in the valley. As we came up a rough path there suddenly appeared out
of the obscurity three little bear cubs, not thirty-five yards away.
They winded us, squeaked and stood on their hind legs, peering in our
direction. We dropped like stones in our tracks, scarcely breathing,
figuratively frozen to the ground, for instantly the fiercest-looking
grizzly we ever saw bounded over the cubs and straddled them between
her forelegs. Nothing could stop her if she came on. A little brush
intervened and she could not locate us plainly for we could see her
eyes wander in search of us; but her trembling muscles, the vicious
champing of her jaws, and the guttural growls, all spoke of immediate
attack. We were petrified. She wavered in her intent, turned, cuffed
her cubs down the hill, snorted and finally departed with her family.
We heaved a deep sigh of relief. But she was wonderful, she was the
most beautiful bear we had ever seen; large, well proportioned, with
dark brown hair having just a touch of silver. She was a patrician, the
aristocrat of the species. We marked her well.
Next day, just at sunset, we got our first view of the great bear of
Dunraven Pass. He was coming down a distant canyon trail. He looked
like a giant in the twilight. With long swinging strides he threw
himself impetuously down the mountainside. Great power was in every
movement. He was magnificent! He seemed as large as a horse, and had
that grand supple strength given to no other predatory animal.
Though we were used to bears, a strange misgiving came over me. We
proposed to slay this monster with the bow and arrow. It seemed
preposterous!
In the blind another long cold night passed. The moon drifted slowly
across the heavens and sank in a haze of clouds at daybreak. Just at
the hush of dawn, the homely female and her tow-headed progeny came
shuffling by. We were desperate for specimens, and one of these would
match that which we already had. I drew up my bow and let fly a
broad-head at one of the cubs. It struck him in the ribs. Precipitately,
the whole band took flight. My quarry fell against an obstructing log and
died. His mother stopped, came back several times, gazed at him
pensively, then disappeared. We got out, carried him to a distant spot
and skinned him. He weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. My arrow had
shaved a piece off his heart. Death was instantaneous.
We packed home the hind quarters and made a fine grizzly stew. Before
this we had found that the old bears were tough and rancid, but the
little ones were as sweet and tender as suckling pigs. This stew was
particularly good, well seasoned with canned tomatoes and the last of
our potatoes and onions. Sad to relate the better part of this savory
pot next day was eaten by a wandering vagabond of the _Ursus_ family.
Not content with our stew, he devoured all our sugar, bacon, and other
foodstuffs not in cans, and wound up his debauch by wiping his feet on
our beds and generally messing up the camp. Probably he was a regular
camp thief.
That night, early in the watch, we heard the worthy old boy come down
the canyon, hot in pursuit of a large brown bear. As he ran, the great
animal made quite a noise. His claws clattered on the rocks, and the
ground seemed to shake beneath us. We shifted our bows ready for
action, and felt the keen edge of our arrows. Way off in the forest we
heard him tree the cowardly intruder with such growls and ripping of
bark that one would imagine he was about to tear the tree down.
After a long time he desisted and, grunting and wheezing, came slowly
up the canyon. With the night glasses we could see him. He seemed to be
considerably heated with his exercise and scratched himself against a
young fir tree. As he stood on his hind legs with his back to the trunk
and rubbed himself to and fro, the tree swayed like a reed; and as he
lifted his nose I observed that it just touched one of the lower
branches. In the morning, after he had gone and we were on our way to
camp, we passed this very fir and stretching up on my tip toes, I could
just touch the limb with my fingers. Having been a pole vaulter in my
youth, I knew by experience that this measurement was over seven feet
six inches. He was a real he-bear! We wanted him more than ever.
The following day it rained--in fact, it rained nearly every day near
the end of our stay; but this was a drenching that stopped at sunset,
leaving all the world sweet and fragrant. The moon came out full and
beautiful, everything seemed propitious.
We went to the blind about an hour before midnight, feeling that surely
this evening the big fellow would come. After two hours of frigidity
and immobility, we heard the velvet footfalls of bear coming up the
canyon. There came our patrician and her royal family. The little
fellows pattered up the trail before their mother. They came within
range. I signalled Young and we shot together at the cubs. We struck.
