must first be dissipated, and then they found but one trap sprung--the
door down. Bonamy became greatly excited, for they had crossed the
Grizzly's track close by. But Kellyan had been studying the dust and
suddenly laughed aloud.
"Look at that,"--he pointed to a thing like a Bear-track, but scarcely
two inches long. "There's the B'ar we'll find in that; that's a
bushy-tailed B'ar," and Bonamy joined in the laugh when he realized
that the victim in the big trap was nothing but a little skunk.
"Next time we'll set the bait higher and not set the trigger so fine."
They rubbed their boots with stale meat when they went the rounds,
then left the traps for a week.
There are Bears that eat little but roots and berries; there are Bears
that love best the great black salmon they can hook out of the pools
when the long "run" is on; and there are Bears that have a special
fondness for flesh. These are rare; they are apt to develop unusual
ferocity and meet an early death. Gringo was one of them, and he grew
like the brawny, meat-fed gladiators of old--bigger, stronger, and
fiercer than his fruit-and root-fed kin. In contrast with this was his
love of honey. The hunter on his trail learned that he never failed to
dig out any bees' nest he could find, or, finding none, he would eat
the little honey-flowers that hung like sleigh-bells on the heather.
Kellyan was quick to mark the signs. "Say, Bonamy, we've got to find
some honey."
It is not easy to find a bee tree without honey to fill your
bee-guides; so Bonamy rode down the mountain to the nearest camp, the
Tampico sheep camp, and got not honey but some sugar, of which they
made syrup. They caught bees at three or four different places, tagged
them with cotton, filled them with syrup and let them fly, watching
till the cotton tufts were lost to view, and by going on the lines
till they met they found the hive. A piece of gunny-sack filled with
comb was put on each trigger, and that night, as Gringo strode with
that long, untiring swing that eats up miles like steam-wheels, his
sentinel nose reported the delicious smell, the one that above the
rest meant joy. So Gringo Jack followed fast and far, for the place
was a mile away, and reaching the curious log cavern, he halted and
sniffed. There were hunters' smells; yes, but, above all, that smell
of joy. He walked around to be sure, and knew it was inside; then
cautiously he entered. Some wood-mice scurried by. He sniffed the
bait, licked it, mumbled it, slobbered it, reveled in it, tugged to
increase the flow, when "bang!" went the great door behind and Jack was
caught. He backed up with a rush, bumped into the door, and had a
sense, at least, of peril. He turned over with an effort and attacked
the door, but it was strong. He examined the pen; went all around the
logs where their rounded sides seemed easiest to tear at with his
teeth. But they yielded nothing. He tried them all; he tore at the
roof, the floor; but all were heavy, hard logs, spiked and pinned as
one.
The sun came up as he raged, and shone through the little cracks of
the door, and so he turned all his power on that. The door was flat,
gave little hold, but he battered with his paws and tore with his
teeth till plank after plank gave way. With a final crash be drove the
wreck before him and Jack was free again.
The men read the story as though in print; yes, better, for bits of
plank can tell no lies, and the track to the pen and from the pen was
the track of a big Bear with a cut on the hind foot and a curious
round peg-like scar on the front paw, while the logs inside, where
little torn, gave proof of a broken tooth.
"We had him that time, but he knew too much for us. Never mind, we'll
see."
So they kept on and caught him again, for honey he could not resist.
But the wreckage of the trap was all they found in the morning.
Pedro's brother knew a man who had trapped Bears, and the sheep-herder
remembered that it is necessary to have the door quite _light-tight_
rather than very strong, so they battened all with tar-paper outside.
But Gringo was learning "pen-traps." He did not break the door that he
did not see through, but he put one paw under and heaved it up when he
had finished the bait. Thus he baffled them and sported with the
traps, till Kellyan made the door drop into a deep groove so that the
Bear could put no claw beneath it. But it was cold weather now. There
was deepening snow on the Sierras. The Bear sign disappeared. The
hunters knew that Gringo was sleeping his winter's sleep.
XIII. THE DEEPENING CHANNEL
April was bidding high Sierra snows go back to Mother Sea. The
California woodwales screamed in clamorous joy. They thought it was
about a few acorns left in storage in the Live Oak bark, but it really
was joy of being alive. This outcry was to them what music is to the
thrush, what joy-bells are to us--a great noise to tell how glad they
were. The deer were bounding, grouse were booming, rills were
rushing--all things were full of noisy gladness.
