Part 4

Suddenly there was a wild yell away up in the dense boughs of a big mossy maple tree that leaned over toward my side of the canyon. I looked and looked with eagerness, but could see nothing whatever.

Then again came the yell from the top of the big leaning maple. Then there was a moment of silence, and then the cry: "Oh, Moses! Why don't you come, I say, and help me catch him?" By this time I could see the leaves rustling. And I could see the boy rustling, too.

And just behind him was a bear. He had treed the bear, sure enough!

My eyes gradually grew accustomed to the gloom and density, and I now saw the red mouth of the bear amid the green foliage high overhead. The bear had already pulled off one of Ed's boots and was about making a bootjack of his big red mouth for the other.

"Why don't you come on, I say, and help me catch him?"

He kicked at the bear, and at the same time hitched himself a little further along up the leaning trunk, and in doing so kicked his remaining boot into the bear's mouth.

"Oh, Moses, Moses! Why don't you come? I've got a bear, I tell you."

"Where is it, Ed?" shouted my brother on the other side.

But Ed did not tell him, for he had not yet got his foot from the bear's mouth, and was now too busy to do anything else but yell and cry "Oh, Moses!"

Then my brother and I shouted out to Ed at the same time. This gave him great courage. He said something like "Confound you!" to the bear, and getting his foot loose without losing the boot he kicked the bear right on the nose. This brought things to a standstill. Ed hitched along a little higher up, and as the leaning trunk of the tree was already bending under his own and the bear's weight, the infuriated brute did not seem disposed to go further. Besides, as he had been mortally wounded, he was probably growing too weak to do much now.

My brother got to the bottom of the canyon and brought Ed's gun to where I stood. But, as we had no powder or bullets, and as Ed could not get them to us, even if he would have been willing to risk our shooting at the bear, it was hard to decide what to do. It was already dusk and we could not stay there all night.

"Boys," shouted Ed, at last, as he steadied himself in the forks of a leaning and overhanging bough, "I'm going to come down on my laz rope. There, take that end of it, tie your laz ropes to it and scramble up the hill."

We obeyed him to the letter, and as we did so, he fastened his lasso firmly to the leaning bough and descended like a spider to where we had stood a moment before. We all scrambled up out of the canyon together and as quickly as possible.

When we went back next day to get our ropes we found the bear dead near the root of the old mossy maple. The skin was a splendid one, and Ed insisted that my brother and I should have it, and we gladly accepted it.

My brother, who was older and wiser than I, said that he made us take the skin so that we would not be disposed to tell how he had "treed a bear." But I trust not, for he was a very generous-hearted fellow. Anyhow, we never told the story while he lived.

VIII.

BILL CROSS AND HIS PET BEAR.

When my father settled down at the foot of the Oregon Sierras with his little family, long, long years ago, it was about forty miles from our place to the nearest civilized settlement.

People were very scarce in those days, and bears, as said before, were very plenty. We also had wolves, wild-cats, wild cattle, wild hogs, and a good many long-tailed and big-headed yellow Californian lions.

The wild cattle, brought there from Spanish Mexico, next to the bear, were most to be feared. They had long, sharp horns and keen, sharp hoofs. Nature had gradually helped them out in these weapons of defense. They had grown to be slim and trim in body, and were as supple and swift as deer. They were the deadly enemies of all wild beasts; because all wild beasts devoured their young.

When fat and saucy, in warm summer weather, these cattle would hover along the foothills in bands, hiding in the hollows, and would begin to bellow whenever they saw a bear or a wolf, or even a man or boy, if on foot, crossing the wide valley of grass and blue camas blossoms. Then there would be music! They would start up, with heads and tails in the air, and, broadening out, left and right, they would draw a long bent line, completely shutting off their victim from all approach to the foothills. If the unfortunate victim were a man or boy on foot, he generally made escape up one of the small ash trees that dotted the valley in groves here and there, and the cattle would then soon give up the chase. But if it were a wolf or any other wild beast that could not get up a tree, the case was different. Far away, on the other side of the valley, where dense woods lined the banks of the winding Willamette river, the wild, bellowing herd would be answered. Out from the edge of the woods would stream, right and left, two long, corresponding, surging lines, bellowing and plunging forward now and then, their heads to the ground, their tails always in the air and their eyes aflame, as if they would set fire to the long gray grass. With the precision and discipline of a well-ordered army, they would close in upon the wild beast, too terrified now to either fight or fly, and, leaping upon him, one after another, with their long, sharp hoofs, he would, in a little time, be crushed into an unrecognizable mass. Not a bone would be left unbroken. It is a mistake to suppose that they ever used their long, sharp horns in attack. These were used only in defense, the same as elk or deer, falling on the knees and receiving the enemy on their horns, much as the Old Guard received the French in the last terrible struggle at Waterloo.

