two, three hours! What had become of this strange little army of
silent brown boys?
Another hour passed. Not a boy, not a sign, not a sound. What did it
all mean?
Suddenly, down came a rabbit, jumping high in the air, his huge ears
flapping forward and back, as if they had wilted in the hot sun.
Then another rabbit, then another! Then ten, twenty, forty, fifty,
five hundred, a thousand, all jumping over each other and upon each
other, and against the nets, with their long legs thrust through the
meshes, and wriggling and struggling till the nets shook as in a gale.
Then came the long lines of half-naked brown boys tumbling down after
them out of the brush, and striking right and left, up and down, with
their clubs.
In less than ten minutes from the time they came out of the brush, the
little fellows had laid down their clubs and were dragging the game
together.
The grave professors shook their hats and handkerchiefs, and shouted
with delight from their windows overhead, and all the white boys
danced about, wild with excitement.
That is, all but one or two. The boy from Boston said savagely to the
little Aztec, as he stood directing the counting of the ears, "You're
a brigand! You're the black brigand of San Diego City, and I can whip
you!"
The brigand said nothing, but kept on with his work.
In a little time the president and head gardener came forward, and
roughly estimated that about one thousand of the pests had been
destroyed. Then the kindly president went to the bank and brought out
one hundred silver dollars, which he handed to the little Bear-Slayer
of San Diego in a cotton handkerchief.
The poor, timid little fellow's lips quivered. He had never seen so
much money in all his life. He held his head down in silence for a
long time and seemed to be thinking hard. His half-naked little
brothers and cousins grouped about and seemed to be waiting for a
share of the money.
The boy's schoolmates also crowded around, just as boys will, but
they did not want any of the silver, and I am sure that all, save only
one or two, were very glad because of his good luck.
Finally, lifting up his head and looking about the crowd of his
school-fellows, he said, "Now, look here; I want every one of you to
take a dollar apiece, and I will take what is left." He laid the
handkerchief that held the silver dollars down on the grass and spread
it wide open.
Hastily but orderly, his schoolmates began to take up the silver, his
own little brown fellows timidly holding back. Then one of the white
boys who had hastily helped himself saw, after a time, that the bottom
was almost reached, and, with the remark that he was half ashamed of
himself for taking it, he quietly put his dollar back. Then all the
others, fine, impulsive fellows who had hardly thought what they were
about at first, did the same; and then the little brown boys came
forward.
They kept coming and kept taking, till there was not very much but
his handkerchief left. One of the professors then took a piece of gold
from his pocket and gave it to the little Bear-Slayer. The boy was so
glad that tears came into his eyes and he turned to go.
"See here! I'm sorry for what I said. Yes, I am. I ought to be
ashamed, and I am ashamed."
It was the smart boy from Boston who had been looking on all this
time, and who now came forward with his hand held out.
"See here!" he said. "I've got a forty-dollar shotgun to give away,
and I want you to have it. Yes, I do. There's my hand on it. Take my
hand, and you shall have the gun just as soon as it gets here."
The two shook hands, and the boys all shouted with delight; and on the
very next Saturday one of these two boys went out hunting quail with a
fine shotgun on his shoulder.
It was the silent little hero, The Bear-Slayer of San Diego.
XV.
ALASKAN AND POLAR BEAR.
"And round about the bleak North Pole
Glideth the lean, white bear."
Nearly forty years ago, when down from the Indian country to sell some
skins in San Francisco, I saw a great commotion around a big ship in
the bay, and was told that a Polar bear had been discovered floating
on an iceberg in the Arctic, and had been taken alive by the ship's
crew.
I went out in a boat, and on boarding the ship, just down from Alaska
with a cargo of ice, I saw the most beautiful specimen of the bear
family I ever beheld. A long body and neck, short legs, small head,
cream-white and clean as snow, this enormous creature stood before us
on the deck, as docile as a lamb. This is as near as ever I came to
encountering the Polar bear, although I have lived in the Arctic and
have more than one trophy of the bear family from the land of
everlasting snows.
Bear are very plenty in Alaska and the Klondike country, and they are,
perhaps, a bit more ferocious than in California, for I have seen more
than one man hobbling about the Klondike mines on one leg, having lost
the other in an argument with bear.