Kellyan and Bonamy were back on the Grizzly quest. "Time he was out
again, and good trailing to get him, with lots of snow in the
hollows." They had come prepared for a long hunt. Honey for bait,
great steel traps with crocodilian jaws, and guns there were in the
outfit. The pen-trap, the better for the aging, was repaired and
re-baited, and several Black Bears were taken. But Gringo, if about,
had learned to shun it.
He was about, and the men soon learned that. His winter sleep was
over. They found the peg-print in the snow, but with it, or just
ahead, was another, the tracks of a smaller Bear.
"See that," and Kellyan pointed to the smaller mark. "This is
mating-time; this is Gringo's honeymoon," and he followed the trail
for a while, not expecting to find them, but simply to know their
movements. He followed several times and for miles, and the trail told
him many things. Here was the track of a third Bear joining. Here were
marks of a combat, and a rival driven away was written there, and then
the pair went on. Down from the rugged hills it took him once to where
a love-feast had been set by the bigger Bear; for the carcass of a
steer lay half devoured, and the telltale ground said much of the
struggle that foreran the feast. As though to show his power, the Bear
had seized the steer by the nose and held him for a while--so said the
trampled earth for rods--struggling, bellowing, no doubt, music for my
lady's ears, till Gringo judged it time to strike him down with paws
of steel.
Once only the hunters saw the pair--a momentary Glimpse of a Bear so
huge they half believed Tampico's tale, and a Bear of lesser size in
fur that rolled and rippled in the sun with brown and silver lights.
"Oh, ain't that just the beautifulest thing that ever walked!" and
both the hunters gazed as she strode from view in the chaparral. It
was only a neck of the thicket; they both must reappear in a minute at
the other side, and the men prepared to fire; but for some
incomprehensible reason the two did not appear again. They never quit
the cover, and had wandered far away before the hunters knew it, and
were seen of them no more.
But Faco Tampico saw them. He was visiting his brother with the sheep,
and hunting in the foot-hills to the eastward, in hopes of getting a
deer, his small black eyes fell on a pair of Bears, still love-bound,
roaming in the woods. They were far below him. He was safe, and he
sent a ball that laid the she-Bear low; her back was broken. She fell
with a cry of pain and vainly tried to rise. Then Gringo rushed
around, sniffed the wind for the foe, and Faco fired again. The sound
and the smoke-puff told Gringo where the man lay hid. He raged up the
cliff, but Faco climbed a tree, and Gringo went back to his mate. Faco
fired again; Gringo made still another effort to reach him, but could
not find him now, so returned to his "Silver-brown."
Whether it was chance or choice can never be known, but when Faco
fired once more, Gringo Jack was between, and the ball struck him. It
was the last in Faco's pouch, and the Grizzly, charging as before,
found not a trace of the foe. He was gone--had swung across a place no
Bear could cross and soon was a mile away. The big Bear limped back to
his mate, but she no longer responded to his touch. He watched about
for a time, but no one came. The silvery hide was never touched by
man, and when the semblance of his mate was gone, Gringo quit the
place.
The world was full of hunters, traps, and guns. He turned toward the
lower hills where the sheep grazed, where once he had raided Pedro's
flocks, limping along, for now he had another flesh-wound. He found
the scent of the foe that killed his "Silver-brown," and would have
followed, but it ceased at a place where a horse-track joined. Yet he
found it again that night, mixed with the sheep smell so familiar
once. He followed this, sore and savage. It led him to a settler's
flimsy shack, the house of Tampico's parents, and as the big Bear
reached it two human beings scrambled out of the rear door.
"My husband," shrieked the woman, "pray! Let us pray to the saints for
help!"
"Where is my pistol?" cried the husband.
"Trust in the saints," said the frightened woman.
"Yes, if I had a cannon, or if this was a cat; but with only a
pepper-box pistol to meet a Bear mountain it is better to trust to a
tree," and old Tampico scrambled up a pine.
The Grizzly looked into the shack, then passed to the pig-pen, killed
the largest there, for this was a new kind of meat, and carrying it
off, he made his evening meal.
He came again and again to that pig-pen. He found his food there till
his wound was healed. Once he met with a spring-gun, but it was set
too high. Six feet up, the sheep-folk judged, would be just about
right for such a Bear; the charge went over his head, and so he passed
unharmed--a clear proof that he was a devil. He was learning this: the
human smell in any form is a smell of danger. He quit the little
valley of the shack, wandering downward toward the plains. He passed a
house one night, and walking up, he discovered a hollow thing with a
delicious smell. It was a ten-gallon keg that had been used for sugar,
some of which was still in the bottom, and thrusting in his huge head,
the keg-rim, bristling with nails, stuck to him. He raged about,
clawing at it wildly and roaring in it until a charge of shot from the
upper windows stirred him to such effort that the keg was smashed to
bits and his blinders removed.
