A BEAR HUNT IN THE SMOKIES
"Git up, pup! you've scrouged right in hyur in front of the fire. You
Dred! what makes you so blamed contentious?"
Little John shoved both dogs into a corner, and strove to scrape some
coals from under a beech forestick that glowed almost hot enough to melt
brass.
"This is the wust coggled-up fire I ever seed, to fry by. Bill, hand me
some Old Ned from that suggin o' mine."
A bearded hunchback reached his long arm to a sack that hung under our
rifles, drew out a chuck of salt pork, and began slicing it with his
jackknife. On inquiry I learned that "Old Ned" is merely slang for fat
pork, but that "suggin" or "sujjit" (the _u_ pronounced like _oo_ in
look) is true mountain dialect for a pouch, valise, or carryall, its
etymology being something to puzzle over.
Four dogs growled at each other under a long bunk of poles and hay that
spanned one side of our cabin. The fire glared out upon the middle of an
unfloored and windowless room. Deep shadows clung to the walls and
benches, charitably concealing much dirt and disorder left by previous
occupants, much litter of our own contributing.
At last we were on a saddle of the divide, a mile above sea-level, in a
hut built years ago for temporary lodgment of cattle-men herding on the
grassy "balds" of the Smokies. A sagging clapboard roof covered its two
rooms and the open space between them that we called our "entry." The
State line between North Carolina and Tennessee ran through this
uninclosed hallway. The Carolina room had a puncheon floor and a
clapboard table, also better bunks than its mate; but there had risen a
stiff southerly gale that made the chimney smoke so abominably that we
were forced to take quarters in the neighbor State.
Granville lifted the lid from a big Dutch oven and reported "Bread's
done."
There was a flash in the frying-pan, a curse and a puff from Little
John. The coffee-pot boiled over. We gathered about the hewn benches
that served for tables, and sat _a la Turc_ upon the ground. For some
time there was no sound but the gale without and the munching of
ravenous men.
"If this wind 'll only cease afore mornin', we'll git us a bear
to-morrow."
A powerful gust struck the cabin, by way of answer; a great roaring
surged up from the gulf of Defeat, from Desolation, and from the other
forks of Bone Valley--clamor of ten thousand trees struggling with the
blast.
"Hit's gittin' wusser."
"Any danger of this roost being blown off the mountain?" I inquired.
"Hit's stood hyur twenty year through all the storms; I reckon it can
stand one more night of it."
"A man couldn't walk upright, outside the cabin," I asserted, thinking
of the St. Louis tornado, in which I had lain flat on my belly, clinging
to an iron post.
The hunchback turned to me with a grave face. "I've seed hit blow, here
on top o' Smoky, till a hoss couldn't stand up agin it. You'll spy,
to-morrow, whar several trees has been wind-throwed and busted to
kindlin'."
I recalled that several, in the South, means many--"a good many," as our
own tongues phrase it.
"Oh, shucks! Bill Cope," put in "Doc" Jones, "whut do you-uns know about
windstorms? Now, _I've_ hed some experiencin' up hyur that 'll do to tell
about. You remember the big storm three year ago, come grass, when the
cattle all huddled up a-top o' each other and friz in one pile, solid."
Bill grunted an affirmative.
"Wal, sir, I was a-herdin', over at the Spencer Place, and was out on
Thunderhead when the wind sprung up. Thar come one turrible vyg'rous
blow that jest nacherally lifted the ground. I went up in the sky, my
coat ripped off, and I went a-sailin' end-over-end."
"Yes?"
"Yes. About half an hour later, I lit _spang_ in the mud, way down
yander in Tuckaleechee Cove--yes, sir: ten mile as the crow flies, and a
mile deeper 'n trout-fish swim."
There was silence for a moment. Then Little John spoke up: "I mind about
that time, Doc; but I disremember which buryin'-ground they-all planted
ye in."
"Planted! _Me?_ Huh! But I had one tormentin' time findin' my hat!"
The cabin shook under a heavier blast, to match Bill's yarn.
"Old Wind-maker's blowin' liars out o' North Car'lina. Hang on to yer
hat, Doc! Whoop! hear 'em a-comin'!"
"Durn this blow, anyhow! No bear 'll cross the mountain sich a night as
this."
"Can't we hunt down on the Carolina side?" I asked.
"That's whar we're goin' to drive; but hit's no use if the bear don't
come over."
"How is that? Do they sleep in one State and eat in the other?"
