was necessary, therefore, to wear rubber pacs, a type of shoe well
suited to this sort of travel.
Our party divided into two groups, usually my brother and the Judge
exploring in one direction while Young and I kept close at the heels of
Frost. We climbed all the high ridges and swept the country with our
binocular glasses. Prom eight to fourteen hours a day we walked and
combed the country for bear signs.
Our original plan was to bring in several decrepit old horses with the
pack train and sacrifice them for bait. But because of the failure of
this part of our program, we were forced to find dead elk for this
purpose. We came across a number of old carcasses, but no signs that
bear had visited them recently. Our first encounter with grizzly came
on the fourth day. We were scouting over the country near Sulphur
Mountain, when Frost saw a grizzly a mile off, feeding in a little
valley. The snow had melted here and he was calmly digging roots in the
soft ground. We signalled to our party and all drew together as we
advanced on our first bear, keeping out of sight as we did so.
We planned to go rapidly down a little cut in the hills and intercept
him as he came around the turn. Progressing at a rapid pace, Indian
file, we five hunters went down the draw, when suddenly our bear, who
had taken an unexpected cut-off, came walking up the ravine. At a sign
from Ned, we dropped to our knees and awaited developments. The bear
had not seen us and the faint breeze blew from him to us. He was about
two hundred yards off. We were all in a direct line, Frost ahead, I
next, Young behind me, and the others in the rear. Our bows were braced
and arrows nocked.
Slowly the bear came feeding toward us. He dug the roots of white
violets, he sniffed, he meandered back and forth, wholly unconscious of
our presence. We hardly breathed. He was not a good specimen, rather a
scrawny, long-nosed, male adolescent, but a real grizzly and would do
as a starter.
At last he came within fifty yards, stopped, pawed a patch of snow, and
still we did not shoot. We could not without changing our position
because we were all in one line. So we waited for his next move, hoping
that he would advance laterally and possibly give us a broadside
exposure.
But he came onward, directly for us, and at thirty yards stopped to
root in the ground again. I thought, "Now we must shoot or he will walk
over us!" Just then he lifted his head and seemed to take an eyeful of
Young's blue shirt. For one second he half reared and stared. I drew my
bow and as the arrow left the string, he bounded up the hill. The
flying shaft just grazed his shoulder, parting the fur in its course.
Quick as a bouncing rubber ball, he leaped over the ground and as
Young's belated arrow whizzed past him, he disappeared over the hill
crest.
We rose with a deep breath and shouted with laughter. Ned said that if
it had not been for that blue shirt, the bear would have bumped into
us. Well, we were glad we missed him, because after all, he was not the
one we were looking for. It is a hard thing to pick grizzlies to order.
You can't go up and inspect them ahead of time.
This fiasco was just an encouragement to us, and we continued to rise
by candle light and hunt till dark. The weather turned warmer, and the
snow began to melt.
At the end of the first week we saw five grizzlies way off in the
distance at the head of Hayden Valley. They were three or four miles
from us and evening was approaching, so we postponed an attack on them.
Next morning, bright and early, we were on the ground again, hoping to
see them. Sure enough, there they were! Ned, Art and I were together;
my brother and the Judge were off scouting on the other side of the
ridge. It was about half past eight in the morning. The bears, four in
number this time, were feeding in the grassy marshland, about three
miles up the valley. Ned's motto has always been: "When you see 'em, go
and get 'em."
We decided to attack immediately. Down the river bank, through the
draws, up into the timber we circled at a trot. It was hard going, but
we were pressed for time. At last we came out on a wooded point a
quarter of a mile above the bears, and rested. We knew they were about
to finish their morning feeding and go up into the forest to lay up for
the day. So we watched them in seclusion.
We waxed our bowstrings and put the finishing touches on our
arrow-heads with a file.
Slowly the bears mounted the foothills, heading for a large patch of
snow, where Frost thought they would lie down to cool before entering
the woods. It seems that their winter coat makes them very susceptible
to heat, and though the sun had come out pleasantly for us, it was too
hot for them. There was an old female and three half-grown cubs in
their third year, all looking big enough for any museum group.