Thus the idea was slowly borne in on him: going near a man-den is sure
to bring trouble. Thenceforth he sought his prey in the woods or on
the plains. He one day found the man scent that enraged him the day he
lost his "Silver-brown." He took the trail, and passing in silence
incredible for such a bulk, he threaded chaparral and manzanita on and
down through tule-beds till the level plain was reached. The scent led
on, was fresher now. Far out were white specks--moving things. They
meant nothing to Gringo, for he had never smelt wild geese, had
scarcely seen them, but the trail he was hunting went on. He swiftly
followed till the tule ahead rustled gently, and the scent was _body
scent_. A ponderous rush, a single blow--and the goose-hunt was
ended ere well begun, and Faco's sheep became the brother's heritage.
XIV. THE CATARACT
Just as fads will for a time sway human life, so crazes may run
through all animals of a given kind. This was the year when a
beef-eating craze seemed to possess every able-bodied Grizzly of the
Sierras. They had long been known as a root-eating, berry-picking,
inoffensive race when let alone, but now they seemed to descend on the
cattle-range in a body and make their diet wholly of flesh.
One cattle outfit after another was attacked, and the whole country
seemed divided up among Bears of incredible size, cunning, and
destructiveness. The cattlemen offered bounties--good bounties,
growing bounties, very large bounties at last--but still the Bears
kept on. Very few were killed, and it became a kind of rude jest to
call each section of the range, not by the cattle brand, but by the
Grizzly that was quartered on its stock.
Wonderful tales were told of these various Bears of the new breed. The
swiftest was Reelfoot, the Placerville cattle-killer that could charge
from a thicket thirty yards away and certainly catch a steer before it
could turn and run, and that could even catch ponies in the open when
they were poor. The most cunning of all was Brin, the Mokelumne
Grizzly that killed by preference blooded stock, would pick out a
Merino ram or a white-faced Hereford from among fifty grades; that
killed a new beef every night; that never again returned to it, or
gave the chance for traps or poisoning.
The Pegtrack Grizzly of Feather River was rarely seen by any. He was
enveloped in mysterious terror. He moved and killed by night. Pigs
were his favorite food, and he had also killed a number of men.
But Pedro's Grizzly was the most marvelous. "Hassayampa," as the
sheep-herder was dubbed, came one night to Kellyan's hut.
"I tell you he's still dere. He has keel me a t'ousand sheep. You
telled me you keel heem; you haff not. He is beegare as dat tree. He
eat only sheep--much sheep. I tell you he ees Gringo devil--he ees
devil Bear. I haff three cows, two fat, one theen. He catch and keel
de fat; de lean run off. He roll een dust--make great dust. Cow come
for see what make dust; he catch her an' keel. My fader got bees. De
devil Bear chaw pine; I know he by hees broke toof. He gum hees face
and nose wit' pine gum so bees no sting, then eat all bees. He devil
all time. He get much rotten manzanita and eat till drunk--locoed--then
go crazy and keel sheep just for fun. He get beeg bull by nose and
drag like rat for fun. He keel cow, sheep, and keel Face, too, for
fun. He devil. You promise me you keel heem; you nevaire keel."
This is a condensation of Pedro's excited account.
And there was yet one more--the big Bear that owned the range from the
Stanislaus to the Merced, the "Monarch of the Range" he had been
styled. He was believed--yes, known to be--the biggest Bear alive, a
creature of supernatural intelligence. He killed cows for food, and
scattered sheep or conquered bulls for pleasure. It was even said that
the appearance of an unusually big bull anywhere was a guaranty that
Monarch would be there for the joy of combat with a worthy foe. A
destroyer of cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses, and yet a creature known
only by his track. He was never seen, and his nightly raids seemed
planned with consummate skill to avoid all kinds of snares.