As a rule, the flesh is not good, here, in the salmon season, for the
bear is in all lands a famous fisherman. He sits by the river and,
while you may think he is asleep, he thrusts his paw deep down, and,
quick as wink, he lands a huge salmon in his bunch of long, hooded
claws.
A friend and I watched a bear fishing for hours on the Yukon, trying
to learn his habits. I left my friend, finally, and went to camp to
cook supper. Then, it seems, my friend shot him, for his skin, I
think. Thinking the bear dead, he called to me and went up to the
bear, knife in hand. But the bear rose up when he felt the knife,
caught the man in his arms and they rolled in the river together. The
poor man could not get away. When we recovered his body far down the
river next day, the bear still held him in her arms. She was a long,
slim cinnamon, said to be the most savage fighter in that region.
All the bear of the far north seem to me to have longer bodies and
shorter legs than in other lands. The black bear (there are three
kinds of them) are bow-legged, I think; at least they "toe in," walk
as an Indian walks, and even step one foot over the other when taking
their time on the trail. We cultivated the acquaintance of a black
bear for some months, on the Klondike, in the winter of '97-'98, and
had a good chance to learn his habits. He was a persistent robber and
very cunning. He would eat anything he could get, which was not much,
of course, and when he could not get anything thrown to him from a
door he would go and tear down a stump and eat ants. I don't know why
he did not hibernate, as other bears in that region do. He may have
been a sort of crank. No one who knew about him, or who had been in
camp long, would hurt him; but a crowd of strangers, passing up the
trail near our Klondike cabin, saw him, and as he did not try to get
away he was soon dead. He weighed 400 pounds, and they sold him where
he lay for one dollar a pound.
I fell in with a famous bear-hunter, a few miles up from the mouth of
the Klondike early in September, before the snow fell, and with him
made a short hunt. He has wonderful bear sense. He has but one eye and
but one side of a face, the rest of him having been knocked off by the
slash of a bear's paw. He is known as Bear Bill.
The moss is very deep and thick and elastic in that region, so that no
tracks are made except in a worn trail. But Bill saw where a bit of
moss had been disturbed away up on a mountain side, and he sat right
down and turned his one eye and all his bear sense to the solution of
the mystery.
At last he decided that a bear had been gathering moss for a bed. Then
he went close up under a cliff of rocks and in a few minutes was
peering and pointing down into a sunken place in the earth. And
behold, we could see the moss move! A bear had covered himself up and
was waiting to be snowed under. Bill walked all around the spot, then
took position on a higher place and shouted to the bear to come out.
The bear did not move. Then he got me to throw some rocks. No
response. Then Bill fired his Winchester down into the moss. In a
second the big brown fellow was on his hind feet looking us full in
the face and blinking his little black eyes as if trying to make us
out. Bill dropped him at once, with a bullet in his brain.
I greatly regret that I never had the good fortune to encounter a
Polar bear, so that I might be able to tell you more about him and
his habits; for men of science and writers of books are not
bear-hunters, as a rule, and so real information about this white
robber-monk of the cold, blue north is meager indeed. But here is what
the most eminent English authority says about the nature and habits of
this one bear that I have not shaken hands with, or encountered in
some sort of way on his native heath:
"The great white bear of the Arctic regions--the 'Nennok' of the
Eskimo--is the largest as well as one of the best known of the whole
family. It is a gigantic animal, often attaining a length of nearly
nine feet and is proportionally strong and fierce. It is found over
the whole of Greenland; but its numbers seem to be on the decrease. It
is distinguished from other bears by its narrow head, its flat
forehead in a line with its prolonged muzzle, its short ears and long
neck. It is of a light, creamy color, rarely pure white, except when
young, hence the Scottish whalers call it the 'brounie' and sometimes
the 'farmer,' from its very agricultural appearance as it stalks
leisurely over the furrowed fields of ice. Its principal food consists
of seals, which it persecutes most indefatigably; but it is somewhat
omniverous in its diet, and will often clear an islet of eider duck
eggs in the course of a few hours. I once saw it watch a seal for half
a day, the seal continually escaping, just as the bear was about
putting his foot on it, at the atluk (or escape hole) in the ice.
