A GRIZZLEY HUNTS THE HUNTER.--SHOOTING SEALS IN ALASKAN WATERS.--I
BECOME A SEATTLE HOTEL KEEPER AND THE BIG FIRE CLOSES ME OUT.--
SOME REST.
On my arrival at San Francisco the first thing was to get rid of
my surplus horses. During the time I was selling them I made the
acquaintance of a man named Walter Fiske, who was engaged in
raising Angora goats, about one hundred and twenty miles north
from San Francisco, and who was something of a hunter also. Mr.
Fiske invited me to go home with him and have a bear hunt.
Being tired of the city, I accompanied Mr. Fiske to his ranch. He
said he knew where there was a patch of wild clover on which the
grizzlies fed, so we were off for a bear hunt. We soon found where
they fed and watered. They had a plain trail from their feeding
place to the water. Mr. Fiske being hard of hearing proposed that
I stop on the feeding ground and he would take his stand down on
the trail, and in case I should get into trouble I could run down
the trail, and if he were to get into a tight place he would run
up the trail to where I was. I took my stand and had not been
there long until I saw, just behind, in about twenty feet of me, a
huge grizzly bear coming for me on his hind feet. I did not see a
tree that I could get behind or climb, so I took out along the
trail as fast as I could, the grizzly after me. For the first
fifty yards I had to run up grade and then I turned down hill.
When I reached the top of the hill I commenced to hallo at the top
of my voice, "Look out Walter, we are coming!" Walter was sitting
only a few steps from the trail and the moment I passed him I
heard the report of his gun. I jumped to one side and gave the
bear a shot. I got in two shots and Fiske four. After receiving
this amount of lead the bear ran but a short distance and dropped
dead. All of the shots were near the bear's heart. We dressed him
and started home and we had bear meat enough to last for some time
to come. In the mean time Mr. Fiske had told me about a man four
miles from, his place who had a ranch for sale, consisting of
three hundred and twenty acres of deeded land, one hundred acres
in cultivation, eighty bearing fruit trees and two acres of a
vineyard. He said the place could be bought cheap, and he also
told me that there was a vacant quarter section adjoining this
land that I could take up, and I would have the finest goat ranch
in the country. Mr. Fiske and I took a trip down and found the
owner very anxious to sell. After looking the ranch over and
getting his figures, I made him an offer of four thousand dollars
for everything, which offer he accepted, he reserving nothing but
one span of horses, his bed and clothing. We then went to Santa
Rosa, the county seat, to get an abstract of title and a deed to
the property, and now I am once more an honest rancher. While in
Santa Rosa I hired a man and his wife by the name of Benson, by
the year. Mr. Benson proved to be a good man and his wife a
splendid housekeeper. All went well for about five months, and
having filed on the quarter of vacant land adjoining me, of course
I had to move over there. I had noticed a change in Benson's
appearance, but had not thought much about it till one Saturday I
sent him to haul some pickets over to my preemption claim. That
night, having company, I did not go to the cabin on the claim, but
stayed on the other place. Benson was not at supper that evening,
but I paid no attention to it nor thought it strange, supposing he
was just a little late getting home. The next morning I noticed
that he was not at the breakfast table, and I asked Mrs. Benson
why Mr. Bensen didn't come to his breakfast. She asked if I had
not told him to stay on the preemption claim that night. I told
her that I had not and that I had the key and he could not get
into the house, and besides there was no feed there for the mules.
She commenced to feel uneasy then. So as soon as breakfast was
over I took one of my hired men and started out to hunt for him.
We struck the wagon trail and tracked him around for some time. He
had traveled in a terribly round about way. We finally came to him
where he had run his team against a tree, and when we came upon
him he was down in front of the mules whipping them around the
fore legs trying to make them get down and pray. He did not notice
us until I spoke to him and told him to quit whipping the mules.
When he looked at me I could see that he was perfectly wild. It
took us both three hours to get him back to the house. I sent for
the constable, who took him to Santa Rosa and from there he was
taken to the insane asylum. His wife went East to her folks, and I
was told afterwards that he got all right.
I next tried a Chinese housekeeper, but John Chinaman had too many
relations in the country. There would be two or three Chinamen
there almost every week to see my cook and would stay one or two
nights. It was not what they ate that I cared for, but what they
carried off.
