Chapter 2

Many a man has spent a thousand dollars in efforts to capture some wild thing and felt it worth the cost--for a time. Then he is willing to sell it for half cost, then for quarter, and at length he ends by giving it away. The stranger was vastly pleased with his comical Bear cubs at first, and valued them proportionately; but each day they seemed more troublesome and less amusing, so that when, a week later, at the Bell-Cross Ranch, he was offered a horse for the pair, he readily closed, and their days of hamper-travel were over.

The owner of the ranch was neither mild, refined, nor patient. Jack, good-natured as he was, partly grasped these facts as he found himself taken from the pannier, but when it came to getting cranky little Jill out of the basket and into a collar, there ensued a scene so unpleasant that no collar was needed. The ranchman wore his hand in a sling for two weeks, and Jacky at his chain's end paced the ranch-yard alone.

V. THE RIVER HELD IN THE FOOTHILLS

There was little of pleasant interest in the next eighteen months of Jack's career. His share of the globe was a twenty-foot circle around a pole in the yard. The blue hills of the offing, the nearer pine grove, and even the ranch-house itself were fixed stars, far away and sending merely faint suggestions of their splendors to his not very bright eyes. Even the horses and men were outside his little sphere and related to him about as much as comets are to the earth. The very tricks that had made him valued were being forgotten as Jack grew up in chains.

At first a butter-firkin had made him an ample den, but he rapidly passed through the various stages--butter-firkin, nail-keg, flour-barrel, oil-barrel--and had now to be graded as a good average hogshead Bear, though he was far from filling that big round wooden cavern that formed his latest den.

The ranch hotel lay just where the foothills of the Sierras with their groves of live oaks were sloping into the golden plains of the Sacramento. Nature had showered on it every wonderful gift in her lap. A foreground rich with flowers, luxuriant in fruit, shade and sun, dry pastures, rushing rivers, and murmuring rills, were here. Great trees were variants of the view, and the high Sierras to the east overtopped the wondrous plumy forests of their pines with blocks of sculptured blue. Back of the house was a noble river of water from the hills, fouled and chained by sluice and dam, but still a noble stream whose earliest parent rill had gushed from grim old Tallac's slope.

Things of beauty, life, and color were on every side, and yet most sordid of the human race were the folk about the ranch hotel. To see them in this setting might well raise doubt that any "rise from Nature up to Nature's God." No city slum has ever shown a more ignoble crew, and Jack, if his mind were capable of such things, must have graded the two-legged ones lower in proportion as he knew them better.

Cruelty was his lot, and hate was his response. Almost the only amusing trick he now did was helping himself to a drink of beer. He was very fond of beer, and the loafers about the tavern often gave him a bottle to see how dexterously he would twist off the wire and work out the cork. As soon as it popped, he would turn it up between his paws and drink to the last drop.

The monotony of his life was occasionally varied with a dog fight. His tormentors would bring their Bear dogs "to try them on the cub." It seemed to be very pleasant sport to men and dogs, till Jack learned how to receive them. At first he used to rush furiously at the nearest tormentor until brought up with a jerk at the end of his chain and completely exposed to attack behind from another dog. A month or two entirely changed his method. He learned to sit against the hogshead and quietly watch the noisy dogs around him, with much show of inattention, making no move, no matter how near they were, until they "bunched," that is, gathered in one place. Then he charged. It was inevitable that the hind dogs would be the last to jump, and so hindered the front ones; thus Jack would "get" one or more of them, and the game became unpopular.

