In April, 1904, "Old Mose," an outlaw grizzly, was killed on Black
Mountain, Colorado. For thirty-five years he had kept up his
cattle-killing depredations. During this time he was often seen and
constantly hunted, and numerous attempts were made to trap him. His home
territory was about seventy-five miles in diameter and lay across the
Continental Divide. He regularly killed cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs
in this territory, and, so far as known, did not leave this region even
briefly. Two missing toes on his left hind foot were the means of
identifying his track.
Old Mose killed at least five men and eight hundred cattle, together
with dozens of colts and other live stock. His damage must have exceeded
thirty thousand dollars. Often he smashed the fences that were in his
way. He had a fiendish habit of slipping up on campers or prospectors,
then rushing into their camp with a roar, and he evidently enjoyed the
stampedes thus caused. On these occasions he made no attempt to attack.
Although he slaughtered stock to excess, he never went out and attacked
people. The five men whom he killed were men who had cornered him and
were attempting to kill him.
Rarely do grizzlies kill cattle or big game. Old Mose was an exception.
None of the other grizzlies in the surrounding mountains killed live
stock. During his last years Old Mose was followed at a distance by a
"cinnamon" bear of large size. This grizzly had nothing to do with the
killing, never associated with Old Mose, but simply fed on the abundance
which he left behind.
A heavy price on his head led the most skillful hunters and trappers to
try for Old Mose. Three of the best hunters were killed by him. All
trapping schemes failed; so, too, did attempts to poison. Finally he was
cornered by a pack of dogs, and the hunter ended his career with the
eighth shot.
Though Old Mose was forty or more years of age when killed, his teeth
were sound, his fur was in good condition, and he had every appearance
of being in excellent health. He was apparently good for several years
more of vigorous life.
Trapping the grizzly has become a non-essential occupation. It is a
waste of energy, because rarely successful. Now and then a bear is
trapped, but it is usually a young bear of but little experience, a
mother who is trying to protect her cubs, or a bear whose momentary
curiosity caused him to forget his customary caution.
Formerly it was not difficult to trap a grizzly. But he quickly learned
to avoid the menace of traps. The bear sees through all the camouflage
of the trapper. Deodorized and concealed traps, traps near the bait and
far from it, traps placed singly and in clusters--these, and even the
slender concealed string of a spring gun, he usually detects and avoids.
I spent a number of days with a trapper who felt certain that he would
secure the thousand-dollar reward for the capture of an outlaw
cattle-killing grizzly. Earlier than usual the cattlemen drove the
cattle from the summer range. The trapper took an old cow to a selected
spot near the end of a gulch, picketed her, and surrounded her with
spring guns and traps. The outer line of defense consisted of three
spring guns which guarded three avenues of approach to the cow. The
strings to these guns were of silk line stretched over bushes and tall
grass so as to be inconspicuous. As the bear would be likely to seize
the cow's head or neck, a trap was set between her head and a large
bowlder near by. There was a trap on each side of the cow and one behind
her.
The first night there was a light fall of snow, but no bear. But the
second night he came. Tracks showed that he scented or heard the cow
from afar--more than a mile away--and came straight for her. He stopped
within two feet of the silk line and walked cautiously round it until he
completed the circuit. But there was no opening. He then leaped the
line--something I had never before heard of a bear doing. He approached
the cow, then walked round her; he went close to the traps and detected
just where each one was concealed. Then, between the trap in front and
the one on the left, he seized and killed the cow. After feeding on her
he dragged the carcass across two traps and left it. Leaping the line
again, he went off down stream in the gulch.
The trapper reset the traps the following day and placed an additional
one just inside the line, at the point where the grizzly had leaped over
it. Then, some distance down stream, he strung a line across the gulch
and attached a spring gun to one end of the line.
The grizzly returned that night, coming down the gulch. After walking
the lines around the carcass, and apparently having detected the new
trap inside, he leaped the line at another point. He avoided the traps
and ate about half the remainder of the carcass. Then he piled a few
dead logs on what was left, leaped the line again, and went down the
gulch. He stopped within ten or twelve feet of the line here and
followed it along to where it connected with the rifle on the side of
the gulch. Walking round the rifle, he went back into the gulch and
followed his trail of the preceding night.