The cattlemen clubbed together and offered an enormous bounty for
every Grizzly killed in the range. Bear-trappers came and caught some
Bears, Brown and Cinnamon, but the cattle-killing went on. They set
out better traps of massive steel and iron bars, and at length they
caught a killer, the Mokelumne Grizzly; yes, and read in the dust how
he had come at last and made the fateful step; but steel will break
and iron will bend. The great Bear-trail was there to tell the tale:
for a while he had raged and chafed at the hard black reptile biting
into his paw; then, seeking a boulder, he had released the paw by
smashing the trap to pieces on it. Thenceforth each year he grew more
cunning, huge, and destructive.
Kellyan and Bonamy came down from the mountains now, tempted by the
offered rewards. They saw the huge tracks; they learned that cattle
were not killed in all places at once. They studied and hunted. They
got at length in the dust the full impressions of the feet of the
various monsters in regions wide apart, and they saw that all the
cattle were killed in the same way--their muzzles torn, their necks
broken; and last, the marks on the trees where the Bears had reared
and rubbed, then scored them with a broken tusk, the same all through
the wide range; and Kellyan told them with calm certainty: "Pedro's
Gringo, Old Pegtrack, the Placerville Grizzly, and the Monarch of the
Range _are one and the same Bear."_
The little man from the mountains and the big man from the hills set
about the task of hunting him down with an intensity of purpose which,
like the river that is dammed, grew more fierce from being balked.
All manner of traps had failed for him. Steel traps he could smash, no
log trap was strong enough to hold this furry elephant; he would not
come to a bait; he never fed twice from the same kill.
Two reckless boys once trailed him to a rocky glen. The horses would
not enter; the boys went in afoot, and were never seen again. The
Mexicans held him in superstitious terror, believing that he could not
be killed; and he passed another year in the cattle-land, known and
feared now as the "Monarch of the Range," killing in the open by
night, and retiring by day to his fastness in the near hills, where
horsemen could not follow.
Bonamy had been called away; but all that summer, and winter,
too,--for the Grizzly no longer "denned up,"--Kellyan rode and rode,
each time too late or too soon to meet the Monarch. He was almost
giving up, not in despair, but for lack of means, when a message came
from a rich man, a city journalist, offering to multiply the reward by
ten if, instead of killing the Monarch, he would bring him in alive.
Kellyan sent for his old partner, and when word came that the previous
night three cows were killed in the familiar way near the Bell-Dash
pasture, they spared neither horse nor man to reach the spot. A
ten-hour ride by night meant worn-out horses, but the men were iron,
and new horses with scarcely a minute's delay were brought them. Here
were the newly killed beeves, there the mighty footprints with the
scars that spelled his name. No hound could have tracked him better
than Kellyan did. Five miles away from the foot of the hills was an
impenetrable thicket of chaparral. The great tracks went in, did not
come out, so Bonamy sat sentinel while Kellyan rode back with the
news. "Saddle up the best we got!" was the order. Rifles were taken
down and cartridge-belts being swung when Kellyan called a halt.
"Say, boys, we've got him safe enough. He won't try to leave the
chaparral till night. If we shoot him we get the cattlemen's bounty;
if we take him alive--an' it's easy in the open--we get the newspaper
bounty, ten times as big. Let's leave all guns behind; lariats are
enough."
"Why not have the guns along to be handy?"
"'Cause I know the crowd too well; they couldn't resist the chance to
let him have it; so no guns at all. It's ten to one on the riata."
Nevertheless three of them brought their heavy revolvers. Seven
gallant riders on seven fine horses, they rode out that day to meet
the Monarch of the Range. He was still in the thicket, for it was yet
morning. They threw stones in and shouted to drive him out, without
effect, till the noon breeze of the plains arose--the down-current of
air from the hills. Then they fired the grass in several places, and
it sent a rolling sheet of flame and smoke into the thicket. There was
a crackling louder than the fire, a smashing of brush, and from the
farther side out hurled the Monarch Bear, the Gringo, Grizzly Jack.
Horsemen were all about him now, armed not with guns but with the
rawhide snakes whose loops in air spell bonds or death. The men were
calm, but the horses were snorting and plunging in fear. This way and
that the Grizzly looked up at the horsemen--a little bit; scarcely up
at the horses; then turning without haste, he strode toward the
friendly hills.
"Look out, now, Bill! Manuel! It's up to you."
Oh, noble horses, nervy men! oh, grand old Grizzly, how I see you now!
Cattle-keepers and cattle-killer face to face!
Three riders of the range that horse had never thrown were sailing,
swooping, like falcons; their lariats swung, sang--sang higher--and
Monarch, much perplexed, but scarcely angered yet, rose to his hind
legs, then from his towering height looked down on horse and man. If,
as they say, the vanquished prowess goes into the victor, then surely
in that mighty chest, those arms like necks of bulls, was the power of
the thousand cattle he had downed in fight.
