For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn range we did not come
across any grizzly. There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods,
and we encountered a number of bands of cow and calf elk, or of young
bulls; but after several days' hunting, we were still without any game
worth taking home, and we had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the
game we were especially anxious to kill, for neither Merrifield nor I
had ever seen a bear alive.
Sometimes we hunted in company; sometimes each of us went out alone. One
day we had separated; I reached camp early in the afternoon, and waited
a couple of hours before Merrifield put in an appearance.
At last I heard a shout, and he came in sight galloping at speed down an
open glade, and waving his hat, evidently having had good luck; and when
he reined in his small, wiry cow-pony, we saw that he had packed behind
his saddle the fine, glossy pelt of a black bear. Better still, he
announced that he had been off about ten miles to a perfect tangle of
ravines and valleys where bear sign was very thick; and not of black
bear either, but of grizzly. The black bear (the only one we got on the
mountains) he had run across by accident.
Merrifield's tale made me decide to shift camp at once, and go over to
the spot where the bear-tracks were plentiful. Next morning we were off,
and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a valley with steep,
wooded sides.
That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a fine bull elk. I came
home alone toward nightfall, walking through a reach of burnt forest,
where there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black mold. When
nearly through it I came across the huge, half-human footprints of a
great grizzly, which must have passed by within a few minutes. It gave
me rather an eery feeling in the silent, lonely woods, to see for the
first time the unmistakable proofs that I was in the home of the mighty
lord of the wilderness.
That evening we almost had a visit from one of the animals we were
after. Several times we had heard at night the musical calling of the
bull elk--a sound to which no writer has as yet done justice. This
particular night, when we were in bed and the fire was smoldering, we
were roused by a ruder noise--a kind of grunting or roaring whine,
answered by the frightened snorts of the ponies. It was a bear which had
evidently not seen the fire, as it came from behind the bank, and had
probably been attracted by the smell of the horses. After it made out
what we were, it stayed round a short while, again uttered its peculiar
roaring grunt, and went off; we had seized our rifles and had run out
into the woods, but in the darkness could see nothing; indeed it was
rather lucky we did not stumble across the bear, as he could have made
short work of us when we were at such a disadvantage.
Next day we went off on a long tramp through the woods and along the
sides of the canyons. There were plenty of berry bushes growing in
clusters; and all around these there were fresh tracks of bear. But the
grizzly is also a flesh-eater, and has a great liking for [v]carrion. On
visiting the place where Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found
that the grizzlies had been there before us, and had utterly devoured
the carcass, with cannibal relish. Hardly a scrap was left, and we
turned our steps toward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was
quite late in the afternoon when we reached the place.
A grizzly had evidently been at the carcass during the preceding night,
for his great footprints were in the ground all around it, and the
carcass itself was gnawed and torn, and partially covered with earth and
leaves--the grizzly has a curious habit of burying all of his prey that
he does not at the moment need.
The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines,
which grow close together, and do not branch out until the stems are
thirty or forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees we walked over
a carpet of pine needles, upon which our moccasined feet made no sound.
The woods seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken now and
then by the strange noises always to be heard in the great pine
forests.
We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until
its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus
supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far
enough to prevent the bear's smelling us, we sat still to wait for his
approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer see the
sights of our rifles. It was useless to wait longer; and we clambered
down and stole out to the edge of the woods. The forest here covered one
side of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side was bare
except for rock and sage-brush. Once out from under the trees there was
still plenty of light, although the sun had set, and we crossed over
some fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched down under a
bush to see if perchance some animal might not also leave the cover.
Again we waited quietly in the growing dusk until the pine trees in our
front blended into one dark, frowning mass. At last, as we were rising
to leave, we heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick, from the
spot where we knew the carcass lay. "Old Ephraim" had come back to the
carcass. A minute afterward, listening with strained ears, we heard him
brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely too dark to go in after him;
but we made up our minds that on the morrow he should be ours.
Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected,
found that the bear had eaten his fill of it during the night. His
tracks showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we
doubted if he had left long before we arrived; and we made up our minds
to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived on these
mountains had evidently been little disturbed; indeed, the Indians and
most of the white hunters are rather chary of meddling with "Old
Ephraim," as the mountain men style the grizzly. The bears thus seemed
to have very little fear of harm, and we thought it likely that the bed
of the one who had fed on the elk would not be far away.
My companion was a skillful tracker, and we took up the trail at once.
For some distance it led over the soft, yielding carpet of moss and pine
needles, and the footprints were quite easily made out, although we
could follow them but slowly; for we had, of course, to keep a sharp
look-out ahead and around us as we walked noiselessly on in the somber
half-light always prevailing under the great pine trees.
After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off on a well-beaten
path made by the elk; the woods were in many places cut up by these game
trails, which had often become as distinct as ordinary footpaths. The
beast's footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he had lumbered
along up the path until near the middle of the hillside, where the
ground broke away and there were hollows and boulders. Here there had
been a windfall, and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across
one another in all directions; while between and around them sprouted up
a thick growth of young spruces and other evergreens. The trail turned
off into the tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain we
should find our quarry. We could still follow the tracks, by the slight
scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by the bent and broken twigs; and
we advanced with noiseless caution.
When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was almost a
breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, passed by
the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he sank
suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame with
excitement; and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there,
not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among
the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew exactly
where or what we were, for he reared up on his haunches sideways to us.
Then he saw us and dropped down again on all-fours, the shaggy hair on
his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he
sank down on his fore feet, I had raised the rifle; his head was bent
slightly down, and when I saw the top of the white bead fairly between
his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the
huge beast fell over on his side in the death throes, the ball having
gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the
distance had been measured.
The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I caught sight
of the game; indeed, it was over so quickly that the grizzly did not
have time to show fight. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger than any
I have seen since. As near as we could estimate, he must have weighed
above twelve hundred pounds.