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BEARS I HAVE MET--AND OTHERS
by
ALLEN KELLY
Illustrations by Ernest Thompson Seton,
W. H. Loomis, Homer Davenport, Walt. McDougall,
Charles Nelan, W. Hofacker,
Will. Chapin and the Author
Philadelphia
Drexel Biddle, Publisher
1903
[Frontispiece: Photograph of Allen Kelly]
[Illustration: Letter to Allen Kelly
from Ernest Thompson Seton.]
CONTENTS
Chapter
I. The California Grizzly
II. The Story of Monarch
III. Chronicles of Clubfoot
IV. Mountain Charley
V. In the Valley of the Shadow
VI. When Grizzlies Ran in Droves
VII. The Adventures of Pike
VIII. In the Big Snow
IX. Boston's Big Bear Fight
X. Yosemite
XI. The Right of Way
XII. Well Heeled
XIII. Smoked Out
XIV. A Cry in the Night
XV. A Campfire Symposium
XVI. Brainy Bears of the Pecos
XVII. When Monarch was Free
XVIII. How Old Pinto Died
XIX. Three in a Boat
XX. A Providential Prospect Hole
XXI. Killed with a Bowie
XXII. A Denful of Grizzlies
ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of the Author.
Sketch of Monarch.----ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.
The Largest Captive Grizzly.----From a Photograph.
Feasting Upon a Big Steer.----A. K.
Chained to Trees Every Night.
Prepared to Pluck Foster.----W. H. LOOMIS.
Long Brown Moved Just in Time.----W. H. LOOMIS.
The Bear Swung Trap, Chain and Clog.----W. H. L. and A. K.
She Lunged Forward to Meet the Charge.----W. HOFACKER.
A Bully Saddle Bear.----HOMER DAVENPORT.
The Bears Inspected the Pigs in Clover.----CHAS. NELAN.
Pinto Looked Down on the Platform.----WILL CHAPIN.
Watching the Man in the Tree.----WILL CHAPIN.
The Grizzly Chewed His Arm.----A. K.
He Had Seen the Bears.----WALT McDOUGALL.
PREFACE
These bear stories were accumulated and
written during a quarter of a century of
intermittent wanderings and hunting on the
Pacific Slope, and are here printed in a book
because they may serve to entertain and amuse.
Most of them are true, and the others--well,
every hunter and fisherman has a certain
weakness, which is harmless, readily detected
and sympathetically tolerated by others of the
guild. The reader will not be deceived by
the whimsical romances of the bear-slayers,
and he may rest assured that these tales
illustrate many traits of the bear and at least one
trait of the men who hunt him.
One of the most amiable and well-behaved
denizens of the forest, Bruin has ever been
an outlaw and a fugitive with a price on his
pelt and no rights which any man is bound to
respect.
Like most outlawed men, he has been
supplied with a reputation much worse than he
deserves as an excuse for his persecution and
a justification to his murderers. His
character has been traduced in tales of the fireside
and his disposition has been maligned ever
since the female of his species came out of
the woods to rebuke irreverence to
smooth-pated age. Every man's hand has been against
him, but seldom has his paw been raised
against man except in self-defense.
A vegetarian by choice and usually by
necessity, Bruin is accused of anthropophagy, and
every child is taught that the depths of the
woodland are infested by ravening bears with
a morbid taste for tender youth. Poor,
harried, timid Ursus, nosing among the fallen
leaves for acorns and beechnuts, and ready to
flee like a startled hare at the sound of a
foot-fall, is represented in story and picture as
raging through the forest with slavering jaws
seeking whom he may devour. Yet the man
does not live who can say truthfully that he
ever was eaten by a bear.
Possibly there have been bears of abnormal
or vitiated tastes who have indulged in human
flesh, just as there are men who eat decayed
cheese and "high" game, but the gustatory sins
of such perverts may not be visited justly on
the species. There are few animals so
depraved in taste as to dine off man except under
stress of famine, and Bruin is not one of the
few. He is no epicure, but he draws the line
at the lord of creation flavored with tobacco.
I have a suspicion that some of the tales
told around campfires and here set down
might be told differently if the bears could
talk. It is a pity they can't talk, for they are
very human in other ways and have a sense
of humor that would make their versions of
some "true bear stories" vastly amusing.
What delightful reading, for example, would
be the impressions made by a poet of the
Sierra upon the bears he has met! Perhaps no
bear ever met a poet of the Sierra, but mere
unacquaintance with the subject should be no
more of a disadvantage to a bear than to a man
of letters.
BEARS I HAVE MET--AND OTHERS.
CHAPTER I.
THE CALIFORNIA GRIZZLY.
