In this selection there are found many of the
characteristics which have made President Roosevelt so
popular. Here one notes that love of all that is natural and
elemental, the open-air effect, and the healthy tastes of
the normal man. The style in which the President narrates
his adventures in the West is also eminently in keeping with
his frank, open, and unaffected nature. He writes both with
enthusiasm and with an utter lack of self-consciousness. His
diction is simple; his sentences are short, forcible, and
vividly descriptive.
They rouse in the reader that same love of adventurous sport
which animates Mr. Roosevelt himself and which gives so keen
a zest to his reminiscences of what he has experienced in
the exciting pursuit of big game. The paragraph in which the
killing of the bear is told is very striking in its command
of expressive phrases.
="Scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips; his eyes
burned like embers in the gloom.... Instantly the great bear
turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the
bloody foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his
white fangs."=
Here are two sentences which alone would show their author
to be an unconscious artist in words; and the same qualities
of style are to be found in his other books of
adventure--"Ranch Life" and "The Rough Riders"--as well as
in the more formal but not less spirited historical
narratives, his "Naval War of 1812" and "The Winning of the
West." Taken together, they admirably illustrate the
President's versatility.
_Reprinted, by permission of Messrs. G.P. Putnam's Sons,
from "Hunting the Grizzly," by Theodore
Roosevelt--Copyright, 1893._
I spent much of the fall of 1889 hunting on the head-waters of the Salmon
and Snake in Idaho, and along the Montana boundary line from the Bighorn
Basin and the head of the Wisdom River to the neighborhood of Red Rock
Pass and to the north and west of Henry's Lake. During the last fortnight
my companion was the old mountain man, already mentioned, named Griffeth
or Griffin--I cannot tell which, as he was always called either "Hank" or
"Griff." He was a crabbedly honest old fellow, and a very skilful hunter;
but he was worn out with age and rheumatism, and his temper had failed
even faster than his bodily strength. He showed me a greater variety of
game than I had ever seen before in so short a time; nor did I ever before
or after make so successful a hunt. But he was an exceedingly
disagreeable companion on account of his surly, moody ways. I generally
had to get up first, to kindle the fire and make ready breakfast, and he
was very quarrelsome. Finally, during my absence from camp one day, while
not very far from Red Rock Pass, he found my whisky-flask, which I kept
purely for emergencies, and drank all the contents. When I came back he
was quite drunk. This was unbearable, and after some high words I left
him, and struck off homeward through the woods on my own account. We had
with us four pack and saddle horses; and of these I took a very
intelligent and gentle little bronco mare, which possessed the invaluable
trait of always staying near camp, even when not hobbled. I was not
hampered with much of an outfit, having only my buffalo sleeping-bag, a
fur coat, and my washing kit, with a couple of spare pairs of socks and
some handkerchiefs. A frying-pan, some salt, flour, baking-powder, a small
chunk of salt pork, and a hatchet, made up a light pack, which, with the
bedding, I fastened across the stock saddle by means of a rope and a spare
packing cinch. My cartridges and knife were in my belt; my compass and
matches, as always, in my pocket. I walked, while the little mare followed
almost like a dog, often without my having to hold the lariat which served
as halter.
The country was for the most part fairly open, as I kept near the
foot-hills where glades and little prairies broke the pine forest. The
trees were of small size. There was no regular trail, but the course was
easy to keep, and I had no trouble of any kind save on the second day.
That afternoon I was following a stream which at last "canoned up," that
is, sank to the bottom of a canon-like ravine impassable for a horse. I
started up a side valley, intending to cross from its head coulees to
those of another valley which would lead in below the canon.
However, I got enmeshed in the tangle of winding valleys at the foot of
the steep mountains, and as dusk was coming on I halted and camped in a
little open spot by the side of a small, noisy brook, with crystal water.
The place was carpeted with soft, wet, green moss, dotted red with the
kinnikinic berries, and at its edge, under the trees where the ground was
dry, I threw down the buffalo bed on the mat of sweet-smelling
pine-needles. Making camp took but a moment. I opened the pack, tossed the
bedding on a smooth spot, knee-haltered the little mare, dragged up a few
dry logs, and then strolled off, rifle on shoulder, through the frosty
gloaming, to see if I could pick up a grouse for supper.
