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MONARCH, The BIG BEAR of Tallac
With 100 Drawings
by Ernest Thompson Seton
Author of
Wild Animals I have known
Trail of the Sandhill Stag
Biography of a Grizzly
Lives of the Hunted.
Two Little Savages. Etc.
1919
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
To the memory of the days in Tallac's Pines, where by the fire I heard
this epic tale.
Kind memory calls the picture up before me now, clear, living clear: I
see them as they sat, the one small and slight, the other tall and
brawny, leader and led, rough men of the hills. They told me this
tale--in broken bits they gave it, a sentence at a time. They were
ready to talk but knew not how. Few their words, and those they used
would be empty on paper, meaningless without the puckered lip, the
interhiss, the brutal semi-snarl restrained by human mastery, the snap
and jerk of wrist and gleam of steel-gray eye, that really told the
tale, of which the spoken word was mere headline. Another, a subtler
theme was theirs that night; not in the line but in the interline it
ran; and listening to the hunter's ruder tale, I heard as one may hear
the night bird singing in the storm; amid the glitter of the mica I
caught the glint of gold, for theirs was a parable of hill-born power
that fades when it finds the plains. They told of the giant redwood's
growth from a tiny seed; of the avalanche that, born a snowflake,
heaves and grows on the peaks, to shrink and die on the level lands
below. They told of the river at our feet: of its rise, a thread-like
rill, afar on Tallac's side, and its growth--a brook, a stream, a
little river, a river, a mighty flood that rolled and ran from hills
to plain to meet a final doom so strange that only the wise believe.
Yes, I have seen it; it is there to-day--the river, the wonderful
river, that unabated flows, but that never reaches the sea.
I give you the story then as it came to me, and yet I do not give it,
for theirs is a tongue unknown to script: I give a dim translation;
dim, but in all ways respectful, reverencing the indomitable spirit of
the mountaineer, worshiping the mighty Beast that nature built a
monument of power, and loving and worshiping the clash, the awful
strife heroic, at the close, when these two met.
In this Book the designs for cover, title-page, and general make-up
were done by Grace Gallatin Seton.
List of Full-Page Drawings
"The pony bounded in terror while the Grizzly ran almost alongside"
"Jack ate till his paunch looked like a rubber balloon"
"'Honey--Jacky--honey'"
"Jack ... held up his sticky, greasy arms"
The Thirty-foot Bear
"'Now, B'ar, I don't want no scrap with you'"
"Rumbling and snorting, he made for the friendly hills"
Monarch
List of The Chapters
I. The Two Springs
II. The Springs and the Miner's Dam
III. The Trout Pool
IV. The Stream that Sank in the Sand
V. The River Held in the Foothills
VI. The Broken Dam
VII. The Freshet
VIII. Roaring in the Canon
IX. Fire and Water
X. The Eddy
XI. The Ford
XII. Swirl and Pool and Growing Flood
XIII. The Deepening Channel
XIV. The Cataract
XV. The Foaming Flood
XVI. Landlocked
FOREWORD
The story of Monarch is founded on material gathered from many sources
as well as from personal experience, and the Bear is of necessity a
composite. The great Grizzly Monarch, still pacing his prison floor at
the Golden Gate Park, is the central fact of the tale.
In telling it I have taken two liberties that I conceive to be proper
in a story of this sort.
First, I have selected for my hero an unusual individual.
Second, I have ascribed to that one animal the adventures of several
of his kind.
The aim of the story is to picture the life of a Grizzly with the
added glamour of a remarkable Bear personality. The intention is to
convey the known truth. But the fact that liberties have been taken
excludes the story from the catalogue of pure science. It must be
considered rather an historical novel of Bear life.
Many different Bears were concerned in the early adventures here
related, but the last two chapters, the captivity and the despair of
the Big Bear, are told as they were told to me by several witnesses,
including my friends the two mountaineers.
I. THE TWO SPRINGS
High above Sierra's peaks stands grim Mount Tallac. Ten thousand feet
above the sea it rears its head to gaze out north to that vast and
wonderful turquoise that men call Lake Tahoe, and northwest, across a
piney sea, to its great white sister, Shasta of the Snows; wonderful
colors and things on every side, mast-like pine trees strung with
jewelry, streams that a Buddhist would have made sacred, hills that an
Arab would have held holy. But Lan Kellyan's keen gray eyes were
turned to other things. The childish delight in life and light for
their own sakes had faded, as they must in one whose training had been
to make him hold them very cheap. Why value grass? All the world is
grass. Why value air, when it is everywhere in measureless immensity?
Why value life, when, all alive, his living came from taking life? His
senses were alert, not for the rainbow hills and the gem-bright lakes,
but for the living things that he must meet in daily rivalry, each
staking on the game, his life. Hunter was written on his leathern
garb, on his tawny face, on his lithe and sinewy form, and shone in
his clear gray eye.
The cloven granite peak might pass unmarked, but a faint dimple in the
sod did not. Calipers could not have told that it was widened at one
end, but the hunter's eye did, and following, he looked for and found
another, then smaller signs, and he knew that a big Bear and two
little ones had passed and were still close at hand, for the grass in
the marks was yet unbending. Lan rode his hunting pony on the trail.