The California Grizzly made his reputation as a man-killer in the days
of the muzzle-loading rifle, when failure to stop him with one shot
deprived the hunter of all advantage in respect of weapons and reversed
their positions instantly, the bear becoming the hunter and the man the
game. In early days, also the Grizzly had no fear of man and took no
pains to keep out of his way, and bears were so numerous that chance
meetings at close quarters were frequent.
But with all of his ferocity when attacked and his formidable strength,
the Grizzly's resentment was often transitory, and many men owe their
lives to his singular lack of persistency in wreaking his wrath upon a
fallen foe. Generalizations on the conduct of animals, other than in
the matter of habits of life governed by what we call instinct, are
likely to be misleading, and when applied to animals of high
intelligence and well-developed individuality, are utterly valueless.
I have found the Grizzly more intelligent than other American bears and
his individual characteristics more marked and varied, and therefore am
disinclined to formulate or accept any rules of conduct for him under
given circumstances. No man can say what a Grizzly will or will not
do, when molested or encountered, any more than he can lay down a
general rule for dogs or men. One bear may display extreme timidity
and run away bawling when wounded, and another may be aggressive enough
to begin hostilities at sight and fight to the death. It can be said
safely, however, that the Grizzly is a far more dangerous animal than
the Black Bear and much more likely to accept a challenge than to run
away.
Want of persistent vindictiveness may not be a general trait of the
species, but it has been shown in so many cases that it is at least a
quite common characteristic. Possibly it is a trait of all bears and
the basis of the almost universal belief that a bear will not molest a
dead man, and that by "playing 'possum" a person attacked by a bear may
evade further injury. That belief or theory has been held from the
earliest times, and it is by no means certain that it is a mere idle
tale or bit of nursery lore. Aesop uses it in one of his fables. Two
men are assailed by a bear, and one climbs a tree while the other
throws himself upon the ground and feigns death. The bear sniffs at
the man on the ground, who holds his breath, concludes that the man is
dead, and goes away. The man who climbed the tree rejoins his
companion, and having seen the bear sniffing at his head, asks him
facetiously what the bear said to him. The man who played 'possum
replies that the bear told him to beware of keeping company with those
who in time of danger leave their friends in the lurch.
This I do know, that bears often invade camps in search of food and
refrain from molesting men asleep or pretending to be asleep. Upon one
occasion a Grizzly of very bad reputation and much feared by residents
in his district, came into my camp on a pitch dark night, and as it
would have been futile to attempt to draw a bead on him and a fight
would have endangered two members of the party who were incapable of
defending themselves, I cautioned everyone to feign sleep and not to
show signs of life if the bear sniffed in their faces. The injunction
was obeyed, the bear satisfied his curiosity, helped himself to food
and went away without molesting anybody.
And that is not an isolated instance. One night a Grizzly invaded a
bivouac, undeterred by the still blazing fire, and tried to reach a
haunch of venison hung upon a limb directly over one of the party. The
man--Saml Snedden, the first settler in Lockwood Valley, Cal.--awoke
and saw the great beast towering over him and stretching up in a vain
effort to reach the venison, and he greatly feared that in coming down
to all fours again the bear might forget his presence and step upon
him. Snedden tried furtively to draw his rifle out from the blankets
in which he had enveloped it, but found that he could not get the
weapon, without attracting the bear's attention and probably provoking
immediate attack. So he abandoned the attempt, kept perfectly still
and watched the bear with half-closed eyes. The Grizzly realized that
the meat was beyond his reach, and with a sighing grunt came down to
all fours, stepping upon and crushing flat a tin cup filled with water
within a foot of the man's head. The bear inquisitively turned the
crushed cup over, smelt of it, sniffed at Snedden's ear and slouched
slowly away into the darkness as noiselessly as a phantom, and only one
man in the camp knew he had been there except by the sign of his
footprints and the flattened cup.
Many hunters have told me of similar experiences, and never have I
heard of one instance of unprovoked attack upon a sleeping person by a
bear, or for that matter by any other of the large carnivorae of this
country. Only one authentic instance of a bear feeding on human flesh
have I known, and that was under unusual circumstances.
Two things will be noted by the reader of these accounts of California
bear fights: First, that the Grizzly's point of attack is usually the
face or head, and second, that, except in the case of she-bears
protecting or avenging their cubs, the Grizzly ceased his attack when
satisfied that his enemy was no longer capable of continuing the fight,
and showed no disposition to wantonly mangle an apparently dead man.
Since the forty she-bears came out of the wilderness and ate up a drove
of small boys for guying a holy man, who was unduly sensitive about his
personal dignity, the female of the ursine species, however, has been
notorious for ill-temper and vindictive pertinacity, and she maintains
that reputation to this day.