When about eighteen months old, and half grown, an incident took place which defied all explanation. Jack had won the name of being dangerous, for he had crippled one man with a blow and nearly killed a tipsy fool who volunteered to fight him. A harmless but good-for-nothing sheep-herder who loafed about the place got very drunk one night and offended some fire-eaters. They decided that, as he had no gun, it would be the proper thing to club him to their hearts' content instead of shooting him full of holes, in the manner usually prescribed by their code. Faco Tampico made for the door and staggered out into the darkness. His pursuers were even more drunk, but, bent on mischief, they gave chase, and Faco dodged back of the house and into the yard. The mountaineers had just wit enough to keep out of reach of the Grizzly as they searched about for their victim, but they did not find him. Then they got torches, and making sure that he was not in the yard, were satisfied that he had fallen into the river behind the barn and doubtless was drowned. A few rude jokes, and they returned to the house. As they passed the Grizzly's den their lanterns awoke in his eyes a glint of fire. In the morning the cook, beginning his day, heard strange sounds in the yard. They came from the Grizzly's den: "Hyar, you, lay over dahr," in sleepy tones; then a deep, querulous grunting.

The cook went as close as he dared and peeped in. Said the same voice in sleepy tones: "Who are ye crowding, caramba!" and a human elbow was seen jerking and pounding; and again impatient growling in bear-like tones was the response.

The sun came up and the astonished loafers found it was the missing sheep-herder that was in the Bear's den, calmly sleeping off his debauch in the very cave of death. The men tried to get him out, but the Grizzly plainly showed that they could do so only over his dead body. He charged with vindictive fury at any who ventured near, and when they gave up the attempt he lay down at the door of the den on guard. At length the sheep-herder came to himself, rose up on his elbows, and realizing that he was in the power of the young Grizzly, he stepped gingerly over his guardian's back and ran off without even saying "Thank you."

The Fourth of July was at hand now, and the owner of the tavern, growing weary of the huge captive in the yard, announced that he would celebrate Independence Day with a grand fight between a "picked and fighting range bull and a ferocious Californian Grizzly." The news was spread far and wide by the "Grapevine Telegraph." The roof of the stable was covered with seats at fifty cents each. The hay-wagon was half loaded and drawn alongside the corral; seats here gave a perfect view and were sold at a dollar apiece. The old corral was repaired, new posts put in where needed, and the first thing in the morning a vicious old bull was herded in and tormented till he was "snuffy" and extremely dangerous.

Jack meanwhile had been roped, "choked down," and nailed up in his hogshead. His chain and collar were permanently riveted together, so the collar was taken off, as "it would be easy to rope him, _if need be, after the bull was through with him."_

The hogshead was rolled over to the corral gate and all was ready.

The cowboys came from far and near in their most gorgeous trappings, and the California cowboy is the peacock of his race. Their best girls were with them, and farmers and ranchmen came for fifty miles to enjoy the Bull-and-Bear fight. Miners from the hills were there, Mexican sheep-herders, storekeepers from Placerville, strangers from Sacramento; town and county, mountain and plain, were represented. The hay-wagon went so well that another was brought into market. The barn roof was sold out. An ominous crack of the timbers somewhat shook the prices, but a couple of strong uprights below restored the market, and all "The Corners" was ready and eager for the great fight. Men who had been raised among cattle were betting on the bull.

"I tell you, there ain't nothing on earth kin face a big range bull that hez good use of hisself."

But the hillmen were backing the Bear. "Pooh, what's a bull to a Grizzly? I tell you, I seen a Grizzly send a horse clean over the Hetch-Hetchy with one clip of his left. Bull! I'll bet he'll never show up in the second round."

So they wrangled and bet, while burly women, trying to look fetching, gave themselves a variety of airs, were "scared at the whole thing, nervous about the uproar, afraid it would be shocking," but really were as keenly interested as the men.

All was ready, and the boss of "The Corners" shouted: "Let her go, boys; house is full an' time's up!"

Faco Tampico had managed to tie a bundle of chaparral thorn to the bull's tail, so that the huge creature had literally lashed himself into a frenzy.

Jack's hogshead meanwhile had been rolled around till he was raging with disgust, and Faco, at the word of command, began to pry open the door. The end of the barrel was close to the fence, the door cleared away; now there was nothing for Jack to do but to go forth and claw the bull to pieces. But he did not go. The noise, the uproar, the strangeness of the crowd affected him so that he decided to stay where he was, and the bull-backers raised a derisive cry. Their champion came forward bellowing and sniffing, pausing often to paw the dust. He held his head very high and approached slowly until he came within ten feet of the Grizzly's den; then, giving a snort, he turned and ran to the other end of the corral. Now it was the Bear-backers' turn to shout.