It sniffed and stepped nervously, for it knew as well as the rider
that a Grizzly family was near. They came to a terrace leading to an
open upland. Twenty feet on this side of it Lan slipped to the ground,
dropped the reins, the well-known sign to the pony that he must stand
at that spot, then cocked his rifle and climbed the bank. At the top
he went with yet greater caution, and soon saw an old Grizzly with her
two cubs. She was lying down some fifty yards away and afforded a poor
shot; he fired at what seemed to be the shoulder. The aim was true,
but the Bear got only a flesh-wound. She sprang to her feet and made
for the place where the puff of smoke arose. The Bear had fifty yards
to cover, the man had fifteen, but she came racing down the bank
before he was fairly on the horse, and for a hundred yards the pony
bounded in terror while the old Grizzly ran almost alongside, striking
at him and missing by a scant hair's-breadth each time. But the
Grizzly rarely keeps up its great speed for many yards. The horse got
under full headway, and the shaggy mother, falling behind, gave up the
chase and returned to her cubs.
[Illustration: "THE PONY BOUNDED IN TERROR WHILE THE GRIZZLY RAN
ALMOST ALONGSIDE"]
She was a singular old Bear. She had a large patch of white on her
breast, white cheeks and shoulders, graded into the brown elsewhere,
and Lan from this remembered her afterward as the "Pinto." She had
almost caught him that time, and the hunter was ready to believe that
he owed her a grudge.
A week later his chance came. As he passed along the rim of Pocket
Gulch, a small, deep valley with sides of sheer rock in most places,
he saw afar the old Pinto Bear with her two little brown cubs. She was
crossing from one side where the wall was low to another part easy to
climb. As she stopped to drink at the clear stream Lan fired with his
rifle. At the shot Pinto turned on her cubs, and slapping first one,
then the other, she chased them up a tree. Now a second shot struck
her and she charged fiercely up the sloping part of the wall, clearly
recognizing the whole situation and determined to destroy that hunter.
She came snorting up the steep acclivity wounded and raging, only to
receive a final shot in the brain that sent her rolling back to lie
dead at the bottom of Pocket Gulch. The hunter, after waiting to make
sure, moved to the edge and fired another shot into the old one's
body; then reloading, he went cautiously down to the tree where still
were the cubs. They gazed at him with wild seriousness as he
approached them, and when he began to climb they scrambled up higher.
Here one set up a plaintive whining and the other an angry growling,
their outcries increasing as he came nearer.
He took out a stout cord, and noosing them in turn, dragged them to
the ground. One rushed at him and, though little bigger than a cat,
would certainly have done him serious injury had he not held it off
with a forked stick.
After tying them to a strong but swaying branch he went to his horse,
got a grain-bag, dropped them into that, and rode with them to his
shanty. He fastened each with a collar and chain to a post, up which
they climbed, and sitting on the top they whined and growled,
according to their humor. For the first few days there was danger of
the cubs strangling themselves or of starving to death, but at length
they were beguiled into drinking some milk most ungently procured from
a range cow that was lassoed for the purpose. In another week they
seemed somewhat reconciled to their lot, and thenceforth plainly
notified their captor whenever they wanted food or water.
And thus the two small rills ran on, a little farther down the
mountain now, deeper and wider, keeping near each other; leaping bars,
rejoicing in the sunlight, held for a while by some trivial dam, but
overleaping that and running on with pools and deeps that harbor
bigger things.
II. THE SPRINGS AND THE MINER'S DAM
Jack and Jill, the hunter named the cubs; and Jill, the little fury,
did nothing to change his early impression of her bad temper. When at
food-time the man came she would get as far as possible up the post
and growl, or else sit in sulky fear and silence; Jack would scramble
down and strain at his chain to meet his captor, whining softly, and
gobbling his food at once with the greatest of gusto and the worst of
manners. He had many odd ways of his own, and he was a lasting rebuke
to those who say an animal has no sense of humor. In a month he had
grown so tame that he was allowed to run free. He followed his master
like a dog, and his tricks and funny doings were a continual delight
to Kellyan and the few friends he had in the mountains.
On the creek-bottom below the shack was a meadow where Lan cut enough
hay each year to feed his two ponies through the winter. This year
when hay-time came Jack was his daily companion, either following him
about in dangerous nearness to the snorting scythe, or curling up an
hour at a time on his coat to guard it assiduously from such
aggressive monsters as Ground Squirrels and Chipmunks. An interesting
variation of the day came about whenever the mower found a bumblebees'
nest. Jack loved honey, of course, and knew quite well what a bees'
nest was, so the call, "Honey--Jacky--honey!" never failed to bring
him in waddling haste to the spot. Jerking his nose up in token of
pleasure, he would approach cautiously, for he knew that bees have
stings. Watching his chance, he would dexterously slap at them with
his paws till, one by one, they were knocked down and crushed; then
sniffing hard for the latest information, he would stir up the nest
gingerly till the very last was tempted forth to be killed. When the
dozen or more that formed the swarm were thus got rid of, Jack would
carefully dig out the nest and eat first the honey, next the grubs and
wax, and last of all the bees he had killed, champing his jaws like a
little Pig at a trough, while his long red, snaky tongue was ever busy
lashing the stragglers into his greedy maw.
[Illustration: "JACK ATE TILL HIS PAUNCH LOOKED LIKE A RUBBER
BALLOON"]
Lan's nearest neighbor was Lou Bonamy, an ex-cowboy and sheep-herder,
now a prospecting miner. He lived, with his dog, in a shanty about a
mile below Kellyan's shack. Bonamy had seen Jack "perform on a
bee-crew." And one day, as he came to Kellyan's, he called out: "Lan,
bring Jack here and we'll have some fun." He led the way down the
stream into the woods. Kellyan followed him, and Jacky waddled at
Kellyan's heels, sniffing once in a while to make sure he was not
following the wrong pair of legs.
