A PROVIDENTIAL PROSPECT HOLE.
One-eyed Zeke, who hunted for a living along Owen River, in Inyo
County, Cal., in the early seventies, claimed to have a method of
killing bears that might be effective if a man had nerve enough to work
it and a gun that never missed fire. He carried a revolver and a heavy
double-barrelled shotgun, but never a rifle, and when he saw a Grizzly
he said he opened on him with the six-shooter and plugged him often
enough to leave the bear in no doubt as to the source of the annoyance.
Standing in plain view with the heavily-loaded shotgun ready, he
awaited the charge, and at close quarters turned loose both barrels
into the bear's chest.
That sounds like a plausible scheme. The heavy charges of shot at
close range smash the Grizzly's interior works in a deplorable manner
and he dies right away. But only a few men have the nerve to face a
big ugly bear in full charge and reserve fire until he is within two
yards of the muzzle of the gun. One-eyed Zeke and a celebrated hunter
of the Bad Lands are the only men I have known who professed to have
acquired the habit of hunting the Grizzly in such a fashion, and the
celebrated Bad Lands ranchman did his killing with a rifle and always
shot for the eye, which was the more remarkable because he was very
near-sighted and wore eyeglasses.
Zeke once met a bear in the mountains near Owen Lake and played his
customary game, but not with complete success. By some extraordinary
bad luck both cartridges in his gun had defective primers, and when he
pulled the triggers he was very much pained and disappointed by the
absence of the usual loud report. It was a critical moment for Zeke.
It took him the thousandth part of a second to grasp the situation and
spring desperately to the right. Another small fraction of a second
was consumed in his unexpected descent to the bottom of an old prospect
hole that was overgrown with brush and had escaped his notice.
Probably that was the only prospect hole in that part of the Sierra
Nevada, and it must have been dug by some half-cracked Forty-niner like
Marshall, who prospected all the way from Yuma to the Columbia. Zeke
vows it was dug by Providence.
The sudden and unaccountable disappearance of the man with a gun
surprised the bear, and he had thrown himself forward and plunged into
the chaparral several yards before he began to catch on to the fact
that Zeke was not before him. As soon as Zeke struck bottom, he looked
up to see if the bear was coming down too, and then he removed the bad
cartridges and quickly inserted two more in his gun. He knew the bear
would smell him out very soon.
In half a minute the bear's snout appeared at the top of the hole. It
disappeared and was at once replaced by the bear's hind legs. Caleb
was coming down stern foremost after the noxious person who had fired
bullets at him. As the bear scrambled down, Zeke aimed just under his
shoulder and sent two handsful of buckshot careering through his vitals
in a diagonal line. The wound was almost instantly fatal, and the bear
came down in a heap at the bottom of the hole, which was about ten or
twelve feet deep.
The excitement being over, Zeke realized that he had been injured in
the fall, and that standing up was painful. He sat down on the bear to
rest and reflect, and to induce reflection he took out his pipe and
lighted it. The flare of the match lighted up the prospect hole, and
Zeke was interested on seeing a good-sized rattlesnake lying dead under
his feet, its head crushed by his boot heel. He had landed on the
snake when he fell in the hole, and the slipping of his foot sprained
the ankle.
Zeke had a hard time climbing out of the prospect hole and getting back
to camp, but he got there and sent some men up to hoist the bear to the
surface. The Grizzly's weight was estimated to be 900 pounds, and it
grew every time Zeke told the story until the last time I heard it,
when it was just short of a ton.
* * * * *
Zeke's bear-killing exploits with a scatter gun may be classed with the
"important if true" information of the newspapers, but there is at
least one authentic instance of the killing of a grizzly with a charge
of bird shot.