Finally, it tried to circumvent its prey in another maneuver. It swam
off to a distance, and when the seal was again half asleep at its
atluk, the bear swam under the ice, with a view to cut off its
retreat. It failed, however, and the seal finally escaped. The rage of
the animal was boundless; it moaned hideously, tossing the snow in the
air, and at last trotted off in a most indignant state of mind.
"Being so fond of seal-flesh, the Polar bear often proves a great
nuisance to sealhunters, whose occupation he naturally regards as a
catering to his wants. He is also glad of the whale carcasses often
found floating in the Arctic seas, and travelers have seen as many as
twenty bears busily discussing the huge body of a dead whalebone
whale.
"As the Polar bear is able to obtain food all through the Arctic
winter, there is not the same necessity, as in the case of the
vegetable-eating bears, for hibernating. In fact, the males and young
females roam about through the whole winter, and only the older
females retire for the season. These--according to the Eskimo account,
quoted by Captain Lyon--are very fat at the commencement of winter,
and on the first fall of snow lie down and allow themselves to be
covered, or else dig a cave in a drift, and then go to sleep until the
spring, when the cubs are born. By this time the animal's heat has
melted the snow for a considerable distance, so that there is plenty
of room for the young ones, who tumble about at their ease and get
fat at the expense of their parent, who, after her long abstinence,
becomes gradually very thin and weak. The whole family leave their
abode of snow when the sun is strong enough to partially melt its
roof.
"The Polar bear is regularly hunted with dogs by the Eskimo. The
following extract gives an account of their mode of procedure:
"Let us suppose a bear scented out at the base of an iceberg. The
Eskimo examines the track with sagacious care, to determine its age
and direction, and the speed with which the animal was moving when he
passed along. The dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter courses
over the ice in silence. As he turns the angle of the berg his game is
in view before him, stalking along, probably, with quiet march,
sometimes snuffing the air suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for
a nest of broken hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening a wild,
wolfish yell, the driver shrieking 'Nannook! Nannook!' and all
straining every nerve in pursuit.
[Illustration: Pressed more severely, the bear stands at bay.--Page
155.]
"The bear rises on his haunches, then starts off at full speed. The
hunter, as he runs, leaning over his sledge, seizes the traces of a
couple of his dogs and liberates them from their burthen. It is the
work of a minute, for the motion is not checked, and the remaining
dogs rush on with apparent ease.
"Now, pressed more severely, the bear makes for an iceberg, and stands
at bay, while his two foremost pursuers halt at a short distance and
await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the whole pack are
liberated; the hunter grasps his lance, and, tumbling through the snow
and ice, prepares for the encounter.
"If there be two hunters, the bear is killed easily; for one makes a
feint of thrusting the spear at the right side, and, as the animal
turns with his arms toward the threatened attack, the left is
unprotected and receives the death wound."
XVI.
MONNEHAN, THE GREAT BEAR-HUNTER OF OREGON.
He wore a tall silk hat, the first one I had ever seen, not at all the
equipment of "a mighty hunter before the Lord;" but Phineas Monnehan,
Esq., late of some castle (I forget the name now), County of Cork,
Ireland, would have been quite another personage with another sort of
hat. And mighty pretension made he to great estates and titles at
home, but greatest of all his claims was that of "a mighty hunter."
Clearly he had been simply a schoolmaster at home, and had picked up
all his knowledge of wild beasts from books. He had very impressive
manners and had come to Oregon with an eye to political promotion, for
he more than once hinted to my quiet Quaker father, on whose
hospitality he had fastened himself, that he would not at all dislike
going to Congress, and would even consent to act as Governor of this
far-off and half-savage land known as Oregon. But, as observed a time
or two before, Monnehan most of all things desired the name and the
renown, like Nimrod, the builder of Babylon, of a "mighty hunter."
He had brought no firearms with him, nor was my father at all fond of
guns, but finally we three little boys, my brother John, two years
older than I, my brother James, two years younger, and myself, had a
gun between us. So with this gun, Monnehan, under his tall hat, a pipe
in his teeth and a tremendously heavy stick in his left hand would
wander about under the oaks, not too far away from the house, all the
working hours of the day. Not that he ever killed anything. In truth,
I do not now recall that he ever once fired off the gun. But he got
away from work, all the same, and a mighty hunter was Monnehan.
