front foot was badly twisted, its track pointing in, almost at right
angles, to the tracks of the other three feet, with the clawmarks
almost touching the track of the right front foot. We followed his
trail till we came to a sandy stretch upon which that bear had held
high carnival. He had rolled the skull about, punted it with his good
right paw, and leaped upon it, in mimic attack, as though it were a fat
marmot. Then, playtime over, he had carried it a considerable distance
and cached it beneath some logs.
The trapper returned to camp for another trap, and set it and the first
near the skull, concealing the traps cleverly in depressions scooped
out in the sand, and covering their gaping, toothed jaws with loose,
pine needles. Then he scattered a few pine cones about, and placed
dead tree limbs near the traps in such a way that in stepping over them
the bear would be liable to step squarely upon the concealed pan of one
of them.
Three times the bear rescued the precious cow skull, each time avoiding
the traps. At last in desperation, the trapper took two more traps to
the gulch and vowed that he'd pull up stakes and leave the bear alone
if he did not get him with the set he purposed making.
With boyish interest, I accompanied him to the gulch, carrying one of
the traps for him. We left the traps a short distance from where the
bear had concealed the old skull, while the trapper looked the ground
over and decided to set the traps where the skull was hidden, for the
spot was ideal for the purpose. On two sides logs formed a barrier and
beyond them was a huge bowlder, the two forming a natural little cove.
He expected the bear to approach his plaything from the unobstructed
side.
The trapper had further plans. Close beside the logs grew a stunted
pine tree with wide-spreading limbs near the ground. In its crotch he
placed the cow's skull, higher than the bear could reach, and fastened
it there with wire. Then, after setting the traps in a semi-circle
around the tree, just below the skull, and concealing them carefully,
we returned to camp, jubilantly confident of catching Mr. Bruin.
Three times we visited the set and found things undisturbed. We
decided the bear had forsworn his toy and run away. However, I
lingered at the camp in hope that the matter would yet come to a
decisive end.
Some days later, when we visited the gulch again, we came upon a
surprise. From a distance we missed the skull from the tree. So we
hastened forward, keeping a sharp eye out for the bear which we felt
certain was in a trap and lying low. At the set we stopped short. The
two traps nearest the open space had been carefully dug up and turned
over, and lay "butter side down." The bear had climbed into the tree,
wrenched his plaything free, and dropped it to the ground. Tracks in
the sand showed that after climbing down he had cautiously placed his
feet in the same tracks he had made when he advanced toward the tree.
He had carried the skull a hundred yards from the traps and hidden it
again; but there were no signs that he had stopped to play with it.
The trapper was as good as his word; and after recovering from his
astonishment, he sprung the traps, and we carried them back to camp.
"Some smart, that ole twisted-foot bear," the trapper told his partner.
"He's smart enough to live a hundred years--an' I'm willin' to let him."
No campfire is complete without bear stories, and it was around one
that I heard the funniest bear story imaginable.
A lone trapper was caught one day in a trap of his own making, a
ponderous wooden coop calculated to catch the bear alive by dropping a
heavy log door in place at the open end. This door was on a trigger
which a bear, in attempting to steal the bait, would spring.
As this tale was told, the trapper had just completed his trap and was
adjusting the trigger, when the heavy door crashed down, pinning him
across the threshold, with his legs outside. The door caught on a
section of log in the doorway, and saved him from broken legs, but he
was a helpless prisoner.
In struggling to free himself, he kicked over a can of honey he had
brought along for bait, and the sticky fluid oozed over his thrashing
legs. Four hours he lay, imprisoned, shouting at intervals, with the
hope that some wandering prospector or trapper might hear him. Instead
a bear came his way, tempted by the scent of the much-loved honey.
The bear loitered near by some time, no doubt wary of the presence of
man, but at last his appetite overcame his caution, and he started
licking up the honey. Almost frantic with fear, dreading the gash of
tearing teeth, the man lay quiet, while the animal licked the smears
off his trembling legs. Fortunately for the trapper, the bear was not
out for meat that day; so, after cleaning up the sweet, he went his
way. The relieved and unharmed man was rescued shortly afterward.