At last they settled down and began to nuzzle the snow. The time had
come for action. We proposed to slip down the little ravine at the edge
of the timber, cross the stream, ascend the hill on the opposite side,
and come up on our quarry over the crest. We should thus be within
shooting distance. The wind was right for this maneuver, so we started
at once.
Now as I write my muscles quiver, my heart thumps and I flush with a
strange feeling, thinking of that moment. Like a soldier before a
battle, we waded into an uncharted experience. What does a man think of
as he is about to enter his first grizzly encounter? I remember well
what passed through my head: "Can we get there without alarming the
brutes?" "How close will they be?" "Can we hit them?" "What will happen
then?"
Ned Frost, Young and I were to sneak up on four healthy grizzlies in
the open, and pit our nerve against their savage reaction. Ned had his
rifle, but this was to be used only as a last resort, and that might
easily fail at such short range.
As we walked rapidly, stepping with utmost caution, I answered all the
questions of my subconscious fears. "Hit them? Why, we will soak them
in the gizzard; wreck them!" "Charge? Let them come on and may the best
man win!" "Die? There never was a fairer, brighter, better day to die
on." In fact, "Lead on!" I felt absolutely gay. A little profanity or a
little intellectual detachment at these times is of material help in
the process of auto-suggestion.
As for Young, he was silent, and possibly was thinking of camp
flapjacks.
Half way up the hill, on the opposite side of which lay our grizzlies,
we stopped, braced our bows, took three arrows apiece from our quivers,
and proceeded in a more stealthy approach.
Young and I arranged ourselves on each side of Frost, abreast with him.
Near the top Ned took out a green silk handkerchief and floated it in
the gentle breeze to see if the wind had changed. If it had, we might
find the bears coming over the top to meet us. Everything was perfect,
so far! Now, stooping low we crept to the very ridge itself, to a spot
directly above which we believed the bears to be. Laying our hats on
the grass and sticking our extra arrows in the ground before us, we
rose up, bows half drawn, ready to shoot.
There on the snow, not over twenty-five yards off, lay four grizzly
bears, just like so many hearth rugs.
Instantly, I selected the farthest bear for my mark and at a signal of
the eye we drew our great bows to their uttermost and loosed two deadly
arrows.
We struck! There was a roar, they rose, but instead of charging us,
they rushed together and began such a fight as few men have seen. My
bear, pinioned with an arrow in the shoulder, threw himself on his
mother, biting her with savage fury. She in turn bit him in the bloody
shoulder and snapped my arrow off short. Then all the cubs attacked
her. The growls and bellowing were terrific.
Quickly I nocked another arrow. The beasts were milling around
together, pawing, biting, mad with rage. I shot at my bear and missed
him. I nocked again. The old she-bear reared on her haunches, stood
high above the circling bunch, cuffing and roaring, the blood running
from her mouth and nostrils in frothy streams. Young's arrow was deep
in her chest. I drove a feathered shaft below her foreleg.
The confusion and bellowing increased, and, as I drew a fourth arrow
from my quiver, I glanced up just in time to see the old female's hair
rise on the back of her neck. She steadied herself in her wild hurtling
and looked directly at us with red glaring eyes. She saw us for the
first time! Instinctively I knew she would charge, and she did.
Quick as thought, she bounded toward us. Two great leaps and she was on
us. A gun went off at my ear. The bear was literally knocked head over
heels, and fell in backward somersaults down the steep snowbank. At
some fifty yards she checked her course, gathered herself, and
attempted to charge again, but her right foreleg failed her. She rose
on her haunches in an effort to advance, when, like a flash, two arrows
flew at her and disappeared through her heaving sides. She faltered,
wilted, and as we drew to shoot again, she sprawled out on the ground,
a convulsed, quivering mass of fur and muscle--she was dead.
The half grown cubs had disappeared at the boom of the gun. We saw one
making off at a gallop, three hundred yards away. The glittering
snowbank before us was vacant.
The air seemed strangely still; the silence was oppressive. Our nervous
tension exploded in a wave of laughter and exclamations of wonderment.
Frost declared he had never seen such a spectacle in all his life; four
grizzly bears in deadly combat; the din of battle; the wild bellowing;
and two bowmen shooting arrow after arrow into this jumble of
struggling beasts.