"Yes: you see, the Tennessee side of the mountain is powerful steep and
laurely, so 't man nor dog cain't git over it in lots o' places; that's
whar the bears den. But the mast, sich as acorns and beech and hickory
nuts, is mostly on the Car'lina side; that's whar they hafter come to
feed. So, when it blows like this, they stay at home and suck their paws
till the weather clars."
"So we'll have to do, at this rate."
"I'll go see whut the el-e-ments looks like."
We arose from our squatting postures. John opened the little clapboard
door, which swung violently backward as another gust boomed against the
cabin. Dust and hot ashes scattered in every direction. The dogs sprang
up, one encroached upon another, and they flew at each other's throats.
They were powerful beasts, dangerous to man as well as to the brutes
they were trained to fight; but John was their master, and he soon
booted them into surly subjection.
"The older dog don't ginerally raise no ruction; hit's the younger one
that's ill," by which he meant vicious. "You, Coaly, you'll git some o'
that meanness shuck outen you if you tackle an old she-bear to-morrow!"
"Has the young dog ever fought a bear?"
"No; he don't know nothin'; but I reckon he'll pick up some larnin' in
the next two, three days."
"Have these dogs got the Plott strain? I've been told that the Plott
hounds are the best bear dogs in the country."
"'Tain't so," snorted John. "The Plott curs are the best: that is, half
hound, half cur--though what we-uns calls the cur, in this case, raelly
comes from a big furrin dog that I don't rightly know the breed of.
Fellers, you can talk as you please about a streak o' the cur spilin' a
dog; but I know hit ain't so--not for bear fightin' in these mountains,
whar you cain't foller up on hossback, but hafter do your own runnin'."
"What is the reason, John?"
[Illustration: "What soldiers these fellows would make, under leadership
of some Backwoods Napoleon!"]
"Waal, hit's like this: a plumb cur, of course, cain't foller a cold
track--he just runs by sight; and he won't hang--he quits. But,
t'other way, no hound 'll raelly fight a bear--hit takes a big severe
dog to do that. Hounds has the best noses, and they'll run a bear all
day and night, and the next day, too; but they won't never tree--they're
afeared to close in. Now, look at them dogs o' mine. A cur ain't got no
dew-claws--them dogs has. My dogs can foller ary trail, same's a hound;
but they'll run right in on the varmint, snappin' and chawin' and
worryin' him till he gits so mad you can hear his tushes pop half a
mile. He cain't run away--he haster stop every bit, and fight. Finally
he gits so tired and het up that he trees to rest hisself. Then we-uns
ketches up and finishes him."
"Mebbe you-uns don't know that a dew-clawed dog is snake-proof----"
But somebody, thinking that dog-talk had gone far enough, produced a
bottle of soothing-syrup that was too new to have paid tax. Then we
discovered that there was musical talent, of a sort, in Little John. He
cut a pigeon-wing, twirled around with an imaginary banjo, and sang in a
quaint minor:
Did you _ever_ see the devil,
With his _pitchfork_ and ladle,
And his _old_ iron shovel,
And his old gourd head?
O, I _will_ go to meetin',
And I _will_ go to meetin',
Yes, I _will_ go to meetin',
In an old tin pan.
Other songs followed, with utter irrelevance--mere snatches from
"ballets" composed, mainly, by the mountaineers themselves, though some
dated back to a long-forgotten age when the British ancestors of these
Carolina woodsmen were battling with lance and long-bow. It was one of
modern and local origin that John was singing when there came a
diversion from without--
La-a-ay down, boys,
Le's take a nap:
Thar's goin' to be trouble
In the Cumberland Gap--
Our ears were stunned by one sudden thundering crash. The roof rose
visibly, as though pushed upward from within. In an instant we were
blinded by moss and dried mud--the chinking blown from between the logs
of our shabby cabin. Dred and Coaly cowered as though whipped, while
"Doc's" little hound slunk away in the keen misery of fear. We men
looked at each other with lowered eyelids and the grim smile that
denotes readiness, though no special eagerness, for dissolution. Beyond
the "gant-lot" we could hear trees and limbs popping like skirmishers in
action.
Then that tidal wave of air swept by. The roof settled again with only a
few shingles missing. We went to "redding up." Squalls broke against the
mountainside, hither and yon, like the hammer of Thor testing the
foundations of the earth. But they were below us. Here, on top, there
was only the steady drive of a great surge of wind; and speech was
possible once more.
"Fellers, you want to mark whut you dream about, to-night: hit'll shore
come true to-morrow."
"Yes: but you mustn't tell whut yer dream was till the hunt's over, or
it'll spile the charm."