Bill Cross was a "tender foot" at the time of which I write, and a sailor, at that. Now, the old pilgrims who had dared the plains in those days of '49, when cowards did not venture and the weak died on the way, had not the greatest respect for the courage or endurance of those who had reached Oregon by ship. But here was this man, a sailor by trade, settling down in the interior of Oregon, and, strangely enough, pretending to know more about everything in general and bears in particular than either my father or any of his boys!

He had taken up a piece of land down in the pretty Camas Valley where the grass grew long and strong and waved in the wind, mobile and beautiful as the mobile sea.

The good-natured and self-complacent old sailor liked to watch the waving grass. It reminded him of the sea, I reckon. He would sometimes sit on our little porch as the sun went down and tell us boys strange, wild sea stories. He had traveled far and seen much, as much as any man can see on water, and maybe was not a very big liar, for a sailor, after all. We liked his tales. He would not work, and so he paid his way with stories of the sea. The only thing about him that we did not like, outside of his chronic idleness, was his exalted opinion of himself and his unconcealed contempt for everybody's opinion but his own.

"Bill," said my father one day, "those black Spanish cattle will get after that red sash and sailor jacket of yours some day when you go down in the valley to your claim, and they won't leave a grease spot. Better go horseback, or at least take a gun, when you go down next time."

"Pshaw! Squire. I wish I had as many dollars as I ain't afeard of all the black Spanish cattle in Oregon. Why, if they're so blasted dangerous, how did your missionaries ever manage to drive them up here from Mexico, anyhow?"

Still, for all that, the very next time that he saw the old sailor setting out at his snail pace for his ranch below, slow and indolent as if on the deck of a ship, my father insisted that he should go on horseback, or at least take a gun.

"Pooh, pooh! I wouldn't be bothered with a horse or a gun. Say, I'm goin' to bring your boys a pet bear some day."

And so, cocking his little hat down over his right eye and thrusting his big hands into his deep pockets almost to the elbows, he slowly and lazily whistled himself down the gradual slope of the foothills, waist deep in the waving grass and delicious wild flowers, and soon was lost to sight in the great waving sea.

Two things may be here written down. He wouldn't ride a horse because he couldn't, and for the same reason he wouldn't use a gun. Again let it be written down, also, that the reason he was going away that warm autumn afternoon was that there was some work to do. These facts were clear to my kind and indulgent father; but of course we boys never thought of it, and laid our little shoulders to the hard work of helping father lift up the long, heavy poles that were to complete the corral around our pioneer log cabin, and we really hoped and half believed that he might bring home a little pet bear.

This stout log corral had become an absolute necessity. It was high and strong, and made of poles or small logs stood on end in a trench, after the fashion of a primitive fort or stout stockade. There was but one opening, and that was a very narrow one in front of the cabin door. Here it was proposed to put up a gate. We also had talked about port-holes in the corners of the corral, but neither gate nor port-holes were yet made. In fact, as said before, the serene and indolent man of the sea always slowly walked away down through the grass toward his untracked claim whenever there was anything said about port-holes, posts or gates.

Father and we three little boys had only got the last post set and solidly "tamped" in the ground as the sun was going down.

Suddenly we heard a yell; then a yelling, then a bellowing. The yelling was heard in the high grass in the Camas Valley below, and the bellowing of cattle came from the woody river banks far beyond.

Then up on the brown hills of the Oregon Sierras above us came the wild answer of the wild black cattle of the hills, and a moment later, right and left, the long black lines began to widen out; then down they came, like a whirlwind, toward the black and surging line in the grass below. We were now almost in the center of what would, in a little time, be a complete circle and cyclone of furious Spanish cattle.

And now, here is something curious to relate. Our own cows, poor, weary, immigrant cows of only a year before, tossed their tails in the air, pawed the ground, bellowed and fairly went wild in the splendid excitement and tumult. One touch of nature made the whole cow world kin!

Father clambered up on a "buck-horse" and looked out over the stockade; and then he shouted and shook his hat and laughed as I had never heard him laugh before. For there, breathless, coatless, hatless, came William Cross, Esq., two small wolves and a very small black bear! They were all making good time, anywhere, anyway, to escape the frantic cattle. Father used to say afterwards, when telling about this little incident, that "it was nip and tuck between the four, and hard to say which was ahead." The cattle had made quite a "round-up."

They all four straggled in at the narrow little gate at about the same time, the great big, lazy sailor in a hurry, for the first time in his life.

But think of the coolness of the man, as he turned to us children with his first gasp of breath, and said, "Bo--bo--boys, I've bro--bro--brought you a little bear!"

The wolves were the little chicken thieves known as coyotes, quite harmless, as a rule, so far as man is concerned, but the cattle hated them and they were terrified nearly to death.

