THE DAYS OF HIS STRENGTH
[Illustration]
I
Wahb's third summer had brought him the stature of a large-sized Bear,
though not nearly the bulk and power that in time were his. He was very
light-colored now, and this was why Spahwat, a Shoshone Indian who more
than once hunted him, called him the Whitebear, or Wahb.
Spahwat was a good hunter, and as soon as he saw the rubbing-tree on the
Upper Meteetsee he knew that he was on the range of a big Grizzly. He
bushwhacked the whole valley, and spent many days before he found a chance
to shoot; then Wahb got a stinging flesh-wound in the shoulder. He growled
horribly, but it had seemed to take the fight out of him; he scrambled up
the valley and over the lower hills till he reached a quiet haunt, where he
lay down.
[Illustration]
His knowledge of healing was wholly instinctive. He licked the wound and
all around it, and sought to be quiet. The licking removed the dirt, and by
massage reduced the inflammation, and it plastered the hair down as a sort
of dressing over the wound to keep out the air, dirt, and microbes. There
could be no better treatment.
[Illustration]
But the Indian was on his trail. Before long the smell warned Wahb that a
foe was coming, so he quietly climbed farther up the mountain to another
resting-place. But again he sensed the Indian's approach, and made off.
Several times this happened, and at length there was a second shot and
another galling wound. Wahb was furious now. There was nothing that really
frightened him but that horrible odor of man, iron, and guns, that he
remembered from the day when he lost his Mother; but now all fear of these
left him. He heaved painfully up the mountain again, and along under a
six-foot ledge, then up and back to the top of the bank, where he lay
flat. On came the Indian, armed with knife and gun; deftly, swiftly keeping
on the trail; gloating joyfully over each bloody print that meant such
anguish to the hunted Bear. Straight up the slide of broken rock he came,
where Wahb, ferocious with pain, was waiting on the ledge. On sneaked the
dogged hunter; his eye still scanned the bloody slots or swept the woods
ahead, but never was raised to glance above the ledge. And Wahb, as he saw
this shape of Death relentless on his track, and smelled the hated smell,
poised his bulk at heavy cost upon his quivering, mangled arm, there held
until the proper instant came, then to his sound arm's matchless native
force he added all the weight of desperate hate as down he struck one
fearful, crushing blow. The Indian sank without a cry, and then dropped out
of sight. Wahb rose, and sought again a quiet nook where he might nurse his
wounds. Thus he learned that one must fight for peace; for he never saw
that Indian again, and he had time to rest and recover.
[Illustration: "HE STRUCK ONE FEARFUL, CRUSHING BLOW."]
[Illustration]
II
The years went on as before, except that each winter Wahb slept less
soundly, and each spring he came out earlier and was a bigger Grizzly, with
fewer enemies that dared to face him. When his sixth year came he was a
very big, strong, sullen Bear, with neither friendship nor love in his life
since that evil day on the Lower Piney.
[Illustration]
No one ever heard of Wahb's mate. No one believes that he ever had one.
The love-season of Bears came and went year after year, but left him alone
in his prime as he had been in his youth. It is not good for a Bear to be
alone; it is bad for him in every way. His habitual moroseness grew with
his strength, and any one chancing to meet him now would have called him a
dangerous Grizzly.
[Illustration]
He had lived in the Meteetsee Valley since first he betook himself there,
and his character had been shaped by many little adventures with traps and
his wild rivals of the mountains. But there was none of the latter that he
now feared and he knew enough to avoid the first, for that penetrating odor
of man and iron was a never-failing warning, especially after an
experience which befell him in his sixth year.
His ever-reliable nose told him that there was a dead Elk down among the
timber.
[Illustration]
He went up the wind, and there, sure enough, was the great delicious
carcass, already torn open at the very best place. True, there was that
terrible man-and-iron taint, but it was so slight and the feast so tempting
that after circling around and inspecting the carcass from his eight feet
of stature, as he stood erect, he went cautiously forward, and at once was
caught by his left paw in an enormous Bear-trap. He roared with pain and
slashed about in a fury. But this was no Beaver-trap; it was a big
forty-pound Bear-catcher, and he was surely caught.