The only serious injury I have suffered from a wild animal was
inflicted inside the city limits of Denver, Colorado's largest city and
capital. The beginning of this story dated back to the time when I
discovered that another grizzly had intruded into the "bad lands" of my
bears. The first announcement of the strange bear's arrival was its
tracks, together with those of two tiny cubs. This was in May, while
yet the snowbanks lingered in that high country.
Across the miles of fallen timber I lugged a steel bear trap and set it
in a likely spot beside the frozen carcass of a deer. Afterwards I
inspected it every day, though, to do so, I had to cross boggy, rough
country, fretted over with fallen logs. I always found plenty of bear
tracks--it was typical bear country--and there were many signs of their
activities: old logs torn apart, ant hills disturbed, and lush grass
trampled.
The first week in June, I made a surprising catch--three grizzly bears
and a fox. A mother grizzly had stepped into my trap, and her two
cubs, of about fifteen pounds each, had lingered near by, until,
growing hungry, they had ventured to their mother, and one had been
caught in a coyote trap set to protect the bait. The fox had been
caught before the bear's arrival. Mrs. Grizzly, frantic over her
predicament, had demolished everything within her reach, tearing the
red fox from its trap, literally shredding it, apparently feeling it
was to blame for her misfortune.
Her struggles soon exhausted her, for it was a warm day, and when I
discovered her she was about spent, and easily dispatched.
The cubs, very small, helpless and forlorn, howled lustily for their
mother. I decided to tie their feet together, and their mouths shut.
With ready cord, I dived headlong upon a cub, caught him by the scruff
of the neck, lifted him triumphantly--then dropped him unceremoniously,
the end of a finger badly bitten. I was compelled to return to my
cabin for a sack, because the amount of tying required to render the
cubs really harmless seemed likely to choke them to death before I got
them home. It required about an hour's lively tussle to get the two
young grizzlies stowed safely in the sack. But I learned that having
them sacked was no guarantee of getting them home.
If "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," a bear at home,
chained up, is worth the whole Rockies' full in the woods.
The old grizzly's hide, paws included, must have weighed fifty pounds;
the cubs, sacked, thirty--a total load of 80 pounds to carry out over
rocks and fallen trees, through bog and willows. With this load on my
back, I struggled to my feet and started, picking my way slowly,
circling logs and avoiding soft spots. The first half mile was the
best, after that things thickened up, the bog deepened, the bears
wanted to get out and walk.
Where the stream emerges from between a wide moraine and Meeker
Mountain, it is not broad, nor very deep, but it is exceedingly cold
and swift, and the only crossing was a beaver-felled aspen, which lay
top-foremost toward me, presenting an array of limbs that served as
banisters. About midway over the limbs gave out, leaving the smooth
aspen trunk as a foot-log. Many times I had crossed this without
mishap, so I had no qualms about tackling it now. Deliberately I edged
along, stepping slowly, carefully, progressing nicely until about
midway. Just then one of the cubs sank his teeth into my back. I
jerked away, twisted, tottered, half regained my balance, then pitched
headlong into the icy water of the beaver pond beneath.
For a moment there was a grand melee. The cubs did not like the ice
water any more than I. They squirmed and clawed, fought free of the
sack, and lightened my load considerably. I spent a busy hour catching
and sacking them again.
It required six hours to transport those cubs four miles! And I'm sure
they were as thankful as their ferry when the trip ended at my cabin.
From the first week in June until the middle of December, they grew
from fifteen pounds to forty each. Although they were interesting
pets, their keep became a problem. Such appetites! They could never
get enough. They weren't finicky about the quality of their food; but
oh, the quantity! Then, too, I couldn't leave them and go on long
trips. So I decided to part with them.
The City of Denver sent a representative to see me, for they wanted
some grizzlies to show eastern tourists.
It was with the feeling that I was betraying the cubs, however, that I
finally took them to Denver. They were so obedient and well-behaved
that I hesitated to deliver them into unknown hands. They knew their
names, Johnny and Jenny, as well as children knew theirs. At command
they would stand erect, walk about on their hind feet, whining eagerly
for some treat, looking for all the world like funny, little old men.
At the Denver City Zoo we were welcomed by the keeper, Mr. Hill, who
courteously invited me to spend the day with him, and entertained me by
taking me into many of the cages, permitting me to feed some of the
animals, and telling me interesting tales of happenings at the Zoo.
