_A Bear Hunt._
By March, our cattle were fat, and we began marketing. A bunch of
dairy cows shipped across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco brought
two hundred dollars a head. A month later we took over one hundred
beef cattle and sold them to Miller and Lucks for one hundred dollars
per head, and at various intervals throughout the spring months,
we culled out the fattest cattle still on hand and took them over,
receiving for all of them prices ranging from seventy-five to one
hundred and fifty dollars per head.
Our plan was to stay in California during this summer, and we
congratulated ourselves that we were to escape the burning plains.
We had very little to do, had plenty of money and plenty to eat,
and I believe every man in the camp was pretty well satisfied with
California.
Late in the fall, as was our custom, we organized another hunt.
I would not mention it but for an incident that occurred out in
the mountains which may be interesting. The party consisted of my
brothers, William, James and Zack, Joe and Barsh Kessler, and myself.
We reached a good place to camp late one evening and pitched our
tent. Some of the boys went to work about the camp, others took
their guns and went out to look for camp meat and found it. One of
the boys brought down a nice deer, and brought it in in time for
supper. Next morning the party was up bright and early, and took off
in various directions to look for game. We had not been separated a
half hour until I heard the guns popping in various directions. I
was crawling along the side of a gulch making my way up the mountain,
and had concluded luck was against me. Shortly after I had made this
reflection, I heard the sound of brother William's gun, which I
knew very well, off to my right and across the canon. Then I heard
a dreadful growling and howling and knew that William had wounded a
bear. In a moment I heard a second shot, but the growling continued.
I ran down the side of the gulch, crossed the ravine at the bottom,
and started up the other side when I saw farther up the mountain a big
grizzly making his way slowly along sniffing, growling and plowing
through the wild oats that covered the side of the mountain. I was
satisfied it was the bear that William had wounded, and I knew it
was not safe for me to get very close to him. However, I was then in
safe quarters, and I decided to move on to a position where I could
get a shot that would bring him down, and, if I could not do this,
it was my plan to keep him in sight so I could direct William, who
was on horseback, how to follow him. In passing through the brush
and undergrowth, however, I lost sight of the bear. I stopped and
listened, but could hear nothing. I was in fairly open ground and
could see some distance away, and as the bear was quite a distance
ahead, I decided to move cautiously along. I really thought the
bear had gone over the mountain. I moved slowly and as I approached
fairly well toward the top, I noticed a thick bunch of weeds off at a
distance, but it did not occur to me that the bear had stopped there.
However, I continued up the mountain, intending to leave the weeds to
my left. I slipped along until I got opposite the weeds, and there to
my great astonishment, I saw the bear not thirty yards from me. His
eyes were set upon me and his hair all turned the wrong way. I then
thought for the first time how indiscreet I had been. I had only one
chance, and I took that in a hurry. I dropped my gun and started down
the mountain for a scrubby tree which stood about sixty yards away.
When I started to run the bear took after me. I ran with all my might
and as I passed under the tree, I jumped up and grabbed the lower
limb and swung myself up. The bear came growling and plowing down the
mountain, and raised on his hind feet, and grabbed my boot with one
of his paws just as he passed under me, but the ground was so steep
and his momentum was so great that it forced him on down the side of
the mountain beyond me. This gave me time to go up the tree as high
as I could, though it was so small that I could not feel very secure.
The bear came back growling and snarling, and came up to the tree,
stood up on his hind feet with his paws around the tree, and tried to
reach me. I was not over five feet above him, but he could not reach
me. I pulled off my hat and threw it upon the ground. He growled and
fell back after it, and tore it all to pieces. This seemed to satisfy
him for he did not come back to the tree any more, but stood looking
around for a while and then walked away. He went on up the side of
the mountain, perhaps a hundred yards, and crawled into a thicket of
chapparal brush and laid down. I called William as loud as I could
but got no answer. I called again and again, and finally he heard me.
The first thing he said was, "Look out, there is a wounded bear up
there." I called back to him and told him it was gone, but he didn't
understand me. He said, "Get back, get away from there, there is a
wounded bear in the weed patch right by you." I answered and told him
to come on up, and he did so. He seemed surprised to see me in a tree,
but I soon related my experience and pointed out the chapparal brush
in which the bear was lying.
I had had a pretty narrow call, but I was not willing to give up
without the bear. The question was how could we get him. I would not
risk getting down and walking up to the brush patch. One experience
of that kind was enough. There was a tree standing a few yards from
the thicket, and after looking the situation over a while, I told
William to go and ride between the tree and the brush, and keep a
close lookout, and I would get down, run to the tree, climb it, and go
out on a limb that extended toward the brush where I thought perhaps
I could see to get a shot. He said it was a little dangerous, but I
told him I was willing to give the old bear a dare anyway, that he had
caught me off my guard the first time. We waited quite a long time and
heard nothing from the bear, so William concluded to try it. He rode
around up the side of the mountain between the brush and the tree,
and made considerable noise, but the bear lay still. He called me,
and I climbed down, ran as hard as I could, and was soon up the other
tree and out of danger. This was a large tree and gave me plenty of
protection. After I was well up the tree, I pointed out where I had
dropped my gun and William went and got it. He said he had hard work
to find it, as it was almost covered with wild oats straw and dust
which the bear had dragged over it in his chase after me. The gun was
father's old Tennessee rifle and as true a weapon as I ever used.