For half a mile I walked quickly and silently over the pine-needles,
across a succession of slight ridges, separated by narrow, shallow
valleys. The forest here was composed of lodge-pole pines, which on the
ridges grew close together, with tall slender trunks, while in the valleys
the growth was more open. Though the sun was behind the mountains there
was yet plenty of light by which to shoot, but it was fading rapidly.
At last, as I was thinking of turning toward camp, I stole up to the crest
of one of the ridges, and looked over into the valley some sixty yards
off. Immediately I caught the loom of some large, dark object; and another
glance showed me a big grizzly walking slowly off with his head down. He
was quartering to me, and I fired into his flank, the bullet, as I
afterward found, ranging forward and piercing one lung. At the shot he
uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy gallop, while
I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off. After going a few hundred
feet he reached a laurel thicket, some thirty yards broad, and two or
three times as long, which he did not leave. I ran up to the edge and
there halted, not liking to venture into the mass of twisted,
close-growing stems and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, I heard him
utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from the heart of the brush.
Accordingly, I began to skirt the edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing
earnestly to see if I could not catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was at
the narrowest part of the thicket, he suddenly left it directly opposite,
and then wheeled and stood broadside to me on the hillside, a little
above. He turned his head stiffly toward me; scarlet strings of froth hung
from his lips; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom.
I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point
or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the great bear
turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam
from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs; and then he
charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes,
so that it was hard to aim. I waited until he came to a fallen tree,
raking him as he topped it with a ball, which entered his chest and went
through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved nor flinched, and
at the moment I did not know that I had struck him. He came steadily on,
and in another second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my
bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and going
into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger; and
through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a
vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he
struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle
hit the ground; but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps
onward, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine,
my rifle holding only four, which I had fired. Then he tried to pull up,
but as he did so his muscles seemed to give way, his head drooped, and he
rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of my first three bullets
had inflicted a mortal wound.
It was already twilight, and I merely opened the carcass, and then trotted
back to camp. Next morning I returned and with much labor took off the
skin. The fur was very fine, the animal being in excellent trim, and
unusually bright-colored. Unfortunately, in packing it out I lost the
skull, and had to supply its place with one of plaster. The beauty of the
trophy, and the memory of the circumstances under which I procured it,
make me value it perhaps more highly than any other in my house.
This is the only instance in which I have been regularly charged by a
grizzly. On the whole, the danger of hunting these great bears has been
much exaggerated. At the beginning of the present century, when white
hunters first encountered the grizzly, he was doubtless an exceedingly
savage beast, prone to attack without provocation, and a redoubtable foe
to persons armed with the clumsy small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles of the
day. But at present bitter experience has taught him caution. He has been
hunted for sport, and hunted for his pelt, and hunted for the bounty, and
hunted as a dangerous enemy to stock, until, save in the very wildest
districts, he has learned to be more wary than a deer, and to avoid man's
presence almost as carefully as the most timid kind of game. Except in
rare cases he will not attack of his own accord, and, as a rule, even when
wounded, his object is escape rather than battle.
Still, when fairly brought to bay, or when moved by a sudden fit of
ungovernable anger, the grizzly is beyond peradventure a very dangerous
antagonist. The first shot, if taken at a bear a good distance off and
previously unwounded and unharried, is not usually fraught with much
danger, the startled animal being at the outset bent merely on flight. It
is always hazardous, however, to track a wounded and worried grizzly into
thick cover, and the man who habitually follows and kills this chief of
American game in dense timber, never abandoning the bloody trail
whithersoever it leads, must show no small degree of skill and hardihood,
and must not too closely count the risk to life or limb. Bears differ
widely in temper, and occasionally one may be found who will not show
fight, no matter how much he is bullied; but, as a rule, a hunter must be
cautious in meddling with a wounded animal which has retreated into a
dense thicket, and has been once or twice roused; and such a beast, when
it does turn, will usually charge again and again, and fight to the last
with unconquerable ferocity. The short distance at which the bear can be
seen through the underbrush, the fury of his charge, and his tenacity of
life make it necessary for the hunter on such occasions to have steady
nerves and a fairly quick and accurate aim.