When we returned to the large inclosure surrounding the cage of the
larger and fiercer animals, Mr. Hill asked me to assist in transfering
a brown bear and a black bear to the cage where my pets were to be
housed. These other bears were over a year old and more than double
the size of Johnny and Jenny. The brown bear went willingly enough
into the new cage, and we expected the black bear to follow, but when
he reached the cage door, he stopped. Gently we urged him forward, but
his mind was made up--he had gone as far as he intended and was
homesick for his old cage. The keeper was tactful, and unobtrusively
tried to maneuver the bear into the cage without exciting his obstinacy
further, but he wouldn't yield. At last it came to a show down. We
had the option of forcing the bear into the cage, or letting him go
back.
"You go inside and snub the rope around the bars," the keeper directed
me. "I'll boost from behind--we'll show him a trick or two."
A crowd had collected outside the heavy iron fence. Suggestions were
abundant. No young man ever had so much advice in so short a time.
However, we were too busily engaged to profit by what we were told.
The keeper boosted the bear--and I took up the slack in the rope; but
still the bear balked, though three times we double-teamed against him.
Then, suddenly, he let go all holds and lunged through the doorway,
charging headlong upon me and sank his teeth into my left knee. The
bite and the force of his unexpected charge knocked me backward into
the corner. Instantly the bear was on top of me, growling, biting and
striking.
With my uninjured leg I kicked out savagely and thrust him away,
sliding him back across the slippery concrete. Again he charged, and
once more I kicked him off.
Outside the iron fence women were screaming and men trying futilely to
enter, but the fence was ten feet high and the sharp iron points of its
pickets were discouraging--and the gateway was locked against intruders.
At this juncture the keeper rushed to another cage where he kept an
iron bar for just such emergencies, but the bar was away from home that
day.
At this crisis, Johnny and Jenny arrived, Jenny collided with the bars
of the cage and staggered back, dazed. But Johnny found the open cage
door, and charged the black bear ferociously. The black bear
outweighed my little grizzly three to one, but Johnny struck his
sensitive snout, forcing him into a corner, and followed up, striking
with both paws, lunging in and taking furry samples of his hide.
Within a few seconds the black bear was climbing the side of the cage
and howling for help. He gained the shelf near the roof. Johnny,
unable to climb, sat below, growling maledictions in bear language,
daring him to come down and fight it out. But the black bear had had
more than enough. He stuck to the safety seat, whimpering with pain
and fright.
Thus, limping and reluctant, I took leave of my pets. The ambulance
had arrived to rush me to the hospital where my knee was to be treated.
As long as I could see them, they looked after me, wondering at my
desertion.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
It had been my boyhood dream to find a region unspoiled by man, wild,
primitive.
When I saw that rugged wilderness called the Rockies I was sure I had
found it. Miles and miles of virgin forest, innocent of ax and saw;
miles and miles of fertile valleys, yet to feel the touch of plow;
miles and miles of unclaimed homesteads with never the smoke of a
settler's chimney! Deer and elk, sheep and bear roamed the forests,
beavers preempted the valleys, trout spashed and rippled the waters of
the lakes and rivers. Yes, this was purely primeval, natural,
uncivilized.
But the old-timers did not agree with me. Parson Lamb, whose nearest
neighbor was ten miles away, complained that the country was being
spoiled.
"It's gotten so nowadays you can't see a mountain 'thout craning your
neck around some fellow's shack; cabins everywhere cluttering up the
scenery."
I recalled my father's chuckling about the pioneers always moving on as
soon as a country got settled up. Surely the Parson was having his
little joke!
One day when I was out looking for Mr. and Mrs. Peg, I ran upon an old
trapper.
"Huh!" he said, "won't be long till they won't be no critters atall.
They ain't enough now to pay for trap-bait. Game ain't what it useter
be in these parts, I tell you, sonny. I'm goin' ter pull up stakes for
a real game country!"
To me, lately from the thickly settled prairies of Kansas, practically
destitute of game, their fears seemed unfounded. I thought they
exaggerated, and could not understand their point of view. But I came
to understand. I lived to see even greater changes take place, in the
twenty-five years I wandered through the country, that Parson Lamb had
witnessed from the day he hewed his way through the forest, that he
might get his covered wagon into the valley, to that night when I fell
across his threshold after pushing my bicycle over Bald Mountain.
