"When I was a little cub bear, long before I met your mother, and long
before you were born, I lived in a small cave near a store, where
men used to meet and talk about the bears that they had killed, and
mountain lions that they had seen, and all sorts of stories of that
kind. Well, I used to come down in the dark sometimes, and put my ear
up to the crack between the logs, and listen to what the men said.
"One evening, while the men were telling stories, one of them said,
'Did you ever hear of the big grizzly, called Club-Foot?'
"And all the men said that they had heard of Club-Foot, except one of
the men that had not lived there very long. He said that he had never
heard of this grizzly. The men told this newcomer that Club-Foot was
a very large bear, one of the largest that had ever been seen. The
men said that a great many men had tried to kill this giant grizzly,
because he would kill their little pigs and their little calves and
colts. Then, too, they wanted to get his great skin to make a carriage
robe. But they had never been able to get the bear. For even if they
hit him with bullets from their guns, it did not seem to hurt him
much, but made him very angry. This grizzly, instead of running away
from a man with a gun, would run right up to him and knock the gun out
of his hand. No one could kill this bear.
"They said that the bear lived in the San Bernardino Mountains, and
that his great tracks had often been seen, and that all of his toes
were missing from one foot. That was the reason they called him
'Club-Foot.' Probably when he was a little bear he had been caught in a
trap and lost his toes. They said that the bear made regular trips from
Mount San Bernardino to the Antelope Valley, sixty miles away. He had
made the trips so often, that he had made a sort of trail through the
mountains. This trail, the men said, was only a mile or so back of the
store.
"While the men were talking, another man came in and said, 'Old
Club-Foot has started from his den, in the side of Mount San
Bernardino, and is coming this way. He ought to be along here some time
to-night.'
"Then one of the men that they called 'Alex' said, 'It is a fine
moonlight night to-night. Let's all get our guns and go up to the old
grizzly's trail, and see if we can't kill him. There is a pig-pen right
near the trail, with little pigs in it, so that the grizzly will be
sure to stop there long enough for us to shoot him.'
"Then the man that came in last and told about the Club-Foot's coming,
said, 'There are two Irishmen that live a little farther on along the
trail that are going to do the same thing. They are going to watch near
another pig-pen that is farther on, and they think that they will kill
Club-Foot.'
"'Well,' Alex said, 'there will be ten of us with guns of all sorts,
and I think that those Irishmen will never see old Club-Foot, for he
will never get as far as they are. We will have his skin by that time.'
"All the men said, 'We'll do it. It will be lots of fun, and Club-Foot
will not bother the farmer's little pigs and calves, and colts any
more.'
"All the men got their guns and rifles, and some lunch to eat while
they were waiting for old Club-Foot to come along. I was very curious
to see what the men would do and how they would kill the grizzly, and
then, too, I wanted to see a great grizzly bear; so I followed the
men, but I kept so far behind that they did not see me at all. As the
men walked along they talked about how they would kill old Club-Foot,
as they called the great grizzly bear. The men said they thought they
would climb trees, and wait in the tops of them, where they would be
safer, and where the bear could not get at them before they had had a
chance to kill him. Two men, though, said that they were going to stay
on the ground, and that the other men ought not to be afraid and climb
in the tops of the trees; they ought to stay down on the ground and
shoot the bear there, and they laughed at the men who said they were
going to stay up in the trees.
"Finally they came to the path that old Club-Foot usually traveled, and
there was the pig-pen with the little pigs in it. All the men but two
climbed up into the trees, and there they waited. I went around and hid
behind a rock, to see what would happen.
"Very soon there came a great crashing noise, and as I looked up along
the path I saw old Club-Foot coming very fast. He didn't stop for
anything. He went right through the bushes, and jumped over the tops of
the small trees, and as he came out into the moonlight he seemed to be
as big as Jumbo. I waited and thought I would hear the men shooting;
but suddenly I heard the men who were on the ground crying out to the
men who had gone up in the trees, 'Don't shoot; don't shoot. If you
shoot the old Club-Foot and don't kill him, he will surely kill us.'