"There, Jacky, honey--honey!" and Bonamy pointed up a tree to an
immense wasps' nest.
Jack cocked his head on one side and swung his nose on the other.
Certainly those things buzzing about looked like bees, though he never
before saw a bees' nest of that shape, or in such a place.
But he scrambled up the trunk. The men waited--Lan in doubt as to
whether he should let his pet cub go into such danger, Bonamy
insisting it would be a capital joke "to spring a surprise" on the
little Bear. Jack reached the branch that held the big nest high over
the deep water, but went with increasing caution. He had never seen a
bees' nest like this; it did not have the right smell. Then he took
another step forward on the branch--what an awful lot of bees; another
step--still they were undoubtedly bees; he cautiously advanced a
foot--and bees mean honey; a little farther--he was now within four
feet of the great paper globe. The bees hummed angrily and Jack
stepped back, in doubt. The men giggled; then Bonamy called softly and
untruthfully: "Honey--Jacky--honey!"
[Illustration: "'HONEY--JACKY--HONEY'"]
The little Bear, fortunately for himself, went slowly, since in doubt;
he made no sudden move, and he waited a long time, though urged to go
on, till the whole swarm of bees had reentered their nest. Now Jacky
jerked his nose up, hitched softly out a little farther till right
over the fateful paper globe. He reached out, and by lucky chance put
one horny little paw-pad over the hole; his other arm grasped the
nest, and leaping from the branch he plunged headlong into the pool
below, taking the whole thing with him. As soon as he reached the
water his hind feet were seen tearing into the nest, kicking it to
pieces; then he let it go and struck out for the shore, the nest
floating in rags down-stream. He ran alongside till the comb lodged
against a shallow place, then he plunged in again; the wasps were
drowned or too wet to be dangerous, and he carried his prize to the
bank in triumph. No honey; of course, that was a disappointment, but
there were lots of fat white grubs--almost as good--and Jack ate till
his paunch looked like a little rubber balloon.
"How is that?" chuckled Lan.
"The laugh is on us," answered Bonamy, with a grimace.
III. THE TROUT POOL
Jack was now growing into a sturdy cub, and he would follow Kellyan
even as far as Bonamy's shack. One day, as they watched him rolling
head over heels in riotous glee, Kellyan remarked to his friend: "I'm
afraid some one will happen on him an' shoot him in the woods for a
wild B'ar."
"Then why don't you ear-mark him with them thar new sheep-rings?" was
the sheep-man's suggestion.
Thus it was that, much against his will, Jack's ears were punched and
he was decorated with earrings like a prize ram. The intention was
good, but they were neither ornamental nor comfortable. Jack fought
them for days, and when at length he came home trailing a branch that
was caught in the jewel of his left ear, Kellyan impatiently removed
them.
At Bonamy's he formed two new acquaintances, a blustering, bullying
old ram that was "in storage" for a sheep-herder acquaintance, and
which inspired him with a lasting enmity for everything that smelt of
sheep--and Bonamy's dog.
This latter was an active, yapping, unpleasant cur that seemed to
think it rare fun to snap at Jacky's heels, then bound out of reach. A
joke is a joke, but this horrid beast did not know where to stop, and
Jack's first and second visits to the Bonamy hut were quite spoiled by
the tyranny of the dog. If Jack could have got hold of him he might
have settled the account to his own satisfaction, but he was not quick
enough for that. His only refuge was up a tree. He soon discovered
that he was happier away from Bonamy's, and thenceforth when he saw
his protector take the turn that led to the miner's cabin, Jack said
plainly with a look, "No, thank you," and turned back to amuse himself
at home.
His enemy, however, often came with Bonamy to the hunter's cabin, and
there resumed his amusement of teasing the little Bear. It proved so
interesting a pursuit that the dog learned to come over on his own
account whenever he felt like having some fun, until at length Jack
was kept in continual terror of the yellow cur. But it all ended very
suddenly.
One hot day, while the two men smoked in front of Kellyan's house, the
dog chased Jack up a tree and then stretched himself out for a
pleasant nap in the shade of its branches. Jack was forgotten as the
dog slumbered. The little Bear kept very quiet for a while, then, as
his twinkling brown eyes came back to that hateful dog, that he could
neither catch nor get away from, an idea seemed to grow in his small
brain. He began to move slowly and silently down the branch until he
was over the foe, slumbering, twitching his limbs, and making little
sounds that told of dreams of the chase, or, more likely, dreams of
tormenting a helpless Bear cub. Of course, Jack knew nothing of that.
His one thought, doubtless, was that he hated that cur and now he
could vent his hate. He came just over the tyrant, and taking careful
aim, he jumped and landed squarely on the dog's ribs. It was a
terribly rude awakening, but the dog gave no yelp, for the good reason
that the breath was knocked out of his body. No bones were broken,
though he was barely able to drag himself away in silent defeat, while
Jacky played a lively tune on his rear with paws that were fringed
with meat-hooks.
Evidently it was a most excellent plan; and when the dog came around
after that, or when Jack went to Bonamy's with his master, as he soon
again ventured to do, he would scheme with more or less success to
"get the drop on the purp," as the men put it. The dog now rapidly
lost interest in Bear-baiting, and in a short time it was a forgotten
sport.