There was a squeak, a roar, a jumble of shadowy figures and the entire
flock of bears came tumbling in our direction.
At that very moment the big grizzly appeared on the scene. There were
five bears in sight. Turning her head from side to side, trying to find
her enemy, the she-bear came towards us. I whispered to Young, "Shoot
the big fellow." At the same time, I drew an arrow to the head, and
drove it at the oncoming female. It struck her full in the chest. She
reared; threw herself sidewise, bellowed with rage, staggered and fell
to the ground. She rose again, weakened, stumbled forward, and with
great gasps she died. In less than half a minute it was all over. The
little ones ran up the hill past us, one later returned and sat up at
its mother's head, then disappeared in the dark forever.
While all this transpired, the monster grizzly was romping back and
forth in the shaded forest not more than sixty-five yards away. With
deep booming growls like distant thunder, he voiced his anger and
intent to kill. As he flitted between the shadows of the trees, the
moonlight glinted on his massive body; he was enormous.
Young discharged three arrows at him. I shot two. We should have
landed, he was so large. But he galloped off and I saw my last arrow at
the point blank range of seventy-five yards, fall between his legs. He
was gone. We thought we had missed the beast and grief descended heavy
upon us. The thought of all the weary days and nights of hunting and
waiting, and now to have lost him, was very painful.
After our palpitating hearts were quiet and the world seemed peaceful,
we got out of our blind and skinned the female by flashlight. She was a
magnificent specimen, just right in color and size for the Museum, not
fat, but weighing a trifle over five hundred pounds. My arrow had
severed a rib and buried its head in her heart. We measured her and
saved her skull and long bones for the taxidermist.
At daybreak we searched for the cubs and found one dead under a log
with an arrow through his brain. The others had disappeared.
We had no idea that we hit the great bear, but just to gather up our
shafts, we went over the ground where he had been.
One of Young's arrows was missing!
That gave us a thrill; perhaps we had hit him after all! We went
further in the direction he had gone; there was a trace of blood.
We trailed him. We knew it was dangerous business. Through clumps of
jack pines we cautiously followed, peering under every pile of brush
and fallen tree. Deep into the forest we tracked him, where his bloody
smear was left upon fallen logs. Soon we found where he had rested.
Then we discovered the fore part of Young's arrow. It had gone through
him. There was a pool of blood. Then we found the feathered butt which
he had drawn out with his teeth.
Four times he wallowed down in the mud or soft earth to rest and cool
his wound. Then beneath a great fir he had made a bed in the soft loam
and left it. Past this we could not track him. We hunted high and low,
but no trace of him could we find. Apparently he had ceased bleeding
and his footprints were not recorded on the stony ground about. We made
wide circles, hoping to pick up his trail. We searched up and down the
creek. We cross-cut every forest path and runway, but no vestige
remained.
[Illustration: LOOKING FOR GRIZZLIES ON CUB CREEK]
[Illustration: THE TREE THAT NED FROST CLIMBED TO ESCAPE DEATH]
[Illustration: MY FEMALE GRIZZLY AND THE ARROW THAT KILLED HER]
[Illustration: ARTHUR YOUNG SLAYS THE MONARCH OF THE MOUNTAINS]
He was gone. We even looked up in the tree and down in the ground where
he had wallowed. For five hours we searched in vain, and at last, worn
with disappointment and fatigue, we lay down and slept on the very spot
where he last stopped.
Near sundown we awoke, ate a little food, and started all over again to
find the great bear. We retraced our steps and followed the fading
evidence till it brought us again to the pit beneath the fir tree. He
must be near. It was absolutely impossible for any animal to have lost
so much blood and travel more than a few hundred yards past this spot.
We had explored the creek bottom and the cliffs above from below, and
we now determined to traverse every foot of the rim of the canyon from
above. As we climbed over the face of the rock we saw a clot of dried
blood. We let ourselves down the sheer descent, came upon a narrow
little ledge, and there below us lay the huge monster on his back,
against a boulder, cold and stiff, as dead as Cesar. Our hearts nearly
burst with happiness.
There lay the largest grizzly bear in Wyoming, dead at our feet. His
rugged coat was matted with blood. Well back in his chest the arrow
wound showed clear. I measured him; twenty-six inches of bear had been
pierced through and through. One arrow killed him. He was tremendous.