He carried this club and kept it swinging and sweeping in a
semi-circle along before him all the time because of the incredible
number of rattlesnakes that infested our portion of Oregon in those
early days. I shall never forget the terror in this brave stranger's
face when he first found out that all the grass on all our grounds was
literally alive with snakes. But he had found a good place to stay,
and he was not going to be driven out by snakes.
You see, we lived next to a mountain or steep stony hill known as
Rattlesnake Butte, and in the ledges of limestone rock here the
rattlesnakes hibernated by thousands. In the spring they would crawl
out of the cracks in the cliffs, and that was the beginning of the end
of rattlesnakes in Oregon. It was awful!
But he had a neighbor by the name of Wilkins, an old man now, and a
recent candidate for Governor of Oregon, who was equal to the
occasion. He sent back to the States and had some black, bristly,
razor-backed hogs brought out to Oregon. These hogs ate the
rattlesnakes. But we must get on with the bear story; for this man
Monnehan, who came to us the year the black, razor-backed hogs came,
was, as I may have said before, "a mighty hunter."
The great high hills back of our house, black and wild and woody, were
full of bear. There were several kinds of bear there in those days.
"How big is this ere brown bear, Squire?" asked Monnehan.
"Well," answered my father, "almost as big as a small sawmill when in
active operation."
"Oi think Oi'll confine me operations, for this hunting sayson, to the
smaller spacies o' bear," said Mr. Monnehan, as he arose with a
thoughtful face and laid his pipe on the mantel-piece.
A few mornings later you would have thought, on looking at our porch,
that a very large negro from a very muddy place had been walking
bare-footed up and down the length of it. This was not a big bear by
the sign, only a small black cub; but we got the gun out, cleaned and
loaded it, and by high noon we three little boys, my father and
Monnehan, the mighty hunter, were on the track of that little black
bear. We had gone back up the narrow canyon with its one little clump
of dense woods that lay back of our house and reached up toward the
big black hills.
Monnehan took the gun and his big club and went along up and around
above the edge of the brush. My father took the pitchfork and my
younger brother James kept on the ridge above the brush on the other
side of the canyon, while my older brother John and myself were
directed to come on a little later, after Mr. Monnehan had got himself
in position to do his deadly work, and, if possible, drive the
terrible beast within range of his fatal rifle.
Slowly and cautiously my brother and I came on, beating the brush and
the tall rye grass. As we advanced up the canyon, Mr. Monnehan was
dimly visible on the high ridge to the right, and father now and then
was to be seen with little brother and his pitchfork to the left.
Suddenly there was such a shout as almost shook the walls of the
canyon about our ears. It was the voice of Monnehan calling from the
high ridge close above the clump of dense wood; and it was a wild and
a desperate and a continuous howl, too. At last we could make out
these words:
"Oi've thrade the bear! Oi've thrade the bear! Oi've thrade the bear!"
Down the steep walls came father like an avalanche, trailing his
pitchfork in one hand and half dragging little brother James with the
other.
"Run, boys, run! right up the hill! He's got him treed, he's got him
treed! Keep around the bush and go right up the hill, fast as you can.
He's got him treed, he's got him treed! Hurrah for Monnehan, at last!
He's got him treed, he's got him treed!"
Out of breath from running, my father sat down at the foot of the
steep wall of the canyon below Monnehan and we boys clambered on up
the grassy slope like goats.
Meantime, Monnehan kept shouting wildly and fearfully as before. Such
lungs as Monnehan had! A mighty hunter was Monnehan. At last we got on
the ridge up among the scattering and storm-bent and low-boughed oaks;
breathless and nearly dead from exhaustion.
"Here, byes, here!"
We looked up the hill a little ahead of us from where the voice came,
and there, straddled across the leaning bough of a broad oak tree hung
Monnehan, the mighty hunter. His hat was on the ground underneath him,
his club was still in his daring hand, but his gun was in the grass a
hundred yards away.
"Here, boys, right up here. Come up here an' get a look at 'im!
Thot's vaght Oi got up 'ere fur, to get a good look at 'im! Right up
now, byes, an' get a good look at 'im! Look out fur me hat there!"