In the summer of 1850, G. W. Applegate and his brother John were mining
at Horse Shoe Bar on the American River. The nearest base of supplies
at that time was Georgetown, eighteen miles distant by trail. One
evening in early summer, having run short of provisions, George and his
brother started to walk to that camp to make purchases. Darkness soon
overtook them and while descending into Canyon Creek they heard a bear
snort at some distance behind. In a few moments they heard it again,
louder than before, and John rather anxiously remarked that he thought
the bear was following them. George thought not, but in a few seconds
after crossing the stream and beginning the ascent upon the other side,
both distinctly heard him come--splash, splash, splash--through the
water directly upon their trail.
It was as dark as Erebus, and they were without weapons larger than
pocket knives--a serious position with an angry Grizzly dogging their
steps. Their first thought was to climb a tree, but knowing they were
not far from the cabin of a man named Work, they took to their heels
and did their best running to reach that haven of refuge ahead of their
formidable follower. They reached the cabin, rushed in, slammed and
fastened the door behind them, and with breathless intervals gasped out
their tale. Work kept a bar for the sale of whiskey, and he and his
son, a stout young man, with two or three miners, were sitting on rude
seats around a whiskey barrel playing cards when the two frightened men
rushed in.
The cabin was built by planting posts firmly in the ground at a
distance of some three feet apart, and in the form of a parallelogram,
then nailing shakes upon these posts and on the roof. The sides were
held together by cross beams, connecting the tops of the opposite
posts. There was one rude window, made by cutting a hole in the side
of the wall about four feet from the ground and covering this with
greased paper, glass being an unattainable luxury. Notwithstanding the
belief that there was not a man in those days but wore a red shirt and
a big revolver, there was not a firearm in the place.
In a few seconds the bear was heard angrily sniffing at the door, and
an instant later his powerful paw came tearing through the frail shakes
and he poked his head and neck through the opening and gravely surveyed
the terrified party. Every man sprang upon the bar and thence to the
cross beam with the alacrity given only by terror. After sniffing a
moment and calmly gazing around the room and up at the frightened men,
the bear quietly withdrew his head and retired.
After an interval of quiet, the men ventured down and were eagerly
discussing the event, when the bear again made its presence known by
rearing up and thrusting its head through the paper of the window.
Upon this occasion some of the men stood their ground, and young Work,
seizing an iron-pointed Jacob's staff, ran full tilt at the bear, and
thrust it deeply into its chest. The bear again disappeared, taking
the Jacob's staff, and appeared no more that night.
The following morning, search being made, the bear was found dead some
yards from the cabin, with the staff thrust through the heart. It
proved to be a female and was severely wounded in several places with
rifle balls.
Subsequent inquiries elicited the fact that on the previous day a party
of hunters from Georgetown had captured two cubs and wounded the
mother, which had escaped. This was evidently the same bear in search
of her cubs.
* * * * *
In the spring of the year, somewhere early in the fifties, a party of
five left the mining camp of Coloma for the purpose of hunting deer for
the market in the locality of Mosquito Canyon. On the morning of the
second day in camp the party separated, each going his own way to hunt,
and at night it was found that one of their members named Broadus
failed to appear. The others started out in different directions to
search for him the next morning, and after a day spent in fruitless
searching, they returned to camp only to find that another of their
number, named William Jabine, was this night missing.
After an anxious night, chiefly spent in discussing the probable fate
of their missing companions, the remaining three started out on the
trail of Jabine, he having told them the previous morning what part of
the country he was going to travel. Slowly following his tracks left
in the soft soil and broken down herbage, they found him about noon,
terribly mangled and unconscious, but alive. The flesh on his face was
torn and lacerated in a frightful manner, and he was otherwise injured
in his chest and body.
Further search revealed, near by, the dead body of their other missing
comrade, seated on a bowlder by the side of a small stream with his
head on his folded arms, which were supported by a shelf of rock in
front of him. His whole under jaw had been bitten off and torn away,
and a large pool of clotted blood at his feet showed that he had slowly
bled to death after having been attacked and wounded by a bear. The
ground showed evidences of a fearful struggle, being torn up and
liberally sprinkled with blood for yards around.
The men carried Jabine to the nearest mining camp, whence others went
to bring in the body of Broadus.
Jabine finally recovered, but he was shockingly disfigured for life.
He afterwards told how he came upon the tracks of Broadus, and on
reaching the spot where Broadus had received his death wound, he was
suddenly attacked by a huge she-bear that was followed by two small
cubs. The bear had evidently been severely wounded by Broadus and was
in a terrible rage. She seized Jabine before he could turn to flee,
and falling with her whole weight upon his body and chest, began biting
his face. He soon lost consciousness from the pressure upon his chest,
and remembered no more.
The poor fellow became a misanthrope, owing to his terrible
disfigurement, and was finally found drowned in the river near Coloma.
In 1850 a number of miners were camped upon the spot where the little
town of Todd's Valley now stands. Among them were three brothers named
Gaylord, who had just arrived from Illinois. These young men used to
help out the proceeds of their claim by an occasional hunt, taking
their venison down to the river when killed, where a carcass was
readily disposed of for two ounces.