The trapper, amazed, vowed vengeance. He made haste and built a log pen
around the remains of the carcass. He then set two traps in the entrance
of the pen, one in front of the entrance and one inside the pen.
The second night following, the bear returned, leaped over the line, and
cautiously approached the pen. The bowlder formed part of the rear end
of this. Climbing on top of the bowlder, the bear tore off the upper
part of the pen, which rested on the bowlder, and then, from the
bowlder, without getting into the pen, reached down and dragged up the
carcass. In doing this one of the poles which had been torn out of place
and thrown to one side struck the top of a stump, turned over, and fell
across the line attached to a spring gun. This fired its waiting shot.
Then the grizzly did this astounding thing. He appears to have been on
top of the bowlder when the shot was fired, but he descended, made his
way to the smelly gun, and then examined it, the snow being tracked up
in front of it. Returning to the carcass, he dragged it off the bowlder
and ate the last mouthful. Leaving the bones where they lay, he walked
across the line where the pole rested on it and went off up the gulch.
A grizzly is wary for the preservation of his life. It is generally a
triumph of stalking to get within short range of him. His senses detect
danger afar. He will sometimes hear the stealthy approach of a hunter at
the distance of a quarter of a mile, and under favorable conditions he
will scent a man at a distance of a mile or more. Being ever on guard,
and generally in a place where he can scout with scent, sight, or
hearing, he usually manages to keep out of range or under cover. It is
not uncommon for two or three hunters in different parts of bear
territory, searching with field-glasses, watching from high places,
taking advantage of the wind, and moving silently, to spend a week
without even seeing a bear, although bears were about. Many times, even
when trailed with dogs, through his brains, his endurance, and his
ability to move rapidly over rough territory, the grizzly escapes being
cornered.
I have often been in bear territory for days without seeing one. Then
again I have seen two or more in a few hours. Frequently I have been
able to watch a grizzly at moderately short range for an hour or longer.
I was chiefly concerned to get near enough to study his actions, and not
to take a shot, as I trailed without a gun. But many a day I have failed
to see a grizzly, though I searched carefully in a territory which I
knew and where the habits of the individual bears were somewhat known to
me.
A grizzly territory is covered with a web of dim trails over which he
usually travels. If surprised, the grizzly turns and retreats over the
trail on which he was advancing. A bear's trail, close behind him, is a
dangerous place to be in if he does retreat. Many a hunter, a few feet
off the trail, has had the alarmed bear rush by without noticing him,
while others, who were directly on the trail, have been run over or
assailed by the bear.
When in a trap or cornered, a wounded grizzly sometimes feigns death.
Apparently, when he considers his situation desperate, he sees in this
method the possibility of throwing his assailant off his guard. A
trapper once invited me to go the rounds with him along his string of
traps. In one of these was a young grizzly. At short range the hunter
fired two shots and the bear fell in a heap.
We advanced within a few feet and saw that the bear was bleeding freely,
but halted "to be sure he was dead." "I make it a point," said the
hunter, "to wait until a bear dies before I start skinning him. Once I
made the mistake of putting down my rifle and starting to skin the bear
before he was dead."
We stepped forward, and the hunter prodded the bear with the end of the
rifle-barrel. Like a jumping-jack the bear sprang at the hunter, knocked
him over backwards, tore a hole through his clothing, and ripped a bad
wound in his skin on the thigh. Fortunately the chain and clog on the
trap held the bear from following up his assault.
On another occasion I was with a party of mounted hunters with dogs who
chased a grizzly out of his territory and cornered him in a deep box
cañon. He was at bay and the excited dogs were harrying him as we came
up. He stood in the end of the cañon, facing out, evidently watching for
an opportunity to escape. He discouraged all attacks by his swift and
cool-headed defense. If a bush stirred behind he made a feint to strike.
If a dog came close to his side he appeared to strike without looking.