Dr. H. W. Nelson, who was in later years a prominent surgeon of
Sacramento, practiced medicine in Placer county, Cal., in the early
fifties and was something of a sportsman. He was out quail shooting
one day with a double shotgun and was making his way up a ravine in a
narrow trail much choked with chaparral, when some men on the hill
above him shouted to him that a wounded bear was coming down the ravine
and warned him to get out of the way. The sides of the ravine were too
steep to be climbed, and the noise made by the bear breaking the brush
told him that it was too late to attempt to escape by running. So the
doctor cocked his gun, backed into the chaparral as far as he could and
hoped the bear might pass him without seeing him.
In another moment the Grizzly broke through the brush with a full head
of steam directly at the doctor, and the bear's snout was within three
feet of the muzzle of the gun when the doctor instinctively pulled both
triggers. The two charges of small shot followed the nasal passage and
caved in the front of the bear's skull, killing him instantly, but the
animal's momentum carried him forward, and he and the doctor went down
together. The doctor suffered no injury from the bear's teeth or
claws, but was bruised by the shock of the collision and the fall.
CHAPTER'XXI.
KILLED WITH A BOWIE.
The favorite weapon of the bear hunter of the old time Wild West story
book was the bowie, and doughty deeds he used to do with it in
hand-to-claw encounters with monstrous Grizzlies.
It was the fashion in those days for bears to stand erect and wrestle
catch-as-catch-can, trying to get the under-hold and hug the hunter to
death, and the hunter invariably stepped in and plunged his bowie to
the hilt in the heart of his foe. But the breed of Grizzly that hugged
and the type of hunter who slew with the knife became extinct so long
ago that no specimens can be found in these days.
I have known many bear slayers, but never one who would say that he
ever did or would deliberately attack a Grizzly with a knife, or that
he should expect to survive if forced to defend himself with such a
weapon. Neither did I ever hear of a Grizzly that tried to kill a man
by hugging him.
The only case of successful use of the bowie in defence against a
Grizzly that seemed to be well authenticated, among all the stories I
heard from hunters, was that of Jim Wilburns' fight in Trinity.
Wilburn was a noted hunter and mountaineer of Long Ridge, and he had
the scars to show for proof of the story. His left arm was crippled,
the hand curled up like a claw, and the end of a broken bone made an
ugly knob on his wrist. On his scalp were two deep scars extending
from his forehead almost to the nape of his neck.
Wilburn had chased a big Grizzly into the brush and was unable to coax
him out where he could get a shot at the beast. An Indian offered to
go in and prospect for bear, and disappeared in the thicket. His
search was successful, but perhaps it was a question whether he found
the bear or the bear found him. The Indian came out of the thicket at
a sprinting gait with the bear a good second, and they came so suddenly
that even Jim Wilburn was taken by surprise. In two more jumps the
bear would have been on top of the Indian, but Jim sprang between them,
rifle in hand.
Before he could fire, the weapon was wrenched from his hands and broken
like a reed. He grabbed his pistol, and that was knocked out of his
hand in a jiffy. Then the bear closed on him and both went down, the
bear on top. The first thing the bear did was to try to swallow Jim's
head, but it was a large head and made more than a mouthful. The
bear's long upper teeth slipped along the skull, ploughing great
furrows in Jim's scalp, while the lower teeth lacerated his face.
Before the bear could make another grab at his head, Jim thrust his
left fist down the animal's throat and kept it there while the Grizzly
chewed his arm into pulp. Meanwhile he had got hold of his big knife
and plunged it into the bear's side with all his strength. Again he
tried to stab his enemy, but the knife did not penetrate the hide, and
he discovered that in the first thrust the knife had struck a rib and
the point was turned up.
[Illustration: The Grizzly Chewed His Arm.]
The bear clawed and chawed, and Jim felt around for the wound he had
made first. When he found it he thrust the knife in and worked it
around in a very disquieting way. In the struggle the knife slipped
out of the hole several times, and once Jim lost it, but he
persistently searched for the hole when he recovered the knife and
prospected for the bear's vitals.
At last he worked the blade well into the Grizzly's interior and made
such havoc by turning it around that the brute gave up the fight and
rolled over dead, with Jim's mangled left arm in his jaws.
It was a tough fight and a close call and old Jim was laid up in his
cabin for many a day afterward.