The cattle stopped a few rods from the stockade. We let the coyotes go, but we kept the little bear and named him Bill Cross. Yet he was never a bit cross, despite his name.

IX.

THE GREAT GRIZZLY BEAR.

(Ursus Ferox.)

"The Indians have unbounded reverence for this bear. When they kill one, they make exculpating speeches to it, smoke tobacco to it, call it grandfather, ancestor, etc."

P. MARTIN DUNCAN, M. B., F. R. S., F. G. S. Kings College, London.

The Indians with whom I once lived in the Californian Sierras held the grizzly bear in great respect and veneration. Some writers have said that this was because they were afraid of this terrible king of beasts. But this is not true. The Indian, notwithstanding his almost useless bow and arrow in battles with this monster, was not controlled by fear. He venerated the grizzly bear as his paternal ancestor. And here I briefly set down the Modoc and Mount Shasta Indians' account of their own creation.

They, as in the Biblical account of the creation of all things, claim to have found the woods, wild beasts, birds and all things waiting for them, as did Adam and Eve.

The Indians say the Great Spirit made this mountain first of all. Can you not see how it is? they say. He first pushed down snow and ice from the skies through a hole which he made in the blue heavens by turning a stone round and round, till he made this great mountain; then he stepped out of the clouds onto the mountain-top, and descended and planted the trees all around by putting his finger on the ground. The sun melted the snow, and the water ran down and nurtured the trees and made the rivers. After that he made the fish for the rivers out of the small end of his staff. He made the birds by blowing some leaves, which he took up from the ground, among the trees. After that he made the beasts out of the remainder of his stick, but made the grizzly bear out of the big end, and made him master over all the others. He made the grizzly so strong that he feared him himself, and would have to go up on top of the mountain out of sight of the forest to sleep at night, lest the grizzly, who, as will be seen, was much more strong and cunning then than now, should assail him in his sleep. Afterwards, the Great Spirit, wishing to remain on earth and make the sea and some more land, converted Mount Shasta, by a great deal of labor, into a wigwam, and built a fire in the center of it and made it a pleasant home. After that, his family came down, and they all have lived in the mountain ever since. They say that before the white man came they could see the fire ascending from the mountain by night and the smoke by day, every time they chose to look in that direction. They say that one late and severe springtime, many thousand snows ago, there was a great storm about the summit of Mount Shasta, and that the Great Spirit sent his youngest and fairest daughter, of whom he was very fond, up to the hole in the top, bidding her to speak to the storm that came up from the sea, and tell it to be more gentle or it would blow the mountain over. He bade her do this hastily, and not put her head out, lest the wind should catch her in the hair and blow her away. He told her she should only thrust out her long red arm and make a sign, and then speak to the storm without.

The child hastened to the top and did as she was bid, and was about to return, but having never yet seen the ocean, where the wind was born and made his home, when it was white with the storm, she stopped, turned and put her head out to look that way, when lo! the storm caught in her long red hair, and blew her out and away down and down the mountain side. Here she could not fix her feet in the hard, smooth ice and snow, and so slid on and on down to the dark belt of firs below the snow rim.

Now, the grizzly bears possessed all the wood and all the land down to the sea at that time, and were very numerous and very powerful. They were not exactly beasts then, although they were covered with hair, lived in caves and had sharp claws; but they walked on two feet, and talked, and used clubs to fight with, instead of their teeth and claws, as they do now.

At this time, there was a family of grizzlies living close up to the snows. The mother had lately brought forth, and the father was out in quest of food for the young, when, as he returned with his club on his shoulder and a young elk in his left hand, under his arm, he saw this little child, red like fire, hid under a fir-bush, with her long hair trailing in the snows, and shivering with fright and cold. Not knowing what to make of her, he took her to the old mother, who was very learned in all things, and asked her what this fair and frail thing was that he had found shivering under a fir-bush in the snow. The old mother grizzly, who had things pretty much her own way, bade him leave the child with her, but never mention it to anyone, and she would share her breast with her, and bring her up with the other children, and maybe some great good would come of it.

The old mother reared her as she promised to do, and the old hairy father went out every day, with his club on his shoulder, to get food for his family, till they were all grown up and able to do for themselves.

"Now," said the old mother Grizzly to the old father Grizzly, as he stood his club by the door and sat down one day, "our oldest son is quite grown up and must have a wife. Now, who shall it be but the little red creature you found in the snow under the black fir-bush." So the old father Grizzly kissed her, said she was very wise, then took up his club on his shoulder and went out and killed some meat for the marriage feast.

They married and were very happy, and many children were born to them. But, being part of the Great Spirit and part of the grizzly bear, these children did not exactly resemble either of their parents, but partook somewhat of the nature and likeness of both. Thus was the red man created; for these children were the first Indians.