[Illustration]
Wahb fairly foamed with rage, and madly grit his teeth upon the trap. Then
he remembered his former experiences. He placed the trap between his hind
legs, with a hind paw on each spring, and pressed down with all his weight.
But it was not enough. He dragged off the trap and its clog, and went
clanking up the mountain. Again and again he tried to free his foot, but in
vain, till he came where a great trunk crossed the trail a few feet from
the ground. By chance, or happy thought, he reared again under this and
made a new attempt. With a hind foot on each spring and his mighty
shoulders underneath the tree, he bore down with his titanic strength: the
great steel springs gave way, the jaws relaxed, and he tore out his foot.
So Wahb was free again, though he left behind a great toe which had been
nearly severed by the first snap of the steel.
[Illustration]
Again Wahb had a painful wound to nurse, and as he was a left-handed
Bear,--that is, when he wished to turn a rock over he stood on the right
paw and turned with the left,--one result of this disablement was to rob
him for a time of all those dainty foods that are found under rocks or
logs. The wound healed at last, but he never forgot that experience, and
thenceforth the pungent smell of man and iron, even without the gun smell,
never failed to enrage him.
Many experiences had taught him that it is better to run if he only smelled
the hunter or heard him far away, but to fight desperately if the man was
close at hand. And the cow-boys soon came to know that the Upper Meteetsee
was the range of a Bear that was better let alone.
III
One day after a long absence Wahb came into the lower part of his range,
and saw to his surprise one of the wooden dens that men make for
themselves. As he came around to get the wind, he sensed the taint that
never failed to infuriate him now, and a moment later he heard a loud
_bang_ and felt a stinging shock in his left hind leg, the old stiff leg.
He wheeled about, in time to see a man running toward the new-made shanty.
Had the shot been in his shoulder Wahb would have been helpless, but it was
not.
* * * * *
Mighty arms that could toss pine logs like broomsticks, paws that with one
tap could crush the biggest Bull upon the range, claws that could tear huge
slabs of rock from the mountain-side--what was even the deadly rifle to
them!
* * * * *
When the man's partner came home that night he found him on the reddened
shanty floor. The bloody trail from outside and a shaky, scribbled note on
the back of a paper novel told the tale.
It was Wahb done it. I seen him by the spring and wounded him. I
tried to git on the shanty, but he ketched me. My God, how I
suffer!
JACK.
[Illustration]
It was all fair. The man had invaded the Bear's country, had tried to take
the Bear's life, and had lost his own. But Jack's partner swore he would
kill that Bear.
He took up the trail and followed it up the canyon, and there bushwhacked
and hunted day after day. He put out baits and traps, and at length one day
he heard a _crash_, _clatter_, _thump_, and a huge rock bounded down a bank
into a wood, scaring out a couple of deer that floated away like
thistle-down. Miller thought at first that it was a land-slide; but he soon
knew that it was Wahb that had rolled the boulder over merely for the sake
of two or three ants beneath it.
[Illustration]
The wind had not betrayed him, so on peering through the bush Miller saw
the great Bear as he fed, favoring his left hind leg and growling sullenly
to himself at a fresh twinge of pain. Miller steadied himself, and thought,
"Here goes a finisher or a dead miss." He gave a sharp whistle, the Bear
stopped every move, and, as he stood with ears acock, the man fired at his
head.
But at that moment the great shaggy head moved, only an infuriating scratch
was given, the smoke betrayed the man's place, and the Grizzly made savage,
three-legged haste to catch his foe.
Miller dropped his gun and swung lightly into a tree, the only large one
near. Wahb raged in vain against the trunk. He tore off the bark with his
teeth and claws; but Miller was safe beyond his reach. For fully four hours
the Grizzly watched, then gave it up, and slowly went off into the bushes
till lost to view. Miller watched him from the tree, and afterward waited
nearly an hour to be sure that the Bear was gone. He then slipped to the
ground, got his gun, and set out for camp. But Wahb was cunning; he had
only _seemed_ to go away, and then had sneaked back quietly to watch. As
soon as the man was away from the tree, too far to return, Wahb dashed
after him. In spite of his wounds the Bear could move the faster. Within a
quarter of a mile--well, Wahb did just what the man had sworn to do to
him.