IV. THE STREAM THAT SANK IN THE SAND
Jack was funny; Jill was sulky. Jack was petted and given freedom, so
grew funnier; Jill was beaten and chained, so grew sulkier. She had a
bad name and she was often punished for it; it is usually so.
One day, while Lan was away, Jill got free and joined her brother.
They broke into the little storehouse and rioted among the provisions.
They gorged themselves with the choicest sorts; and the common stuffs,
like flour, butter, and baking-powder, brought fifty miles on
horseback, were good enough only to be thrown about the ground or
rolled in. Jack had just torn open the last bag of flour, and Jill was
puzzling over a box of miner's dynamite, when the doorway darkened and
there stood Kellyan, a picture of amazement and wrath. Little Bears do
not know anything about pictures, but they have some acquaintance with
wrath. They seemed to know that they were sinning, or at least in
danger, and Jill sneaked, sulky and snuffy, into a dark corner, where
she glared defiantly at the hunter. Jack put his head on one side,
then, quite forgetful of all his misbehavior, he gave a delighted
grunt, and scuttling toward the man, he whined, jerked his nose, and
held up his sticky, greasy arms to be lifted and petted as though he
were the best little Bear in the world.
[Illustration: "JACK ... HELD UP HIS STICKY, GREASY ARMS"]
Alas, how likely we are to be taken at our own estimate! The scowl
faded from the hunter's brow as the cheeky and deplorable little Bear
began to climb his leg. "You little divil," he growled, "I'll break
your cussed neck"; but he did not. He lifted the nasty, sticky little
beast and fondled him as usual, while Jill, no worse--even more
excusable, because less trained--suffered all the terrors of his wrath
and was double-chained to the post, so as to have no further chance of
such ill-doing.
This was a day of bad luck for Kellyan. That morning he had fallen and
broken his rifle. Now, on his return home, he found his provisions
spoiled, and a new trial was before him.
A stranger with a small pack-train called at his place that evening
and passed the night with him. Jack was in his most frolicsome mood
and amused them both with tricks half-puppy and half-monkey like, and
in the morning, when the stranger was leaving, he said: "Say, pard,
I'll give you twenty-five dollars for the pair." Lan hesitated,
thought of the wasted provisions, his empty purse, his broken rifle,
and answered: "Make it fifty and it's a go."
"Shake on it."
So the bargain was made, the money paid, and in fifteen minutes the
stranger was gone with a little Bear in each pannier of his horse.
Jill was surly and silent; Jack kept up a whining that smote on Lan's
heart with a reproachful sound, but he braced himself with, "Guess
they're better out of the way; couldn't afford another storeroom
racket," and soon the pine forest had swallowed up the stranger, his
three led horses, and the two little Bears.
"Well, I'm glad he's gone," said Lan, savagely, though he knew quite
well that he was already scourged with repentance. He began to set his
shanty in order. He went to the storehouse and gathered the remnants
of the provisions. After all, there was a good deal left. He walked
past the box where Jack used to sleep. How silent it was! He noted the
place where Jack used to scratch the door to get into the cabin, and
started at the thought that he should hear it no more, and told
himself, with many cuss-words, that he was "mighty glad of it." He
pottered about, doing--doing--oh, anything, for an hour or more; then
suddenly he leaped on his pony and raced madly down the trail on the
track of the stranger. He put the pony hard to it, and in two hours he
overtook the train at the crossing of the river.
"Say, pard, I done wrong. I didn't orter sell them little B'ars,
leastwise not Jacky. I--I--wall, now, I want to call it off. Here's
yer yellow."
"I'm satisfied with my end of it," said the stranger, coldly.
"Well, I ain't," said Lan, with warmth, "an' I want it off."
"Ye're wastin' time if that's what ye come for," was the reply.
"We'll see about that," and Lan threw the gold pieces at the rider and
walked over toward the pannier, where Jack was whining joyfully at the
sound of the familiar voice.
"Hands up," said the stranger, with the short, sharp tone of one who
had said it before, and Lan turned to find himself covered with a .45
navy Colt.
"Ye got the drop on me," he said; "I ain't got no gun; but look-a
here, stranger, that there little B'ar is the only pard I got; he's my
stiddy company an' we're almighty fond o' each other. I didn't know
how much I was a-goin' to miss him. Now look-a here: take back yer
fifty; ye give me Jack an' keep Jill."
"If ye got five hundred cold plunks in yaller ye kin get him; if not,
you walk straight to that tree thar an' don't drop yer hands or turn
or I'll fire. Now start."
Mountain etiquette is very strict, and Lan, being without weapons,
must needs obey the rules. He marched to the distant tree under cover
of the revolver. The wail of little Jack smote painfully on his ear,
but he knew the ways of the mountaineers too well to turn or make
another offer, and the stranger went on.
Many a man has spent a thousand dollars in efforts to capture some
wild thing and felt it worth the cost--for a time. Then he is willing
to sell it for half cost, then for quarter, and at length he ends by
giving it away. The stranger was vastly pleased with his comical Bear
cubs at first, and valued them proportionately; but each day they
seemed more troublesome and less amusing, so that when, a week later,
at the Bell-Cross Ranch, he was offered a horse for the pair, he
readily closed, and their days of hamper-travel were over.
