THE STORY OF MONARCH.
Early in 1889, the editor of a San Francisco newspaper sent me out to
catch a Grizzly. He wanted to present to the city a good specimen of
the big California bear, partly because he believed the species was
almost extinct, and mainly because the exploit would be unique in
journalism and attract attention to his paper. Efforts to obtain a
Grizzly by purchase and "fake" a story of his capture had proved
fruitless for the sufficient reason that no captive Grizzly of the true
California type could be found, and the enterprising journal was
constrained to resort to the prosaic expedient of laying a foundation
of fact and veritable achievement for its self-advertising.
[Illustration: Ernest Thompson Seton's Sketch of Monarch.]
The assignment was given to me because I was the only man on the paper
who was supposed to know anything about bears. Such knowledge as I
had, and it was not very extensive, had been acquired on hunting trips,
some successful and more otherwise, in the Sierra Nevada and Cascades.
I had had no experience in trapping, but I accepted the assignment with
entire confidence and great joy over the chance to get into the
mountains for a long outing. The outing proved to be much longer than
the editor expected, and trapping a bear quite a different matter from
killing one.
From Santa Paula, I struck into the mountains of Ventura county with an
outfit largely composed of information, advice and over-paid
assistance. The first two months of the trip were consumed in
developing the inaccuracy of most of the information and the utter
worthlessness of all the advice and costly assistance, and in acquiring
some rudimentary knowledge of the habits of bears and the art of
trapping them. Traps were built, under advice, where there was not one
chance in a thousand of catching anything, and bogus bear-tracks, made
with a neatly-executed model by an ingenious guide, who preferred
loafing about camp to moving it, kept the expedition from seeking more
promising country.
The editor became tired of waiting for his big sensation and ordered me
home. I respectfully but firmly refused to go home bearless, and the
editor fired me by wire. I fired the ingenious but sedentary
assistant, discarded all the advice that had been unloaded upon me by
the able bear-liars of Ventura, reduced my impedimenta to what one
lone, lorn burro could pack, broke camp and struck for a better Grizzly
pasture, determined to play the string out alone and in my own way.
The place I selected for further operations was the regular beat of old
Pinto, a Grizzly that had been killing cattle on Gen. Beale's range in
the mountains west of Tehachepi and above Antelope Valley.
Old Pinto was no myth, and he didn't make tracks with a whittled pine
foot. His lair was a dense manzanita thicket upon the slope of a
limestone ridge about a mile from the spring by which I camped, and he
roamed all over the neighborhood. In soft ground he made a track
fourteen inches long and nine inches wide, but although at the time I
took that for the size of his foot, I am now inclined to think that it
was the combined track of front and hind foot, the hind foot
"over-tracking" a few inches, obliterating the claw marks of the front
foot and increasing the size of the imprint both in length and width.
Nevertheless he was a very large bear, and he loomed up formidably in
the dusk of an evening when I saw him feasting, forty yards away, upon
a big steer he had killed.
[Illustration: Feasting upon a big steer he had killed.]
Pinto had the reputation of being not only dangerous but malevolent,
and there were oft told tales of domiciliary visits paid by him at the
cabins of settlers, and of aggressive advances upon mounted vaqueros,
who were saved by the speed of their horses. Doubtless the bear was
audacious in foraging and indifferent to the presence of man, but he
was not malevolent. Indeed, I have yet to hear on any credible
authority of a malevolent bear, or, for that matter, any other wild
animal in North America whose disposition and habit is to seek trouble
with man and go out of its way with the deliberate purpose of attacking
him. For many weeks I camped by that spring, much of the time alone,
and without even a dog, with only a blanket for covering and the
heavens for a roof, and my sleep never was disturbed by anything larger
than a wood rat. My camp was on one of Pinto's beaten trails, but he
abandoned it and passed fifty yards to one side or the other whenever
his business took him down that way, and he never meddled with me or
mine. One night, as his tracks showed, he came to within twenty feet
of my bivouac, sniffed around inquiringly and passed on.
I built two stout traps for Pinto's benefit, and day after day I
dragged bait around and through the manzanita thickets on the ridge and
over all his trails, and sometimes I found tracks so fresh that I was
satisfied he had heard me coming and had turned aside. There were
cougar and lynx tracks all over the mountains, but I seldom saw the
animals and then only got fleeting glimpses of them as they fled out of
my way.
Many of my prejudices and all my story-book notions about the behavior
of the carnivorae were discredited by experience, and I was forced to
recognize the plain truth that the only mischievous animal, the only
creature meditating and planning evil on that mountain--excepting of
course the evil incident to the procurement of food--was a man with a
gun. I was the only really dangerous and unnecessarily destructive
animal in the woods, and all the rest were afraid of me.