William handed the gun up to me and I examined it to see if it was
all right. I then climbed high up in the tree and went out on the
limb that extended toward the brush. From this point I had a good
view down into the thicket and I soon located the bear. I laid my gun
across a limb and drew a bead on his head. At the crack of the gun
he straightened out and began to tremble and kick, and I knew the
fight was over. His struggles dislodged him from his position on the
steep mountain side and he tumbled over and over down the slant to
the bottom of the gulch. He looked as big as an ox, but not half so
dreadful to me as when I was scampering away from him an hour before.
We dressed him and went to camp. The other boys were there and each
had a story to tell. Ours was of big game and easily carried away the
honors.
We put in a week or more at this camp and had a good time and got any
quantity of venison. Everything was so free, the air and water were
so pure, and the wild tent life so fascinating that I often think of
those days with delight.
Shortly after our return from this hunt, Joe Kessler and I loaded our
pack mules and started back across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to meet
brother Isaac, who was about due with his drove of cattle from across
the plains. We had heard nothing from him since he left us the summer
before, but he had told us he expected to get a herd of cattle and
come. We met him on Carson River, and as I recall now, there were a
number of Buchanan County boys with him--William James, John Sweeney
and John Bridgeman were three that I recall. They had some eight
hundred or a thousand cattle, and had crossed the plains without any
very great difficulty, except the suffering and hardship from the
drouth and alkali which could always be expected. We got the cattle
across the mountains and on the ranch without difficulty and turned
the poor things out to rest and get fat.
We remained on the ranch and in the cabin until everybody was well
rested and then Bridgeman and the other boys who had come out with
Isaac, began to talk about a hunt. They had heard our bear and deer
stories and wanted some experience of their own.
I must tell one thing that occurred on a hunt that was planned
for these boys especially, although I have previously related at
considerable length my hunting experiences. We had been out in the
camp a day or two and had not had much luck, especially with bear; but
one afternoon while we were all moving along pretty close together and
somewhat contrary to our ordinary methods of hunting, we ran on to
two brown bears just as they were going into a dense thicket covering
about twenty acres of ground. We had no chance to get a shot before
they went in. We immediately surrounded the thicket and posted men
at convenient distances apart, and began an effort to dislodge them.
In spite of the danger of doing so, some of the boys went into the
thicket and made a great noise which drove the bears to the farther
side and gave the boys on that side a fair chance for a shot, but they
did not get them and the bears ran back into the thicket. The same
tactics drove them from one side of the thicket to the other for an
hour or more, and nobody was able to make a telling shot. By and by
both got away, and everybody was deeply chagrined--especially the boys
who were out for the first time.
We moved away from the thicket and down the mountain side, all still
much excited, and stopped to rest in a little glade that was almost
completely surrounded by thick brush. There was not a loaded gun in
the crowd. As we sat there talking, a grizzly bear that looked as big
as an old gray mule, walked out of the brush not twenty steps away.
He raised up on his hind feet with his paws hanging down to his sides,
dropped his lip and showed his teeth. I don't think I ever saw a crowd
of men so badly scared. They jumped and ran in every direction. The
closest tree stood between where we were sitting and the bear. Sweeney
made for it.
He was beside himself. He tried to climb the tree but lost his hold
and fell back. He tried again, but the tree had a smooth trunk and
he slipped again. He slid down until he sat flat upon the ground
with his arms and legs locked around the tree. Here he lost his head
completely. His desire to get up the tree had evidently placed him
there in his own imagination, for he called out: "Hand me my gun up
here! Hand me my gun up here!" He then said, "Why in the hell don't
you boys climb a tree?"
I stood perfectly still and kept my eye on the bear. I soon saw there
was no danger in him; that he was as badly scared as we were. He stood
a moment, dropped on his four paws to the ground, wheeled and went
tearing back through the brush. I told the boys he couldn't understand
what they were doing and took their conduct to be preparation for a
great fight, and that I didn't blame him for getting scared. If the
devil himself had seen them and hadn't understood that they were
scared, it would have frightened him.
When we got over our scare, we loaded our guns carefully and started
for camp. The boys were still excited and as we passed over the stream
which flowed at the bottom of the canon, we saw where a bear had
apparently, but a few minutes before been wallowing in the mud and
water. The mountain sides were steep and rough and covered with brush,
and our boys after their recent fright, were in almost as much terror
at this evidence of nearness to a bear as they were when they could
actually see him. The experienced members of the party looked into the
situation for a moment and decided that we would probably get this
gentleman. We climbed back up the canon, every now and then loosening
a big rock and rolling it down through the brush. By and by we routed
out a brown bear. He started up the mountain on the opposite side of
the gulch and in plain view. I gave him a sample of what my Tennessee
rifle could do and sent him rolling back to the bottom of the gulch
ready to be dressed.
We remained in camp a week or two on this hunt and everybody, as
usual, enjoyed it. We went back to the cabin where six Gibson brothers
lived together. The cattle were little trouble, and there was nothing
to do most of the time but loaf, and this didn't suit us after so much
activity. We soon began to plan for the succeeding year. The cattle
were not much trouble and two men could easily take care of them.
James, Zack, Robert and myself volunteered to return to Missouri and
bring another herd out next year, leaving William and Isaac in charge
while we were gone.