The owner of the ranch was neither mild, refined, nor patient. Jack,
good-natured as he was, partly grasped these facts as he found himself
taken from the pannier, but when it came to getting cranky little Jill
out of the basket and into a collar, there ensued a scene so
unpleasant that no collar was needed. The ranchman wore his hand in a
sling for two weeks, and Jacky at his chain's end paced the ranch-yard
alone.
V. THE RIVER HELD IN THE FOOTHILLS
There was little of pleasant interest in the next eighteen months of
Jack's career. His share of the globe was a twenty-foot circle around
a pole in the yard. The blue hills of the offing, the nearer pine
grove, and even the ranch-house itself were fixed stars, far away and
sending merely faint suggestions of their splendors to his not very
bright eyes. Even the horses and men were outside his little sphere
and related to him about as much as comets are to the earth. The very
tricks that had made him valued were being forgotten as Jack grew up
in chains.
At first a butter-firkin had made him an ample den, but he rapidly
passed through the various stages--butter-firkin, nail-keg,
flour-barrel, oil-barrel--and had now to be graded as a good average
hogshead Bear, though he was far from filling that big round wooden
cavern that formed his latest den.
The ranch hotel lay just where the foothills of the Sierras with their
groves of live oaks were sloping into the golden plains of the
Sacramento. Nature had showered on it every wonderful gift in her lap.
A foreground rich with flowers, luxuriant in fruit, shade and sun, dry
pastures, rushing rivers, and murmuring rills, were here. Great trees
were variants of the view, and the high Sierras to the east overtopped
the wondrous plumy forests of their pines with blocks of sculptured
blue. Back of the house was a noble river of water from the hills,
fouled and chained by sluice and dam, but still a noble stream whose
earliest parent rill had gushed from grim old Tallac's slope.
Things of beauty, life, and color were on every side, and yet most
sordid of the human race were the folk about the ranch hotel. To see
them in this setting might well raise doubt that any "rise from Nature
up to Nature's God." No city slum has ever shown a more ignoble crew,
and Jack, if his mind were capable of such things, must have graded
the two-legged ones lower in proportion as he knew them better.
Cruelty was his lot, and hate was his response. Almost the only
amusing trick he now did was helping himself to a drink of beer. He
was very fond of beer, and the loafers about the tavern often gave him
a bottle to see how dexterously he would twist off the wire and work
out the cork. As soon as it popped, he would turn it up between his
paws and drink to the last drop.
The monotony of his life was occasionally varied with a dog fight. His
tormentors would bring their Bear dogs "to try them on the cub." It
seemed to be very pleasant sport to men and dogs, till Jack learned
how to receive them. At first he used to rush furiously at the nearest
tormentor until brought up with a jerk at the end of his chain and
completely exposed to attack behind from another dog. A month or two
entirely changed his method. He learned to sit against the hogshead
and quietly watch the noisy dogs around him, with much show of
inattention, making no move, no matter how near they were, until they
"bunched," that is, gathered in one place. Then he charged. It was
inevitable that the hind dogs would be the last to jump, and so
hindered the front ones; thus Jack would "get" one or more of them,
and the game became unpopular.
When about eighteen months old, and half grown, an incident took place
which defied all explanation. Jack had won the name of being
dangerous, for he had crippled one man with a blow and nearly killed a
tipsy fool who volunteered to fight him. A harmless but
good-for-nothing sheep-herder who loafed about the place got very
drunk one night and offended some fire-eaters. They decided that, as
he had no gun, it would be the proper thing to club him to their
hearts' content instead of shooting him full of holes, in the manner
usually prescribed by their code. Faco Tampico made for the door and
staggered out into the darkness. His pursuers were even more drunk,
but, bent on mischief, they gave chase, and Faco dodged back of the
house and into the yard. The mountaineers had just wit enough to keep
out of reach of the Grizzly as they searched about for their victim,
but they did not find him. Then they got torches, and making sure that
he was not in the yard, were satisfied that he had fallen into the
river behind the barn and doubtless was drowned. A few rude jokes, and
they returned to the house. As they passed the Grizzly's den their
lanterns awoke in his eyes a glint of fire. In the morning the cook,
beginning his day, heard strange sounds in the yard. They came from
the Grizzly's den: "Hyar, you, lay over dahr," in sleepy tones; then a
deep, querulous grunting.
The cook went as close as he dared and peeped in. Said the same voice
in sleepy tones: "Who are ye crowding, caramba!" and a human elbow was
seen jerking and pounding; and again impatient growling in bear-like
tones was the response.
The sun came up and the astonished loafers found it was the missing
sheep-herder that was in the Bear's den, calmly sleeping off his
debauch in the very cave of death. The men tried to get him out, but
the Grizzly plainly showed that they could do so only over his dead
body. He charged with vindictive fury at any who ventured near, and
when they gave up the attempt he lay down at the door of the den on
guard. At length the sheep-herder came to himself, rose up on his
elbows, and realizing that he was in the power of the young Grizzly,
he stepped gingerly over his guardian's back and ran off without even
saying "Thank you."
The Fourth of July was at hand now, and the owner of the tavern,
growing weary of the huge captive in the yard, announced that he would
celebrate Independence Day with a grand fight between a "picked and
fighting range bull and a ferocious Californian Grizzly." The news was
spread far and wide by the "Grapevine Telegraph." The roof of the
stable was covered with seats at fifty cents each. The hay-wagon was
half loaded and drawn alongside the corral; seats here gave a perfect
view and were sold at a dollar apiece. The old corral was repaired,
new posts put in where needed, and the first thing in the morning a
vicious old bull was herded in and tormented till he was "snuffy" and
extremely dangerous.
