A Mountain Boyhood Part 18

The grizzly emerged above timberline near where I sat and galloped straight for a pa.s.s that overlooked the deep canons, dark forests and rocky ridges on the other side of the range. Just before he gained it, three of the dogs broke cover and gave tongue, wildly excited at the sight of their quarry, and instantly hot on his trail. The bear coolly kept his same gait, until just short of the pa.s.s, at the top of a steep, smooth incline between two huge rock slabs, he halted and faced about, waiting for them to come up. When the dogs, panting and spent from running, dashed up, he had got his wind and was ready for them.

The three dogs rushed pell-mell up the steep rock. With a deafening roar, the grizzly struck out right and left. Two of the dogs ceased howling and lay where they fell, the third turned tail and fled. The bear, stepping over the dead bodies of his vanquished foes, leisurely proceeded through the pa.s.s and down into the wild country beyond.

I have watched other grizzlies under similar conditions, and they have all shown the same shrewd, cool, craftiness. They appear to reason, to plan; their actions indicate forethought, premeditation. They seem to have not only the marvelous instinct of the animal world, but also an almost human power to think. They conserve their energy, bide their time, choose their position and, in short, set the stage to their own advantage. They have an instinct for the psychological moment--it seems at times that they evolve it out of the chaos of chance.

The Parson said, "You never can tell what a bear will do," and I, for one, believe him. The oddest performance of an individual bear I ever saw took place over on the banks of the Poudre River. Rambling through the forest I came, late one evening, upon the camp of two trappers.

They were making a business of trapping and had extensive trap-lines set throughout the region, mostly for beavers, minks, bobcats and coyotes, but some for bears too. In a narrow, dry gulch, one of them had found fresh bear tracks--he thought of a medium-sized black bear--leading up to the scattered, bleached bones of a cow. Tracks about the skull indicated that the bear had rolled it about, much as a puppy worries a bone. One day the trapper found the skull hidden in some juniper bushes, and reasoned that the bear returned from day to day, played with it, then hid it away. So he returned to camp, got a trap and set it by the beast's toy.

I was eager to learn the outcome of this action, so I gratefully accepted the trappers' invitation to stay over with them. Next day, I went along when they visited the trap. To our astonishment, the skull was gone and the trap still set.

It was easy to trace the culprit for his tracks revealed that his left front foot was badly twisted, its track pointing in, almost at right angles, to the tracks of the other three feet, with the clawmarks almost touching the track of the right front foot. We followed his trail till we came to a sandy stretch upon which that bear had held high carnival. He had rolled the skull about, punted it with his good right paw, and leaped upon it, in mimic attack, as though it were a fat marmot. Then, playtime over, he had carried it a considerable distance and cached it beneath some logs.

The trapper returned to camp for another trap, and set it and the first near the skull, concealing the traps cleverly in depressions scooped out in the sand, and covering their gaping, toothed jaws with loose, pine needles. Then he scattered a few pine cones about, and placed dead tree limbs near the traps in such a way that in stepping over them the bear would be liable to step squarely upon the concealed pan of one of them.

Three times the bear rescued the precious cow skull, each time avoiding the traps. At last in desperation, the trapper took two more traps to the gulch and vowed that he'd pull up stakes and leave the bear alone if he did not get him with the set he purposed making.

With boyish interest, I accompanied him to the gulch, carrying one of the traps for him. We left the traps a short distance from where the bear had concealed the old skull, while the trapper looked the ground over and decided to set the traps where the skull was hidden, for the spot was ideal for the purpose. On two sides logs formed a barrier and beyond them was a huge bowlder, the two forming a natural little cove.

He expected the bear to approach his plaything from the un.o.bstructed side.

The trapper had further plans. Close beside the logs grew a stunted pine tree with wide-spreading limbs near the ground. In its crotch he placed the cow's skull, higher than the bear could reach, and fastened it there with wire. Then, after setting the traps in a semi-circle around the tree, just below the skull, and concealing them carefully, we returned to camp, jubilantly confident of catching Mr. Bruin.

Three times we visited the set and found things undisturbed. We decided the bear had forsworn his toy and run away. However, I lingered at the camp in hope that the matter would yet come to a decisive end.

