The horn of Chocorua rose into a sky full of threatening colors and
shadows. Its own coloring was sinister, its outlines vague, its height
apparently greater than usual. Low, growling thunder came from its
ledges and ravines. The forest at its feet, which ended at my door, was
silent; no whisper swept through its waiting leaves. In the west as in
the north, cloud masses were boiling up into the sky, covering the blue
with white, gray, and black, through which now and then shot a ray of
gold from the protesting sun. A tempest seemed brewing as a not
unwelcome close of a mid-August day.
A tall man emerged from the woods and came striding towards me across
the grass. A rifle swung to and fro in his right hand as he walked. It
was a repeating rifle, one of those inclusive successors of the
fowling-piece, shot-pouch, powder-flask, cap-box, and wad-pocket of this
tall man’s boyhood. The stride ended at my side, and the tall man and I
spoke of the heat, the drought, and the approaching storm. Just as he
was preparing to lope onwards down the ribbon road through the birches,
I said:—
“I hear Merrill caught a bear Saturday, and brought it out at Piper’s.”
“That so? How big was it?”
“A small one, a two-year-old, probably. It was in one of his traps and
he shot it.”
“Well, I’ve kept up with him this time. I shot one less than an hour
ago, and he warn’t in any trap, either.”
I looked at the man wonderingly. There had been no unusual spark in his
eye, flush on his bronzed cheek, or spring in his heavy step. He had not
boasted, or even spoken of his achievement until I touched his pride by
my tale of his rival’s success. Would he have gone home without telling
me? I think so. Yet this meeting with a bear, alone, on the high ledges
of Chocorua, had been one of the joys of this man’s life. Many a weary
hour had he carried his magazine rifle over the ledges, treading softly,
keeping eye and ear alert, hoping to see Bruin on his feeding-ground. A
year before he had trapped and killed some of the great creatures; but
shooting a beast caught in a forty-pound steel trap is tame sport
compared with facing a free bear on the open ledges.
Before the hunter left me, we had arranged that soon after sunrise on
the following morning he was to pass through my dooryard on his way to
the spot where, under those black clouds, poor Bruin was lying dead.
The rage around Chocorua deepened. Boom, boom, of thunder rolled
downward from the heights of storm. The peak was swept by masses of
rain. Flash after flash lit up the darkening sky behind the grim
mountain. Still the nearer forests lay at rest, waiting. Then a golden
rift came in the western cloud-bank. One half of the storm rolled past
us on the south, drenching Ossipee and Wolfborough, the other half on
the north, soaking Conway and Fryeburg; we alone were dry.
The morning of the 13th of August was breathlessly hot. Even the hermit
thrushes forgot to sing. A rattle of wheels brought me from breakfast to
join the party organized to bring home the bear. A strong, sure-footed
horse was drawing a farm wagon which had been the stand-by of an earlier
generation, and which, therefore, was made of solid stuff. My tall
friend and two of his hunting satellites were in it, and around them
were strewn rifle, hatchet, ropes, empty grain-bags, and other apparatus
to be used in bringing the dead brute down the mountain. My master of
the horse, an alert and muscular Prince Edward Islander, stood by ready
to march, so the word was given, and we five, some walking, some in the
ancient wagon, started for the mountain.
For a quarter of a mile the road was good, winding through my pasture
and belts of white birches. Then we turned from it and plowed through
beds of brake and blackberry bushes dripping and glistening with dew. We
might as well have waded waist deep in the lake, which would have been
warmer though no more wet than that dew-deluged tangle. Next came a
ravine filled with spruces, over which towered two immense canoe
birches, at whose feet a cold spring bubbled in a sandy pool. The horse
wound in and out among the trees, shaking from them showers of cold
dew-drops. Small saplings and bushes bowed before the wagon and passed
under its axles; large ones were bent away by strong hands, or hacked
down. Sometimes the wheels locked against tree-trunks, bringing the
horse to a sudden standstill, and almost throwing the passengers to the
ground; and sometimes they sank into unseen hollows filled to the brim
with ferns, making the wagon careen so that all its contents slid, or
struggled not to slide, against its sinking side.