But the crowd wanted a fight, and Faco, forgetful of his debt to Grizzly Jack, dropped a bundle of Fourth of July crackers into the hogshead by way of the bung. "Crack!" and Jack jumped up. "Fizz--crack--c-r-r-r-a-a-c-k, cr-k-crk-ck!" and Jack in surprise rushed from his den into the arena. The bull was standing in a magnificent attitude there in the middle, but when he saw the Bear spring toward him, he gave two mighty snorts and retreated as far as he could, amid cheers and hisses.

Perhaps the two main characteristics of the Grizzly are the quickness with which he makes a plan and the vigor with which he follows it up. Before the bull had reached the far side of the corral Jack seemed to know the wisest of courses. His pig-like eyes swept the fence in a flash--took in the most climbable part, a place where a cross-piece was nailed on in the middle. In three seconds he was there, in two seconds he was over, and in one second he dashed through the running, scattering mob and was making for the hills as fast as his strong and supple legs could carry him. Women screamed, men yelled, and dogs barked; there was a wild dash for the horses tied far from the scene of the fight, to spare their nerves, but the Grizzly had three hundred yards' start, five hundred yards even, and before the gala mob gave out a long and flying column of reckless, riotous riders, the Grizzly had plunged into the river, a flood no dog cared to face, and had reached the chaparral and the broken ground in line for the piney hills. In an hour the ranch hotel, with its galling chain, its cruelties, and its brutal human beings, was a thing of the past, shut out by the hills of his youth, cut off by the river of his cub-hood, the river grown from the rill born in his birthplace away in Tallac's pines. That Fourth of July was a glorious Fourth--it was Independence Day for Grizzly Jack.

VI. THE BROKEN DAM

A wounded deer usually works downhill, a hunted Grizzly climbs. Jack knew nothing of the country, but he did know that he wanted to get away from that mob, so he sought the roughest ground, and climbed and climbed.

He had been alone for hours, traveling up and on. The plain was lost to view. He was among the granite rocks, the pine trees, and the berries now, and he gathered in food from the low bushes with dexterous paws and tongue as he traveled, but stopped not at all until among the tumbled rock, where the sun heat of the afternoon seemed to command rather than invite him to rest.

The night was black when he awoke, but Bears are not afraid of the dark--they rather fear the day--and he swung along, led, as before, by the impulse to get up above the danger; and thus at last he reached the highest range, the region of his native Tallac.

He had but little of the usual training of a young Bear, but he had a few instincts, his birthright, that stood him well in all the main issues, and his nose was an excellent guide. Thus he managed to live, and wild-life experiences coming fast gave his mind the chance to grow.

Jack's memory for faces and facts was not at all good, but his memory for smells was imperishable. He had forgotten Bonamy's cur, but the smell of Bonamy's cur would instantly have thrilled him with the old feelings. He had forgotten the cross ram, but the smell of "Old Woolly Whiskers" would have inspired him at once with anger and hate; and one evening when the wind came richly laden with ram smell it was like a bygone life returned. He had been living on roots and berries for weeks and now began to experience that hankering for flesh that comes on every candid vegetarian with dangerous force from time to time. The ram smell seemed an answer to it. So down he went by night (no sensible Bear travels by day), and the smell brought him from the pines on the hillside to an open rocky dale.

Long before he got there a curious light shone up. He knew what that was; he had seen the two-legged ones make it near the ranch of evil smells and memories, so feared it not. He swung along from ledge to ledge in silence and in haste, for the smell of sheep grew stronger at every stride, and when he reached a place above the fire he blinked his eyes to find the sheep. The smell was strong now; it was rank, but no sheep to be seen. Instead he saw in the valley a stretch of gray water that seemed to reflect the stars, and yet they neither twinkled nor rippled; there was a murmuring sound from the sheet, but it seemed not at all like that of the lakes around.