"Caramba! what a Bear! Pedro was not so far astray."
"Sing--sing--sing!" the lariats flew. "Swish--pat!" one, two, three,
they fell. These were not men to miss. Three ropes, three horses,
leaping away to bear on the great beast's neck. But swifter than
thought the supple paws went up. The ropes were slipped, and the
spurred cow-ponies, ready for the shock, went, shockless,
bounding--loose ropes trailing afar.
"Hi--Hal! Ho--Lan! Head him!" as the Grizzly, liking not the unequal
fight, made for the hills. But a deft Mexican in silver gear sent his
hide riata whistling, then haunched his horse as the certain coil sank
in the Grizzly's hock, and checked the Monarch with a heavy jar.
Uttering one great snort of rage, he turned; his huge jaws crossed the
rope, back nearly to his ears it went, and he ground it as a dog might
grind a twig, so the straining pony bounded free.
Round and round him now the riders swooped, waiting their chance. More
than once his neck was caught, but he slipped the noose as though it
were all play. Again he was caught by a foot and wrenched, almost
thrown, by the weight of two strong steeds, and now he foamed in rage.
Memories of olden days, or more likely the habit of olden days, came
on him--days when he learned to strike the yelping pack that dodged
his blows. He was far from the burnt thicket, but a single bush was
near, and setting his broad back to that, he waited for the circling
foe. Nearer and nearer they urged the frightened steeds, and Monarch
watched--waited, as of old, for the dogs, till they were almost
touching each other, then he sprang like an avalanche of rock. What
can elude a Grizzly's dash? The earth shivered as he launched himself,
and trembled when he struck. Three men, three horses, in each other's
way. The dust was thick; they only knew he struck--struck--struck! The
horses never rose.
"Santa Maria!" came a cry of death, and hovering riders dashed to draw
the Bear away. Three horses dead, one man dead, one nearly so, and
only one escaped.
"Crack! crack! crack!" went the pistols now as the Bear went rocking
his huge form in rapid charge for the friendly hills; and the four
riders, urged by Kellyan, followed fast. They passed him, wheeled,
faced him. The pistols had wounded him in many places.
"Don't shoot--don't shoot, but tire him out," the hunter urged.
"Tire him out? Look at Carlos and Manuel back there. How many minutes
will it be before the rest are down with them?" So the infuriating
pistols popped till all their shots were gone, and Monarch foamed with
slobbering jaws of rage.
"Keep on! keep cool," cried Kellyan.
His lariat flew as the cattle-killing paw was lifted for an instant.
The lasso bound his wrist. "Sing! Sing!" went two, and caught him by
the neck. A bull with his great club-foot in a noose is surely caught,
but the Grizzly raised his supple, hand-like, tapering paw and gave
one jerk that freed it. Now the two on his neck were tight; he could
not slip them. The horses at the ends--they were dragging, choking
him; men were shouting, hovering, watching for a new chance, when
Monarch, firmly planting both paws, braced, bent those mighty
shoulders, and, spite of shortening breath, leaned back on those two
ropes as Samson did on pillars of the house of Baal, and straining
horses with their riders were dragged forward more and more, long
grooves being plowed behind; dragging them, he backed faster and
faster still. His eyes were starting, his tongue lolling out.
"Keep on! hold tight!" was the cry, till the ropers swung together,
the better to resist; and Monarch, big and strong with frenzied hate,
seeing now his turn, sprang forward like a shot. The horses leaped and
escaped--almost; the last was one small inch too slow. The awful paw
with jags of steel just grazed his flank. How slight it sounds! But
what it really means is better not writ down.
The riders had slipped their ropes in fear, and the Monarch, rumbling,
snorting, bounding, trailed them to the hills, there to bite them off
in peace, while the remnant of the gallant crew went, sadly muttering,
back.
Bitter words went round. Kellyan was cursed.
"His fault. Why didn't we have the guns?"
"We were all in it," was the answer, and more hard words, till Kellyan
flushed, forgot his calm, and drew a pistol hitherto concealed, and
the other "took it back."
[Illustration: "RUMBLING AND SNORTING, HE MADE FOR THE FRIENDLY
HILLS"]
XV. THE FOAMING FLOOD
"What is next, Lan?" said Lou, as they sat dispirited by the fire that
night.