He did not allow any rear movements or attacks to divert his attention
from the front, where the hunters stood at short range with rifles
ready. They waited for a chance to shoot without hitting a dog. Suddenly
the grizzly charged and all was confusion. With a stroke of fore paw he
broke the jaw of one horse, with another stroke he caved in three ribs
of another horse, he bit and broke a man's arm, disemboweled one dog and
wrecked another, and made his safe get-away. Not a shot had been fired.
There was no pursuit.
While with three hunters, I once came close upon a grizzly who was
digging for mice. The hunters opened fire. For seconds the cañon walls
crashed and echoed from the resounding rattling gunnery. Thirty or
forty shots were fired. The bear escaped. A hunter took up the trail and
the following day ran down the bear and killed him. He carried no wounds
except the one from the shot fired by this hunter. He weighed perhaps
five hundred pounds.
But the story of the shooting as told by one of the first three hunters
was something like this: "We came upon the largest grizzly that I had
ever seen. He must have weighed fifteen hundred pounds or more. He was
busy digging in an opening and didn't see us until we opened on him at
short range. As we had time, we aimed carefully, and each of us got in
several shots before he reached the woods. He ran with as much strength
as if nothing had happened; yet we simply filled him full of lead--made
a regular lead mine of him."
The grizzly is not an exceedingly difficult animal to kill if shot in a
vital spot--in the upper part of the heart, in the brain, or through the
centre of the shoulder into the spine. Hunters too often fire aimlessly,
or become so frightened that they do not even succeed in hitting the
bear, though firing shot after shot in his general direction.
William H. Wright once killed five bears with five shots in rapid
succession. I was with a hunter in a berry-patch when four grizzlies
fell with four lightning-like shots. George McClelland in Wyoming killed
nine bears inside of a minute. He probably fired sixteen shots. These
were grizzlies, two of which were cubs.
During the last few seconds of his life, after the grizzly receives a
fatal wound, he sometimes fights in an amazingly effective and deadly
manner. As an old bear-hunter once said, "the grizzly is likely to do a
lot of execution after he is nominally dead." Hundreds of hunters have
been wounded and scores of others killed by grizzlies which they were
trying to kill or capture. Hundreds of others have escaped death or
serious injury by extremely narrow margins.
A grizzly appears to have caused the death of the first white man to die
within the bounds of Colorado. This happened on the plains in the
eastern part of the State. Seeing the grizzly in the willows near camp,
the man went out to kill him. The wounded grizzly knocked him down and
mauled him so severely that he died.
In southern Colorado I saw a frightened hunter on horseback pursued by a
mother grizzly. He was chasing her cubs, when she suddenly charged him.
The horse wheeled and ran. Although the hunter urged the horse to its
utmost, the bear was almost upon them when his dogs rushed in and
distracted her.
Hunters claim that if a man feign death when knocked down by a grizzly
he is not likely to be injured. James Capen Adams appears to have saved
himself a number of times by this method. I have not had occasion to try
the experiment.
An old bear-hunter told me that he once saved himself from what seemed
to be certain death, in a most unusual manner. A grizzly knocked him
sprawling, then leaped upon him to chew him up. In falling, however, the
hunter had grabbed up a stone. With this he struck the bear a smashing
blow on the tip of his nose as the bear landed upon him. The bear backed
off with a roar of pain. This gave the hunter opportunity to seize his
rifle and fire a fatal shot.
Three or four men who have been severely bitten and shaken by grizzlies
have testified that they felt no pain at the time from these injuries. I
cannot account for this. Livingstone, the African explorer, also states
that he felt no pain when a lion was chewing him.
I once witnessed a grizzly-roping in Montana that had rare fighting and
adventure in it. Two cowboys pursued a grizzly nearly to camp, when
several others came riding out with whirling ropes seeking fun. They
roped the bear; but a horse was pulled off his feet and dragged, a
cowboy was ditched into a bunch of cactus, another cowboy lost his
saddle, the cinches giving way under the strain, and a horse struck in
the flank had to be shot. Meantime the bear got away and stampeded the
entire herd of cattle.