Long afterward his friends found the gun and enough to tell the tale.
The claim-shanty on the Meteetsee fell to pieces. It never again was used,
for no man cared to enter a country that had but few allurements to offset
its evident curse of ill luck, and where such a terrible Grizzly was always
on the war-path.
[Illustration]
IV
[Illustration]
Then they found good gold on the Upper Meteetsee. Miners came in pairs and
wandered through the peaks, rooting up the ground and spoiling the little
streams--grizzly old men mostly, that had lived their lives in the mountain
and were themselves slowly turning into Grizzly Bears; digging and grubbing
everywhere, not for good, wholesome roots, but for that shiny yellow
sand that they could not eat; living the lives of Grizzlies, asking nothing
but to be let alone to dig.
[Illustration: "'AIN'T HE AN AWFUL SIZE, THOUGH?'"]
They seemed to understand Grizzly Wahb. The first time they met, Wahb
reared up on his hind legs, and the wicked green lightnings began to
twinkle in his small eyes. The elder man said to his mate:
"Let him alone, and he won't bother you."
"Ain't he an awful size, though?" replied the other, nervously.
Wahb was about to charge, but something held him back--a something that had
no reference to his senses, that was felt only when they were still; a
something that in Bear and Man is wiser than his wisdom, and that points
the way at every doubtful fork in the dim and winding trail.
[Illustration]
Of course Wahb did not understand what the men said, but he did feel that
there was something different here. The smell of man and iron was there,
but not of that maddening kind, and he missed the pungent odor that even
yet brought back the dark days of his cubhood.
The men did not move, so Wahb rumbled a subterranean growl, dropped down on
his four feet, and went on.
Late the same year Wahb ran across the red-nosed Blackbear. How that Bear
did keep on shrinking! Wahb could have hurled him across the Graybull with
one tap now.
[Illustration]
But the Blackbear did not mean to let him try. He hustled his fat, podgy
body up a tree at a rate that made him puff. Wahb reached up nine feet from
the ground, and with one rake of his huge claws tore off the bark clear to
the shining white wood and down nearly to the ground; and the Blackbear
shivered and whimpered with terror as the scraping of those awful claws ran
up the trunk and up his spine in a way that was horribly suggestive.
What was it that the sight of that Blackbear stirred in Wahb? Was it
memories of the Upper Piney, long forgotten; thoughts of a woodland rich
in food?
[Illustration]
Wahb left him trembling up there as high as he could get, and without any
very clear purpose swung along the upper benches of the Meteetsee down to
the Graybull, around the foot of the Rimrock Mountain; on, till hours later
he found himself in the timber-tangle of the Lower Piney, and among the
berries and ants of the old times.
He had forgotten what a fine land the Piney was: plenty of food, no miners
to spoil the streams, no hunters to keep an eye on, and no mosquitoes or
flies, but plenty of open, sunny glades and sheltering woods, backed up by
high, straight cliffs to turn the colder winds.
There were, moreover, no resident Grizzlies, no signs even of passing
travelers, and the Blackbears that were in possession did not count.
Wahb was well pleased. He rolled his vast bulk in an old Buffalo-wallow,
and rearing up against a tree where the Piney Canyon quits the Graybull
Canyon, he left on it his mark fully eight feet from the ground.
In the days that followed he wandered farther and farther up among the
rugged spurs of the Shoshones, and took possession as he went. He found the
sign-boards of several Blackbears, and if they were small dead trees he
sent them crashing to earth with a drive of his giant paw. If they were
green, he put his own mark over the other mark, and made it clearer by
slashing the bark with the great pickaxes that grew on his toes.
[Illustration]
The Upper Piney had so long been a Blackbear range that the Squirrels had
ceased storing their harvest in hollow trees, and were now using the spaces
under flat rocks, where the Blackbears could not get at them; so Wahb found
this a land of plenty: every fourth or fifth rock in the pine woods was the
roof of a Squirrel or Chipmunk granary, and when he turned it over, if the
little owner were there, Wahb did not scruple to flatten him with his paw
and devour him as an agreeable relish to his own provisions.
And wherever Wahb went he put up his sign-board:
Trespassers beware!