There ensued a grave discussion of dream-lore, in which the illiterates
of our party declared solemn faith. If one dreamt of blood, he would
surely see blood the next day. Another lucky sign for a hunter was to
dream of quarreling with a woman, for that meant a she-bear; it was
favorable to dream of clear water, but muddy water meant trouble.
The wind died away. When we went out for a last observation of the
weather we found the air so clear that the lights of Knoxville were
plainly visible, in the north-north west, thirty-two miles in an air
line. Not another light was to be seen on earth, although in some
directions we could scan for nearly a hundred miles. The moon shone
brightly. Things looked rather favorable for the morrow, after all.
* * * * *
"Brek-k-k-_fust_!"
I awoke to a knowledge that somebody had built a roaring fire and was
stirring about. Between the cabin logs one looked out upon a starry sky
and an almost pitch-dark world. What did that pottering vagabond mean by
arousing us in the middle of the night? But I was hungry. Everybody half
arose on elbows and blinked about. Then we got up, each after his
fashion, except one scamp who resumed snoring.
"Whar's that brekfust you're yellin' about?"
"Hit's for you-uns to help _git_! I knowed I couldn't roust ye no other
way. Here, you, go down to the spring and fetch water. Rustle out, boys;
we've got to git a soon start if you want bear brains an' liver for
supper."
The "soon start" tickled me into good humor.
Our dogs were curled together under the long bunk, having popped indoors
as soon as the way was opened. Somebody trod on Coaly's tail. Coaly
snapped Dred. Instantly there was action between the four. It is
interesting to observe what two or three hundred pounds of dog can do to
a ramshackle berth with a man on top of it. Poles and hay and ragged
quilts flew in every direction. Sleepy Matt went down in the midst of
the melee, swearing valiantly. I went out and hammered ice out of the
wash-basin while Granville and John quelled the riot. Presently our
frying-pans sputtered and the huge coffee-pot began to get up steam.
"Waal, who dreamt him a good dream?"
"I did," affirmed the writer. "I dreamt that I had an old colored woman
by the throat and was choking dollars out of her mouth----"
"Good la!" exclaimed four men in chorus; "you hadn't orter a-told."
"Why? Wasn't that a lovely dream?"
"Hit means a she-bear, shore as a cap-shootin' gun; but you've done
spiled it all by tellin'. Mebbe somebody'll git her to-day, but _you_
won't--your chanct is ruined."
So the reader will understand why, in this veracious narrative, I cannot
relate any heroic exploits of my own in battling with Ursus Major. And
so you, ambitious one, when you go into the Smokies after that long-lost
bear, remember these two cardinal points of the Law:
(1) Dream that you are fighting some poor old colored woman. (That
is easy: the victuals you get will fix up your dream, all right.)
And--
(2) Keep your mouth shut about it.
There was still no sign of rose-color in the eastern sky when we sallied
forth. The ground, to use a mountaineer's expression, was "all spewed up
with frost." Rime crackled underfoot and our mustaches soon stiffened in
the icy wind.
It was settled that Little John Cable and the hunchback Cope should take
the dogs far down into Bone Valley and start the drive, leaving
Granville, "Doc," Matt, and myself to picket the mountain. I was given a
stand about half a mile east of the cabin, and had but a vague notion of
where the others went.
By jinks, it was cold! I built a little fire between the buttressing
roots of a big mountain oak, but still my toes and fingers were numb.
This was the 25th of November, and we were at an altitude where
sometimes frost forms in July. The other men were more thinly clad than
I, and with not a stitch of wool beyond their stockings; but they seemed
to revel in the keen air. I wasted some pity on Cope, who had no
underwear worthy of the name; but afterwards I learned that he would not
have worn more clothes if they had been given him. Many a night my
companions had slept out on the mountain without blanket or shelter,
when the ground froze and every twig in the forest was coated with rime
from the winter fog.
Away out yonder beyond the mighty bulk of Clingman Dome, which, black
with spruce and balsam, looked like a vast bear rising to contemplate
the northern world, there streaked the first faint, nebulous hint of
dawn. Presently the big bear's head was tipped with a golden crown
flashing against the scarlet fires of the firmament, and the earth
awoke.
A rustling some hundred yards below me gave signal that the gray
squirrels were on their way to water. Out of a tree overhead hopped a
mountain "boomer" (red squirrel), and down he came, eyed me, and
stopped. Cocking his head to one side he challenged peremptorily: "Who
are you? Stump? Stump? Not a stump. What the deuce!"
I moved my hand.
"Lawk--the booger-man! Run, run, run!"