His great wide head; his worn, glistening teeth; his massive arms; his
vast, ponderous feet and long curved claws; all were there. He was a
wonderful beast. It seemed incredible. I thumped Young on the shoulder:
"My, that was a marvelous shot!"
We started to skin our quarry. It was a stupendous job, as he weighed
nearly one thousand pounds, and lay on the steep canyon side ready to
roll on and crush us. But with ropes we lashed him by the neck to a
tree and split him up the back, later box-skinning the legs according
to the method required by the museum.
By flashlight, acetylene lamp, candle light, fire light and moonlight,
we labored. We used up all our knives, and having neglected to bring
our whet-stones, sharpened our blades on the volcanic boulders, about
us. By assiduous industry for nine straight hours, we finished him
after a fashion. His skin was thick and like scar tissue. His meat was
all tendons and gristle. The hide was as tight as if glued on.
In the middle of the night we stopped long enough to broil some grizzly
cub steaks and brew a pot of tea; then we went at it again.
As we dismembered him we weighed the parts. The veins were absolutely
dry of blood, and without this substance, which represents a loss of
nearly 10 per cent of his weight, he was nine hundred and sixteen
pounds. There was hardly an inch of fat on his back. At the end of the
autumn this adipose layer would be nearly six inches thick. He would
then have weighed over fourteen hundred pounds. He stood nearly four
feet high at the shoulders, while his skull measured eighteen and a
half inches long; his entire body length was seven feet four inches.
As we cleaned his bones we hurled great slabs of muscle down the
canyon, knowing from experience that this would be a sign for all other
bears to leave the vicinity. Only the wolves and jays will eat grizzly
meat.
At last we finished him, as the sun rose over the mountain ridges and
gilded all the canyon with glory. We cleaned and salted the pelts,
packed them on our backs, and, dripping with salt brine and bear
grease, staggered to the nearest wagon trail. The hide of the big bear,
with unskinned paws and skull, weighed nearly one hundred and fifty
pounds.
We cached our trophies, tramped the weary miles back to camp, cleaned
up, packed and wandered to the nearest station, from which we ordered a
machine. When this arrived we gathered our belongings, turned our
various specimens over to a park ranger, to be given the final
treatments, and started on our homeward trip.
We were so exhausted from loss of sleep, exertion and excitement, that
we sank into a stupor that lasted almost the entire way home.
The California Academy of Sciences now has a handsome representative
group of _Ursus Horribilis Imperator_. We have the extremely
satisfactory feeling that we killed five of the finest grizzly bear in
Wyoming. The sport was fair and clean, and we did it all with the bow
and arrow.
XV
ALASKAN ADVENTURES
It seems as if Fate had chosen my hunting companion, Arthur Young, to
add to the honor and the legends of the bow. At any rate it fell to his
lot to make two trips to Alaska between the years 1922 and 1925.
He and his friend, Jack Robertson, were financed in a project to
collect moving-picture scenes of the Northland.
They were instructed to show the country in all its seasonal phases, to
depict the rivers, forests, glaciers and mountains, particularly to
record the summer beauties of Alaska. The animal life was to be
featured in full:--fish, birds, small game, caribou, mountain sheep,
moose and bear, all were to be captured on the celluloid film, and with
all this a certain amount of hunting with the bow was to be included
and the whole woven into a little story of adventure.
Equipped with cameras, camp outfit and archery tackle, they sailed for
Seward. From here they ventured into the wilderness as circumstances
directed. Sometimes they went by boat to Kadiac Island, sometimes to
the Kenai Peninsula, or they journeyed by dog sleds and packs inland.
They spent the better part of two years in this hard, exacting work,
often carrying as much as a hundred pounds on their backs for many
miles. Great credit must be given to Art's partner Jack Robertson, for
his energy, bravery and fortitude. His work with the camera will make
history, but for the time being we shall focus our attention on the man
with the bow. Only a small portion of Young's time was devoted to
hunting, the exigencies incidental to travel and gathering animal
pictures were such that archery was of secondary importance.