It was written on the trees as high up as he could reach, and every one
that came by understood that the scent of it and the hair in it were those
of the great Grizzly Wahb.
[Illustration]
If his Mother had lived to train him, Wahb would have known that a good
range in spring may be a bad one in summer. Wahb found out by years of
experience that a total change with the seasons is best. In the early
spring the Cattle and Elk ranges, with their winter-killed carcasses, offer
a bountiful feast. In early summer the best forage is on the warm
hillsides where the quamash and the Indian turnip grow. In late summer the
berry-bushes along the river-flat are laden with fruit, and in autumn the
pine woods gave good chances to fatten for the winter. So he added to his
range each year. He not only cleared out the Blackbears from the Piney and
the Meteetsee, but he went over the Divide and killed that old fellow that
had once chased him out of the Warhouse Valley. And, more than that, he
held what he had won, for he broke up a camp of tenderfeet that were
looking for a ranch location on the Middle Meteetsee; he stampeded their
horses, and made general smash of the camp. And so all the animals,
including man, came to know that the whole range from Frank's Peak to the
Shoshone spurs was the proper domain of a king well able to defend it, and
the name of that king was Meteetsee Wahb.
[Illustration]
Any creature whose strength puts him beyond danger of open attack is apt to
lose in cunning. Yet Wahb never forgot his early experience with the traps.
He made it a rule never to go near that smell of man and iron, and that was
the reason that he never again was caught.
[Illustration]
So he led his lonely life and slouched around on the mountains, throwing
boulders about like pebbles, and huge trunks like matchwood, as he sought
for his daily food. And every beast of hill and plain soon came to know
and fly in fear of Wahb, the one time hunted, persecuted Cub. And more than
one Blackbear paid with his life for the ill-deed of that other, long ago.
And many a cranky Bobcat flying before him took to a tree, and if that tree
were dead and dry, Wahb heaved it down, and tree and Cat alike were dashed
to bits. Even the proud-necked Stallion, leader of the mustang band,
thought well for once to yield the road. The great, grey Timberwolves, and
the Mountain Lions too, left their new kill and sneaked in sullen fear
aside when Wahb appeared. And if, as he hulked across the sage-covered
river-flat sending the scared Antelope skimming like birds before him,
he was faced perchance, by some burly Range-bull, too young to be wise and
too big to be afraid, Wahb smashed his skull with one blow of that giant
paw, and served him as the Range-cow would have served himself long years
ago.
[Illustration: "WAHB SMASHED HIS SKULL."]
The All-mother never fails to offer to her own, twin cups, one gall, and
one of balm. Little or much they may drink, but equally of each. The
mountain that is easy to descend must soon be climbed again. The grinding
hardship of Wahb's early days had built his mighty frame. All usual
pleasures of a grizzly's life had been denied him but _power_ bestowed in
more than double share.
[Illustration]
So he lived on year after year, unsoftened by mate or companion, sullen,
fearing nothing, ready to fight, but asking only to be let alone--quite
alone. He had but one keen pleasure in his sombre life--the lasting glory
in his matchless strength--the small but never failing thrill of joy as the
foe fell crushed and limp, or the riven boulders grit and heaved when he
turned on them the measure of his wondrous force.
[Illustration]
V
Everything has a smell of its own for those that have noses to smell. Wahb
had been learning smells all his life, and knew the meaning of most of
those in the mountains. It was as though each and every thing had a voice
of its own for him; and yet it was far better than a voice, for every one
knows that a good nose is better than eyes and ears together. And each of
these myriads of voices kept on crying, "Here and such am I."
The juniper-berries, the rosehips, the strawberries, each had a soft, sweet
little voice, calling, "Here we are--Berries, Berries."
The great pine woods had a loud, far-reaching voice, "Here are we, the
Pine-trees," but when he got right up to them Wahb could hear the low,
sweet call of the pinon-nuts, "Here are we, the Pinon-nuts."
And the quamash beds in May sang a perfect chorus when the wind was right:
"Quamash beds, Quamash beds."
And when he got among them he made out each single voice. Each root had
its own little piece to say to his nose: "Here am I, a big Quamash, rich
and ripe," or a tiny, sharp voice, "Here am I, a good-for-nothing, stringy
little root."