Jack meanwhile had been roped, "choked down," and nailed up in his
hogshead. His chain and collar were permanently riveted together, so
the collar was taken off, as "it would be easy to rope him, _if need
be, after the bull was through with him."_
The hogshead was rolled over to the corral gate and all was ready.
The cowboys came from far and near in their most gorgeous trappings,
and the California cowboy is the peacock of his race. Their best girls
were with them, and farmers and ranchmen came for fifty miles to enjoy
the Bull-and-Bear fight. Miners from the hills were there, Mexican
sheep-herders, storekeepers from Placerville, strangers from
Sacramento; town and county, mountain and plain, were represented. The
hay-wagon went so well that another was brought into market. The barn
roof was sold out. An ominous crack of the timbers somewhat shook the
prices, but a couple of strong uprights below restored the market, and
all "The Corners" was ready and eager for the great fight. Men who had
been raised among cattle were betting on the bull.
"I tell you, there ain't nothing on earth kin face a big range bull
that hez good use of hisself."
But the hillmen were backing the Bear. "Pooh, what's a bull to a
Grizzly? I tell you, I seen a Grizzly send a horse clean over the
Hetch-Hetchy with one clip of his left. Bull! I'll bet he'll never
show up in the second round."
So they wrangled and bet, while burly women, trying to look fetching,
gave themselves a variety of airs, were "scared at the whole thing,
nervous about the uproar, afraid it would be shocking," but really
were as keenly interested as the men.
All was ready, and the boss of "The Corners" shouted: "Let her go,
boys; house is full an' time's up!"
Faco Tampico had managed to tie a bundle of chaparral thorn to the
bull's tail, so that the huge creature had literally lashed himself
into a frenzy.
Jack's hogshead meanwhile had been rolled around till he was raging
with disgust, and Faco, at the word of command, began to pry open the
door. The end of the barrel was close to the fence, the door cleared
away; now there was nothing for Jack to do but to go forth and claw
the bull to pieces. But he did not go. The noise, the uproar, the
strangeness of the crowd affected him so that he decided to stay where
he was, and the bull-backers raised a derisive cry. Their champion
came forward bellowing and sniffing, pausing often to paw the dust. He
held his head very high and approached slowly until he came within ten
feet of the Grizzly's den; then, giving a snort, he turned and ran to
the other end of the corral. Now it was the Bear-backers' turn to
shout.
But the crowd wanted a fight, and Faco, forgetful of his debt to
Grizzly Jack, dropped a bundle of Fourth of July crackers into the
hogshead by way of the bung. "Crack!" and Jack jumped up.
"Fizz--crack--c-r-r-r-a-a-c-k, cr-k-crk-ck!" and Jack in surprise
rushed from his den into the arena. The bull was standing in a
magnificent attitude there in the middle, but when he saw the Bear
spring toward him, he gave two mighty snorts and retreated as far as
he could, amid cheers and hisses.
Perhaps the two main characteristics of the Grizzly are the quickness
with which he makes a plan and the vigor with which he follows it up.
Before the bull had reached the far side of the corral Jack seemed to
know the wisest of courses. His pig-like eyes swept the fence in a
flash--took in the most climbable part, a place where a cross-piece
was nailed on in the middle. In three seconds he was there, in two
seconds he was over, and in one second he dashed through the running,
scattering mob and was making for the hills as fast as his strong and
supple legs could carry him. Women screamed, men yelled, and dogs
barked; there was a wild dash for the horses tied far from the scene
of the fight, to spare their nerves, but the Grizzly had three hundred
yards' start, five hundred yards even, and before the gala mob gave
out a long and flying column of reckless, riotous riders, the Grizzly
had plunged into the river, a flood no dog cared to face, and had
reached the chaparral and the broken ground in line for the piney
hills. In an hour the ranch hotel, with its galling chain, its
cruelties, and its brutal human beings, was a thing of the past, shut
out by the hills of his youth, cut off by the river of his cub-hood,
the river grown from the rill born in his birthplace away in Tallac's
pines. That Fourth of July was a glorious Fourth--it was Independence
Day for Grizzly Jack.
VI. THE BROKEN DAM
A wounded deer usually works downhill, a hunted Grizzly climbs. Jack
knew nothing of the country, but he did know that he wanted to get
away from that mob, so he sought the roughest ground, and climbed and
climbed.
He had been alone for hours, traveling up and on. The plain was lost
to view. He was among the granite rocks, the pine trees, and the
berries now, and he gathered in food from the low bushes with
dexterous paws and tongue as he traveled, but stopped not at all until
among the tumbled rock, where the sun heat of the afternoon seemed to
command rather than invite him to rest.
The night was black when he awoke, but Bears are not afraid of the
dark--they rather fear the day--and he swung along, led, as before, by
the impulse to get up above the danger; and thus at last he reached
the highest range, the region of his native Tallac.
He had but little of the usual training of a young Bear, but he had a
few instincts, his birthright, that stood him well in all the main
issues, and his nose was an excellent guide. Thus he managed to live,
and wild-life experiences coming fast gave his mind the chance to
grow.