Bear stories have a fascination all their own. Here is one of five men
who were hunting in northwestern Montana, a section of high and rugged
mountain-peaks, snow-fields, and glaciers, well-nigh inaccessible, and
wholly uninhabited save by wild animals. Two of the men went off to a
distant glacier-basin for big game, separating and going on opposite
sides of a ridge. One of them after a steep climb came upon a grizzly
cub, so large as to appear full-grown except to the most careful
observer. He killed the bear with three cartridges from his Mauser
rifle, and then, leaning the rifle against a rock, stooped over to
examine his prize. Suddenly he heard a fearsome cry and a swift rush.
Turning, he saw the mother bear coming for him and not more than sixty
feet away.
Springing to his rifle, he put two steel-clad bullets into the grizzly,
emptying his gun. With remarkable coolness he slipped in another
cartridge and sent a third bullet into her. But Mauser bullets are small
and an enraged grizzly is a hard thing to stop. The three bullets did
not stop this mother bear, frantic at the sight of her dead cub. With
one stroke of her paw she knocked the hunter into a gulch, eight feet
below. Then she sprang down after him, caught him in her mouth, shook
him as a dog might shake a doll, and dropped him. She caught him up
again, his face between her tusks, shook him, and again dropped him. A
third time she snatched him up. But now the little Mauser bullets had
done their work, and she fell dead across the hunter's feet.
It was high time, for the man was in little better condition than the
bear. His scalp and cheek and throat were torn open, there were five
gaping wounds in his chest, his thigh bore an irregular tear two or
three inches wide from which the flesh hung in ragged strips, and his
left wrist was broken and the bones protruding through the twisted
flesh. His companion, alarmed by the six shots, hurried to the hunter.
He bound up his wounds, set him on a horse, guided him for two hours
across country without a trail, and got him to camp at nightfall. But to
save the man's life it was necessary to get him to the railroad in short
order. He was put on a horse with a man on each side to support him, and
for eleven hours the party climbed down the five miles through forest
and jungle, cutting their way as they went. At dark, completely
exhausted, they flagged a limited train. The hunter was hurried to a
hospital and operated upon and his life saved.
The man with a gun is a specialist. He is looking for a particular thing
in order to kill it. Generally the gun hampers full enjoyment of the
wilderness. The hunter misses most of the beauty and the glory of the
trail. If he stops to enjoy the pranks of other animals, or to notice
the color of cloud or flower, he will miss his opportunity to secure his
game. When at last he is within range of a bear, it may scent him and be
off at any minute, so he must shoot at once. He learns but little of the
character of the animal.
Trailing the grizzly without a gun is the very acme of hunting. The
gunless hunter comes up close, but he lingers to watch the bear and
perhaps her cubs. He sees them play. Often, too, he has the experience
of seeing wilderness etiquette when other bears or animals come into the
scene. The information that he gathers and his enjoyment excel those
obtained by the man with a gun.
Roosevelt has said and shown that the hunter whose chief interest is in
shooting has but little out of the hunt. Audubon did a little shooting
for specimens. Wright had as many thrills with the camera as with the
rifle. Adams was far happier and more useful with his live grizzlies
than he was killing other grizzlies. Emerson McMillin was satisfied to
hunt without either gun or camera. The words and sketches of Ernest
Thompson Seton have given us much of the artistic side of the
wilderness. Dr. Frank M. Chapman explored two continents for the facts
of bird-lore and in addition to his books prepared the magnificent
bird-groups in the American Museum of Natural History. Thoreau enjoyed
life in the wilderness without a gun. But John Muir was the supreme
wilderness hunter and wanderer. He never carried a gun. Usually he was
in the wilds alone. He spent years in a grizzly bear country. But the
wealth of nature-lore with which he enriched his books make him the
Shakespeare of nature.
The man without a gun can enjoy every scene of nature along his way. He
has time to turn aside for other animals, or to stop and watch any one
of the countless unexpected wild-life exhibitions that are ever
appearing. Then, too, he hears the many calls and sounds, the music of
the wilds. The wild places, especially in grizzly bear land, are crowded
with plants and with exhibitions of the manners and the customs of
animals, and are rich in real nature stories being lived with all their
charm and their dramatic changes.