After a time, because I had no intention of killing Pinto if I should
meet him, I quit carrying a rifle, except when I wanted venison, and
tramped all over the mountain in daylight or in darkness without giving
much thought to possible encounters. True, I carried a revolver, but
that was force of habit mainly, and a six-shooter is company of a sort
to a man in the wilderness even if he does not expect to need it. When
one has "packed a gun" for years, he feels uncomfortable without it;
not because he thinks he has any use for it, but because it has become
a part of his attire and its absence unconsciously frets him and sets
him wondering vaguely if he has lost his suspenders or forgotten to put
on a tie.
That the big Grizzly was not quite so audacious and adventurous as he
was reputed to be was demonstrated by his suspicious avoidance of the
traps while they were new to him, and it became evident that he could
not be inveigled into them even by meat and honey until they should
become familiar objects to him and he should get accustomed to my scent
upon his trails. That I would have caught old Pinto in time there is
no doubt, for eventually he was caught in each of the traps, although
he escaped through the carelessness of the man who baited and set them.
The traps were tight pens, built of large oak logs notched and pinned,
roofed and floored with heavy logs and fitted with falling doors of
four-inch plank. They were stout enough, and when I saw them ten years
later they were sound and fit to hold anything that wears fur, although
old Pinto had clawed all the bark off the logs and left deep furrows in
them.
As a matter of course, all the hunters and mountain men for fifty miles
around knew that I was trying to catch a Grizzly, and some of them
built traps on their own hook, hoping to catch a bear and make a few
dollars. I had encouraged them by promising to pay well for his
trouble anybody who should get a bear in his own trap, or find one in
any of the numerous traps I had built and send me word.
Late in October, I heard that a bear had got into a trap on Gleason
Mountain, and leaving Pinto to his own devices, I went over to look at
the captive. The Mexican acting as jailor did not know me, and I
discovered that Allen Kelly was supposed to be the agent of a
millionaire and an "easy mark," who would pay a fabulous sum for a
bear. The Mexican assured me that he was about to get wealth beyond
the dreams of avarice for that bear from a San Francisco man, meaning
said Kelly, whereupon I congratulated him, disparaged the bear and
turned to go. The Mexican followed me down the trail and began
complaining that the alleged purchaser of the bear was dilatory in
closing the deal with cash. He, Mateo, was aggrieved by this
unbusinesslike behavior, and it would be no more than proper for him to
resent it and teach the man a lesson in commercial manners by selling
the bear to somebody else, even to me, for instance. Mateo's haste to
get that bear off his hands was evident, but the reason for it was not
apparent. Later I understood.
Monarch had the bad luck to get into a trap built by a little syndicate
of which Mateo was a member. Mateo watched the trap, while the others
supplied beef for bait. They were to divide the large sum which they
expected to get from me in case they caught a bear before I did, and
very likely my fired assistant had a contingent interest in the
enterprise. Mateo was the only member of the syndicate on deck when I
arrived, and deeming a bird in his hand worth a whole flock in the
syndicate bush, he made the best bargain he could and left the others
to whistle for dividends. Ten years afterward I met the cattleman who
furnished the capital and the beef, and from his strenuous remarks
about his Mexican partner I inferred that the syndicate had been deeply
disappointed. I also learned for the first time why Mateo was so
anxious for me to take the bear off his hands when the evident original
purpose was to held me up for a good round sum. The hold-up would have
failed, however, because I had spent more than $1,200 and lost five
months' time, was nearly broke, did not represent anybody but myself at
that stage of my bear-catching career, and for all I knew the editor
might have changed his mind about wanting a Grizzly at any price.
Finally I consented to take the bear and struck a bargain, and not
until money had passed and a receipt was to be signed did Mateo know
with whom he was dealing. He paid me the dubious compliment of
muttering that I was "un coyote," and as that animal is the B'rer
Rabbit of Mexican folk lore, I inferred that the excellent Mateo
intended to express admiration for the only evidence of business
capacity to be found in my entire career. That dicker for a bear
stands out as the sole trade I ever made in which I was not
unmistakably and comprehensively "stuck." Mateo was more than repaid
for his trouble, however. He helped me build a box, and get the bear
into it, and I took Monarch to San Francisco and sold him to the editor
of the enterprising paper, who eventually gave him to Golden Gate Park.
The newspaper account of the capture of Monarch was elaborated to suit
the exigencies of enterprising journalism, picturesque features were
introduced where the editorial judgment dictated, and mere facts, such
as the name of the county in which the bear was caught, fell under the
ban of a careless blue pencil and were distorted beyond recognition.