Jack's memory for faces and facts was not at all good, but his memory
for smells was imperishable. He had forgotten Bonamy's cur, but the
smell of Bonamy's cur would instantly have thrilled him with the old
feelings. He had forgotten the cross ram, but the smell of "Old Woolly
Whiskers" would have inspired him at once with anger and hate; and one
evening when the wind came richly laden with ram smell it was like a
bygone life returned. He had been living on roots and berries for
weeks and now began to experience that hankering for flesh that comes
on every candid vegetarian with dangerous force from time to time. The
ram smell seemed an answer to it. So down he went by night (no
sensible Bear travels by day), and the smell brought him from the
pines on the hillside to an open rocky dale.
Long before he got there a curious light shone up. He knew what that
was; he had seen the two-legged ones make it near the ranch of evil
smells and memories, so feared it not. He swung along from ledge to
ledge in silence and in haste, for the smell of sheep grew stronger at
every stride, and when he reached a place above the fire he blinked
his eyes to find the sheep. The smell was strong now; it was rank, but
no sheep to be seen. Instead he saw in the valley a stretch of gray
water that seemed to reflect the stars, and yet they neither twinkled
nor rippled; there was a murmuring sound from the sheet, but it seemed
not at all like that of the lakes around.
[Illustration: The Herd of Eyes]
The stars were clustered chiefly near the fire, and were less like
stars than spots of the phosphorescent wood that are scattered on the
ground when one knocks a rotten stump about to lick up its swarms of
wood-ants. So Jack came closer, and at last so close that even his
dull eyes could see. The great gray lake was a flock of sheep and the
phosphorescent specks were their eyes. Close by the fire was a log or
a low rough bank--that turned out to be the shepherd and his dog. Both
were objectionable features, but the sheep extended far from them.
Jack knew that his business was with the flock.
He came very close to the edge and found them surrounded by a low
hedge of chaparral; but what little things they were compared with
that great and terrible ram that he dimly remembered! The blood-thirst
came on him. He swept the low hedge aside, charged into the mass of
sheep that surged away from him with rushing sounds of feet and
murmuring groans, struck down one, seized it, and turning away, he
scrambled back up the mountains.
The sheep-herder leaped to his feet, fired his gun, and the dog came
running over the solid mass of sheep, barking loudly. But Jack was
gone. The sheep-herder contented himself with making two or three
fires, shooting off his gun, and telling his beads.
That was Jack's first mutton, but it was not the last. Thenceforth
when he wanted a sheep--and it became a regular need--he knew he had
merely to walk along the ridge till his nose said, "Turn, and go so,"
for smelling is believing in Bear life.
VII. THE FRESHET
Pedro Tampico and his brother Faco were not in the sheep business for
any maudlin sentiment. They did not march ahead of their beloveds
waving a crook as wand of office or appealing to the esthetic sides of
their ideal followers with a tabret and pipe. Far from leading the
flock with a symbol, they drove them with an armful of ever-ready
rocks and clubs. They were not shepherds; they were sheep-herders.
They did not view their charges as loved and loving followers, but as
four-legged cash; each sheep was worth a dollar bill. They were cared
for only as a man cares for his money, and counted after each alarm or
day of travel. It is not easy for any one to count three thousand
sheep, and for a Mexican sheep-herder it is an impossibility. But he
has a simple device which answers the purpose. In an ordinary flock
about one sheep in a hundred is a black one. If a portion of the flock
has gone astray, there is likely to be a black one in it. So by
counting his thirty black sheep each day Tampico kept rough count of
his entire flock.
Grizzly Jack had killed but one sheep that first night. On his next
visit he killed two, and on the next but one, yet that last one
happened to be black, and when Tampico found but twenty-nine of its
kind remaining he safely reasoned that he was losing sheep--according
to the index a hundred were gone.
"If the land is unhealthy move out" is ancient wisdom. Tampico filled
his pocket with stones, and reviling his charges in all their walks in
life and history, he drove them from the country that was evidently
the range of a sheep-eater. At night he found a walled-in canon, a
natural corral, and the woolly scattering swarm, condensed into a
solid fleece, went pouring into the gap, urged intelligently by the
dog and idiotically by the man. At one side of the entrance Tampico
made his fire. Some thirty feet away was a sheer wall of rock.
Ten miles may be a long day's travel for a wretched wool-plant, but it
is little more than two hours for a Grizzly. It is farther than
eyesight, but it is well within nosesight, and Jack, feeling
mutton-hungry, had not the least difficulty in following his prey. His
supper was a little later than usual, but his appetite was the better
for that. There was no alarm in camp, so Tampico had fallen asleep. A
growl from the dog awakened him. He started up to behold the most
appalling creature that he had ever seen or imagined, a monster Bear
standing on his hind legs, and thirty feet high at least. The dog fled
in terror, but was valor itself compared with Pedro. He was so
frightened that he could not express the prayer that was in his
breast: "Blessed saints, let him have every sin-blackened sheep in the
band, but spare your poor worshiper," and he hid his head; so never
learned that he saw, not a thirty-foot Bear thirty feet away, but a
seven-foot Bear not far from the fire and casting a black thirty-foot
shadow on the smooth rock behind. And, helpless with fear, poor Pedro
groveled in the dust.
[Illustration: THE THIRTY-FOOT BEAR]
When he looked up the giant Bear was gone. There was a rushing of the
sheep. A small body of them scurried out of the canon into the night,
and after them went an ordinary-sized Bear, undoubtedly a cub of the
monster.