Somewhere from the sky came a strange, half-human note, as of someone
chiding: "_Wal_-lace, _Wal_-lace, _Wat_!" I could get no view for the
trees. Then the voice flexibly changed to a deep-toned "Co-_logne_,
Co-_logne_, Co-_logne_," that rang like a bell through the forest
aisles.
Two names uttered distinctly from the air! Two scenes conjured in a
breath, vivid but unrelated as in dreams: Wallace--an iron-bound
Scottish coast; Cologne--tall spires, and cliffs along the Rhine! What
magic had flashed such pictures upon a remote summit of the Smoky
Mountains?
The weird speaker sailed into view--a raven. Forward it swept with great
speed of ebon wings, fairly within gunshot for one teasing moment. Then,
as if to mock my gaping stupor, it hurtled like a hawk far into the safe
distance, whence it flung back loud screams of defiance and chuckles of
derision.
As the morning drew on, I let the fire die to ashes and basked lazily in
the sun. Not a sound had I heard from the dogs. My hoodoo was working
malignly. Well, let it work. I was comfortable now, and that old bear
could go to any other doom she preferred. It was pleasant enough to
lie here alone in the forest and be free! Aye, it was good to be alive,
and to be far, far away from the broken bottles and old tin cans of
civilization.
[Illustration: "By and by up they came, carrying the Bear on a trimmed
sapling"]
For many a league to the southward clouds covered all the valleys in
billows of white, from which rose a hundred mountain tops, like islands
in a tropic ocean. My fancy sailed among and beyond them, beyond the
horizon's rim, even unto those far seas that I had sailed in my youth,
to the old times and the old friends that I should never see again.
But a forenoon is long-drawn-out when one has breakfasted before dawn,
and has nothing to do but sit motionless in the woods and watch and
listen. I got to fingering my rifle trigger impatiently and wishing that
a wild Thanksgiving gobbler might blunder into view. Squirrels made
ceaseless chatter all around my stand. Large hawks shrilled by me within
tempting range, whistling like spent bullets. A groundhog sat up on a
log and whistled, too, after a manner of his own. He was so near that I
could see his nose wiggle. A skunk waddled around for twenty minutes,
and once came so close that I thought he would nibble my boot. I was
among old mossy beeches, scaled with polyphori, and twisted into
postures of torture by their battles with the storms. Below, among
chestnuts and birches, I could hear the _t-wee, t-wee_ of "joree-birds"
(towhees), which winter in the valleys. Incessantly came the
_chip-chip-cluck_ of ground squirrels, the saucy bark of the grays, and
great chirruping among the "boomers," which had ceased swearing and were
hard at work.
Far off on my left a rifle cracked. I pricked up and listened intently,
but there was never a yelp from a dog. Since it is a law of the chase to
fire at nothing smaller than turkeys, lest big game be scared away, this
shot might mean a gobbler. I knew that Matt Hyde could not, to save his
soul, sit ten minutes on a stand without calling turkeys (and he _could_
call them, with his unassisted mouth, better than anyone I ever heard
perform with leaf or wing-bone or any other contrivance).
Thus the slow hours dragged along. I yearned mightily to stretch my
legs. Finally, being certain that no drive would approach my stand that
day, I ambled back to the hut and did a turn at dinner-getting. Things
were smoking, and smelt good, by the time four of our men turned up, all
of them dog-tired and disappointed, but stoical.
"That pup Coaly chased off atter a wildcat," blurted John. "We held the
old dogs together and let him rip. Then Dred started a deer. It was that
old buck that everybody's shot at, and missed, this three year back. I'd
believe he's a hant if 't wasn't for his tracks--they're the biggest I
ever seen. He must weigh two hunderd and fifty. But he's a foxy cuss.
Tuk right down the bed o' Desolation, up the left prong of Roaring Fork,
right through the Devil's Race-path (how a deer can git through thar I
don't see!), crossed at the Meadow Gap, went down Eagle Creek, and by
now he's in the Little Tennessee. That buck, shorely to God, has wings!"
We were at table in the Carolina room when Matt Hyde appeared. Sure
enough, he bore a turkey hen.
"I was callin' a gobbler when this fool thing showed up. I fired a shoot
as she riz in the air, but only bruk her wing. She made off on her legs
like the devil whoppin' out fire. I run, an' she run. Guess I run her
half a mile through all-fired thickets. She piped '_Quit--quit_,' but I
said, 'I'll see you in hell afore I quit!' and the chase resumed.
Finally I knocked her over with a birch stob, and here we are."
Matt ruefully surveyed his almost denuded legs, evidence of his chase.
"Boys," said he, "I'm nigh breechless!"