More than one-fourth of Joaquin Miller's "True Bear Stories"' consists
of that newspaper yarn, copied verbatim and without amendment, revision
or verification. The other three-fourths of the book, it is to be
hoped, is at least equally true.
Considering all the frills of fiction that were put into the story to
make it readable, the careless inaccuracies that were edited into it,
and the fact that many persons knew of the preliminary attempts to buy
any old bear and fake a capture, it is not strange that people who
always know the "inside history" of everything that happens, wag their
heads wisely and declare that Monarch was obtained from a bankrupt
circus, or is an ex-dancer of the streets sold to the newspaper by a
hard-up Italian.
But it is incredible that any one who knows a bear from a Berkshire hog
could for an instant mistake Monarch for any variety of tamable bear or
imagine that any man ever had the hardihood to give him dancing lessons.
When Monarch found himself caught in the syndicate trap on Gleason
Mountain, he made furious efforts to escape. He bit and tore at the
logs, hurled his great bulk against the sides and tried to enlarge
every chink that admitted light. He required unremitting attention
with a sharpened stake to prevent him from breaking out.
For a full week the Grizzly raged and refused to touch food that was
thrown to him. Then he became exhausted and the task of securing him
and removing him from the trap was begun. The first thing necessary
was to make a chain fast to one of his fore-legs. That job was begun
at eight o'clock in the morning and finished at six o'clock in the
afternoon. Much time was wasted in trying to work with the chain
between two of the side logs. Whenever the bear stepped into the loop
as it lay upon the floor and the chain was drawn tight around his
fore-leg just above the foot, he pulled it off easily with the other
paw, letting the men who held the chain fall over backward. The feat
was finally accomplished by letting the looped chain down between the
roof logs, so that when the bear stepped into it and it was drawn
sharply upward, it caught him well up toward the shoulder.
Having one leg well anchored, it was comparatively easy to introduce
chains and ropes between the side logs and secure his other legs. He
fought furiously during the whole operation, and chewed the chains
until he splintered his canine teeth to the stubs and spattered the
floor of the trap with bloody froth. It was painful to see the plucky
brute hurting himself uselessly, but it could not be helped, as he
would not give up while he could move limb or jaw.
The next operation was gagging the bear so that he could not bite. The
door of the trap was raised and a billet of wood was held where he
could seize it, which he promptly did. A cord made fast to the stick
was quickly wound around his jaws, with turns around the stick on each
side, and passed back of his ears and around his neck like a bridle.
By that means his jaws were firmly bound to the stick in such a manner
that he could not move them, while his mouth was left open for
breathing.
While one man held the bear's head down by pressing with his whole
weight upon the ends of the gag, another went into the trap and put a
chain collar around the Grizzly's neck, securing it in place with a
light chain attached to the collar at the back, passing down under his
armpits and up to his throat, where it was again made fast. The collar
passed through a ring attached by a swivel to the end of a heavy chain
of Norwegian iron. A stout rope was fastened around the bear's loins
also, and to this another strong chain was attached. This done, the
gag was removed and the Grizzly was ready for his journey down the
mountain.
In the morning he was hauled out of the trap and bound down on a rough
skeleton sled made from a forked limb, very much like the contrivance
called by lumbermen a "go-devil." Great difficulty was encountered in
securing a team of horses that could be induced to haul the bear. The
first two teams were so terrified that but little progress could be
made, but the third team was tractable and the trip down the mountain
to the nearest wagon road was finished in four days.
The bear was released from the "go-devil" and chained to trees every
night; and so long as the camp fire burned brightly he would lie still
and watch it attentively, but when the fire burned low he would get up
and restlessly pace to and fro and tug at the chains, stopping now and
then to seize in his arms the tree to which he was anchored and test
its strength by shaking it. Every morning the same old fight had to be
fought before he could be tied to his sled. He became very expert in
dodging ropes and seizing them when the loops fell over his legs, and
considerable strategic skill was required to lasso his paws and stretch
him out. In the beginning of these contests the Grizzly uttered angry
growls, but soon became silent and fought with dogged persistency,
watching every movement of his foes with alert attention and wasting no
energy in aimless struggles. He soon learned to keep his hind feet
well under him and his body close to the ground, which left only his
head and fore-legs to be defended from the ropes. So adroit and quick
was the bear in the use of his paws that a dozen men could not get a
rope on him while he remained in that posture of defence. But when two
or three men grasped the chain that was around his body and suddenly
threw him on his back, all four of his legs were in the air at once,
the riatas flew from all directions and he was vanquished.
[Illustration: Chained to trees every night.]