It is always well to have two men in following a wounded bear under such
conditions. This is not necessary, however, and a good hunter, rather than
lose his quarry, will, under ordinary circumstances, follow and attack it,
no matter how tangled the fastness in which it has sought refuge; but he
must act warily and with the utmost caution and resolution, if he wishes
to escape a terrible and probably fatal mauling. An experienced hunter is
rarely rash, and never heedless; he will not, when alone, follow a wounded
bear into a thicket, if by the exercise of patience, skill, and knowledge
of the game's habits he can avoid the necessity; but it is idle to talk of
the feat as something which ought in no case to be attempted.
While danger ought never to be needlessly incurred, it is yet true that
the keenest zest in sport comes from its presence, and from the consequent
exercise of the qualities necessary to overcome it. The most thrilling
moments of an American hunter's life are those in which, with every sense
on the alert, and with nerves strung to the highest point, he is following
alone into the heart of its forest fastness the fresh and bloody
footprints of an angered grizzly; and no other triumph of American hunting
can compare with the victory to be thus gained.
These big bears will not ordinarily charge from a distance of over a
hundred yards; but there are exceptions to this rule. In the fall of 1890
my friend Archibald Rogers was hunting in Wyoming, south of the
Yellowstone Park, and killed seven bears. One, an old he, was out on a
bare table-land, grubbing for roots, when he was spied. It was early in
the afternoon, and the hunters, who were on a high mountain slope,
examined him for some time through their powerful glasses before making
him out to be a bear. They then stalked up to the edge of the wood which
fringed the table-land on one side, but could get no nearer than about
three hundred yards, the plains being barren of all cover. After waiting
for a couple of hours Rogers risked the shot, in despair of getting
nearer, and wounded the bear, though not very seriously. The animal made
off, almost broadside to, and Rogers ran forward to intercept it. As soon
as it saw him it turned and rushed straight for him, not heeding his
second shot, and evidently bent on charging home. Rogers then waited until
it was within twenty yards, and brained it with his third bullet.
In fact bears differ individually in courage and ferocity precisely as men
do, or as the Spanish bulls, of which it is said that not more than one in
twenty is fit to stand the combat of the arena. One grizzly can scarcely
be bullied into resistance; the next may fight to the end, against any
odds, without flinching, or even attack unprovoked. Hence men of limited
experience in this sport, generalizing from the actions of the two or
three bears each has happened to see or kill, often reach diametrically
opposite conclusions as to the fighting temper and capacity of the quarry.
Even old hunters--who indeed, as a class, are very narrow-minded and
opinionated--often generalize just as rashly as beginners. One will
portray all bears as very dangerous; another will speak and act as if he
deemed them of no more consequence than so many rabbits.
I knew one old hunter who had killed a score without ever seeing one show
fight. On the other hand, Dr. James C. Merrill, U.S.A., who has had about
as much experience with bears as I have had, informs me that he has been
charged with the utmost determination three times. In each case the attack
was delivered before the bear was wounded or even shot at, the animal
being roused by the approach of the hunters from his day bed, and charging
headlong at them from a distance of twenty or thirty paces. All three
bears were killed before they could do any damage.
There was a very remarkable incident connected with the killing of one of
them. It occurred in the northern spurs of the Bighorn range. Dr. Merrill,
in company with an old hunter, had climbed down into a deep, narrow canon.
The bottom was threaded with well-beaten elk trails. While following one
of these the two men turned a corner of the canon and were instantly
charged by an old she-grizzly, so close that it was only by good luck that
one of the hurried shots disabled her and caused her to tumble over a cut
bank where she was easily finished. They found that she had been lying
directly across the game trail, on a smooth, well-beaten patch of bare
earth, which looked as if it had been dug up, refilled, and trampled down.