Some days later, when we visited the gulch again, we came upon a surprise. From a distance we missed the skull from the tree. So we hastened forward, keeping a sharp eye out for the bear which we felt certain was in a trap and lying low. At the set we stopped short. The two traps nearest the open s.p.a.ce had been carefully dug up and turned over, and lay "b.u.t.ter side down." The bear had climbed into the tree, wrenched his plaything free, and dropped it to the ground. Tracks in the sand showed that after climbing down he had cautiously placed his feet in the same tracks he had made when he advanced toward the tree.

He had carried the skull a hundred yards from the traps and hidden it again; but there were no signs that he had stopped to play with it.

The trapper was as good as his word; and after recovering from his astonishment, he sprung the traps, and we carried them back to camp.

"Some smart, that ole twisted-foot bear," the trapper told his partner.

"He's smart enough to live a hundred years--an' I'm willin' to let him."

No campfire is complete without bear stories, and it was around one that I heard the funniest bear story imaginable.

A lone trapper was caught one day in a trap of his own making, a ponderous wooden coop calculated to catch the bear alive by dropping a heavy log door in place at the open end. This door was on a trigger which a bear, in attempting to steal the bait, would spring.

As this tale was told, the trapper had just completed his trap and was adjusting the trigger, when the heavy door crashed down, pinning him across the threshold, with his legs outside. The door caught on a section of log in the doorway, and saved him from broken legs, but he was a helpless prisoner.

In struggling to free himself, he kicked over a can of honey he had brought along for bait, and the sticky fluid oozed over his thrashing legs. Four hours he lay, imprisoned, shouting at intervals, with the hope that some wandering prospector or trapper might hear him. Instead a bear came his way, tempted by the scent of the much-loved honey.

The bear loitered near by some time, no doubt wary of the presence of man, but at last his appet.i.te overcame his caution, and he started licking up the honey. Almost frantic with fear, dreading the gash of tearing teeth, the man lay quiet, while the animal licked the smears off his trembling legs. Fortunately for the trapper, the bear was not out for meat that day; so, after cleaning up the sweet, he went his way. The relieved and unharmed man was rescued shortly afterward.

The only serious injury I have suffered from a wild animal was inflicted inside the city limits of Denver, Colorado's largest city and capital. The beginning of this story dated back to the time when I discovered that another grizzly had intruded into the "bad lands" of my bears. The first announcement of the strange bear's arrival was its tracks, together with those of two tiny cubs. This was in May, while yet the s...o...b..nks lingered in that high country.

Across the miles of fallen timber I lugged a steel bear trap and set it in a likely spot beside the frozen carca.s.s of a deer. Afterwards I inspected it every day, though, to do so, I had to cross boggy, rough country, fretted over with fallen logs. I always found plenty of bear tracks--it was typical bear country--and there were many signs of their activities: old logs torn apart, ant hills disturbed, and lush gra.s.s trampled.

The first week in June, I made a surprising catch--three grizzly bears and a fox. A mother grizzly had stepped into my trap, and her two cubs, of about fifteen pounds each, had lingered near by, until, growing hungry, they had ventured to their mother, and one had been caught in a coyote trap set to protect the bait. The fox had been caught before the bear's arrival. Mrs. Grizzly, frantic over her predicament, had demolished everything within her reach, tearing the red fox from its trap, literally shredding it, apparently feeling it was to blame for her misfortune.

Her struggles soon exhausted her, for it was a warm day, and when I discovered her she was about spent, and easily dispatched.

The cubs, very small, helpless and forlorn, howled l.u.s.tily for their mother. I decided to tie their feet together, and their mouths shut.

With ready cord, I dived headlong upon a cub, caught him by the scruff of the neck, lifted him triumphantly--then dropped him unceremoniously, the end of a finger badly bitten. I was compelled to return to my cabin for a sack, because the amount of tying required to render the cubs really harmless seemed likely to choke them to death before I got them home. It required about an hour's lively tussle to get the two young grizzlies stowed safely in the sack. But I learned that having them sacked was no guarantee of getting them home.

If "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," a bear at home, chained up, is worth the whole Rockies' full in the woods.

The old grizzly's hide, paws included, must have weighed fifty pounds; the cubs, sacked, thirty--a total load of 80 pounds to carry out over rocks and fallen trees, through bog and willows. With this load on my back, I struggled to my feet and started, picking my way slowly, circling logs and avoiding soft spots. The first half mile was the best, after that things thickened up, the bog deepened, the bears wanted to get out and walk.