For even as I rambled and camped, a subtle change was taking place so
slowly that for some time I was unaware of it. I saw fewer animals in
a day's journey. At first, when I missed bands of deer or wild sheep,
or some familiar bear, from their usual haunts, I assumed that they had
shifted their range to more distant mountains. All at once I realized
that for a long time I had not come upon a single elk nor even the
tracks of one. I was startled. I made far excursions into the more
remote regions, to verify my assumption that the game had merely
retreated from the more settled parts. From the tops of lofty peaks, I
looked down upon countless valleys with the hope that somewhere,
surely, I would find them. I saw only a few stragglers.
The wilds were like an empty house where once had lived happy children,
where there had been music and laughter, shouts and romping, but now
remained only silence, freighted with sadness. A great loneliness
surged over me. Despite the grumbling complaints of the old settlers,
I had taken for granted that the country would always stay as I had
found it, that other boys would have it to explore, and that it would
thrill them even as it had thrilled me. I awoke at last to the
distressing truth that few of the easily accessible spots were
unspoiled, that forests were falling, that the game was almost gone.
I set out to see what could be done about it. I found others as
concerned as I. Not only those in the immediate vicinity, but men of
vision far removed from the scene. It seemed that similar conditions
had arisen elsewhere and that far-sighted men had evolved a remedy.
Back in 1872, Congress had set aside the Yellowstone region as a
national park, guaranteeing the preservation of its wonders for all
time. Not only that, but the harassed and hunted game in the country
surrounding it had by some subtle instinct sensed its immunity to
hunters, and had fled to it for sanctuary--grizzly bears migrated to it
from long distances and found refuge. I recalled how scarce the
beavers were when first I searched the valleys for them, and how, after
the State had passed laws for their protection, they had multiplied.
Here was the solution of the problem--protection; and the most
permanent and effective protection could be procured by getting the
government to preserve it as a National Park. But, just as nearsighted
and self-interested individuals opposed and tried to thwart the
building of the first transcontinental railroad, so there were persons
who could see no reason for setting aside this region as a National
Park, men who had for years cut government timber without restriction,
or who had grazed livestock without hindrance, or who still hoped to
strike rich mineral deposits in the proposed area to be reserved.
Fortunately, the men of vision prevailed, and in 1915, Congress created
the Rocky Mountain National Park, setting aside 400 square miles of
territory, most of it straddling the Continental Divide, and as wild
and primitive as when the Utes first hunted in it. Thus the
snow-capped peaks and the verdant valleys, the deep-gashed canyons and
the rushing rivers, the age-old glaciers and the primeval forests are
preserved forever from exploitation.
In administering the National Parks, the government takes into
consideration that they are the property of the whole people, not just
of those residing in adjacent or near territory. Not only does it
consider them as belonging to the present generation, but to posterity.
With this in mind, it has formulated certain general principles of
administration applicable to all parks and has adopted special policies
adapted to the peculiar needs of individual parks. For instance, it
has found that in order to protect the visitors and insure their
comfort, and convenience, it is necessary to have certain regulations
of hotel management and transportation facilities. It has found it
impossible to hold many individual concerns responsible for the
enforcement of these regulations, so it has adopted the policy of
granting concessions to one large company equipped to render the
service required. Such a concern conducts its business under
government jurisdiction, and is required to abide by the government
regulations. The transportation companies, for example, are required
to run their cars on regular schedule, at reasonable and approved
rates. Their books are audited by the government, and they pay a
certain percentage of their earnings to it.
As funds are available roads and trails are developed, enabling
thousands to enjoy the last frontier. And it is amazing, how, in this
short time, wild life has increased within the borders of the park.
Beavers have returned, their dams and houses are along every stream;
deer and elk straggle along the trails to welcome wide-eyed visitors;
upon the promontories curious, friendly mountain sheep are regal
silhouettes against the sky.
Here boys and girls of every land may explore even as I explored--and,
with their trusty cameras for guns, shoot more game than Kit Carson
ever trapped!
THE END