* * * * *
None but native-born mountaineers could have stood the strain of another
drive that day, for the country that Cope and Cable had been through was
fearful, especially the laurel up Roaring Fork and Killpeter Ridge. But
the stamina of these "withey" little men was even more remarkable than
their endurance of cold. After a small slice of fried pork, a chunk of
half-baked johnny-cake, and a pint or so of coffee, they were as fresh
as ever.
What soldiers these fellows would make, under leadership of some
backwoods Napoleon who could hold them together!--some man like Daniel
Morgan of the Revolution, who was one of them, yet greater!
I had made the coffee strong, and it was good stuff that I had brought
from home. After his first deep draught, Little John exclaimed:
"Hah! boys, that coffee hits whar ye hold it!"
I thought that a neat compliment from a sharpshooter.
We took new stands; but the afternoon passed without incident to those
of us on the mountain tops. I returned to camp about five o'clock, and
was surprised to see three of our men lugging across the "gant-lot"[3]
toward the cabin a small female bear.
"Hyur's yer old nigger woman," shouted John.
The hunters showed no elation--in fact, they looked sheepish--and I
suspected a nigger in the woodpile.
"How's this? I didn't hear any drive."
"There wa'n't none."
"Then where did you get your bear?"
"In one of Wit Hensley's traps, dum him! Boys, I wish t' we _hed_
roasted the temper outen them trap-springs, like we talked o' doin'."
"Was the bear alive?"
"Live as a hot coal. See the pup's head!"
I examined Coaly, who looked sick. The flesh was torn from his lower jaw
and hung down a couple of inches. Two holes in the top of his head
showed where the bear's tusks had tried to crack his skull.
"When the other dogs found her, he rushed right in. She hadn't been
trapped more'n a few hours, and she larned Coaly somethin' about the
bear business."
"Won't this spoil him for hunting hereafter?"
"Not if he has his daddy's and mammy's grit. We'll know by to-morrow
whether he's a shore-enough bear dog; for I've larned now whar they're
crossin'--seed sign a-plenty and it's spang fraish. Coaly, old boy!
you-uns won't be so feisty and brigaty after this, will ye!"
"John, what do those two words mean?"
"_Good_ la! whar was you fotch up? Them's common. They mean nigh about
the same thing, only there's a differ. When I say that Doc Jones thar is
brigaty among women-folks, hit means that he's stuck on hisself and
wants to show off----"
"And John Cable's sulkin' around with his nose out o' jint," interjected
"Doc."
"Feisty," proceeded the interpreter, "feisty means when a feller's
allers wigglin' about, wantin' ever'body to see him, like a kid when the
preacher comes. You know a feist is one o' them little bitty dogs that
ginerally runs on three legs and pretends a whole lot."
All of us were indignant at the setter of the trap. It had been hidden
in a trail, with no sign to warn a man from stepping into it. In
Tennessee, I was told, it is a penitentiary offense to set out a bear
trap. We agreed that a similar law ought to be passed as soon as
possible in North Carolina.
"It's only two years ago," said Granville to me, "that Jasper
Millington, an old man living on the Tennessee side, started acrost the
mountain to get work at the Everett mine, where you live. Not fur from
where we are now, he stepped into a bear trap that was hid in the
leaves, like this one. It broke his leg, and he starved to death in it."
Despite our indignation meeting, it was decided to carry the trapped
bear's hide to Hensley, and for us to use only the meat as recompense
for trouble, to say nothing of risk to life and limb. Such is the
mountaineers' regard for property rights!
The animal we had ingloriously won was undersized, weighing scant 175
pounds. The average weight of Smoky Mountain bears is not great, but
occasionally a very large beast is killed. Matt Hyde told us that he
killed one on the Welch Divide in 1901, the meat of which, dressed,
without the hide, weighed 434 pounds, and the hide "squared eight feet"
when stretched for drying. "Doc" Jones killed a bear that was "kivered
with fat, five inches thick."
Afterwards I took pains to ask the most famous bear hunters of our
region what were the largest bears they had personally killed. Uncle
Jimmy Crawford, of the Balsam Mountains, estimated his largest at 500
pounds gross, and the hide of another that he had killed weighed forty
pounds after three days' drying. Quill Rose, of Eagle Creek, said that,
after stripping the hide from one of his bears, he took the fresh skin
by the ears and raised it as high as he could reach above his head, and
that four inches of the butt end of the hide (not legs) trailed on the
ground. "And," he added severely, "thar's no lie about it." Quill is six
feet one and one-half inches tall. Black Bill Walker, of the middle
prong of Little River (Tennessee side), told me "The biggest one I ever
saw killed had a hide that measured ten feet from nose to rump,
stretched for drying. The biggest I ever killed myself measured nine and
a half feet, same way, and weighed a good four hundred net, which,
allowin' for hide, blood, and entrails, would run full five hunderd live
weight."