Where the stream emerges from between a wide moraine and Meeker Mountain, it is not broad, nor very deep, but it is exceedingly cold and swift, and the only crossing was a beaver-felled aspen, which lay top-foremost toward me, presenting an array of limbs that served as banisters. About midway over the limbs gave out, leaving the smooth aspen trunk as a foot-log. Many times I had crossed this without mishap, so I had no qualms about tackling it now. Deliberately I edged along, stepping slowly, carefully, progressing nicely until about midway. Just then one of the cubs sank his teeth into my back. I jerked away, twisted, tottered, half regained my balance, then pitched headlong into the icy water of the beaver pond beneath.

For a moment there was a grand melee. The cubs did not like the ice water any more than I. They squirmed and clawed, fought free of the sack, and lightened my load considerably. I spent a busy hour catching and sacking them again.

It required six hours to transport those cubs four miles! And I'm sure they were as thankful as their ferry when the trip ended at my cabin.

From the first week in June until the middle of December, they grew from fifteen pounds to forty each. Although they were interesting pets, their keep became a problem. Such appet.i.tes! They could never get enough. They weren't finicky about the quality of their food; but oh, the quant.i.ty! Then, too, I couldn't leave them and go on long trips. So I decided to part with them.

The City of Denver sent a representative to see me, for they wanted some grizzlies to show eastern tourists.

It was with the feeling that I was betraying the cubs, however, that I finally took them to Denver. They were so obedient and well-behaved that I hesitated to deliver them into unknown hands. They knew their names, Johnny and Jenny, as well as children knew theirs. At command they would stand erect, walk about on their hind feet, whining eagerly for some treat, looking for all the world like funny, little old men.

At the Denver City Zoo we were welcomed by the keeper, Mr. Hill, who courteously invited me to spend the day with him, and entertained me by taking me into many of the cages, permitting me to feed some of the animals, and telling me interesting tales of happenings at the Zoo.

When we returned to the large inclosure surrounding the cage of the larger and fiercer animals, Mr. Hill asked me to a.s.sist in transfering a brown bear and a black bear to the cage where my pets were to be housed. These other bears were over a year old and more than double the size of Johnny and Jenny. The brown bear went willingly enough into the new cage, and we expected the black bear to follow, but when he reached the cage door, he stopped. Gently we urged him forward, but his mind was made up--he had gone as far as he intended and was homesick for his old cage. The keeper was tactful, and un.o.btrusively tried to maneuver the bear into the cage without exciting his obstinacy further, but he wouldn't yield. At last it came to a show down. We had the option of forcing the bear into the cage, or letting him go back.

"You go inside and snub the rope around the bars," the keeper directed me. "I'll boost from behind--we'll show him a trick or two."

A crowd had collected outside the heavy iron fence. Suggestions were abundant. No young man ever had so much advice in so short a time.

However, we were too busily engaged to profit by what we were told.

The keeper boosted the bear--and I took up the slack in the rope; but still the bear balked, though three times we double-teamed against him.

Then, suddenly, he let go all holds and lunged through the doorway, charging headlong upon me and sank his teeth into my left knee. The bite and the force of his unexpected charge knocked me backward into the corner. Instantly the bear was on top of me, growling, biting and striking.

With my uninjured leg I kicked out savagely and thrust him away, sliding him back across the slippery concrete. Again he charged, and once more I kicked him off.

Outside the iron fence women were screaming and men trying futilely to enter, but the fence was ten feet high and the sharp iron points of its pickets were discouraging--and the gateway was locked against intruders.

At this juncture the keeper rushed to another cage where he kept an iron bar for just such emergencies, but the bar was away from home that day.

At this crisis, Johnny and Jenny arrived, Jenny collided with the bars of the cage and staggered back, dazed. But Johnny found the open cage door, and charged the black bear ferociously. The black bear outweighed my little grizzly three to one, but Johnny struck his sensitive snout, forcing him into a corner, and followed up, striking with both paws, lunging in and taking furry samples of his hide.

Within a few seconds the black bear was climbing the side of the cage and howling for help. He gained the shelf near the roof. Johnny, unable to climb, sat below, growling maledictions in bear language, daring him to come down and fight it out. But the black bear had had more than enough. He stuck to the safety seat, whimpering with pain and fright.

Thus, limping and reluctant, I took leave of my pets. The ambulance had arrived to rush me to the hospital where my knee was to be treated.

As long as I could see them, they looked after me, wondering at my desertion.