[Illustration: OUR CAMP AT SQUAW LAKE, WYOMING]
[Illustration: THE RESULT OF OUR FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH A CHARGING
GRIZZLY BEAR]
[Illustration: BRINGING HOME THE TROPHIES]
The snow was trampled and soaked with blood as though there had been an
Indian massacre. We paced off the distance at which the charging female
had been stopped. It was exactly eight yards. A mighty handy shot!
We went down to view the remains. Young had three arrows in the old
bear, one deep in her neck, its point emerging back of the shoulder. He
shot that as she came at us. His first arrow struck anterior to her
shoulder, entered her chest, and cut her left lung from top to bottom.
His third arrow pierced her thorax, through and through, and lay on the
ground beside her with only its feathers in the wound.
My first arrow cut below the diaphragm, penetrated the stomach and
liver, severed the gall ducts and portal vein. My second arrow passed
completely through her abdomen and lay on the ground several yards
beyond her. It had cut the intestines in a dozen places and opened
large branches of the mesenteric artery.
The bullet from Frost's gun had entered at the right shoulder,
fractured the humerus, blown a hole an inch in diameter in the chest
wall, opened up a jagged hole in the trachea, and dissipated its energy
in the left lung. No wound of exit was found, the soft nose
copper-jacketed bullet apparently having gone to pieces after striking
the bone.
Anatomically speaking, it was an effective shot, knocked the bear down
and crippled her, but was not an immediately fatal wound. We had her
killed with arrows, but she did not know it. She undoubtedly would have
been right on us in another second. The outcome of this hypothetical
encounter I leave to those with vivid imaginations.
We hereby express our gratitude to Ned Frost.
Now one of us had to rush off and get the rest of the party. Judge
Hulbert and my brother were in another valley in quest of bear. So Ned
set off at a rapid tramp across the bogs, streams, and hills to find
them. Within an hour they returned together to view the wreckage.
Photographs were taken, the skinning and autopsy were performed. Then
we looked around for the wounded cub. Frost trailed him by almost
invisible blood stains and tracks, and found him less than a quarter of
a mile away, huddled up as if asleep on the hillside, my arrow nestled
to his breast. The broken shaft with its blade deep in the thorax had
completely severed the head of his humerus, cut two ribs, and killed
him by hemorrhage from the pulmonary arteries. Half-grown as he was, he
would have made an ugly antagonist for any man.
His mother, a fine mature lady of the old school, showed by her teeth
and other lineaments her age and respectability. In autumn she would
have weighed four or five hundred pounds. We weighed her in
installments with our spring scales; she registered three hundred and
five pounds. She was in poor condition and her pelt was not suitable
for museum purposes. But these features could not be determined readily
beforehand. The juvenile Ursus weighed one hundred and thirty-five
pounds. We measured them, gathered their bones for the museum,
shouldered their hides, and turned back to camp.
That night Ned Frost said, "Boys, when you proposed shooting grizzly
bears with the bow and arrow, I thought it a fine sporting proposition,
but I had my doubts about its success. Now I know that you can shoot
through and kill the biggest grizzly in Wyoming!"
Our instructions on leaving California were to secure a large male
_Ursus Horribilis Imperator_, a good representative female, and two or
three cubs. The female we had shot filled the requirements fairly well,
but the two-year-old cub was at the high school age and hardly cute
enough to be admired. Moreover, no sooner had we sent the news of our
first success to the Museum than we were informed that this size cub
was not wanted and that we must secure little ones.
So we set out to get some of this year's vintage in small bears.
Ordinarily, there is no difficulty in coming in contact with bears in
Yellowstone; in fact, it is more common to try to keep some of the
hotel variety from eating at the same table with you. But not a single
bear, black, brown, or silver-tipped, now called upon us. We traveled
all over that beautiful Park, from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Lake. We
hunted over every well-known bear district. Tower Falls, Specimen
Ridge, Buffalo Corrals, Mt. Washburn, Dunraven Pass (under twenty-five
feet of snow), Antelope Creek, Pelican Meadows, Cub Creek, Steamboat
Point, and kept the rangers busy on the lookout for bear. From eight to
fifteen hours a day we hunted. We walked over endless miles of
mountains, climbed over countless logs, plowed through snow and slush,
and raked the valleys with our field glasses.