He hunted and shot ptarmigan, some on the wing; he added grouse and
rabbit meat to the scant larder of their "go light" outfit. He shot
graylings and salmon in the streams. He could easily have killed
caribou because they operated close to vast herds of these foolish
beasts. However, at the time it seemed that there was no hurry about
the matter; they had meat in camp, and pictures were of greater
interest just then. They expected to see plenty of these animals.
Strangely enough the herd suddenly left the country and no further
opportunity presented itself for shooting them. This was no great
disappointment because the sport was too easy. What did seem worth
while was the killing of the great Alaskan moose. These beasts are the
largest game animal on this continent, with the exception of the almost
extinct bison.
Young had his first chance at moose while on the Kenai Peninsula. Here
the boys were camped and having finished his camera work Art took a day
off to hunt.
In the afternoon he discovered a large old bull lying down in a
burnt-over area, where approach by stealth was possible, so he began
his stalk with utmost caution, paying particular attention to scent and
sound. By crawling on his hands and knees he came within a hundred and
fifty yards, when his progress was stopped by a fallen tree. To go
around it, would expose him to vision; to climb over, would alarm the
animal by snapping twigs; so Young decided to dig under. He worked with
his hunting knife and hands for one hour to accomplish this operation.
When he had passed this obstacle he continued his crawling till he
reached a distance of sixty yards. At this stage Art called the old
bull with a birch bark horn, then the moose heard him and stood up. The
brush was so thick that he could not shoot immediately, but waited as
the old bull circled to catch his wind and answered the challenge. When
he presented a fair target at seventy yards or so, Art drove an arrow
at him. It struck deep in the flank, up to the feather ranging forward.
The bull was only startled a trifle and trotted off a hundred yards.
Here he stopped to look and listen. Young drew his bow again, and
overshooting his mark, his arrow struck one of the broad thick palms of
the antlers. The point pierced the two inches of bone and wedged tight,
making a sharp report as it hit. This started the animal off at a fast
trot. Young followed slowly at some distance and soon had the
satisfaction of seeing the moose waver in his course and lie down.
After a reasonable wait the hunter advanced to his quarry and found him
dead. The triumph of such an episode is more or less mixed with misery.
The pleasure undoubtedly would have been greater had some other lusty
bow man been with him, but as it was he had to feast his eyes alone,
moreover he had to make his way back to camp, which was some eight
miles off, and night rapidly coming on.
[Illustration: BULL MOOSE BAGGED ON THE KENAI PENINSULA]
This part of the story was just as thrilling to Art, because he must
stumble through the rough land of "little sticks" in the dark with the
constant apprehension of meeting some unwelcome Alaska brown bear,
which were thick there, and also the extremely unpleasant experience of
running into dead trees, tripping over fallen limbs and dropping into
gullies. He reached camp ultimately, I believe. Next day he returned
with his companion for meat, his antler trophy and the picture, which
we present.
This bull weighed approximately sixteen hundred pounds and had a spread
of sixty inches across its antlers.
Upon the second expedition a year later, Young bagged another moose.
Here the arrow penetrated both sides of the chest and caused almost
instant death, showing that size is not a hindrance to a quick exodus.
It is surprising even to us to see the extreme facility with which an
arrow can interrupt the essential physiological processes of life and
destroy it. We have come to the belief that no beast is too tough or
too large to be slain by an arrow. With especially constructed heads
sharpened to the utmost nicety, I have shot through a double thickness
of elephant hide, two inches of cardboard, a bag of shaving and gone
into an inch of wood. We feel sure that having penetrated the hide of a
pachyderm his ribs can easily be severed and the heart or pulmonary
cavity entered. Any considerable incision of either of these vital
areas must soon cause death. And this is a field experiment which we
propose to try in the near future.
There is a legitimate excuse for shooting animals such as moose, where
food is a problem and the bow bears an honorable part in the episode.
We feel moreover that by using the bow on this large game we are
playing ultimately for game preservation. For by shaming the "mighty
hunter" and his unfair methods in the use of powerful destructive
agents, we feel that we help to develop better sporting ethics.