The stars were clustered chiefly near the fire, and were less like stars than spots of the phosphorescent wood that are scattered on the ground when one knocks a rotten stump about to lick up its swarms of wood-ants. So Jack came closer, and at last so close that even his dull eyes could see. The great gray lake was a flock of sheep and the phosphorescent specks were their eyes. Close by the fire was a log or a low rough bank--that turned out to be the shepherd and his dog. Both were objectionable features, but the sheep extended far from them. Jack knew that his business was with the flock.

He came very close to the edge and found them surrounded by a low hedge of chaparral; but what little things they were compared with that great and terrible ram that he dimly remembered! The blood-thirst came on him. He swept the low hedge aside, charged into the mass of sheep that surged away from him with rushing sounds of feet and murmuring groans, struck down one, seized it, and turning away, he scrambled back up the mountains.

The sheep-herder leaped to his feet, fired his gun, and the dog came running over the solid mass of sheep, barking loudly. But Jack was gone. The sheep-herder contented himself with making two or three fires, shooting off his gun, and telling his beads.

That was Jack's first mutton, but it was not the last. Thenceforth when he wanted a sheep--and it became a regular need--he knew he had merely to walk along the ridge till his nose said, "Turn, and go so," for smelling is believing in Bear life.

VII. THE FRESHET

Pedro Tampico and his brother Faco were not in the sheep business for any maudlin sentiment. They did not march ahead of their beloveds waving a crook as wand of office or appealing to the esthetic sides of their ideal followers with a tabret and pipe. Far from leading the flock with a symbol, they drove them with an armful of ever-ready rocks and clubs. They were not shepherds; they were sheep-herders. They did not view their charges as loved and loving followers, but as four-legged cash; each sheep was worth a dollar bill. They were cared for only as a man cares for his money, and counted after each alarm or day of travel. It is not easy for any one to count three thousand sheep, and for a Mexican sheep-herder it is an impossibility. But he has a simple device which answers the purpose. In an ordinary flock about one sheep in a hundred is a black one. If a portion of the flock has gone astray, there is likely to be a black one in it. So by counting his thirty black sheep each day Tampico kept rough count of his entire flock.

Grizzly Jack had killed but one sheep that first night. On his next visit he killed two, and on the next but one, yet that last one happened to be black, and when Tampico found but twenty-nine of its kind remaining he safely reasoned that he was losing sheep--according to the index a hundred were gone.

"If the land is unhealthy move out" is ancient wisdom. Tampico filled his pocket with stones, and reviling his charges in all their walks in life and history, he drove them from the country that was evidently the range of a sheep-eater. At night he found a walled-in canon, a natural corral, and the woolly scattering swarm, condensed into a solid fleece, went pouring into the gap, urged intelligently by the dog and idiotically by the man. At one side of the entrance Tampico made his fire. Some thirty feet away was a sheer wall of rock.

Ten miles may be a long day's travel for a wretched wool-plant, but it is little more than two hours for a Grizzly. It is farther than eyesight, but it is well within nosesight, and Jack, feeling mutton-hungry, had not the least difficulty in following his prey. His supper was a little later than usual, but his appetite was the better for that. There was no alarm in camp, so Tampico had fallen asleep. A growl from the dog awakened him. He started up to behold the most appalling creature that he had ever seen or imagined, a monster Bear standing on his hind legs, and thirty feet high at least. The dog fled in terror, but was valor itself compared with Pedro. He was so frightened that he could not express the prayer that was in his breast: "Blessed saints, let him have every sin-blackened sheep in the band, but spare your poor worshiper," and he hid his head; so never learned that he saw, not a thirty-foot Bear thirty feet away, but a seven-foot Bear not far from the fire and casting a black thirty-foot shadow on the smooth rock behind. And, helpless with fear, poor Pedro groveled in the dust.

When he looked up the giant Bear was gone. There was a rushing of the sheep. A small body of them scurried out of the canon into the night, and after them went an ordinary-sized Bear, undoubtedly a cub of the monster.

