Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: BLACK BRUIN'S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH A PANTHER]
BLACK BRUIN
The Biography of a Bear
By
Clarence Hawkes
Author of
Shaggycoat, The Biography of a Beaver
The Trail to the Woods
Tenants of the Trees
The Little Foresters
etc.
Illustrated by
Charles Copeland
Philadelphia
George W. Jacobs & Co.
Publishers
Copyright, 1908, by
GEORGE W. JACOBS AND COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
Printed in U. S. A.
Dedicated to
My illustrator and friend
MR. CHARLES COPELAND
whose clever brush has caught so
perfectly each whim of nature in
field and forest, and called from
hiding the furtive furred and
feathered folk, who come and go
like shadows in the ancient woods.
THE GREAT BEAR OF THE MOUNTAINS
He had stolen the belt of Wampum
From the neck of Mishe-mokwa,
From the Great Bear of the mountains,
From the terror of the nations,
As he lay asleep and cumbrous,
On the summit of the mountains,
Like a rock with mosses on it,
Spotted brown and gray with mosses.
--LONGFELLOW.
CONTENTS
URSUS, THE DROLL. INTRODUCTORY
I. A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
II. THE CHASE
III. A WILDERNESS BABY
IV. THE CUBHOOD OF BLACK BRUIN
V. A ROLLICKING ROGUE
VI. THE LIFE OF A DANCING-BEAR
VII. THE VAGABONDS
VIII. THE BEAST AND THE MAN
IX. LIFE IN THE WILD
X. THE GREAT BEAR-HUNT
XI. A PLEASANT COMPANION
XII. THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN
XIII. THE BEAR WITH A COLLAR
XIV. THE WRECK
ILLUSTRATIONS
Black Bruin's first acquaintance with a panther . . . _Frontispiece_
The bear hurried in hot pursuit
Black Bruin dealt the porcupine a crushing blow
Growler sprang at Black Bruin's throat
He discovered another bear, watching the stream
URSUS, THE DROLL
INTRODUCTORY
With the possible exception of the deer family, the bear is the most
widely disseminated big game, known to hunters.
He makes his home within the Arctic Circle, often living upon the great
ice-floe, or dwells within a tropical jungle, and both climates are
agreeable to him, while longitudinally he has girdled the world.
Of course bruin varies much, according to the climate in which he
lives, and the conditions of his life, but all the way from the poles
to the tropics he retains certain characteristics that always proclaim
him a bear.
He is a plantigrade, walking like a man upon the soles of his feet.
There is more truth than poetry in Kipling's poem, "The Man Who Walks
Like a Bear," for some men do walk like a bear.
Bruin's four-footed gait is a shuffle and a shamble, rather clumsy and
ludicrous, but it takes him over the ground at a surprising pace.
Queer, also, is the fact that the bear combines great dexterity with
his seeming clumsiness, as many a hunter has found to his cost. His
tree-climbing accomplishments are likewise remarkable, when we consider
his great size and weight. The grizzlies, and some other large
varieties, do not do tree-climbing, except when they are young. A
grizzly cub can climb a tree, but his wrists soon become too stiff to
permit of their bending about the trunk.
Bruin's disposition also varies with the climate he inhabits. This in
turn is because his diet varies in differing latitudes. The farther
south he ranges, the more of a vegetarian he becomes. Consequently, he
is not so ferocious. The great white polar bear is largely
carnivorous, so he is a creature not to be trifled with; while on the
other hand, the little African sun bear is a rollicking, social,
good-natured little chap, weighing many times less than his fierce
cousin.
Formerly, it has been supposed that the Numidian lion and the Bengal
tiger were the largest carnivorous animals in existence, but more
recent discoveries show that our Alaskan brown bear, found upon the
peninsulas of lower Alaska and Kodiak Island, is easily the master of
either, in size or strength. Some of the splendid skins taken from
these, the largest of all the bears, measure fourteen feet in length.
Alaska also gives us the smallest North American bear, the glacial bear.
Californians are wont to tell us that the only true grizzly is that
found upon the cover of the _Overland Monthly_, but they overlook the
fact that the name was given to bears found along the Missouri River by
Lewis and Clarke, years before California, with all its wealth, was
discovered.
