri-
bute, both at the time and still more in re-
membrance, weird and elfin traits to what was
merely some abnormally wicked and cunning
wild beast; but whether this was so or not, no
man can Say.

When the event occurred Bauman was still
a young man, and was trapping with a partner
among the mountains dividing the forks of
the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River.
Not having had much luck, he and his partner
determined to go up into a particularly wild and
lonely pass through which ran a small stream
said to contain many beaver. The pass had
an evil reputation because the year before a
solitary hunter who had wandered into it was
there slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the
half-eaten remains being afterwards found by
some mining prospectors who had passed his
camp only the night before.

The memory of this event, however, weighed
very lightly with the two trappers, who were
as adventurous and hardy as others of their
kind. They took their iwo lean mountain
ponies to the foot of the pass, where they left
them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky
timber-clad ground being from thence onwards
impracticable for horses. ‘They then struck
out on foot through the vast, gloomy forest,
and in about four hours reached a little open
glade where they concluded to camp, as signs
of game were plenty.

There was still an hour or two of daylight
left, and after building a brush lean-to and

16

242 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

throwing down and opening their packs, they
started up stream. The country was very
dense and hard to travel through, as there was
much down timber, although here and there
the sombre woodland was broken by small
glades of mountain grass.

At dusk they again reached camp. The |
glade in which it was pitched was not many
yards wide, the tall, close-set pines and firs
rising round it like a wall. On one side was
a little stream, beyond which rose the steep
mountain-slopes, covered with the unbroken
growth of the evergreen forest.

They were surprised to find that during their
short absence something, apparently a bear,
had visited camp, and had rummaged about
among their things, scattering the contents of
their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroy-
ing their lean-to. The footprints of the beast
were quite plain, but at first they paid no par-
ticular heed to them, busying themselves with
rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds
and stores, and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper,
it being already dark, his companion began
to examine the tracks more closely, and soon
took a brand from the fire to follow them up,
where the intruder had walked along a game
trail after leaving the camp. When the brand
flickered out, he returned and took another,
repeating his inspection of the footprints very
closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood
by it a minute or two, peering out into the
darkness, and suddenly remarked: ‘ Bauman,

IN COWBOY LAND. 243

that bear has been walking on two legs.”
Bauman laughed at this, but his partner in-
sisted that he was right, and upon again ex-
amining the tracks with a torch, they certainly
did seem to be made by but two paws, or feet.
However, it was too dark to make sure. After
discussing whether the footprints could pos-
sibly be those of a human being, and coming
to the conclusion that they could not be, the
two men rolled up in their blankets, and went
to sleep under the lean-to.

At midnight Bauman was awakened by some
noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did
so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-
beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great
body in the darkness at the mouth of the
lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the
vague, threatening shadow, but must have
missed, for immediately afterwards he heard
the smashing of the underwood as the thing,
whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetra-
ble blackness of the forest and the night.

After this the two men slept but little, sit-
ting up by the rekindled fire, but they heard
nothing more. In the morning they started
out to look at the few traps they had set the
previous evening and to put out new ones.
By an unspoken agreement they kept together
all day, and returned to camp towards evening.

On nearing it they saw, hardly to their as-
tonishment, that the lean-to had been again
torn down. ‘The visitor of the preceding day
had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed
about their camp kit and bedding, and des-

244 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

troyed the shanty. The ground was marked
up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it
had gone along the soft earth by the brook,
where the footprints were as plain as if on
snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail,
it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing
was, it had walked off on but two legs.

The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a
great heap of dead logs, and kept up a roaring
fire throughout the night, one or the other sit-
ting on guard most of the time. About mid-
night the thing came down through the forest
opposite, across the brook, and stayed there
on the hill-side for nearly an hour. They
could hear the branches crackle as it moved
about, and several times it uttered a harsh,
grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister
sound. Yet it did not venture near the fire.

In the morning the two trappers, after dis-
cussing the strange events of the Jast thirty-
six hours, decided that they would shoulder
their packs and leave the valley that afternoon.
They were the more ready to do this because
in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign
they had caught very little fur. However, it
was necessary ° first to go along the line of their
traps and gather them, and this they started
out to do.

All the morning they kept together, picking
up trap after trap, each one empty. On first
leaving camp they had the disagreeable sen-
sation of being followed. In the dense spruce
thickets they occasionally heard a branch snap
after they had passed ; and now and then there

IN COWBOY LAND. 245

were slight rustling noises among the small
pines to one side of them.

At noon they were back within a couple of
miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight
their fears seemed absurd to the two armed
men, accustomed as they were, through long
years of lonely wandering in the wilderness
to face every kind of danger from man, brute,
orelement. There were still three beaver traps
to collect from a little pond in a wide ravine
near by. Bauman volunteered to gather these
and bring them in, while his companion went
ahead to camp and make ready the packs.

On reaching the pond Bauman found three
beaver in the traps, one of which had been
pulled loose and carried into a beaver house.
He took several hours in securing and pre-
paring the beaver, and when he started home-
wards he marked with some uneasiness how
low the sun was getting. As he hurried to-
wards camp, under the tall trees, the silence
and desolation of the forest weighed on him.
His feet made no sound on the pine needles,
and the slanting sun rays, striking through
among the straight trunks, made-a gray twilight
in which objects at a distance glimmered in-
distinctly. There was nothing to break the
ghostly stillness which, when there is no
breeze, always broods over these sombre
primeval forests.

At last he came to the edge of the little
glade where the camp lay, and shouted as he
approached it, but got no answer. The camp
fire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke

246 HUNTING THE GRISLY.

was still curling upwards. Near it lay the
packs, wrapped and arranged. At first
Bauman could see nobody ; nor did he receive
an answer to his call. Stepping forward he
again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell
on the body of his friend, stretched beside the
trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing to-
wards it the horrified trapper found that the
body was still warm, but that the neck was
broken, while there were four great fang marks
in the throat.

The footprints of the unknown beast-crea-
ture, printed deep in the soft soil, told the
whole story.

The unfortunate man, having finished his
packing, had sat down on the spruce log with
his face to the fire, and his back to the dense
woods, to wait for his companion. While
thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which
must have been lurking nearby in the woods,
waiting for a chance to catch one of the ad-
venturers unprepared, came silently up from
behind, walking with long, noiseless steps, and
seemingly still on two legs. Evidently un-
heard, it reached the man, and broke his neck
by wrenching his head back with its forepaws,
while it buried its teeth in his throat. It had
not eaten the body, but apparently had romped
and gambolled round it in uncouth, ferocious
glee, occasionally rolling over and over it;
and had then fled back into the soundless
depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved, and_ believing
that the creature with which he had to deal

IN COWBOY LAND. 247

was something either half human or half devil,
some great goblin-beast, abandoned every-
thing but his rifle and struck off at speed down
the pass, not halting until he reached the bea-
ver meadows where the hobbled ponies were
still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards
through the night, until far beyond the reach
of pursuit.

WAS
a ink
ANN Sui
ht

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