"And they dropped their guns and ran as fast as they could and
commenced to climb trees. They climbed up a little way, but they were
so frightened, and so hurried, that they would slip back.
"Old Club-Foot came right along, but he didn't notice the men at all,
or pay any attention to them. He went right up to the pig-pen, and he
hit it one blow and knocked it all to pieces. He took up two pigs, one
in each of his two great forepaws, and off he went down the path, and
not one of the men fired a single shot.
"Pretty soon the men came down from the trees, and then they all began
to scold one another. One man said to Alex, 'Why didn't you shoot?'
"'Well,' he said, 'the old Club-Foot looked as big as an elephant, and
I thought if I shot him and didn't kill him, that he would come and
shake the tree down and eat me up.'
"And the other men said that was the reason that they didn't shoot.
Then they said to the brave fellows who stayed on the ground, 'Why
didn't you shoot?'
"'Well,' they said, 'we didn't know the bear was so big.'
"After the men had got nearly home, they sat down and talked it all
over, and one of them said, 'What will you say to the two Irishmen that
were going to kill Club-Foot? You know we thought we would kill him,
and he would never get as far as the Irishmen?'
"And they all agreed that they would not say a thing about it to any
one, but would wait and see what the Irishmen said when they came into
the store the next evening.
"Well, the next evening, I went down and hid behind the house to hear
what the men would say. And sure enough, very soon in came the two
Irishmen. One Irishmen was named Mike, and the other, Pat. The men all
said, 'Hello, Mike,' and 'Hello, Pat.' But no one said anything about
old Club-Foot.
"After a while Alex said, 'Well, Mike, where is the bear skin you were
going to bring us?' For Mike had said that he would have a bear skin
for them that night. 'Didn't you see old Club-Foot?'
"'Yes,' Mike said, 'we saw Club-Foot. He came right by us, and we were
sitting on the roof of the pig-pen. He knocked the pig-pen right out
from under us, and took a little pig and ran off with it.'
"'Well,' Alex said, 'why didn't you shoot him?'
"And Mike said, 'Well--well, we couldn't find our guns.'
"And so that was the way that the ten men didn't kill old Club-Foot.
And it is said that he is still living in the San Bernardino Mountains,
and still goes over the same old trail every year. For some reason, no
one has ever succeeded in getting him."
After Papa Bear had finished the story, little Cub Bear said, "I wish I
were a great big grizzly bear, so that I would not be afraid of a gun."
But the Papa Bear said, "It is always a good thing to be afraid of a
gun, no matter how big you may be."
The little Cub Bear ran off to bed in the dark, and was soon fast
asleep. In his sleep he reached out with his paw and gave a great slap,
then a moment after he reached out again and gave another slap. Can you
guess what he was dreaming about?
The next morning the little Cub Bear woke up very early, and rubbed his
eyes, and wondered if any animal would come that day. He listened and
listened, but he heard nothing.
Suddenly there was a loud "Bang! Bang!" and he knew that some animal
was coming. The little Cub Bear ran to the mouth of the den, where he
could hear a rustling sound. He looked down the path, but could see
nothing. He looked again and this time he looked up among the branches
of the trees, because he thought it might be a bird coming. And what do
you think he saw? Away up among the branches of the trees he could see
an animal's head. He said:
"I see an animal's head moving among the trees. His head has large ears
and very large eyes, and two horns different from any horns I ever saw.
They are blunt on the end, and stick straight up, and seem to have hair
on the end of the horns. I can't see the animal, but I see a long, long
neck, covered with big yellow spots. As the animal comes nearer, I can
see more of his neck. And now I can see his legs and his body. His body
looks something like a horse, only the hind legs are much shorter than
the front legs. If you tried to ride on his back you would slip off
behind, because it is slanting, like a hill, and all covered with those
yellow spots."