Pedro had been neglecting his prayers for some months back, but he afterward assured his father confessor that on this night he caught up on all arrears and had a goodly surplus before morning. At sunrise he left his dog in charge of the flock and set out to seek the runaways, knowing, first, that there was little danger in the day-time, second, that some would escape. The missing ones were a considerable number, raised to the second power indeed, for two more black ones were gone. Strange to tell, they had not scattered, and Pedro trailed them a mile or more in the wilderness till he reached another very small box canon. Here he found the missing flock perched in various places on boulders and rocky pinnacles as high up as they could get. He was delighted and worked for half a minute on his bank surplus of prayers, but was sadly upset to find that nothing would induce the sheep to come down from the rocks or leave that canon. One or two that he manoeuvered as far as the outlet sprang back in fear from _something on the ground_, which, on examination, he found--yes, he swears to this--to be the deep-worn, fresh-worn pathway of a Grizzly from one wall across to the other. All the sheep were now back again beyond his reach. Pedro began to fear for himself, so hastily returned to the main flock. He was worse off than ever now. The other Grizzly was a Bear of ordinary size and ate a sheep each night, but the new one, into whose range he had entered, was a monster, a Bear mountain, requiring forty or fifty sheep to a meal. The sooner he was out of this the better.

It was now late, too late, and the sheep were too tired to travel, so Pedro made unusual preparations for the night: two big fires at the entrance to the canon, and a platform fifteen feet up in a tree for his own bed. The dog could look out for himself.

VIII. ROARING IN THE CANON

Pedro knew that the big Bear was coming; for the fifty sheep in the little canon were not more than an appetizer for such a creature. He loaded his gun carefully as a matter of habit and went up-stairs to bed. Whatever defects his dormitory had the ventilation was good, and Pedro was soon a-shiver. He looked down in envy at his dog curled up by the fire; then he prayed that the saints might intervene and direct the steps of the Bear toward the flock of some neighbor, and carefully specified the neighbor to avoid mistakes. He tried to pray himself to sleep. It had never failed in church when he was at the Mission, so why now? But for once it did not succeed. The fearsome hour of midnight passed, then the gray dawn, the hour of dull despair, was near. Tampico felt it, and a long groan vibrated through his chattering teeth. His dog leaped up, barked savagely, the sheep began to stir, then went backing into the gloom; there was a rushing of stampeding sheep and a huge, dark form loomed up. Tampico grasped his gun and would have fired, when it dawned on him with sickening horror that the Bear was thirty feet high, his platform was only fifteen, just a convenient height for the monster. None but a madman would invite the Bear to eat by shooting at him now. So Pedro flattened himself face downward on the platform, and, with his mouth to a crack, he poured forth prayers to his representative in the sky, regretting his unconventional attitude and profoundly hoping that it would be overlooked as unavoidable, and that somehow the petitions would get the right direction after leaving the under side of the platform.

In the morning he had proof that his prayers had been favorably received. There was a Bear-track, indeed, but the number of black sheep was unchanged, so Pedro filled his pocket with stones and began his usual torrent of remarks as he drove the flock.

"Hyah, Capitan--you huajalote," as the dog paused to drink. "Bring back those ill-descended sons of perdition," and a stone gave force to the order, which the dog promptly obeyed. Hovering about the great host of grumbling hoofy locusts, he kept them together and on the move, while Pedro played the part of a big, noisy, and troublesome second.

As they journeyed through the open country the sheep-herder's eye fell on a human figure, a man sitting on a rock above them to the left. Pedro gazed inquiringly; the man saluted and beckoned. This meant "friend"; had he motioned him to pass on it might have meant, "Keep away or I shoot." Pedro walked toward him a little way and sat down. The man came forward. It was Lan Kellyan, the hunter.

Each was glad of a chance to "talk with a human" and to get the news. The latest concerning the price of wool, the Bull-and-Bear fiasco, and, above all, the monster Bear that had killed Tampico's sheep, afforded topics of talk. "Ah, a Bear devill--de hell-brute--a Gringo Bear--pardon, my amigo, I mean a very terroar."