Pedro had been neglecting his prayers for some months back, but he
afterward assured his father confessor that on this night he caught up
on all arrears and had a goodly surplus before morning. At sunrise he
left his dog in charge of the flock and set out to seek the runaways,
knowing, first, that there was little danger in the day-time, second,
that some would escape. The missing ones were a considerable number,
raised to the second power indeed, for two more black ones were gone.
Strange to tell, they had not scattered, and Pedro trailed them a mile
or more in the wilderness till he reached another very small box
canon. Here he found the missing flock perched in various places on
boulders and rocky pinnacles as high up as they could get. He was
delighted and worked for half a minute on his bank surplus of prayers,
but was sadly upset to find that nothing would induce the sheep to
come down from the rocks or leave that canon. One or two that he
manoeuvered as far as the outlet sprang back in fear from _something on
the ground_, which, on examination, he found--yes, he swears to
this--to be the deep-worn, fresh-worn pathway of a Grizzly from one
wall across to the other. All the sheep were now back again beyond his
reach. Pedro began to fear for himself, so hastily returned to the
main flock. He was worse off than ever now. The other Grizzly was a
Bear of ordinary size and ate a sheep each night, but the new one,
into whose range he had entered, was a monster, a Bear mountain,
requiring forty or fifty sheep to a meal. The sooner he was out of
this the better.
It was now late, too late, and the sheep were too tired to travel, so
Pedro made unusual preparations for the night: two big fires at the
entrance to the canon, and a platform fifteen feet up in a tree for
his own bed. The dog could look out for himself.
VIII. ROARING IN THE CANON
Pedro knew that the big Bear was coming; for the fifty sheep in the
little canon were not more than an appetizer for such a creature. He
loaded his gun carefully as a matter of habit and went up-stairs to
bed. Whatever defects his dormitory had the ventilation was good, and
Pedro was soon a-shiver. He looked down in envy at his dog curled up
by the fire; then he prayed that the saints might intervene and direct
the steps of the Bear toward the flock of some neighbor, and carefully
specified the neighbor to avoid mistakes. He tried to pray himself to
sleep. It had never failed in church when he was at the Mission, so
why now? But for once it did not succeed. The fearsome hour of
midnight passed, then the gray dawn, the hour of dull despair, was
near. Tampico felt it, and a long groan vibrated through his
chattering teeth. His dog leaped up, barked savagely, the sheep began
to stir, then went backing into the gloom; there was a rushing of
stampeding sheep and a huge, dark form loomed up. Tampico grasped his
gun and would have fired, when it dawned on him with sickening horror
that the Bear was thirty feet high, his platform was only fifteen,
just a convenient height for the monster. None but a madman would
invite the Bear to eat by shooting at him now. So Pedro flattened
himself face downward on the platform, and, with his mouth to a crack,
he poured forth prayers to his representative in the sky, regretting
his unconventional attitude and profoundly hoping that it would be
overlooked as unavoidable, and that somehow the petitions would get
the right direction after leaving the under side of the platform.
In the morning he had proof that his prayers had been favorably
received. There was a Bear-track, indeed, but the number of black
sheep was unchanged, so Pedro filled his pocket with stones and began
his usual torrent of remarks as he drove the flock.
"Hyah, Capitan--you huajalote," as the dog paused to drink. "Bring
back those ill-descended sons of perdition," and a stone gave force to
the order, which the dog promptly obeyed. Hovering about the great
host of grumbling hoofy locusts, he kept them together and on the
move, while Pedro played the part of a big, noisy, and troublesome
second.
As they journeyed through the open country the sheep-herder's eye fell
on a human figure, a man sitting on a rock above them to the left.
Pedro gazed inquiringly; the man saluted and beckoned. This meant
"friend"; had he motioned him to pass on it might have meant, "Keep
away or I shoot." Pedro walked toward him a little way and sat down.
The man came forward. It was Lan Kellyan, the hunter.
Each was glad of a chance to "talk with a human" and to get the news.
The latest concerning the price of wool, the Bull-and-Bear fiasco,
and, above all, the monster Bear that had killed Tampico's
sheep, afforded topics of talk. "Ah, a Bear devill--de hell-brute--a
Gringo Bear--pardon, my amigo, I mean a very terroar."
As the sheep-herder enlarged on the marvelous cunning of the Bear that
had a private sheep corral of his own, and the size of the monster,
forty or fifty feet high now--for such Bears are of rapid and
continuous growth--Kellyan's eye twinkled and he said:
"Say, Pedro, I believe you once lived pretty nigh the Hassayampa,
didn't you?"
This does not mean that that is a country of great Bears, but was an
allusion to the popular belief that any one who tastes a single drop
of the Hassayampa River can never afterward tell the truth. Some
scientists who have looked into the matter aver that this wonderful
property is common to the Rio Grande as well as the Hassayampa, and,
indeed, all the rivers of Mexico, as well as their branches, and the
springs, wells, ponds, lakes, and irrigation ditches. However that may
be, the Hassayampa is the best-known stream of this remarkable
peculiarity. The higher one goes, the greater its potency, and Pedro
was from the headwaters. But he protested by all the saints that his
story was true. He pulled out a little bottle of garnets, got by
glancing over the rubbish laid about their hills by the desert ants;
he thrust it back into his wallet and produced another bottle with a
small quantity of gold-dust, also gathered at the rare times when he
was not sleepy, and the sheep did not need driving, watering, stoning,
or reviling.
"Here, I bet dat it ees so."
Gold is a loud talker.
Kellyan paused. "I can't cover your bet, Pedro, but I'll kill your
Bear for what's in the bottle."