It was partly on this account, and partly to answer the dare of those
who have said, "You may hunt the tame bears of California and Wyoming,
but you cannot fool with the big Kadiac bears of Alaska with your
little bow and arrow," that Young determined to go after these monsters
and see if they were as fierce and invulnerable as claimed. At the
present writing we who shoot the bow have slain more than a dozen bears
with our shafts, but the mighty Kadiac brown grizzly has laughed at us
from his frozen lair--as the literary nature fakir might say--we have
been told that all that is necessary if you wish to meet a brownie, is
to give him your address in Alaska and he will look you up. Also we
have been told that once insulted he will tear a house down to "get
even with you,"--so I shook Art's hand good-bye, when he started on
this Kadiac escapade, and told him to "give 'em hell."
After a long time he came back to San Francisco, and this is the story
he told me--and Art has no guile in his system but is as straight as a
bowstring.
"We made a false start in going after our bears. We took a boat from
Seward and sailed to Seldie, then to Kenai Peninsula. Here we hunted
for two solid weeks and found practically no signs of brownies.
"I decided at the end of this period to waste no more time, but to pull
out of the country and sail back to Seward. We had but a short time to
complete our picture before the last boat left the Arctic waters, but
hearing of good bear signs on Kadiac Island we hit out for this place
and landed in Uganik Bay. Here in the Long Arm, we found a country with
many streams flowing down from the mountains which constitute this
Island, and much small timber in combination with open grassy glades. A
type of country that is particularly suited for photographic work and
bow hunting.
"After several days' exploring we discovered that the bears were
catching salmon in the streams and we were successful in photographing
as many as seven grizzlies at once. We took pictures of the bears
wading in the water looking for fish. Usually the bear slaps the salmon
out of the stream, then goes up on the bank and eats it. The "humpies"
were so plentiful here, however, that they were tossed out on the bank,
but not eaten, the bear preferring to capture one while in the water
then wade about on his hind legs while he held the fish in his arms and
devoured it.
"We got all this and many comic antics of young bears climbing trees
and playing about by using a telephoto lens. After the camera man was
satisfied I proposed that we 'pull off' a 'stunt' with the bow.
"By good fortune we saw four bears coming down the mountain side to
fish. They were making their way slowly through an open valley. The
camera was stationed at a commanding point and I ran up a dry wash
thickly grown with willow and alder to head off the bears. I was able
to get within a hundred yards by use of the willow cover, then the
brush became too thin to hide me, so I walked boldly out into the open
to meet the bears. I practically invited them to charge since they were
reputed to be so easily insulted. At first they paid little attention
to me, then the two in advance sat up on their haunches in astonishment
and curiosity. I approached to a distance of fifty yards, then the
largest brownie began champing his jaws and growling; then he 'pinned
back his ears' preparing to come at me. Just as he was about to lunge
forward I shot him in the chest. The arrow went deep and stuck out a
foot beyond his shoulder. He dropped on all fours and before he could
make up his mind what hit him, I shot him again in the flank. This
turned him and feeling himself badly wounded he wheeled about and ran.
While this was going on an old female also stood in a menacing
attitude, but as the wounded bear galloped past her, she came to the
ground and ran diagonally from us. All of them followed suit, and as
they swept out of the field of vision the wounded bear weakened and
fell less than a hundred yards from the camera.
"True to his standards the camera man continued to grind out the film
to the very last, so the whole picture is complete. You will see it
some day for yourself and it will answer all doubts about the
invulnerable status of the Kadiac bears."
Young himself was not particularly elated over this conquest. He knew
long ago that the Kadiac bear was no more formidable than the grizzlies
we had slain and he only undertook this adventure for show purposes.
Moreover though he used his heavy osage orange bow and usual
broad-heads, he declares that he believes he can kill the largest bear
in Alaska with a fifty pound weapon and proportionately adjusted
arrows. Both Young and I are convinced of the necessity of very sharp
broad-heads, and trust more to a keen blade and a quick flight than to
power.
[Illustration: THE GREAT KADIAK BEAR BROUGHT LOW]
During his Alaskan travels Art preferred his Osage bows to the yew.
They stood being dragged over rocks and falling down mountain sides
better than the softer yew wood. His three bows were under five feet
six inches in length, short for convenience and each pulled over
eighty-five pounds. The country in which he worked was so rocky that it
was most disastrous on arrows, and every shot that missed meant a
shattered shaft.