I tried ranching there for three years and during that time I had
three different men with their wives, but there was always
something wrong, too far from church or too far from neighbors, so
I came to the conclusion that a man had no use with a ranch unless
he had a wife. In the mean time I had proved up on my preemption,
and had all my land fenced in with a picket fence made of red wood
pickets. I had also got sick and tired of ranching, not but what I
had done fairly well, but it was too much bother for a man that
had been raised as I had. I went to San Francisco and placed my
land in the hands of a real estate agent for sale, and it was but
a short time when he sent two men out to look at it. This was the
fall of the year when my fruit was just beautiful and the grapes
ripe in the vineyard, and we were not long in making a trade.
In less than one month I was without a house or home, so I placed
my money in the bank and arranged to get my interest semi-
annually, and made up my mind to take things easy the balance of
my days.
About one year from that time I succeeded in getting up a hunting
party, and we went up into the mountains in Mendocino county,
where we found game in abundance, deer, elk and bear. I stayed out
in the mountains nearly three months, during which time I killed
the largest grizzly bear I have ever seen, weighing net, eight
hundred and sixty pounds. This bear I killed at one shot, and it
is the only grizzly that I ever killed at one shot in all my
hunting. We also killed ten large elk. One man in the party killed
an elk that the horns measured from tip to tip, five feet and four
inches, and those horns can be seen at the Lick House in San
Francisco. He sold them for fifty dollars.
I remained in San Francisco until in the spring of 1886, when
there was a party fitting up a schooner to go sealing on the coast
of Alaska, and I was offered a job as shooter. I agreed to go with
them and they were to pay me two dollars for each seal that I
killed. The first of April we started, and were twenty-two days
getting to where there was seal.
Now this was a new business to me, and my first seal hunting was
near the mouth of the Yukon river. The captain anchored about
twenty miles from land. There were six sealing boats with the
schooner, the shooter had charge of his boat, and there were two
or three other men to accompany him. One of my boatmen was a
Frenchman and the other a German; they were both stout and willing
to work. While I received two dollars a piece for all the seals
killed, they only got one dollar each, making in all four dollars
each that the seals cost the company.
In the morning the captain gives each man his course and
instructions to return at once when the signal cannon is fired.
The first morning that we started out we went about four miles
before we saw any seal, when we ran on to a school sleeping on the
water. The two boatmen pulled up among them and I turned loose to
shooting them and got six out of the outfit before they got away
from us. Shooting seal out of a boat reminded me very much of
shooting Indians when on a bucking cayuse, as the boat is always
in motion, and it is all that a person can do to stand up in it
when the sea is any ways rough. That day I killed nine seal and we
were called in at two o'clock, as there was fog coming up, and we
just got in ahead of it. We had fair success sealing until the
last of August, when my crew ventured a little too far and the
wind changed so that we did not hear the cannon and the fog caught
us. Each crew when starting out in the morning always took
supplies along sufficient to last twenty-four hours. This time
when we got caught in the fog the wind had changed on us, so we
tried to remain as near the same place as possible, but this time
we had to guess at it as we could not always tell just which way
the tide was going. This was beyond any doubt the worst trip that
I ever experienced, the fog was very cold and our clothing wet. We
were out three days and nights and then were picked up by another
schooner. The captain of the schooner that picked us up heard the
firing of our cannon that morning and we were picked up about
noon. He at once set sail for our schooner, firing the signal
cannon every half hour, reaching our schooner just as it was
growing dark, and the captain and crew had given us up for lost.
We stayed out until the last of September, when we sailed for San
Francisco, and this wound up my seal hunting.
There was only one other man in the crew that killed more seal
than I did during the season, but I made the largest day's killing
of any one in the crew, that being twenty seven. But one season
was enough for me in that line of business. I concluded that I
would much rather take my chances on dry land.
In the spring of 1887 I took a trip to the Puget Sound country and
found Seattle a very lively place; in fact, as much so as any
place I had ever seen in my life. After remaining in Seattle about
two months I concluded that I would try my hand at the hotel
business, as that was something I had not tried, so I bought out a
man named Smith, who owned a big hotel on the corner of South
second and Washington streets, just opposite John Court's Theatre
Building, paying Mr. Smith sixteen thousand dollars for the
property, and besides this I spent one thousand two hundred
dollars in repairing and fitting it up in shape. I gave it the
name of "Riverside House." Here I built up a good business in the
hotel line. In fact, inside of six months from the time I opened
up I had all that I could accommodate all the time, and this was
the first time in my life that I had been perfectly satisfied.
I had all the business I could attend to, and was making money,
and as fast as I could accumulate a little money I invested it in
different parts of the city in good property.
In the month of May, 1889, two brothers named Clark, from Chicago,
came to my hotel for the purpose of buying me out, but I told them
my property was not for sale, as I was satisfied and liked the
business and did not think I could find a place that would suit me
better; but about the first of June they returned and made me an
offer of twenty thousand dollars. I told them that I would not
sell at any price, as I was satisfied and intended to remain there
as long as I lived. On the morning of the sixth of June, 1889, my
clerk came to my room and woke me up, saying that there was a fire
in the northern part of town and that the wind was blowing strong
from that direction. I dressed at once, and when I got out on the
street I could see the fire about a half mile from my property,
but had not the faintest idea that it would ever reach me,
although the excitement was running high on the street. I returned
to the hotel, washed, and was just eating my breakfast when one of
the waiters came and told me that he could see the fire from the
door. I told him he must be mistaken, but he went and looked again
and came back and told me that the fire was getting very close. I
ran to the door and saw that it was then within one block of my
hotel. Now I saw that my property was sure to be burnt, so I sent
my clerk up stairs to see whether or not there were any lodgers in
the rooms, and I made a rush for the safe and only just had time
to get it unlocked and the contents out when the fire was on us.
That fire wiped me out slick and clean as I did not have a
dollar's worth of insurance on the property. Any business man
would have known enough at least to have a few thousand dollars of
insurance on that amount of property, but I had never seen a fire
before in a city and thought it folly to insure, and did not find
out my mistake until it was too late. During the next six months I
had a number of offers of money to build a brick hotel on my lots,
but I could not think for a moment of borrowing the money for that
purpose.
I remained in Seattle for nine months, during which time there was
a great decrease in the value of property, and I sold my lots
where my hotel had stood at a very reduced price. I tried various
speculations on a small scale during this time, but with very poor
success.
By this time I had spent and lost in speculation about all the
money that I had realized for my property, and the outside
property that I owned I could not sell at any price. Since that
time I have wandered around from pillar to post, catching a little
job here and there, and at this writing I am temporarily located
at Moscow, Idaho, which is situated in the heart of the famous
Palouse country, one of the greatest countries on the globe for
the growing of wheat, oats, barley, rye, flax and vegetables of
all kinds.
And now kind reader, begging your pardon, I would say that I have
been two years making up my mind to allow my life to go down in
history to be read by the public, as notoriety is something I
never cared for. One reason, perhaps, is that I was brought up by
noble and generous-hearted Kit Carson, who very much disliked
notoriety, and I do not believe that there ever was a son who
thought more of his father than I did of that high-minded and
excellent man.
I have had many opportunities to have the history of my life
written up, but would never consent to anything of the kind.
Finally, however, I decided to write it myself, and while it is
written in very rude and unpolished language, by an old
frontiersman who never went to school a day in his life, all he
knows he picked up himself, yet it is the true history of the most
striking events, trials, troubles, tribulations, hardships,
pleasures and satisfactions of a long life of strange adventure
among wild scenes and wilder people, and in telling the story I
hope I have interested the reader.
It is not strange that in the wilderness, where all nature sings,
from the fairy tinkle of the falling snow to the boom of a storm-
swept canyon; and from the warbling of the birds to the roaring
growl of mad grizzlies; and from the whispers of lost breezes to
thunder of thousands of stampeding hoofs--it is not strange that
among all that, even a worn and illiterate old hunter should try
to sing, if nothing more than the same sort of a song that the
dying sachem sings. So I beg you bear with
THE OLD SCOUT'S LAMENT.
Come all of you, my brother scouts,
And join me in my song;
Come, let us sing together,
Though the shadows fall so long.
Of all the old frontiersmen,
That used to scour the plain,
There are but very few of them
That with us yet remain.
Day after day, they're dropping off;
They are going, one by one;
Our clan is fast decreasing;
Our race is almost run.
There were many of our number
That never wore the blue,
But, faithfully, they did their part,
As brave men, tried and true.
They never joined the army,
But had other work to do
In piloting the coming folks,
To help them safely through.
But brothers, we are failing;
Our race is almost run;
The days of elk and buffalo,
And beaver traps, are gone.
Oh, the days of elk and buffalo,
It fills my heart with pain
To know those days are passed and gone,
To never come again.
We fought the red-skin rascals
Over valley, hill and plain,
We fought him in the mountain top,
And fought him down again.
Those fighting days are over;
The Indian yell resounds
No more along the border,
Peace sends far sweeter sounds
But we found great joy, old comrades,
To hear and make it die,
We won bright homes for gentle ones,
And now, our West, good-bye