But bears were as scarce as hen's teeth. We saw a few tracks but
nothing compared to those seen in other years.
We began to have a sneaking idea that the bear had all been killed off.
We knew they had been a pest to campers and were becoming a menace to
human life. We suspected the Park authorities of quiet extermination.
Several of the rangers admitted that a selective killing was carried
out yearly to rid the preserve of the more dangerous individuals.
Then the elk began to pour back into the Park; singly, in couples, and
in droves they returned, lean and scraggly. A few began to drop their
calves. Then we began to see bear signs. The grizzly follow the elk,
and after they come out of hibernation and get their fill of green
grass, they naturally take to elk calves. Occasionally they include the
mother in the menu.
We also began to follow the elk. We watched at bait. We sat up nights
and days at a time, seeing only a few unfavorable specimens and these
were as wild and as wary as deer. We found the mosquitoes more deadly
than the bear. We tracked big worthy old boys around in circles and had
various frustrated encounters with she-bears and cubs.
Upon one occasion we were tracking a prospective specimen through the
woods, proceeding with great caution, when evidently the beast heard
us. Suddenly, he turned on his tracks and came on a dead run for us. I
was in advance and instantly drew my bow, holding it for the right
moment to shoot. The bear came directly in our front, not more than
twenty yards away and being startled by the sight of us, threw his
locomotive mechanism into reverse and skidded towards us in a cloud of
snow and forest leaves. In the fraction of a second, I perceived that
he was afraid and not a proper specimen for our use. I held my arrow
and the bear with an indignant and disgusted look, made a precipitous
retreat. It was an unexpected surprise on both sides.
They say that the Indians avoided the Yellowstone region, thinking it a
land of evil spirits. In our wanderings, however, we picked up on
Steamboat Point a beautiful red chert arrow-head, undoubtedly shot by
an Indian at elk years before Columbus burst in upon these good people.
In Hayden Valley we found an obsidian spear head, another sign that the
Indian knew good hunting grounds.
But no Indian was ever so anxious to meet grizzly as we were. We hunted
continually, but found none that suited us; we had to have the best.
Frost assured us that we had made a mistake in ever trying to get
grizzlies in the Park--and that in the time we spent there we could
have secured all our required specimens in the game fields of Wyoming
or Montana.
A month passed; the bears were beginning to lose their winter coats;
our party began to disintegrate. My brother and the Judge were
compelled to return to Detroit. A week or so later Ned Frost and the
cook were scheduled to take out another party of hunters from Cody and
prepared to leave us. Young and I were determined to stick it out until
the last chance was exhausted. We just had to get those specimens.
Before Frost left us, however, he packed us up to the head of Cascade
Creek with our bows and arrows, bed rolls, a tarpaulin, and a couple of
boxes of provisions.
We had received word from a ranger that a big old grizzly had been seen
at Soda Butte and we prepared to go after him. At the last moment
before departure, a second word came that probably this same bear had
moved down to Tower Falls and was ranging between this point and the
Canyon, killing elk around Dunraven Pass.
Young and I scouted over this area and found diggings and his tracks.
A good-sized bear will have a nine-inch track. This monster's was
eleven inches long. We saw where he made his kills and used certain
fixed trails going up and down the canyons.
Frost gave us some parting advice and his blessing, consigned us to our
fate, and went home.
Left to ourselves, we two archers inspected our tackle and put
everything in prime condition. Our bows had stood the many wettings
well, but we oiled them again. New strings were put on and thoroughly
waxed. Our arrows were straightened, their feathers dried and preened
in the sun. The broad-heads were set on straight and sharpened to the
last degree, and so prepared we determined to do our utmost. We were
ready for the big fellow.
In our reconnaissance we found that he was a real killer. His trail was
marked by many bloody episodes. It seemed quite probable that he was
the bear that two years before burst in upon a party of surveyors in
the mountains and kept them treed all night. It is not unlikely that he
was the same bear that caused the death of Jack Walsh. He seemed too
expert in planning murder. We saw by his tracks how he lay in ambush
watching a herd of elk, how he sneaked up on a mother elk and her
recently born calf on the outskirts of the band, and with a great leap
threw himself upon the two and killed them.