In Russia, a fine specimen of the family is found in the Ural
Mountains. His peculiarity is a white collar about the neck, so his
Latin name, _Ursus collaris_, means the bear with a collar. All
through the Himalayas, this restless plantigrade has wandered, and even
far down upon the low-lying plains of India and China; but all the way
he shuffles and shambles and is the same droll fellow.
The bear's vegetable diet consists of berries, nuts and many kinds of
roots. He will not refuse sweet apples and pears when he can find
them. In the tropics he eats nearly all the fruits that the natives
eat and leads altogether a lazy, luxurious life. Since food is
plentiful in these warm climates, he does not have to cross the path of
man to get it, or be forced to steal, as the bear living in colder
climes often does; so he is a good-natured, easy-going fellow, who will
let you alone if you do not pick a quarrel with him. This is much more
true of bears in general, than is usually supposed.
In the tropics, the bear does not have to hibernate to keep the fat
that he has gained in the time of plenty upon his ribs. So his period
of sleeping is very short and in many cases he does not hibernate at
all; while, on the other hand, the bear of the cold northland sleeps
nearly half of the year.
Hibernation seems to be a wise provision of nature by means of which
the bear conserves his flesh and strength during extreme weather. When
the ground is covered several feet deep with snow, it will readily be
seen that berry-picking would be difficult, and nuts and roots would be
hard to find, as would the ants and grubs under logs and stones, with
which the bear varies his diet in fine weather. The chipmunks and mice
have also denned up, so there is not much for bruin to do but sleep.
There is one weakness that I believe the bear always indulges whenever
he can, no matter in what clime he be found, and that is a love for
sweets, especially honey. He will dare the sharp bayonets of the most
angry swarm of bees or climb the worst tree, if he feels at all certain
that there will be honey after his pains. In some countries, he
damages a great many telephone and telegraph poles and wires by
climbing the poles in search of that swarm of bees, which he imagines
he hears humming, inside the pole.
In the temperate zone bears mate in the summer months and the young are
born late in January, during hibernation. Bear-cubs are very small
babies for such large parents, weighing much less in proportion to
their dams than most other mammals. They are blind, helpless and
almost hairless.
As the old bear is very fat when they are born and they do nothing but
sleep in the dark den, they grow rapidly, so that when they are finally
brought forth at the age of perhaps four months, they have developed
wonderfully and would hardly be recognized as the tiny blind cubs of a
few weeks before.
When the old bears first come forth from hibernation they eat very
little for two or three weeks. Their long fast and the inactivity of
the vital organs have greatly weakened the digestive parts, so they
must have time in which to recover, before they are made to do the hard
work of digesting flesh and bone. The bear, therefore, wisely contents
himself with grass and browse, living very much as a deer would, until
his digestive organs have regained their usual tone, when he will gorge
himself upon the first victim that he is lucky enough to catch.
If Bruin lives in the vicinity of civilization, he would prefer to
break his fast with tender young pig. Pig, to the bear, is what
'possum is to the negro. He will travel for miles and take risks that
he does not often expose himself to, if thereby he can secure a
squealing porker.
The sire and dam do not hibernate together and they are seen together
only during a few weeks of their honeymoon.
Winter quarters are usually found under a fallen tree-top, or in some
natural den in the rocks. If a suitable place cannot be secured, the
bear will even do some excavating on his own account, but they
generally choose a den that nature has provided.
The smaller bears which are usually known as the black bear, are found
to be both black and brown. Cubs of both colors will often be
discovered with the same mother, but the brown variety is not found
east of the Mississippi River. The really black bear also varies in
color with the seasons, being darker and glossier in the cold months.
To see a bear really enjoy himself is to discover him in the blueberry
lot, standing upon his hind legs, swooping the berries into his mouth
with ravenous delight. At such a time his grin of benevolence is very
apparent.
The cubs den up with the old bear the first fall, but usually shift for
themselves when the new cubs come, although it is not an infrequent
sight to see an old bear with two sizes of cubs following her.
As a rule, the different varieties of black bear are not dangerous.
While they will occasionally charge the hunter when wounded, they
usually flee away at their best pace when danger appears.
Even when interested with berry-picking or hunting, the bear is
watchful and wary and as his scent and hearing are of the keenest, he
is hard to surprise. It is probably true that his eyesight is not as
keen as his other senses.