[Illustration: Skinning a frozen bear]
Within the past two years two bears of about 500 pounds each have been
killed in Swain and Graham counties, the Cables getting one of them.
The veteran hunters that I have named have killed their hundreds of
bears and are men superior to silly exaggeration. In the Smoky Mountains
the black bear, like most of the trees, attains its fullest development,
and that it occasionally reaches a weight of 500 pounds when "hog fat"
is beyond reasonable doubt, though the average would not be more than
half that weight.
* * * * *
We spent the evening in debate as to where the next drive should be
made. Some favored moving six miles eastward, to the old mining shack at
Siler's Meadow, and trying the headwaters of Forney's Creek, around Rip
Shin Thicket and the Gunstick Laurel, driving towards Clingman Dome and
over into the bleak gulf, southwest of the Sugarland Mountains, that I
had named Godforsaken--a title that stuck. We knew there were bears in
that region, though it was a desperately rough country to hunt in.
But John and the hunchback had found "sign" in the opposite direction.
Bears were crossing from Little River in the neighborhood of Thunderhead
and Briar Knob, coming up just west of the Devil's Court House and
"using" around Block House, Woolly Ridge, Bear Pen, and thereabouts.
The motion carried, and we adjourned to bed.
We breakfasted on bear meat, the remains of our Thanksgiving turkey, and
wheat bread shortened with bear's grease until it was light as a
feather; and I made tea. It was the first time that Little John ever saw
"store tea." He swallowed some of it as if it had been boneset, under
the impression that it was some sort of "yerb" that would be good for
his insides. Without praising its flavor, he asked what it had cost,
and, when I told him "a dollar a pound," reckoned that it was "rich
man's medicine"; said he preferred dittany or sassafras or goldenrod.
"Doc" Jones opined that it "looked yaller," and he even affirmed that it
"tasted yaller."
"Waal, people," exclaimed Matt, "I 'low I've done growed a bit, atter
that mess o' meat. Le's be movin'."
It was a hard pull for me, climbing up the rocky approach to Briar Knob.
This was my first trip to the main divide, and my heart was not yet used
to mountain climbing.
The boys were anxious for me to get a shot. I was paying them nothing;
it was share-and-share alike; but their neighborly kindness moved them
to do their best for the outlander.
So they put me on what was probably the best stand for the day. It was
above the Fire-scald, a brule or burnt-over space on the steep southern
side of the ridge between Briar Knob and Laurel Top, overlooking the
grisly slope of Killpeter. Here I could both see and hear an uncommonly
long distance, and if the bear went either east or west I would have
timely warning.
This Fire-scald, by the way, is a famous place for wildcats. Once in a
blue moon a lynx is killed in the highest zone of the Smokies, up among
the balsams and spruces, where both the flora and fauna, as well as the
climate, resemble those of the Canadian woods. Our native hunters never
heard the word lynx, but call the animal a "catamount." Wolves and
panthers used to be common here, but it is a long time since either has
been killed in this region, albeit impressionable people see wolf tracks
or hear a "pant'er" scream every now and then.
I had shivered on the mountain top for a couple of hours, hearing only
an occasional yelp from the dogs, which had been working in the thickets
a mile or so below me, when suddenly there burst forth the devil of a
racket.
On came the chase, right in my direction. Presently I could distinguish
the different notes: the deep bellow of old Dred, the hound-like baying
of Rock and Coaly, and little Towse's feisty yelp.
I thought that the bear might chance the comparatively open space of the
Fire-scald, because there were still some ashes on the ground that would
dust the dogs' nostrils and throw them off the scent. And such, I
believe, was his intention. But the dogs caught up with him. They nipped
him fore and aft. Time after time he shook them off; but they were true
bear dogs, and, like Matt Hyde after the turkey, they knew no such word
as quit.
I took a last squint at my rifle sights, made sure there was a cartridge
in the chamber, and then felt my ears grow as I listened. Suddenly the
chase swerved at a right angle and took straight up the side of
Saddle-back. Either the bear would tree, or he would try to smash on
through to the low rhododendron of the Devil's Court House, where dogs
who followed might break their legs. I girded myself and ran, "wiggling
and wingling" along the main divide, and then came the steep pull up
Briar Knob. As I was grading around the summit with all the lope that
was left in me, I heard a rifle crack, half a mile down Saddle-back. Old
"Doc" was somewhere in that vicinity. I halted to listen. Creation,
what a rumpus! Then another shot. Then the warwhoop of the South, that
we read about.
