WHEN GRIZZLIES RAN IN DROVES.
William Thurman, who owned a lumber mill on the Chowchilla mountain,
not far from the Mariposa grove of Big Trees, told this plain,
unadorned tale of an old-fashioned Grizzly bear hunt.
He was moved thereto by inspection of a Winchester express rifle,
carrying a half-inch ball, backed by 110 grains of powder, that was
shown to him by a hunter.
"If we had been armed with such rifles in early days," said Mr.
Thurman, "the Grizzly wouldn't have achieved his reputation for
vitality and staying powers in a fight. There is no doubt that he is a
very tough animal and a game fighter, but in the days when he made a
terrible name for himself he had to face no such weapons as that.
"I assisted in killing, in 1850, the first Grizzlies that were brought
into the town of Sonora. I had heard a great deal about the Grizzly,
and coming across the plains I talked to my comrade, Green, about what
I should do if I should get a chance at a bear. I was a pretty good
shot, and thought it would be no trick at all to kill a bear with the
Mississippi rifle that I brought home from the Mexican war.
"One day I went out with a man named Willis, who was a good hunter, and
in the hills back of Sonora we found plenty of bear sign. In fact we
could get through the thick brush and chaparral only on the trails made
by bears, and we had to go carefully for fear of running upon a Grizzly
at close quarters. Although it was evident that we were in a bear
country, we hadn't seen anything to shoot at when we emerged from the
brush into an open space about fifty yards in diameter.
"Willis said that he was sure bears were close around us, if we could
only see them, and I proposed to climb a tree on the other side of the
clearing and get a good view of the surrounding thickets. If I should
see bears I was to make a noise and try to scare them out of their
hiding places.
"I started across the opening, but before I reached the tree I saw a
huge Grizzly coming toward me through the brush. He looked much larger
and uglier than I had expected, and it struck me that the proper thing
for me was to get into that tree before shooting. I got to the tree
all right enough, but found that I couldn't climb it and take my rifle
up with me. Willis saw my difficulty and shouted to me that I couldn't
make it, and so I abandoned the attempt and ran back toward him.
"The bear was following me, and Willis started back into the brush. I
called to him not to do that, but to stand in the open and wait for me.
He halted, and when I got alongside we both turned and raised our
rifles. When the bear saw that we were standing our ground, he
stopped, looked at us a moment and then turned and shuffled back into
the brush. He was so big and looked so formidable that we concluded to
let him go unmolested, rather relieved, in fact, that we were let out
of the scrape so easily.
"We made our way back to camp with some caution and decided that we
would get up a crowd and go bear hunting the next day. When we told
our adventure, Green was very hilarious at my expense and kept
reminding me of the brave things I had said coming across the plains.
He was so everlastingly tickled with his joke that he sat up all that
night to guy me about my running away from a bear. I told him I would
show him all the bears he wanted to see the next day, and give him a
chance to try his own nerves.
"The next day five of us went out to look for bears, and we struck them
thick before we got to the place where we had found so much sign.
Willis and I took the upper side of a patch of brush, and Green and the
other two skirted the lower edge. An old Grizzly and two cubs,
startled by some noise made by the other fellows, jumped out of the
brush on our side, and we fired at them. My bullet struck one near the
shoulder, and Willis hit the dam in the belly. They all turned and ran
down through the brush toward the rest of the crowd, and got out of our
range.
"The noise made by them in running through the brush stirred up another
squad, and when the shooting began down below five bears came tearing
out on our side to get out of the way. Willis raised his rifle and
pulled the trigger, but luckily the cap failed to explode. The five
turned as soon as they saw us and ran in another direction. I was
going to shoot one in the rump, but Willis stopped me, saying that we
had our hands full without inviting any more bears to join the
scrimmage. Before those five bears, got out of sight three more broke
cover and joined them, and for a moment there were eleven Grizzly
bears, young and old, in sight from where I stood. Eight of them ran
away and the original three kept us all busy for the best part of the
afternoon.
"For some time the other three men had all the fun, while Willis and I
stood guard on our side of the thicket and watched the performance.
The old bear would stand up and look over a patch of brush to locate
her enemy, and somebody would give her a shot. She would drop to all
fours and gallop around to where she saw the man last, and he would run
around the other side and reload. The cubs were half grown--big enough
to be dangerous--and the boys had to watch for them while dodging about.
"I got even on Green that afternoon. He had forgotten to bring any
caps, and after his first shot he could do nothing but dodge around the
brush and keep out of the way. One of the bears was after him, and he
had to step lively. While he was waiting to see which way the bear was
coming next, he made motions with his hand, pointing to the nipple of
his rifle, to indicate that he wanted caps. I saw what he meant, but
instead of going to him to supply him with caps I stood still and
laughed at him and applauded his running when the bear chased him.
That made him furious and he yelled that if he had a cap he'd take a
shot at me.
"After two or three hours of dodging about, every man taking a shot
whenever he got a chance, one of the cubs keeled over and the dam and
the other cub retreated into the thickest part of the brush patch.
"We consulted and decided that if we killed the other cub next the dam
might quit and get away, whereas if we killed the dam the cub probably
wouldn't leave her and we'd bag the whole outfit. One of the party
crawled cautiously into the thicket and presently he fired. Then he
called to me to come in, and when I crawled up to him he said: 'I've
killed the cub by mistake, but the old one is lying badly wounded on
the other side of a little open spot, and you can get a splendid shot
at the butt of her ear while I back out and reload."
"He backed out, and I crawled up and took his place. There was the old
bear about ten yards away, lying down and bleeding from a great many
wounds. She seemed to be nearly exhausted and out of breath. I was in
the act of raising my rifle to take aim at her head, when she caught
sight of me and suddenly sprang up and rushed at me. She was almost
upon me in two jumps, and I thought I was in for a bad time of it. I
had no time to aim, but pushed out my rifle instinctively and fired in
her face. The bullet struck her in the mouth, and the pain caused her
to stop, wheel around and make a rush through the chaparral in the
opposite direction. Such a shot as that from a Winchester express
would have blown off the whole roof of her head, but my bullet, as I
found later, tore through her tongue, splitting the root, and stopped
when it struck bone.
"When she broke out of the brush on the other side three of the boys
fired into her and she fell dead. We looked her over and found more
than thirty bullets in her. We had been shooting at her and dodging
her in the brush from 11 o'clock in the forenoon; until after 3
o'clock, and she had caved in from sheer exhaustion and loss of blood,
not from the effects of any single bullet.
"We packed the three carcases into Sonora that night and a butcher
named Dodge offered to cut them up and sell the meat without charge to
us if we would let him have the bears at his shop. That was the first
bear meat ever taken into Sonora, and everybody in the camp wanted a
piece. In the morning there was a line of men at Dodge's shop like the
crowd waiting at a theatre for Patti tickets. Men far down the line
shouted to Dodge not to sell the meat in big pieces, but to save slices
for them. The meat sold for $1 a pound. Everybody got a slice, and we
got $500 for our three bears.
"One of our crowd was so elated over the profits of bear-hunting that
he started out alone the next day to get more Grizzly meat. He didn't
come back, and the boys who went out to look for him found his body,
covered up with leaves and dirt, in the edge of a clump of brush. His
skull had been smashed by a blow from a Grizzly's paw."