gleam in his eye: "Lou, that's the greatest Bear alive. When I seen
him set up there like a butte and swat horses like they was flies, I
jest loved him. He's the greatest thing God has turned loose in these
yer hills. Before to-day, I sure wanted to get him; now, Lou, I'm
a-going to get him, an' get him alive, if it takes all my natural
days. I think I kin do it alone, but I know I kin do it with you," and
deep in Kellyan's eyes there glowed a little spark of something not
yet rightly named.
They were camped in the hills, being no longer welcome at the ranch;
the ranchers thought their price too high. Some even decided that the
Monarch, being a terror to sheep, was not an undesirable neighbor. The
cattle bounty was withdrawn, but the newspaper bounty was not.
"I want you to bring in that Bear," was the brief but pregnant message
from the rich newsman when he heard of the fight with the riders.
"How are you going about it, Lan?"
Every bridge has its rotten plank, every fence its flimsy rail, every
great one his weakness, and Kellyan, as he pondered, knew how mad it
was to meet this one of brawn with mere brute force.
"Steel traps are no good; he smashes them. Lariats won't do, and he
knows all about log traps. But I have a scheme. First, we must follow
him up and learn his range. I reckon that'll take three months."
So the two kept on. They took up that Bear-trail next day; they found
the lariats chewed off. They followed day after day. They learned what
they could from rancher and sheepherder, and much more was told them
than they could believe.
Three months, Lan said, but it took six months to carry out his plan;
meanwhile Monarch killed and killed.
In each section of his range they made one or two cage- or pen-traps
of bolted logs. At the back end of each they put a small grating of
heavy steel bars. The door was carefully made and fitted into grooves.
It was of double plank, with tar-paper between to make it surely
light-tight. It was sheeted with iron on the inside, and when it
dropped it went into an iron-bound groove in the floor.
They left these traps open and unset till they were grayed with age
and smelt no more of man. Then the two hunters prepared for the final
play. They baited all without setting them--baited them with honey,
the lure that Monarch never had refused--and when at length they found
the honey baits were gone, they came where he now was taking toll and
laid the long-planned snare. Every trap was set, and baited as before
with a mass of honey--but _honey now mixed with a potent sleeping
draft_.
XVI. LANDLOCKED
That night the great Bear left his lair, one of his many lairs, and,
cured of all his wounds, rejoicing in the fullness of his mighty
strength, he strode toward the plains. His nose, ever alert,
reported--sheep, a deer, a grouse; men--more sheep, some cows, and
some calves; a bull--a fighting bull--and Monarch wheeled in big,
rude, Bearish joy at the coming battle brunt; but as he hugely hulked
from hill to hill a different message came, so soft and low, so
different from the smell of beefish brutes, one might well wonder he
could sense it, but like a tiny ringing bell when thunder booms it
came, and Monarch wheeled at once. Oh, it cast a potent spell! It
stood for something very near to ecstasy with him, and down the hill
and through the pines he went, on and on faster yet, abandoned to its
sorcery. Here to its home he traced it, a long, low cavern. He had
seen such many times before, had been held in them more than once, but
had learned to spurn them. For weeks he had been robbing them of their
treasures, and its odor, like a calling voice, was still his guide.
Into the cavern he passed and it reeked with the smell of joy. There
was the luscious mass, and Monarch, with all caution lulled now,
licked and licked, then seized to tear the bag for more, when down
went the door with a low "bang!" The Monarch started, but all was
still and there was no smell of danger. He had forced such doors
before. His palate craved the honey still, and he licked and licked,
greedily at first, then calmly, then slowly, then drowsily--then at
last stopped. His eyes were closing, and he sank slowly down on the
earth and slept a heavy sleep.
Calm, but white-faced, were they--the men--when in the dawn they came.
There were the huge scarred tracks in-leading; there was the door
down; there dimly they could see a mass of fur that filled the pen,
that heaved in deepest sleep.
Strong ropes, strong chains and bands of steel were at hand, with
chloroform, lest he should revive too soon. Through holes in the roof
with infinite toil they chained him, bound him--his paws to his neck,
his neck and breast and hind legs to a bolted beam. Then raising the
door, they dragged him out, not with horses--none would go near--but
with a windlass to a tree; and fearing the sleep of death, they let
him now revive.
Chained and double chained, frenzied, foaming, and impotent, what
words can tell the state of the fallen Monarch? They put him on a
sled, and six horses with a long chain drew it by stages to the plain,
to the railway. They fed him enough to save his life. A great
steam-derrick lifted Bear and beam and chain on to a flat-car, a
tarpaulin was spread above his helpless form; the engine puffed,
pulled out; and the Grizzly King was gone from his ancient hills.
So they brought him to the great city, the Monarch born, in chains.
They put him in a cage not merely strong enough for a lion, but thrice
as strong, and once a rope gave way as the huge one strained his
bonds. "He is loose," went the cry, and an army of onlookers and
keepers fled; only the small man with the calm eye and the big man of
the hills were stanch, so the Monarch was still held.
Free in the cage, he swung round, looked this way and that, then
heaved his powers against the triple angling steel and wrenched the
cage so not a part of it was square. In time he clearly would break
out. They dragged the prisoner to another that an elephant could not
break down, but it stood on the ground, and in an hour the great beast
had a cavern into the earth and was sinking out of sight, till a
stream of water sent after him filled the hole and forced him again to
view. They moved him to a new cage made for him since he came--a hard
rock floor, great bars of nearly two-inch steel that reached up nine
feet and then projected in for five. The Monarch wheeled once around,
then, rearing, raised his ponderous bulk, wrenched those bars,
unbreakable, and bent and turned them in their sockets with one heave
till the five-foot spears were pointed out, and then sprang to climb.