By and by, up they came, John and Cope and "Doc," two at a time,
carrying the bear on a trimmed sapling. Presently Hyde joined us, then
came Granville, and we filed back to camp, where "Doc" told his story:
"Boys, them dogs' eyes shined like new money. Coaly fit agin, all right,
and got his tail bit. The bear div down into a sink-hole with the dogs
a-top o' him. Soon's I could shoot without hittin' a dog, I let him have
it. Thought I'd shot him through the head, but he fit on. Then I jumped
down into the sink and kicked him loose from the dogs, or he'd a-killed
Coaly. Waal, sir, he wa'n't hurt a bit--the ball jest glanced off his
head. He riz an' knocked me down with his left paw, an' walked right
over me, an' lit up the ridge. The dogs treed him in a minute. I went to
shoot up at him, but my new hulls [cartridges] fit loose in this old
chamber and this one drap [dropped] out, so the gun stuck. Had to git my
knife out and fix hit. Then the dad-burned gun wouldn't stand roostered
[cocked]; the feather-spring had jumped out o' place. But I held back
with my thumb, and killed him anyhow.
"Fellers," he added feelingly, "I wish t' my legs growed
hind-side-fust."
"_What_ fer?"
"So 's 't I wouldn't bark my shins!"
"Bears," remarked John, "is all left-handed. Ever note that? Hit's the
left paw you wanter look out fer. He'd a-knocked somethin' out o' yer
head if there'd been much in it, Doc."
"Funny thing, but hit's true," declared Bill, "that a bear allers dies
flat on his back, onless he's trapped."
"So do men," said "Doc" grimly; "men who've been shot in battle. You go
along a battlefield, right atter the action, and you'll find most o' the
dead faces pintin' to the sky."
"Bears is almost human, anyhow. A skinned bear looks like a great
big-bodied man with long arms and stumpy legs."
I did not relish this turn of the conversation, for we had two bears to
skin immediately. The one that had been hung up over night was frozen
solid, so I photographed her standing on her legs, as in life. When it
came to skinning this beast the job was a mean one; a fellow had to drop
out now and then to warm his fingers.
The mountaineers have an odd way of sharing the spoils of the chase.
They call it "stoking the meat," a use of the word _stoke_ that I have
never heard elsewhere. The hide is sold, and the proceeds divided
equally among the hunters, but the meat is cut up into as many pieces as
there are partners in the chase; then one man goes indoors or behind a
tree, and somebody at the carcass, laying his hand on a portion, calls
out: "Whose piece is this?"
"Granville Calhoun's," cries the hidden man, who cannot see it.
"Whose is this?"
"Bill Cope's."
And so on down the line. Everybody gets what chance determines for him,
and there can be no charges of unfairness.
* * * * *
It turned very cold that night. The last thing I heard was Matt Hyde
protesting to the hunchback:
"Durn you, Bill Cope, you're so cussed crooked a man cain't lay cluss
enough to you to keep warm!"
Once when I awoke in the night the beech trees were cracking like
rifle-shots from the intense frost.
Next morning John announced that we were going to get another bear.
"Night afore last," he said, "Bill dremp that he seed a lot o' fat meat
layin' on the table; an' it done come true. Last night I dremp me one
that never was knowed to fail yet. Now you see!"
It did not look like it by evening. We all worked hard and endured
much--standers as well as drivers--but not a rifle had spoken up to the
time when, from my far-off stand, I yearned for a hot supper.
Away down in the rear I heard the snort of a locomotive, one of those
cog-wheel affairs that are specially built for mountain climbing. With a
steam-loader and three camps of a hundred men each, it was despoiling
the Tennessee forest. Slowly, but inexorably, a leviathan was crawling
into the wilderness and was soon to consume it.
[Illustration: "....Powerful steep and Laurely...."]
"All this," I apostrophized, "shall be swept away, tree and plant, beast
and fish. Fire will blacken the earth; flood will swallow and spew forth
the soil. The simple-hearted native men and women will scatter and
disappear. In their stead will come slaves speaking strange tongues, to
toil in the darkness under the rocks. Soot will arise, and foul gases;
the streams will run murky death. Let me not see it! No; I will
"'... Get me to some far-off land
Where higher mountains under heaven stand ...
Where other thunders roll amid the hills,
Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills
With other strains through other-shapen boughs.'"