Looking curiously at this patch they saw a bit of hide only partially
covered at one end; digging down they found the body of a well-grown
grizzly cub. Its skull had been crushed, and the brains licked out, and
there were signs of other injuries. The hunters pondered long over this
strange discovery, and hazarded many guesses as to its meaning. At last
they decided that probably the cub had been killed, and its brains eaten
out, either by some old male grizzly or by a cougar, that the mother had
returned and driven away the murderer, and that she had then buried the
body and lain above it, waiting to wreak her vengeance on the first
passer-by.
Old Tazewell Woody, during his thirty years' life as a hunter in the
Rockies and on the great plains, killed very many grizzlies. He always
exercised much caution in dealing with them; and, as it happened, he was
by some suitable tree in almost every case when he was charged. He would
accordingly climb the tree (a practise of which I do not approve,
however), and the bear would look up at him and pass on without stopping.
Once, when he was hunting in the mountains with a companion, the latter,
who was down in a valley, while Woody was on the hillside, shot at a bear.
The first thing Woody knew the wounded grizzly, running up-hill, was
almost on him from behind. As he turned it seized his rifle in its jaws.
He wrenched the rifle round, while the bear still gripped it, and pulled
trigger, sending a bullet into its shoulder; whereupon it struck him with
its paw, and knocked him over the rocks. By good luck he fell in a
snow-bank and was not hurt in the least. Meanwhile the bear went on and
they never got it.
Once he had an experience with a bear which showed a very curious mixture
of rashness and cowardice. He and a companion were camped in a little
teepee or wigwam, with a bright fire in front of it, lighting up the
night. There was an inch of snow on the ground. Just after they went to
bed a grizzly came close to camp. Their dog rushed out and they could hear
it bark round in the darkness for nearly an hour; then the bear drove it
off and came right into camp. It went close to the fire, picking up the
scraps of meat and bread, pulled a haunch of venison down from a tree, and
passed and repassed in front of the teepee, paying no heed whatever to the
two men, who crouched in the doorway talking to one another. Once it
passed so close that Woody could almost have touched it. Finally his
companion fired into it, and off it ran, badly wounded, without any
attempt at retaliation. The next morning they followed its tracks in the
snow, and finally found it a quarter of a mile away. It was near a
pine-tree, and had buried itself under the loose earth, pine-needles, and
snow; Woody's companion almost walked over it, and putting his rifle to
its ear blew out its brains.
In all his experience Woody had personally seen but four men who were
badly mauled by bears. Three of these were merely wounded. One was bitten
terribly in the back. Another had an arm partially chewed off. The third
was a man named George Dow, and the accident happened to him on the
Yellowstone about the year 1878. He was with a pack animal at the time,
leading it on a trail through a wood. Seeing a big she-bear with cubs he
yelled at her; whereat she ran away, but only to cache her cubs, and in a
minute, having hidden them, came racing back at him. His pack animal being
slow, he started to climb a tree; but before he could get far enough up
she caught him, almost biting a piece out of the calf of his leg, pulled
him down, bit and cuffed him two or three times, and then went on her way.
The only time Woody ever saw a man killed by a bear was once when he had
given a touch of variety to his life by shipping on a New Bedford whaler
which had touched at one of the Puget Sound ports. The whaler went up to a
part of Alaska where bears were very plentiful and bold. One day a couple
of boats' crews landed; and the men, who were armed only with an
occasional harpoon or lance, scattered over the beach, one of them, a
Frenchman, wading into the water after shell-fish. Suddenly a bear emerged
from some bushes and charged among the astonished sailors, who scattered
in every direction; but the bear, said Woody, "just had it in for that
Frenchman," and went straight at him. Shrieking with terror he retreated
up to his neck in the water; but the bear plunged in after him, caught
him, and disemboweled him. One of the Yankee mates then fired a bomb lance
into the bear's hips, and the savage beast hobbled off into the dense
cover of the low scrub, where the enraged sailor-folk were unable to get
at it.
The truth is that while the grizzly generally avoids a battle if possible,
and often acts with great cowardice, it is never safe to take liberties
with him; he usually fights desperately and dies hard when wounded and
cornered, and exceptional individuals take the aggressive on small
provocation.