One evening when the sun was about an hour high, one of the brothers
took his rifle and went out upon the hills and did not return that
night. The following morning his two brothers set out in search and
soon found him dead, bitten through the spine in the neck, evidently by
a bear. His rifle was unloaded and the tracks showed where he had
fled, pursued by the angry animal, been overtaken, and killed.
On the succeeding day a hunt was organized and some twenty men turned
out to seek revenge. The bears, for there were two of them, were
tracked into a deep rocky canyon running from Forest Hill to Big Bar.
Large rocks were rolled down its sides, and the bears were routed out
and both killed.
In 1851, three men armed with Kentucky rifles, which were not only
muzzle-loaders, but of small calibre and less effective than the
ordinary .32 calibre rifle of to-day, were hunting deer on the divide
between Volcano and Shirttail Canyons in Placer county. In the heavy
timber on the slope they encountered a large Grizzly coming up out of
Volcano Canyon. The bear was a hundred yards distant when they saw him
and evinced no desire for trouble, and two of the hunters were more
than willing to give him the trail and let him go about his business in
peace. The other, a man named Wright, who had killed small bears, but
knew nothing about the Grizzly, insisted on attacking, and prepared to
shoot. The others assured him that a bullet from a Kentucky rifle at
that distance would only provoke the bear to rush them, and begged him
not to fire. But Wright laughed at them and pulled trigger with a bead
on the bear's side, where even a heavy ball would be wasted.
The Grizzly reared upon his haunches, bit at the place where the ball
stung him, and after waving his paws in the air two or three times,
came directly for Wright with a fierce growl. The party all took to
their heels and separated, but the bear soon overtook Wright and with
one blow of his paw struck the man, face downward, upon the snow and
began biting him about the head, back and arms. The other hunters,
seeing the desperate case of their companion, rushed up and fired at
the bear at close range, fortunately killing him with a bullet in the
base of the brain.
Wright, on being relieved of the weight of his antagonist, sat up in a
dazed condition, with the blood pouring in streams down his face. He
had received several severe bites in the back and arms, but the worst
wound was on the head, where the bear had struck him with his claws.
His scalp was almost torn from his head, and a large piece of skull
some three inches in diameter was broken out and lifted from the brain
as cleanly as if done by the surgeon's trephine.
Strange to say, Wright complained of but little pain, excepting from a
bite in the arm, and soon recovered his senses. His comrades replaced
the mangled scalp, and bleeding soon ceased. A fire was built to keep
him warm and while one watched with the wounded man the other returned
to the trail to intercept a pack train. On the arrival of the mules,
Wright was helped upon one of their backs, and rode unaided to the
Baker ranch.
A surgeon was sent for from Greenwood Valley, who, on his arrival,
removed the loose piece of bone from the skull and dressed the wounds.
The membranes of the brain were uninjured, and the man quickly
recovered, but of course had a dangerous hole in his skull that
incapacitated him for work. One Sunday, some weeks afterward, the
miners held a meeting, subscribed several hundred dollars and sent
Wright home to his friends in Boston.
* * * * *
Mike Brannan was a miner on the Piru River in Southern California. The
river, or creek, runs through a rough mountain district, and Brannan's
claim was in the wildest part of it. He and his partner met a Grizzly
on the trail, and Brannan had no better judgment than to fire his
revolver at the bear instead of getting out of the way. The Grizzly
charged, smashed the partner's skull with a blow and tumbled Brannan
over a bank.
Brannan was stunned by the fall, and when consciousness returned he saw
the bear standing across his body, watching him intently for signs of
life. He tried to keep perfectly still and hold his breath, but the
suspense was too great a strain and involuntarily he moved the fingers
of his right hand. The bear did not see the movement, and when Brannan
realized that his fingers had just touched his revolver, he conceived
the desperate idea that he could reach the weapon and use it quickly
enough to blow a hole through the bear's head and save himself from the
attack which he felt he could not avert much longer by shamming.
To grasp the revolver it was necessary to stretch his arm full length,
and he tried to do that slowly and imperceptibly, but his anxiety
overcame his prudence and he made a movement that the watchful Grizzly
detected. Instantly the bear pinned the arm with one paw, placed the
other upon Brannan's breast and with his teeth tore out the biceps
muscle. Brannan had the good luck to faint at that moment, and when
his senses again returned he was alone. The Grizzly had watched him
until satisfied that there was no more harm in him, and then left him.
Brannan managed to get to his cabin and eventually recovered, only to
be murdered some years later for the gold dust he had stored away.
NOTE.--For many of the facts in this chapter of adventures with
grizzlies in Placer and El Dorado counties in 1850 and 1851, I am
indebted to Dr. R. F. Rooney, of Auburn, Cal., who obtained the details
at first hand from pioneers.--A. K.