So many conflicting accounts have appeared about my casual encounter
with an Adirondack bear last summer that in justice to the public, to
myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of
the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that
the celebration of the exploit may be excused.
The encounter was unpremeditated on both sides. I was not hunting for
a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me.
The fact is, that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance, the
usual way. There is among the Adirondack visitors always a great deal of
conversation about bears,--a general expression of the wish to see one
in the woods, and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or
she chanced to meet one. But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only
to a favored few.
It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of
any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers at our
cottage--there were four of them--to send me to the clearing, on the
mountain back of the house, to pick blackberries. It was rather a series
of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with
bushes and briers, and not unromantic. Cows pastured there, penetrating
through the leafy passages from one opening to another, and browsing
among the bushes. I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told
not to be gone long.
Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took a
gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he also
carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge; though how
I was to hit him, if he started up instead of standing still, puzzled
me. Many people use a shotgun for partridges. I prefer the rifle: it
makes a clean job of death, and does not prematurely stuff the bird with
globules of lead. The rifle was a Sharps, carrying a ball cartridge (ten
to the pound),--an excellent weapon belonging to a friend of mine, who
had intended, for a good many years back, to kill a deer with it. He
could hit a tree with it--if the wind did not blow, and the atmosphere
was just right, and the tree was not too far off--nearly every time. Of
course, the tree must have some size. Needless to say that I was at that
time no sportsman. Years ago I killed a robin under the most humiliating
circumstances. The bird was in a low cherry-tree. I loaded a big shotgun
pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested the gun on the fence, with
the muzzle more than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes, and pulled
the trigger. When I got up to see what had happened, the robin was
scattered about under the tree in more than a thousand pieces, no one
of which was big enough to enable a naturalist to decide from it to what
species it belonged. This disgusted me with the life of a sportsman. I
mention the incident to show that, although I went blackberrying armed,
there was not much inequality between me and the bear.
In this blackberry-patch bears had been seen. The summer before, our
colored cook, accompanied by a little girl of the vicinage, was picking
berries there one day, when a bear came out of the woods, and walked
towards them. The girl took to her heels, and escaped. Aunt Chloe was
paralyzed with terror. Instead of attempting to run, she sat down on
the ground where she was standing, and began to weep and scream,
giving herself up for lost. The bear was bewildered by this conduct.
He approached and looked at her; he walked around and surveyed her.
Probably he had never seen a colored person before, and did not know
whether she would agree with him: at any rate, after watching her a few
moments, he turned about, and went into the forest. This is an authentic
instance of the delicate consideration of a bear, and is much more
remarkable than the forbearance towards the African slave of the
well-known lion, because the bear had no thorn in his foot.
When I had climbed the hill,--I set up my rifle against a tree, and
began picking berries, lured on from bush to bush by the black gleam of
fruit (that always promises more in the distance than it realizes when
you reach it); penetrating farther and farther, through leaf-shaded
cow-paths flecked with sunlight, into clearing after clearing. I could
hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of sticks, and
the stamping of cattle that were taking refuge in the thicket from the
flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, I encountered a meek
cow, who stared at me stupidly for a second, and then shambled off into
the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb society, and picked on in
silence, attributing all the wood noises to the cattle, thinking nothing
of any real bear. In point of fact, however, I was thinking all the time
of a nice romantic bear, and as I picked, was composing a story about a
generous she-bear who had lost her cub, and who seized a small girl in
this very wood, carried her tenderly off to a cave, and brought her
up on bear's milk and honey. When the girl got big enough to run away,
moved by her inherited instincts, she escaped, and came into the valley
to her father's house (this part of the story was to be worked out, so
that the child would know her father by some family resemblance, and
have some language in which to address him), and told him where the bear
lived. The father took his gun, and, guided by the unfeeling daughter,
went into the woods and shot the bear, who never made any resistance,
and only, when dying, turned reproachful eyes upon her murderer. The
moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals.