Beyond the ravine and its dripping spruces was a narrow sunny valley
pointing straight towards the mountain. Up this valley our party
continued its course, the sun drying the dew from our clothes, and
flashing many colors in the drops still clinging to brakes and grasses.
Fifteen hundred feet above us towered the West Ledges, on which the bear
had been shot. As one looks at Chocorua from the south, its peak seems
to rest upon the shoulders of two converging ridges, one sloping upward
towards it from the southeast, and one from the southwest. Between the
two ridges the soft forest drapery of the mountain falls in graceful
folds and curves to the level of the lake. We were in one of these
folds, climbing towards the steep inner side of the western ridge. On
each side of us lofty trees clung to the slopes of the valley. Owls hoot
in these woods after twilight and at dawn. Great boulders lie in
confusion in the perpetual shadows of the trees, and in the caverns
between and under them are dens of porcupines, foxes, and skunks.
Not until we reached the torrent at the foot of the west ridge was the
wagon abandoned and the horse tethered. The forest at this point
consists mainly of poplars, birches, and oaks. The bear-slayer led the
way through them, and his more muscular satellite followed at his heels,
cutting saplings in order to form a path for our descent with the bear.
After climbing several hundred feet, we rested. A loud humming filled
the air, yet no bees were to be seen. They appeared to be in the higher
foliage, attracted by something on the leaves. We examined the lower
branches, and then the leaves of low shrubs and plants. They seemed to
be covered with dew, but the dew was sticky and proved to be sweet to
the taste. As we continued our walk we found that the entire side of the
mountain had been sprinkled with heavenly sweetness of the same kind.
The roar of bees had become familiar to our ears. The bear-slayer was
bending down a slender beech for the satellite to cut, when suddenly he
uttered a cry and sprang backward. “Run, run,” he shouted, and in a
moment the Islander and the small satellite were bounding down the
mountain-side like chamois. The larger satellite became a football under
the bear-slayer’s feet, and I, hearing a second cry of “hornets!”
plunged headforemost into the bushes and crawled away under the brakes,
thus avoiding both the hornets and the necessity of re-climbing lost
ground. The bear-slayer’s retreat was marked by repeated howls of pain
which lent further speed to the flying heels of the rear-guard. It was
some time before the ignominious stampede was checked and a fresh ascent
begun. The bear-slayer had been stung in three places, and the larger
satellite declared he had saved himself from a sting by pulling the
hornet off his back with his fingers.
Standing among the young trees of the forest were many gray stumps of
ancient origin,—decayed relics of forest gentry now displaced by the
democracy of poplars and birches. These stumps bore no axe marks; they
had fallen at the command of the tornado, not of the lumber thief. On
their sides were long scratches which looked like claw marks. Had “Sis
Wildcat” been trying her claws there? No; but “Brer Bar” had been. Near
by was a small grove of oaks, not one of which was more than a foot in
diameter. Their sides were deeply scored by Bruin’s claws, and their
highest branches hung down upon the rest of their limbs, broken and
dying. There is hardly an oak on Chocorua which has not been climbed by
bears in acorn time, and disfigured by the great brutes in their
attempts to reach the coveted nuts.
Towering close above the oaks we could see the abrupt faces of the West
Ledges. We seemed to be at the foot of a great feudal castle whose gray
walls needed scaling ladders to be conquered. Ferns grew in the crevices
in the rock; tiny streams of water trickled down its sides and fed
mosses and lichens; honeysuckle, mountain ash, wild Solomon’s seal, and
striped maple sprang in luxuriant tangles from its feet, and tripped us
as we skirted the castle’s base and sought a break in its smooth walls.
Presently we found one,—a rift made originally by ice, but long since
widened and deepened by other erosive forces. Clinging to tree-trunks or
the tough stems of blueberry bushes, we pulled ourselves up the steep
ravine and reached the top of the first ledge. The mountain was still
unconquered before us, but turning we saw, sunlit and smiling, the world
we had left. Curving, undulating forest; warm spots of open pasture; the
Hammond farm, from which one of the principal paths starts up Chocorua;
my own red-roofed cottage with squares of flax, millet, corn, and
buckwheat giving patchwork colors to its clearing; Chocorua ponds and
the cottages on Nickerson’s hill, and then the wider world of forest,
mountain, river, and lake,—Ossipee, Sandwich Dome, Bearcamp,
Winnepesaukee,—blended beauties whose names awaken pleasant memories and
whose picture is a joy to look upon,—all these things we saw, and much
more which we only half thought about, so eager were we to go on with
our quest.
Climbing ledge after ledge, wading through thickets of mountain ash,
dogwood, low spruce and blueberry bushes, we gained at last the highest
open point on West Ridge. On three sides the land fell away abruptly. On
the north the ridge, heavily grown with stunted spruce and poplars,
continued toward the peak. It did not go straight towards that proud
rock, but sought it by bending westward and then northward in a great
bow. The peak, consequently, stood the other side of a vast hollow
filled with tangled forest. It was near, and yet appeared unattainable.
I thought of the winter day when I had climbed to this point over four
feet of packed and frozen snow and seen the Chocorua horn, crusted with
ice and flanked by mighty snowdrifts, hanging in the bright blue sky.
Then, stimulated by the keen air, I had plunged into the hollow, crossed
it, scaled its farther side on hands and knees, gained the foot of the
peak, and finally won its slippery summit, no larger than my dining
table; and lying there half freezing, had seen the snow-covered world
from Casco Bay to the Green Mountains; Monadnock to Dixville Notch. The
sun of August did not encourage such exploits, and a dead bear lying
hidden near us drew our thoughts away from the heights to the damp
thicket close below.
The bear-slayer was telling his story: “I was coming along here, sort of
softly, thinking it was just the kind of place for a bear, when just as
I got to this open ledge I heard a hustling round in that snarl of
bushes. I stopped short and listened and peeped in. There was something
black and hairy rubbing round in the blueberry bushes,—you can see how
thick the berries are in there. Well, I thought, I must be careful;
there are lots of folks berrying, and I should hate to put one of these
pills into a woman picking blueberries. It would settle her right off.
So I peeked round, till I was dead sure it was a bear, and then I let
drive—at what I could see. The ball hit him in his side not far back of
his shoulder, and he gave an awful roar and started out this way. I
climbed up on this big boulder, five feet out of harm’s way, and waited.
He was letting out roars and then drawing awful deep breaths. You could
hear those gasps a mile. I could not see him, he was in so thick in the
bushes. But then he began to drag himself off towards old Coroway and I
started after him. I heard him go kerchunk down this ledge, and then I
caught sight of his head and let him have another, and a third ball, but
they didn’t seem to stop him a bit, just glanced off his skull, I
s’pose. Well, he got down ’most a hundred feet before I could get a
sight at his side again, but when I did, I put one in where it stopped
his gasping and kicking.”
During this narrative we had followed the hunter through the network of
trees, bushes, and brambles, tracing the track made by the bear in his
agony. Branches were broken, leaves crushed, moss stained, and rocks
torn up. As we descended the north slope towards the dark ravine which
the bear had sought, the sunlight grew dim and the air cold. Suddenly I
saw the bear. At the foot of a slippery ledge, over which hung dripping
wet moss, lying upon a deep bed of sphagnum, was a gaunt black form.
Dead and still as it was, it sent a thrill through me. I seemed to see
the being for whom this wild region had been created. The horn-blowing,
pistol-firing, peanut-eating tourist is out of place in the rugged
ravines of Chocorua. Even the bronzed, gray-shirted native with his
magazine rifle is not in tune with the solemn music of this wilderness.
But in the dead creature on the moss I saw the real owner of forest and
ledge, mountain pool and hidden lake. He looked weary and worn, as
though life had been full of hunger and terror. The small, keen, wicked
eyes were closed; the cruel teeth were locked tight, the broad feet were
cut by his last struggles on the ledges, and his thin hair, showing the
hide below it, was flecked with blood which had oozed from four bullet
wounds.
We five men gathered around the dead bear and looked at him, felt of
him, counted his nails, tried to open his set jaws, guessed at his
weight, discussed his character, wondered at his ability to maintain
life in such a region, and marveled especially at the nature of his kind
to bring forth young in late winter and to rear them in the chill and
foodless months of February and March. With great interest we sought
through his capacious stomach to see what he had eaten, and found quarts
of ripe blueberries, scarlet cherries, and what we at first took to be
grubs dug from decaying stumps. Closer examination showed that Bruin had
swallowed the whole of a hornet’s nest, for the perfect insects,
hundreds of their undeveloped young in the brood-cells, and the gray,
papery nest were all recognized. This bear certainly knew how to pick
ripe blueberries and not to pick green ones. I saw but one green berry
in the quarts which he had gathered.
Drawing the bear’s fore and hind feet on each side together, the hunter
strapped them firmly. He next tied the head to the feet, so that it
should not drag, and then passed two maple poles through the loops made
by the two pairs of lashed feet, and called upon the larger satellite
and the Islander to shoulder their burden. They did so, and the homeward
march began, the bearers groaning. Possibly a hundred yards had been
traversed before the Islander tripped and fell, pulling the bear down
upon his prostrate form, and receiving also the weight of the heavy
satellite. The hunter took his place under the poles, and fifty yards
more were gained. Then the hunter, with a resounding exclamation, flung
down the poles and whipped out his hunting-knife. With difficulty he was
dissuaded from skinning and quartering Bruin on the spot. The plan which
induced him to stay his hand was suggested by one of the party who had
read of what he called an “Indian wagon.” Under his direction two long
poles were cut and the bear was lashed on top of them near their heavy
ends. The satellites then stood between the light ends, as horses stand
between the shafts, and began dragging the bear down the steep side of
the mountain. They had not gone fifty feet before the weight of the bear
turned the poles over and left the satellites sprawling in the bushes.
Once more knives were drawn and skinning threatened.
The next proposal was to wrap Bruin in grain bags so as to protect his
skin, and then to drag and roll him down to where traveling would be
easier. The bear slayer consented to try this experiment, and two large
short bags were drawn over the body, one from its head, the other from
its tail. Other bags were laid under the body, and, thus protected, it
was dragged, bumping and rolling, down several hundred yards to the foot
of the ledges. Short cross-sticks were then inserted in the lashings,
which were tied round the bear’s legs, and four of us, two on each side,
or two in front and two behind, raised the body by these sticks and bore
it through the winding path we had cleared while ascending. The lesser
satellite, carrying the rifle, hatchet, and other luggage, brought up
the rear, and urged on the party by jeering remarks and snatches of
song. In spite of repeated cautions from the bear-slayer, whose stings
still smarted, we narrowly escaped walking into the hornet’s nest a
second time.
More than six hours had elapsed since our departure from home when our
little procession wound out of the woods into my dooryard. Raspberry
vinegar never was more gratefully swallowed, and never was dead emperor
received with more respect than poor Bruin by the crowds which flocked
to view his remains during the afternoon of that hot August day. One
bought his nails, another his teeth, a third his thinly haired skin,
while pieces of his flesh, prepared for future cooking, were carried
away in various directions. As when sugar is spilled upon the ground,
ants come from every quarter to gather up the grains and draw them away,
so dead Bruin drew gossips and idlers from all parts of the town, eager
to pick up bits of his body or stories of his melancholy end.