My brother hastily ran and got and handed me the gun and instantly was
up the tree along with Monnehan, peering forward and back, left and
right, everywhere. But no sign, no sound or scent of any bear
anywhere.
By this time my father had arrived with his pitchfork and a very tired
little boy. He sat down on the grass, and, wearily wiping his
forehead, he said to Monnehan,
"Mr. Monnehan, how big was the bear that you saw?"
"Well, now, Squire, upon the sowl o' me, he was fully the size of a
very extraordinary black dog," answered Mr. Monnehan, as he descended
and came and stood close to my father, as if to defend him with his
club. Father rose soon after and, with just the least tinge of
impatience and vexation in his voice, said to brother John and me,
"Boys, go up and around the thicket with your gun and beat the bush
down the canyon as you come down. Mr. Monnehan and I will drop down to
the bottom of the canyon here between the woods and the house and
catch him as he comes out."
Brother and I were greatly cheered at this; for it was evident that
father had faith that we would find the bear yet. And believing that
the fun was not over, we, tired as we were, bounded forward and on and
up and around the head of the canyon with swift feet and beating
hearts. Here we separated, and each taking a half of the dense copse
of wood and keeping within hailing distance, we hastily descended
through the steep tangle of grapevine, wild hops, wild gourdvines and
all sorts of things, shouting and yelling as we went. But no bear or
sign of bear as yet.
We were near the edge of the brush. I could see, from a little naked
hillock in the copse where I paused to take breath, my father with
his pitchfork standing close to the cow path below the brush, while a
little further away and a little closer to the house stood Mr.
Monnehan, club in hand and ready for the raging bear.
Suddenly I heard the brush break and crackle over in the direction of
my brother. I dropped on my knee and cocked my gun. I got a glimpse of
something black tearing through the brush like a streak, but did not
fire.
Then I heard my brother shout, and I thought I heard him laugh, too.
Just then there burst out of the thicket and on past my father and his
pitchfork a little black, razor-backed sow, followed by five black,
squealing pigs! Monnehan's bear!
XVII.
THE BEAR "MONARCH."
HOW HE WAS CAPTURED.
Much having been said about bears of late, a young Californian of
great fortune and enterprise resolved to set some questions at rest,
and, quite regardless of cost or consequences, sent into the mountains
for a live grizzly. The details of his capture, the plain story of the
long, wild quest, the courage, the cunning, the final submission of
the monster, and then the last bulletin about his health, habits and
all that, make so instructive and pleasing a narrative that I have
asked for permission to add it to my own stories. The bear described
is at present in our San Francisco Zoo, a fine and greatly admired
monarch.
* * * * *
"Are there any true grizzly bears in California?"
"Undoubtedly there are."
"I don't know about it. I have a great deal of doubt. Where are they?"
"In the Sierra Madre, in Touloumne Canyon, in Siskiyou County and
probably in many other mountain districts."
"That may be so, but nobody can find them. Now, do you think you could
find them?"
"I think I could if I should try."
"Would you undertake to get a genuine grizzly in this State?"
"Yes, if you want one. How will you have him--dead or alive?"
"Alive."
This conversation was held last May between the proprietor of the
Examiner and special reporter Allen Kelly.
A week ago Kelly brought home an enormous grizzly bear, lodged the
animal temporarily in one of the cages in Woodward's Gardens and
reported to the editor that he had finished that assignment.
The following is his account of the hunt and capture.
The Examiner expedition began the search for a grizzly early in June,
starting from Santa Paula and striking into the mountains at Tar
Creek, where the Sespe oil wells are bored. The Examiner correspondent
detailed to catch a bear was accompanied by De Moss Bowers of Ventura,
who was moved by love of adventure to offer his assistance.
During the first part of the trip the party numbered five persons,
including Dad Coffman, a spry old gentleman of seventy-two years, who
was out for the benefit of his health, a packer and guide, and a
person from Santa Paula called "Doc," who was loaded to the muzzle
with misinformation and inspired with the notion that it was
legitimate to plunder the expedition because the Examiner had plenty
of money. The packer was "Doc's" son, a good man to work, but
unfortunately afflicted with similar hallucinations. The expedition
was plundered because these persons were trusted on the
recommendation of a gentleman who ought to have known better.