I was in the midst of this tale when I happened to look some rods away
to the other edge of the clearing, and there was a bear! He was
standing on his hind legs, and doing just what I was doing,--picking
blackberries. With one paw he bent down the bush, while with the other
he clawed the berries into his mouth,--green ones and all. To say that
I was astonished is inside the mark. I suddenly discovered that I didn't
want to see a bear, after all. At about the same moment the bear saw me,
stopped eating berries, and regarded me with a glad surprise. It is
all very well to imagine what you would do under such circumstances.
Probably you wouldn't do it: I didn't. The bear dropped down on his
forefeet, and came slowly towards me. Climbing a tree was of no use,
with so good a climber in the rear. If I started to run, I had no doubt
the bear would give chase; and although a bear cannot run down hill
as fast as he can run up hill, yet I felt that he could get over this
rough, brush-tangled ground faster than I could.
The bear was approaching. It suddenly occurred to me how I could divert
his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. My pail was
nearly full of excellent berries, much better than the bear could pick
himself. I put the pail on the ground, and slowly backed away from it,
keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. The ruse succeeded.
The bear came up to the berries, and stopped. Not accustomed to eat out
of a pail, he tipped it over, and nosed about in the fruit, “gorming”
(if there is such a word) it down, mixed with leaves and dirt, like a
pig. The bear is a worse feeder than the pig. Whenever he disturbs a
maple-sugar camp in the spring, he always upsets the buckets of syrup,
and tramples round in the sticky sweets, wasting more than he eats. The
bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable.
As soon as my enemy's head was down, I started and ran. Somewhat out of
breath, and shaky, I reached my faithful rifle. It was not a moment too
soon. I heard the bear crashing through the brush after me. Enraged at
my duplicity, he was now coming on with blood in his eye. I felt that
the time of one of us was probably short. The rapidity of thought at
such moments of peril is well known. I thought an octavo volume, had
it illustrated and published, sold fifty thousand copies, and went to
Europe on the proceeds, while that bear was loping across the clearing.
As I was cocking the gun, I made a hasty and unsatisfactory review of
my whole life. I noted, that, even in such a compulsory review, it is
almost impossible to think of any good thing you have done. The sins
come out uncommonly strong. I recollected a newspaper subscription I had
delayed paying years and years ago, until both editor and newspaper were
dead, and which now never could be paid to all eternity.
The bear was coming on.
I tried to remember what I had read about encounters with bears. I
couldn't recall an instance in which a man had run away from a bear in
the woods and escaped, although I recalled plenty where the bear had run
from the man and got off. I tried to think what is the best way to kill
a bear with a gun, when you are not near enough to club him with the
stock. My first thought was to fire at his head; to plant the ball
between his eyes: but this is a dangerous experiment. The bear's brain
is very small; and, unless you hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet
in his head; that is, not at the time. I remembered that the instant
death of the bear would follow a bullet planted just back of his
fore-leg, and sent into his heart. This spot is also difficult to reach,
unless the bear stands off, side towards you, like a target. I finally
determined to fire at him generally.
The bear was coming on.
The contest seemed to me very different from anything at Creedmoor. I
had carefully read the reports of the shooting there; but it was not
easy to apply the experience I had thus acquired. I hesitated whether I
had better fire lying on my stomach or lying on my back, and resting the
gun on my toes. But in neither position, I reflected, could I see
the bear until he was upon me. The range was too short; and the bear
wouldn't wait for me to examine the thermometer, and note the direction
of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor method, therefore, had to be
abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of
offhand shooting.
For the bear was coming on.
I tried to fix my last thoughts upon my family. As my family is small,
this was not difficult. Dread of displeasing my wife, or hurting her
feelings, was uppermost in my mind. What would be her anxiety as hour
after hour passed on, and I did not return! What would the rest of the
household think as the afternoon passed, and no blackberries came! What
would be my wife's mortification when the news was brought that her
husband had been eaten by a bear! I cannot imagine anything more
ignominious than to have a husband eaten by a bear. And this was not
my only anxiety. The mind at such times is not under control. With the
gravest fears the most whimsical ideas will occur. I looked beyond the
mourning friends, and thought what kind of an epitaph they would be
compelled to put upon the stone.
Something like this: