Watched by Wild Animals Part 18

The next July a camper in following the track of a snowslide came upon a three-legged mother grizzly and two cubs. They were eating the carca.s.s of a deer that was just thawing from the snow and debris brought down by the snowslide. The grizzly was nearly white, one cub was brown, and the other dark gray.

As the camper went on with his burro he noticed the bear watching him from among trees across a little glacier meadow. He camped that night on a small stream at the foot of an enormous moraine a few miles from the place where he had seen the bear. Returning from picketing the burro he chanced to glance at the skyline summit of the moraine. Upon it the three-legged bear stood watching him. She was looking down with curious interest at his tent, his campfire, and the burro. Surely this crippled grizzly was living up to the reputation of the species for curiosity. A moment later she disappeared behind a boulder. With his field gla.s.ses he could still see her shadow. This showed her standing behind the boulder with her one forepaw resting against it and peeping from behind it.

That autumn a trapper out for pine martens saw the Echo Mountain grizzly and her cubs. He reported her a great traveller; said that she ranged all over her large and rugged Rocky Mountain territory. Her tracks were seen on the summit of the range and she occasionally visited the other side of the divide. Perhaps she felt that an intimate knowledge of the region was necessary for a crippled bear in meeting emergencies. This knowledge certainly would be valuable to her in making her living and a marked advantage if pursued.

This rugged scenic mountain wilderness now is a part of the Rocky Mountain National Park. It must have been a wonderland for the childlike cubs. In the lower part of this territory are a number of moraines, great hills, and ridges covered with gra.s.s and dotted with pines. There are many poetic beaver ponds. The middle slopes are black with a spruce forest and cut with a number of canons in which clear streams roar. Up at eleven thousand feet the forest frays out with dwarfed and storm-battered trees. Above this the summit of the Rockies spreads out under the very sky into a moorland--a gra.s.sy Arctic prairie. Here, in places, big snowdrifts lie throughout the summer. To these timberline drifts, when fringed with flowers, the mother and the cubs sometimes came. The stains of their tracks upon the snow showed that the cubs sometimes rolled and scampered over the wasting drifts.

They often waded in beaver ponds, swam in the clear lakes, played along the summit of ridges while the mother was making a living; and they often paused, too, listening to the sounds of the winds and waters in the canons or looking down into the open meadows far below.

Stories of this large, handsome, nearly white Echo Mountain grizzly reached trappers more than one hundred miles away. During the several years through which I kept track of her a number of trappers tried for the bear, each with his own peculiar devices. They quickly gave it up, for in each case the bear early discovered the trap--came close to it and then avoided it.

But finally an experienced old trapper went into her territory and announced in advance his determination to stay until he got the Echo Mountain grizzly. He set a steel trap in the head of a little ravine and placed a cake of half-burned, highly scented honey just beyond the trap. The mother and the cubs came, and apparently she had had a hard time making them sit down and wait until she examined the trap. To the amazement of the trapper she had climbed down the precipitous rocks behind the trap and procured the honey without pa.s.sing over the trap.

Knowing that she was in the lower part of her territory, he one day set three large traps in three narrow places on the trail which she used in retreating up the mountain. The uppermost of these he set in the edge of the little lake at the point where she invariably came out of the water in crossing it. He then circled and came below her. Away she retreated. The first trap was detected two or three leaps before she reached it. Turning aside, she at once proceeded to the summit of the range over a new route. The following day the trapper was seen moving his outfit to other scenes.

Two near-by ranchers tried to get the bear by hunting. The latter part of September they invaded her territory with dogs. The second day out the dogs picked up her trail. She fled with the yearling cubs toward the summit of the range over a route with which she was familiar.

Pausing at a rugged place she defied the dogs for a time, the cubs meanwhile keeping on the move. She continued her retreat at a surprising speed for a three-legged bear. The thin snow covering indicated that she ran at something of a gallop, making long, lunging leaps.

About a mile beyond her first affray with the dogs the mother swam with the cubs across a small mountain lake and paused in the willows on the farther sh.o.r.e. Two of the dogs swam boldly after them. Just before they reached the farther sh.o.r.e this daring mother turned back to meet them and succeeded in killing both. One of the other dogs had made his way round the lake and audaciously charged the cubs in the willows. They severely injured him but he made his escape. On went the bears. The hunters reached the lake and abandoned pursuit.

The next year another hunt with hounds was launched. There were a dozen or more dogs. The cubs, now more than two years old, were still with the mother. The hounds started them on the slope of Echo Mountain. They at once headed for the heights. After a run of three or four miles they struck their old route, retreated as before, and again swam the lake, but continued their way on up the range.