Monarch was pretty well worn out when the wagon road was reached, and
doubtless enjoyed the few days of rest and quiet that were allowed him
while a cage was being built for his further transportation. He made
the remainder of the journey to San Francisco by wagon and railroad,
confined in a box constructed of inch-and-a-half Oregon pine that had
an iron grating at one end. The box was not strong enough to have held
him for five minutes had he attacked it as he attacked the trap and as
he subsequently demolished an iron-lined den, but I put my trust in the
moral influence of the chain around his neck. The Grizzly accepted the
situation resignedly and behaved admirably during the whole trip.
Monarch is the largest bear in captivity and a thoroughbred Californian
Grizzly. No naturalist needs a second glance at him to classify him as
Ursus Horribilis. He stands four feet high at the shoulder, measures
three feet across the chest, 12 inches between the ears and 18 inches
from ear to nose, and his weight is estimated by the best judges at
from 1200 to 1600 pounds. He never has been weighed. In disposition
he is independent and militant. He will fight anything from a crowbar
to a powder magazine, and permit no man to handle him while he can move
a muscle. And yet when he and I were acquainted--I have not seen him
since he was taken to Golden Gate Park--he was not unreasonably
quarrelsome, but preserved an attitude of armed neutrality. He would
accept peace offerings from my hand, taking bits of sugar with care not
to include my fingers, but would tolerate no petting. Within certain
limits he would acknowledge an authority which had been made real to
him by chains and imprisonment, and reluctantly suspend an intended
blow and retreat to a corner when insistently commanded, yet the fires
of rebellion never were extinguished and it would have been foolhardy
to get within effective reach of his paw. To strangers he was
irreconcilable and unapproachable.
Monarch passed three or four years in a steel cell before he was taken
to the Park. He devoted a week or so to trying to get out and testing
every bar and joint of his prison, and when he realized that his
strength was over-matched, he broke down and sobbed. That was the
critical point, and had he not been treated tactfully by Louis Ohnimus,
doubtless the big Grizzly would have died of nervous collapse. A live
fowl was put before him after he had refused food and disdained to
notice efforts to attract his attention, and the old instinct to kill
was aroused in him. His dulled eyes gleamed green, a swift clutching
stroke of the paw secured the fowl. Monarch bolted the dainty morsel,
feathers and all, and his interest in life was renewed with the revival
of his savage propensity to slay.
From that moment he accepted the situation and made the best of it. He
was provided with a bed of shavings, and he soon learned the routine of
his keeper's work in removing the bed. Monarch would not permit the
keeper to remove a single shaving from the cage if a fresh supply was
not in sight. He would gather all the bedding in a pile, lie upon it
and guard every shred jealously, striking and smashing any implement of
wood or iron thrust into the cage to filch his treasure. But when a
sackful of fresh shavings was placed where he could see it, Monarch
voluntarily left his bed, went to another part of the cage and watched
the removal of the pile without interfering.
In intelligence and quickness of comprehension, the Grizzly was
superior to other animals in the zoological garden and compared not
unfavorably with a bright dog. It could not be said of him, as of most
other animals, that man's mastery of him was due to his failure to
realize his own power. He knew his own strength and how to apply it,
and only the superior strength of iron and steel kept him from doing
all the damage of which he was capable.
The lions, for example, were safely kept in cages which they could have
broken with a blow rightly placed. Monarch discovered the weak places
of such a cage within a few hours and wrecked it with swift skill.
When inveigled into a movable cage with a falling door, he turned the
instant the door fell, seized the lower edge and tried to raise it.
When placed in a barred enclosure in the park, he began digging under
the stone foundation of the fence, necessitating the excavation of a
deep trench and the emplacement therein of large boulders to prevent
his escape. Then he tried the aerial route, climbed the twelve foot
iron palings, bent the tops of inch and a half bars and was nearly over
when detected and pushed back.
He remains captive only because it is physically impossible for him to
escape, not because he is in the least unaware of his power or inept in
using it. Apparently he has no illusions concerning man and no respect
for him as a superior being. He has been beaten by superior cunning,
but never conquered, and he gives no parole to refrain from renewing
the contest when opportunity offers.
Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton saw Monarch and sketched him in 1901, and he
said: "I consider him the finest Grizzly I have seen in captivity."
[Illustration: Monarch, The Biggest Bear in Captivity.]
NOTE.--Without doubt the largest captive grizzly bear in the world, may
be seen in the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. As to his exact
weight, there is much conjecture. That has not been determined, as the
bear has never been placed on a scale. Good judges estimate it at not
far from twelve hundred pounds. The bear's appearance justifies that
conclusion. Monarch enjoys the enviable distinction of being the
largest captive bear in the world.--N. Y. Tribune, March 8, 1903.