Wearily I plodded back to camp. No one had arrived but "Doc." The old
man had been thumped rather severely in yesterday's scrimmage, but
complained only of "a touch o' rheumatiz." Just how this disease had
left his clothes in tatters he did not explain.
It was late when Matt and Granville came in. The crimson and yellow of
sunset had turned to a faultless turquoise, and this to a violet
afterglow; then suddenly night rose from the valleys and enveloped us.
About nine o'clock I went out on the Little Chestnut Bald and fired
signals, but there was no answer. The last we had known of the drivers
was that they had been beyond Thunderhead, six miles of hard travel to
the westward. There was fog on the mountain. We did some uneasy
speculating. Then Granville and Matt took the lantern and set out for
Briar Knob. "Doc" was too stiff for travel, and I, being at that time a
stranger in the Smokies, would be of no use hunting amid clouds and
darkness. "Doc" and I passed a dreary three hours. Finally, at midnight,
my shots were answered, and soon the dogs came limping in. Dred had been
severely bitten in the shoulders and Rock in the head. Coaly was bloody
about the mouth, where his first day's wound had reopened. Then came the
four men, empty-handed, it seemed, until John slapped a bear's "melt"
(spleen) upon the table. He limped from a bruised hip.
"That bear outsharped us and went around all o' you-uns. We follered him
clar over to the Spencer Place, and then he doubled and come back on the
fur side o' the ridge. He crossed through the laurel on the Devil's
Court House and tuk down an almighty steep place. It was plumb night by
that time. I fell over a rock clift twenty feet down, and if 't hadn't
been for the laurel I'd a-bruk some bones. I landed right in the middle
of them, bear and dogs, fightin' like gamecocks. The bear clim a tree.
Bill sung out 'Is it fur down thar?' and I said 'Purty fur.' 'Waal, I'm
a-comin',' says he; and with that he grabbed a laurel to swing hisself
down by, but the stem bruk, and down he come suddent, to jine the music.
Hit was so dark I couldn't see my gun barrel, and we wuz all tangled up
in greenbriers as thick as ploughlines. I had to fire twiste afore he
tumbled. Then Matt an' Granville come. The four of us tuk turn-about
crawlin' up out o' thar with the bear on our back. Only one man could
handle him at a time--and he'll go a good two hunderd, that bear. We
gutted him, and left him near the top, to fotch in the mornin'. Fellers,
I'm bodaciously tired out. This is the time I'd give half what I'm worth
for a gallon o' liquor--and I'd promise the rest!"
"You'd orter see what Coaly did to that varmint," said Bill. "He bit a
hole under the fore leg, through hide and ha'r, clar into the holler, so
t' you can stick your hand in and seize the bear's heart."
"John, what was that dream of yours?"
"I dremp I stole a feller's overcoat. Now d'ye see? That means a bear's
hide."
Coaly, three days ago, had been an inconsequential pup; but now he
looked up into my eyes with the calm dignity that no fool or braggart
can assume. He had been knighted. As he licked his wounds he was proud
of them. "Scars of battle, sir. You may have your swagger ribbons and
prize collars in the New York dog show, but _this_ for me!"
Poor Coaly! after two more years of valiant service, he was to meet an
evil fortune. In connection with it I will relate a queer coincidence:
Two years after this hunt, a friend and I spent three summer months in
this same old cabin on top of Smoky. When Andy had to return North he
left with me, for sale, a .30-30 carbine, as he had more guns than he
needed. I showed this carbine to Quill Rose, and the old hunter said: "I
don't like them power-guns; you could shoot clar through a bear and kill
your dog on the other side." The next day I sold the weapon to Granville
Calhoun. Within a short time, word came from Granville's father that
"Old Reelfoot" was despoiling his orchard. This Reelfoot was a large
bear whose cunning had defied our best hunters for five or six years. He
got his name from the fact that he "reeled" or twisted his hind feet in
walking, as some horses do, leaving a peculiar track. This seems rather
common among old bears, for I have known of several "reelfoots" in
other, and widely separated, regions.
Cable and his dogs were sent for. A drive was made, and the bear was
actually caught within a few rods of old Mr. Calhoun's stable. His teeth
were worn to the gums, and, as he could no longer kill hogs, he had come
down to an apple diet. He was large-framed, but very poor. The only
hunters on the spot were Granville, with the .30-30, and a northern
lumberman named Hastings, with a Luger carbine. After two or three shots
had wounded the bear, he rose on his hind feet and made for Granville. A
.30-30 bullet went clear through the beast at the very instant that
Coaly, who was unseen, jumped up on the log behind it, and the missile
gave both animals their death wound.