All the other grizzlies throughout the black forests, even down to the sea, were very proud and very kind, and met together, and, with their united strength, built for the lovely little red princess a wigwam close to that of her father, the Great Spirit. This is what is now called "Little Mount Shasta."

After many years, the old mother Grizzly felt that she soon must die, and, fearing that she had done wrong in detaining the child of the Great Spirit, she could not rest till she had seen him and restored to him his long-lost treasure and asked his forgiveness.

With this object in view, she gathered together all the grizzlies at the new and magnificent lodge built for the princess and her children, and then sent her eldest grandson to the summit of Mount Shasta in a cloud, to speak to the Great Spirit and tell him where he could find his long-lost daughter.

When the Great Spirit heard this, he was so glad that he ran down the mountain side on the south so fast and strong that the snow was melted off in places, and the tokens of his steps remain to this day. The grizzlies went out to meet him by thousands; and as he approached they stood apart in two great lines, with their clubs under their arms, and so opened a lane through which he passed in great state to the lodge where his daughter sat with her children.

But when he saw the children, and learned how the grizzlies that he had created had betrayed him into the creation of a new race, he was very wroth, and frowned on the old mother Grizzly till she died on the spot. At this, the grizzlies all set up a dreadful howl; but he took his daughter on his shoulder and, turning to all the grizzlies, bade them hold their tongues, get down on their hands and knees and so remain till he returned. They did as they were bid, and he closed the door of the lodge after him, drove all the children out into the world, passed out and up the mountain and never returned to the timber any more.

So the grizzlies could not rise up any more, or make a noise, or use their clubs, but ever since have had to go on all-fours, much like other beasts, except when they have to fight for their lives; then the Great Spirit permits them to stand up and fight with their fists like men.

That is why the Indians about Mount Shasta will never kill or interfere in any way with a grizzly. Whenever one of their number is killed by one of these kings of the forest, he is burned on the spot, and all who pass that way for years cast a stone on the place till a great pile is thrown up. Fortunately, however, grizzlies are not now plentiful about the mountain.

In proof of the story that the grizzly once stood and walked erect and was much like a man, they show that he has scarcely any tail, and that his arms are a great deal shorter than his legs, and that they are more like a man than any other animal.

X.

AS A HUMORIST.

Not long ago, about the time a party of Americans were setting out for India to hunt the tiger, a young banker from New York came to California to hunt what he rightly considered the nobler beast.

He chartered a small steamer in San Francisco Bay and taking with him a party of friends, as well as a great-grandson of Daniel Boone, a famous hunter, for a guide, he sailed up the coast to the redwood wilderness of Humboldt. Here he camped on the bank of a small stream in a madrona thicket and began to hunt for his bear. He found his bear, an old female with young cubs. As Boone was naturally in advance when the beast was suddenly stumbled upon, he had to do the fighting, and this gave the banker from the States a chance to scramble up a small madrona. Of course he dropped his gun. They always do drop their guns, by some singularly sad combination of accidents, when they start up a tree with two rows of big teeth in the rear, and it is hardly fair to expect the young bear-hunter from New York to prove an exception. Poor Boone was severely maltreated by the savage old mother grizzly in defense of her young. There was a crashing of brush and a crushing of bones, and then all was still.

Suddenly the bear seemed to remember that there was a second party who had been in earnest search for a bear, and looking back down the trail and up in the boughs of a small tree, she saw a pair of boots. She left poor Boone senseless on the ground and went for those boots. Coming forward, she reared up under the tree and began to claw for the capitalist. He told me that she seemed to him, as she stood there, to be about fifty feet high. Then she laid hold of the tree.

Fortunately this madrona tree is of a hard and unyielding nature, and with all her strength she could neither break nor bend it. But she kept thrusting up her long nose and longer claws, laying hold first of his boots, which she pulled off, one after the other, with her teeth, then with her claws she took hold of one garment and then another till the man of money had hardly a shred, and his legs were streaming with blood. Fearing that he should faint from loss of blood, he lashed himself to the small trunk of the tree by his belt and then began to scream with all his might for his friends.

When the bear became weary of clawing up at the dangling legs she went back and began to turn poor Boone over to see if he showed any signs of life. Then she came back and again clawed a while at the screaming man up the madrona tree. It was great fun for the bear!

To cut a thrilling story short, the party in camp on the other side of the creek finally came in hail, when the old bear gathered up her babies and made safe exit up a gulch. Boone, now in Arizona, was so badly crushed and bitten that his life was long despaired of, but he finally got well. The bear, he informed me, showed no disposition to eat him while turning him over and tapping him with her foot and thrusting her nose into his bleeding face to see if he still breathed.

Story after story of this character could be told to prove that the grizzly at home is not entirely brutal and savage; but rather a good-natured lover of his family and fond of his sly joke.

XI.

A GRIZZLY'S SLY LITTLE JOKE.