In several places we saw the skins of these little wapiti licked clean
and empty of bodily structure. No other male grizzly was permitted to
enter his domain. He was, in fact, the monarch of the mountain, the
great bear of Dunraven Pass.
We pitched our little tent in a secluded wood some three miles from the
lake at the head of Cascade Creek, and began to lay our plan of attack.
We were by this time inured to fatigue and disappointment. Weariness
and loss of sleep had produced a dogged determination that knew no
relaxation. And yet we were cheerful. Young has that fine quality so
essential to a hunting companion, imperturbable good nature, never
complaining, no matter how heavy the load, how long the trail, how late
or how early the hour, how cold, how hot, how little, or how poor the
food.
We were there to win and nothing else mattered. If it rained and we
must wait, we took out our musical instruments, built up the fire and
soothed our troubled souls with harmony. This is better than tobacco or
whiskey for the purpose. In fact, Young is so abstemious that even tea
or coffee seem a bit intemperate to him, and are only to be used under
great physical strain; and as for profanity, why, I had to do all the
swearing for the two of us.
We were trained down to rawhide and sinew, keyed to alertness and ready
for any emergency.
Often in our wanderings at night we ran unexpectedly upon wild beasts
in the dark. Some of these were bears. Our pocket flashlights were used
as defensive weapons. A snort, a crashing retreat through the brush
told us that our visitant had departed in haste, unable to stand the
glaring light of modern science.
We soon found that our big fellow was a night rover also, and visited
his various kills under the cloak of darkness. In one particularly
steep and rugged canyon, he crossed a little creek at a set place. Up
on the side of this canyon he mounted to the plateau above by one of
three possible trails. At the top within forty yards of one of these
was a small promontory of rock upon which we decided to form a blind
and await his coming. We fashioned a shelter of young jack pines,
constructed like a miniature corral, less than three by six feet in
area, but very natural in appearance. Between us and the trail was a
quantity of down timber which we hoped would act as an impediment to an
onrushing bear. And the perpendicular face of our outcropping elevated
us some twelve or thirteen feet above the steep hillside. A small tree
stood near our position and offered a possibility in case of attack.
But we had long ago decided that no man can clamber up a tree in time
to escape a grizzly charging at a distance less than fifty yards. We
could be approached from the rear, but altogether it was an ideal
ambush.
The wind blew steadily up the canyon all night long and carried our
scent away from the trail. Above us on the plateau was a recently
killed elk which acted as a perpetual invitation to bears and other
prowlers of the night.
So we started watching in this blind, coming soon after dusk and
remaining until sunrise. The nights were cold, the ground pitiless, and
the moon, nearly at its full, crept low through a maze of mist.
Dressed in our warmest clothing and permitting ourselves one blanket
and a small piece of canvas, we huddled together in a cramped posture
and kept vigil through the long hours. Neither of us smoked anyway, and
of course, this was absolutely taboo; we hardly whispered, and even
shifted our positions with utmost caution. Before us lay our bows ready
strung, and arrows, both in the quiver belted upright to the screen and
standing free close at hand.
The first evening we saw an old she-bear and her two-year-old cubs come
up the path. They passed us with that soft shuffling gait so uncanny to
hear in the dark. We were delighted that they showed no sign of having
detected us. But they were not suited to our purpose and we let them
go. The female was homely, fretful and nervous. The cubs were yellow
and ungainly. We looked for better things.
Bears have personality, as obvious as humans. Some are lazy, some
alert, surly, or timid. Nearly all the females we saw showed that
irritability and irascible disposition that go with the cares of
maternity. This family was decidedly commonplace.
They disappeared in the gloom, and we waited and waited for the big
fellow that some time must appear.
But morning came first; we stole from our blind, chilled and stiffened,
and wandered back to camp to breakfast and sleep. The former was a
fairly successful event, but the latter was made almost impossible by
the swarms of mosquitoes that beset us. A smudge fire and canvas
head-coverings gave us only a partial immunity. By sundown we were on our
way again to the blind, but another cold dreary night passed without
adventure.