Nothing but pikes and blazing brands in a dozen ruthless hands could
hold him back. The keepers watched him night and day till a stronger
cage was made, impregnable with steel above and rocks below.
The Untamed One passed swiftly around, tried every bar, examined every
corner, sought for a crack in the rocky floor, and found at last the
place where was a six-inch timber beam--the only piece of wood in its
frame. It was sheathed in iron, but exposed for an inch its whole
length. One claw could reach the wood, and here he lay on his side and
raked--raked all day till a great pile of shavings was lying by it and
the beam sawn in two; but the cross-bolts remained, and when Monarch
put his vast shoulder to the place it yielded not a whit. That was his
last hope; now it was gone; and the huge Bear sank down in the cage
with his nose in his paws and sobbed--long, heavy sobs, animal sounds
indeed, but telling just as truly as in man of the broken spirit--the
hope and the life gone out. The keepers came with food at the
appointed time, but the Bear moved not. They set it down, but in the
morning it was still untouched. The Bear was lying as before, his
ponderous form in the pose he had first taken. The sobbing was
replaced by a low moan at intervals.
Two days went by. The food, untouched, was corrupting in the sun. The
third day, and Monarch still lay on his breast, his huge muzzle under
his huger paw. His eyes were hidden; only a slight heaving of his
broad chest was now seen.
"He is dying," said one keeper. "He can't live overnight."
"Send for Kellyan," said another.
So Kellyan came, slight and thin. There was the beast that he had
chained, pining, dying. He had sobbed his life out in his last hope's
death, and a thrill of pity came over the hunter, for men of grit and
power love grit and power. He put his arm through the cage bars and
stroked him, but Monarch made no sign. His body was cold. At length a
little moan was sign of life, and Kellyan said, "Here, let me go in
to him."
"You are mad," said the keepers, and they would not open the cage. But
Kellyan persisted till they put in a cross-grating in front of the
Bear. Then, with this between, he approached. His hand was on the
shaggy head, but Monarch lay as before. The hunter stroked his victim
and spoke to him. His hand went to the big round ears, small above the
head. They were rough to his touch. He looked again, then started.
What! is it true? Yes, the stranger's tale was true, for both ears
were pierced with a round hole--one torn large--and Kellyan knew that
once again he had met his little Jack.
"Why, Jacky, I didn't know it was you. I never would have done it if I
had known it was you. Jacky, old pard, don't you know me?"
But Jack stirred not, and Kellyan got up quickly. Back to the hotel he
flew; there he put on his hunter's suit, smoky and smelling of pine
gum and grease, and returned with a mass of honeycomb to reenter the
cage.
"Jacky, Jacky!" he cried, "honey, honey!" and he held the tempting
comb before him. But Monarch lay as one dead now.
"Jacky, Jacky! don't you know me?" He dropped the honey and laid his
hands on the great muzzle.
The voice was forgotten. The old-time invitation, "Honey,
Jacky--honey," had lost its power, but the _smell_ of the honey,
the coat, the hands that he had fondled, had together a hidden
potency.
There is a time when the dying of our race forget their life, but
clearly remember the scenes of childhood; these only are real and
return with master power. And why not with a Bear? The power of scent
was there to call them back again, and Jacky, the Grizzly Monarch,
raised his head a little--just a little; the eyes were nearly closed,
but the big brown nose was jerked up feebly two or three times--the
sign of interest that Jacky used to give in days of old. Now it was
Kellyan that broke down even as the Bear had done.
"I didn't know it was you, Jacky, or I never would have done it. Oh,
Jacky, forgive me!" He rose and fled from the cage.
The keepers were there. They scarcely understood the scene, but one of
them, acting on the hint, pushed the honeycomb nearer and cried,
"Honey, Jacky--honey!"
Filled by despair, he had lain down to die, but here was a new-born
hope, not clear, not exact as words might put it, but his conqueror
had shown himself a friend; this seemed a new hope, and the keeper,
taking up the old call, "Honey, Jacky--honey!" pushed the comb till it
touched his muzzle. The smell was wafted to his sense, its message
reached his brain; hope honored, it must awake response. The great
tongue licked the comb, appetite revived, and thus in newborn Hope
began the chapter of his gloom.
Skilful keepers were there with plans to meet the Monarch's every
want. Delicate foods were offered and every shift was tried to tempt
him back to strength and prison life.
He ate and--lived.
And still he lives, but pacing--pacing--pacing--you may see him,
scanning not the crowds, but something beyond the crowds, breaking
down at times into petulant rages, but recovering anon his ponderous
dignity, looking--waiting--watching--held ever by that Hope, that
unknown Hope, that came. Kellyan has been to him since, but Monarch
knows him not. Over his head, beyond him, was the great Bear's gaze,
far away toward Tallac or far away on the sea, we knowing not which or
why, but pacing--pacing--pacing--held like the storied Wandering One
to a life of ceaseless journey--a journey aimless, endless, and sad.
The wound-spots long ago have left his shaggy coat, but the earmarks
still are there, the ponderous strength, the elephantine dignity. His
eyes are dull,--never were bright,--but they seem not vacant, and most
often fixed on the Golden Gate where the river seeks the sea.
The river, born in high Sierra's flank, that lived and rolled and
grew, through mountain pines, o'erleaping man-made barriers, then to
reach with growing power the plains and bring its mighty flood at last
to the Bay of Bays, a prisoner there to lie, the prisoner of the
Golden Gate, seeking forever Freedom's Blue, seeking and
raging--raging and seeking--back and forth, forever--in vain.