At timberline there were cl.u.s.ters of thickly matted, low-growing trees with open s.p.a.ces between. Closely pressed, the bears made a stand. Unfamiliar with timberline trees, two of the dogs in dodging the bears leaped into the matted growths. With feet half entangled they were caught by the bears before they could make the second quick move. The mother bear killed one dog with a single stroke of her forepaw and the cubs wrecked the other. The mother and cubs then charged so furiously that the remaining dogs retreated a short distance. Mother and cubs turned and again fled up the slope.

The hounds were encouraged by the near-coming men again to take up pursuit. It was nearly night when the bears made another stand on the summit, where they beat off the dogs before the hunters came up. They then made their way down ledges so rocky and precipitous that the dogs hesitated to follow. Descending two thousand feet into the forest of Wild Basin on the other side of the range, they escaped. Evidently the mother grizzly had planned this line of retreat in advance.

About a month later I saw the Echo Mountain grizzly on the western side of the range, in her home territory. She was ever alert--stopping, looking, listening, and scenting frequently. Often she stood up the better to catch the wireless scent messages. Though vigilant, she was not worried. She was even inclined to play. While standing on her hind feet she struck at a pa.s.sing gra.s.shopper with her one forepaw, but she missed. Instantly, while still standing, she struck playfully this way and that, wheeling entirely about as she struck the last time.

From her tracks I noticed that she had been ranging over the middle and lower slopes of her territory, eating elderberries and choke-cherries below and kinnikinick and wintergreen berries in the higher slopes. Once, when I saw her rise up suddenly near me, there were elder bush tops with red berries dangling from them in her mouth.

After a brief pause she went on with her feast. Having only one forefoot, she was evidently greatly handicapped in all digging operations and also in the tearing to pieces of logs. Bears frequently dig out mice and small mammals and overturn rotten logs and rip them open for the ants and grubs which they contain.

The last year that I had news concerning the Echo Mountain grizzly she was seen with two young cubs on the sh.o.r.e of a beaver pond a few miles southwest of Grand Lake. Berry pickers saw her a few times on Echo Mountain and her tracks were frequently seen.

In the autumn a Grand Lake hunter went out to look for the Echo Mountain grizzly. He had a contempt for any man who pursued big game with dogs and was sarcastic in his condemnation of the two sets of hunters who had failed with dogs to procure a three-legged bear. He condemned everyone who used a trap. But the skill of this grizzly in escaping her pursuers had gone forth, and being a bear hunter he had a great desire to procure her.

He took a pack horse and several days' provisions and camped in the heart of her territory. He spent two days getting acquainted with her domain and on the third day, shortly after noon, came upon her trail and that of her cubs descending to the lower part of her territory. He trailed for several miles and then went into camp for the night. Early the next day he set off again. He was a painstaking and intelligent stalker and succeeded in approaching at close range to where the bears were eating the tops off raspberry bushes. They either saw or scented him and, as he circled to get closer, retreated. They went down the mountain about two miles, using the trail they had tracked in the snow climbing up.

But in a ravine below they abruptly left their old trail, turned southward, climbed to the summit of a ridge, and travelled eastward, evidently bound for the summit of the range. The hunter also hurried up a ridge toward the top, his plan being to intercept the bears at a point above the limits of tree growth, where the ridge he was on united with the ridge to which the bears had retreated. He travelled at utmost speed.

Just before he reached the desired point he looked across a ravine and down upon the summit of the parallel ridge. Sure enough, there were the bears! The cubs were leading, the mother bear limping along, acting as rear guard. Apparently she had injured her remaining forefoot. She climbed a small rock ledge to the summit, stood up on hind feet and looked long and carefully back down the ridge along which they had just travelled. While she was doing this the cubs were playing among the scattered trees. The mother grizzly rejoined the cubs and urged them on before her along the ridge. At every opportune place she turned to look back.

The wind was blowing up the slope. The hunter had hidden in a rock ledge just above the treeline and was thus awaiting the bears where they could neither see nor scent him.

Presently they emerged from among the storm-dwarfed and battered trees out upon the treeless mountain-top moorland. Up the slope they started along a dim, wild life trail that pa.s.sed within an easy stone toss of the hunter. The mother, limping badly, finally stopped. The cubs stopped, looked at her, then at each other, and began to play.

The mother rose on her hind feet. Instantly the cubs stopped playing and stood up, looking silently, seriously at the mother, then at every point toward which she gazed. Looking down the slope she sniffed and sniffed the air.

Holding the only remaining and crushed forepaw before her she looked it over intently. It was bleeding and one toe--nearly severed--hung loosely. The paw appeared to have been crushed by a falling rock. With the cubs watching her as she licked the wounded foot, the hunter made ready and drew bead just below the ear.

The shadow of a pa.s.sing cloud rushed along the earth and caused the cubs to cease their serious watching of their mother and to follow with wondering eyes the ragged-edged shadow skating up the slope. The hunter, close enough to see the blood dripping from the paw, shifted slightly and aimed for the heart. Then, as he flung his rifle at a boulder: "I'll be darned if I'll kill a crippled mother bear!"

THE END