[Illustration]
And the broad, rich russulas in the autumn called aloud, "I am a fat,
wholesome Mushroom," and the deadly amanita cried, "I am an Amanita. Let me
alone, or you'll be a sick Bear." And the fairy harebell of the canyon-banks
sang a song too, as fine as its thread-like stem, and as soft as its dainty
blue; but the warden of the smells had learned to report it not, for this,
and a million other such, were of no interest to Wahb.
So every living thing that moved, and every flower that grew, and every
rock and stone and shape on earth told out its tale and sang its little
story to his nose. Day or night, fog or bright, that great, moist nose told
him most of the things he needed to know, or passed unnoticed those of no
concern, and he depended on it more and more. If his eyes and ears together
reported so and so, he would not even then believe it until his nose said,
"Yes; that is right."
But this is something that man cannot understand, for he has sold the
birthright of his nose for the privilege of living in towns.
[Illustration]
While hundreds of smells were agreeable to Wahb, thousands were indifferent
to him, a good many were unpleasant, and some actually put him in a rage.
He had often noticed that if a west wind were blowing when he was at the
head of the Piney Canyon there was an odd, new scent. Some days he did not
mind it, and some days it disgusted him; but he never followed it up. On
other days a north wind from the high Divide brought a most awful smell,
something unlike any other, a smell that he wanted only to get away from.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Wahb was getting well past his youth now, and he began to have pains in the
hind leg that had been wounded so often. After a cold night or a long time
of wet weather he could scarcely use that leg, and one day, while thus
crippled, the west wind came down the canyon with an odd message to his
nose. Wahb could not clearly read the message, but it seemed to say,
"Come," and something within him said, "Go." The smell of food will draw a
hungry creature and disgust a gorged one. We do not know why, and all that
any one can learn is that the desire springs from a need of the body. So
Wahb felt drawn by what had long disgusted him, and he slouched up the
mountain path, grumbling to himself and slapping savagely back at branches
that chanced to switch his face.
[Illustration]
The odd odor grew very strong; it led him where he had never been
before--up a bank of whitish sand to a bench of the same color, where there
was unhealthy-looking water running down, and a kind of fog coming out of a
hole. Wahb threw up his nose suspiciously--such a peculiar smell! He
climbed the bench.
[Illustration]
A snake wriggled across the sand in front. Wahb crushed it with a blow that
made the near trees shiver and sent a balanced boulder toppling down, and
he growled a growl that rumbled up the valley like distant thunder. Then he
came to the foggy hole. It was full of water that moved gently and steamed.
Wahb put in his foot, and found it was quite warm and that it felt
pleasantly on his skin. He put in both feet, and little by little went in
farther, causing the pool to overflow on all sides, till he was lying at
full length in the warm, almost hot, sulphur-spring, and sweltering in the
greenish water, while the wind drifted the steam about overhead.
[Illustration: "CAUSING THE POOL TO OVERFLOW."]
There are plenty of these sulphur-springs in the Rockies, but this chanced
to be the only one on Wahb's range. He lay in it for over an hour; then,
feeling that he had had enough, he heaved his huge bulk up on the bank, and
realized that he was feeling remarkably well and supple. The stiffness of
his hind leg was gone.
He shook the water from his shaggy coat. A broad ledge in full sun-heat
invited him to stretch himself out and dry. But first he reared against the
nearest tree and left a mark that none could mistake. True, there were
plenty of signs of other animals using the sulphur-bath for their ills; but
what of it? Thenceforth that tree bore this inscription, in a language of
mud, hair, and smell, that every mountain creature could read:
My bath. Keep away!
(Signed) WAHB
[Illustration]
Wahb lay on his belly till his back was dry, then turned on his broad back
and squirmed about in a ponderous way till the broiling sun had wholly
dried him. He realized that he was really feeling very well now. He did
not say to himself, "I am troubled with that unpleasant disease called
rheumatism, and sulphur-bath treatment is the thing to cure it." But what
he did know was, "I have dreadful pains; I feel better when I am in this
stinking pool." So thenceforth he came back whenever the pains began again,
and each time he was cured.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]