The black bear is hunted both on the still hunt, and with dogs. When
dogs are employed, a large pack is used, and they merely run the bear
until it is treed or brought to bay, when it is shot by the hunter.
Dogs are of little, if any, use in hunting grizzlies.
There are several varieties of large bears, probably all variations of
grizzlies, which are differentiated locally. Some of these are the
roachback, the silver tip, the California grizzly, the plains bear, the
smut-face, etc.
In the olden days before the grizzly became wise, he would charge
anything that walked either on two or four feet. But he has now
learned all about firearms, and is as willing to run from the hunter,
as is his cousin, the black bear.
The bear's manner of hunting large game is usually by ambush. As most
of his victims are more fleet of foot than he, he does not undertake to
run them down in the open, but if he can get them at disadvantage in
thick cover, or at the lick, this is his opportunity.
In the Adirondack country and in Northern Maine, it is a common sight
to see a young bear about a farmhouse, where he is as much at home as
the farm-dog. Many of the summer hotels, in this region, keep a tame
bear to amuse the visitors.
These bears are obtained as cubs from any one who is fortunate enough
to discover a bear's den and who has the good luck to find the old bear
away from home and the cubs at his mercy.
A likely cub can usually be obtained in either Maine or Northern New
York for five or ten dollars.
Bears occasionally stray down the Green Mountains into Western
Massachusetts, where they inhabit the Hoosac Mountains, which are a
continuation of this range.
Very recently a bear was killed near October Mountain, upon Mr.
Whitney's extensive game-preserve. He had been hanging about the
mountain all summer and had given two belated pedestrians a lively
sprint only the night before his Waterloo. Being emboldened by the
seeming servility of the neighborhood, bruin finally went to a
farmhouse and, forcing the kitchen door, marched boldly into the
well-ordered room to see what they were going to have for dinner.
While waiting for this meal, he amused himself by tumbling the pots and
pans about. This enraged the thrifty housewife, who seized a
double-barreled shotgun standing in the corner and discharged both
barrels simultaneously at the intruder. When the smoke cleared away,
it was discovered that she had bagged a bear weighing three hundred
pounds.
The dancing bear of song and story, as well as of real life, has long
been the delight of children, but he is not now seen as frequently as
of yore. Bears in the circus to-day play a minor part in the
performance.
This short introductory chapter is the pedigree and characteristics in
brief, of Ursus, the bear, whose varieties, like those of Reynard, the
fox, are legion.
I have tried to give the reader some idea of the bear in general, but
these facts about bruin must be varied as the climate varies between
the arctic regions and the tropics. If a meat diet makes man cross and
brutal, and a fruit and vegetable diet makes him amiable and indolent,
they affect bruin in the same manner.
But wherever you find a bear, be he a grizzly, black, or polar, basking
in the tropical sun, or freezing upon the ice-floe, he will still be
the same droll old chap, shuffling and shambling, sniffing and
inquiring with his keen nose. If he be the smaller black or brown
bear, he will often be found in the company of man, conducting himself
with dignity, and generally showing much good behavior for a wild beast.
Black Bruin
CHAPTER I
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
Outside, the fitful early April wind howled dismally, swaying the
leafless branches of the old elm, and causing them to rub complainingly
against the gable end of the farmhouse. Two or three inches of fine
snow had fallen the day before and the wind tossed it about gleefully,
festooning the window-sashes and piling it high upon window-sills. It
was one of old winter's last kicks and made it seem even more wintry
than it really was.
Although the wind moaned and the snow danced fitfully, within a certain
quaint farmhouse in Northern New York was warmth and comfort, all the
more apparent by the touch of winter outside.
A cheerful fire was crackling in a large kitchen range, suggesting, by
its brightness and snapping, pine-knots full of pitch and resin. The
front doors of the stove were open and the firelight danced across the
room, filling it with cheer. It was one of those homelike kitchens
where everything is spick and span, and the nickel on the stove shines
like silver.
A young farmer of perhaps thirty years was sitting with his shoes off
and his heels toasting upon the hearth, while his wife, a pretty,
rosy-cheeked country girl, of about his own age, sat in a large
splint-bottom chair, sewing. If it needed one more thing to complete
the cozy picture of simple, wholesome country life, it was not wanting,
for just at the wife's elbow was a cradle, which she occasionally
jogged with her foot, giving it just enough motion to keep it swaying
gently. In the cradle slumbered the heir of the household and the link
of pure gold that bound these two lives together.
Everything in the room breathed contentment. The kettle hummed and
sputtered, sending forth its white cloud of steam, while the kitchen
clock ticked off the pleasant moments.
The man was deeply interested in the weekly paper for which he had just
driven to the office, but he occasionally stopped to take a bite out of
a large red Baldwin apple that he found in a dish on the table near by.
He was so engrossed in local items that he did not hear his wife's
excited question until it was repeated for the second time.
"John, what is that?" she asked.
"What is what?" he replied, laying down his paper that he might give
his full attention to her inquiry.
"That noise on the piazza," she answered in a low tone.
"I don't hear any noise," returned the man; but almost as he spoke a
slow shambling step made the floor-boards of the old piazza creak and a
heavy hand was laid upon the door.
"Hello, who's there?" asked the man, for he could think of no one who
would be calling at the hour of nine, which is really late in a farming
community.
But there was no reply to his inquiry, only the sound of a heavy step
moving up and down in front of the door.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" repeated the young farmer in an
irritated tone, for he was both surprised and annoyed by the intrusion.
For answer, the kitchen door began creaking and straining as though
great force was being exerted on it from the outside, and before the
astonished couple could exchange glances of amazement and incredulity,
with a mighty crash it tumbled in upon them, bringing one door-jamb
with it, and fell with a bang upon the floor.
But the most astonishing thing of all was the figure that stood drawn
up to its full height in the doorway.
The man and woman sat as though petrified, amazement and fear written
upon their pale faces, for there in the doorway, eyeing them intently,
and with no thought of retreat, was a large black bear.
As the bear stood there, arms akimbo, bear fashion, her great white
teeth showing through half-parted lips, and the strong claws suggesting
what execution could be done by a well-directed blow, she was anything
but a reassuring visitor.
The young farmer, feeling that something must be done to scare off this
hair-raising intruder, leaped to his feet in sudden desperation, and,
shouting at the top of his voice, seized the door and slammed it back
into the casing with all his strength, bumping the bear's nose
severely. Then he set his shoulder against it, and braced with all his
might.
But his move was a bad one, for there was a short angry growl on the
outside and the next instant the door, farmer and all went spinning
across the room, the man falling heavily and striking against the stove
in the fall, and the great shaggy monster at once followed up her
advantage by shambling awkwardly into the room.
The woman screamed and fainted, and then a gust of wind from the open
doorway blew out the light, leaving the kitchen in darkness.
For a few moments the only sounds heard in the room were the ticking of
the clock, the humming of the teakettle, and the shambling steps of the
bear as she prowled about. But both of the figures on the floor were
unconscious of what was going on, while a bright stream of blood
trickled from a deep cut in the man's forehead.
Finally he was aroused by a cold draft of air upon his head. He put
his hand to his forehead and saw that it was dripping with a warm
fluid. He then put his fingers into his mouth and tasted and knew that
it was blood. Then full consciousness surged into his throbbing head
and he remembered.
There was no animate sound in the room and a terrible foreboding
chilled his heart. He listened for his wife's breathing, but no such
sound reached his ears.
"Mary," he called in a whisper, "are you here?" But there was only the
ticking of the clock and the hum of the kettle.
With an unspeakable fear he sprang to his feet, throwing off all
caution and cried, "Mary," in a loud voice, but with no better results.
Then with a trembling hand he struck a match and by its feeble light
saw his wife lying on the floor like one dead. Kneeling beside her he
felt her pulse. It fluttered feebly and he knew she had only swooned.
A dash of cold water soon revived her and she sat up and looked
bewilderingly about.
There upon the floor lay the door with the shattered jamb beside it and
in front of the stove was a bright pool of blood, but no bear was
visible. Then the match went out and they were again in darkness.
Suddenly, with a paroxysm of fear, the woman sprang forward and
clutched in the darkness for the cradle; then with a wild, pitiful,
heartbroken cry, she fell to the floor.
"Mary, Mary, what is the matter?" cried the bewildered husband, trying
with trembling fingers to strike another match.
A moment it sputtered and then burned bright, and by the fitful light
the man beheld that which turned his blood to ice and his heart to
stone. The cradle was empty, and the baby was gone.