CHAPTER XII.
WELL HEELED.
"Curious how some men will lose their grip on the truth when they talk about bears," said Mr. Jack Waddell, of Ventura. "There's old Ari Hopper, for example, a man whose word is good in a hoss trade, but when he tells about his bear fights he puts your confidence in him to an awful strain. I don't say that Ari would tell lies, but he puts a whole lot of fancy frills on his stories and fixes 'em up gorgeous. I reckon I've run across most as many bears as anybody, but I never had no such adventures as I read about.
"The most curious bear scrape I ever had was over on the Piru last spring, and just the plain facts of the case beat anything you ever heard. There was an old white-headed Grizzly in that part of the country that did a heap of damage, but nobody had been able to do him up. They set spring guns for him on the mountain and put out poison all around, but he'd beat the game every time. Taylor, of the Mutaw ranch, fixed a spring gun that he thought would fix the old fellow for sure. It was a big muzzle-loading musket, with a bore as big as an eight-gauge shotgun, and Taylor loaded it with a double handful of powder, thirty buckshot and a wagon bolt six inches long. It was set right in the trail and baited with a chunk of pork tied to the muzzle and connected with the trigger by a string.
"The gun was about a mile from the house, and the very first night after it was set, Taylor was awakened by a roar that made the windows rattle and seemed to shake the very hills. Taylor knew the old gun had gone off, and he chuckled as he thought of the wreck it made of the old Grizzly. In the morning he started out to take a look at his dead bear, and found his tracks leading from the meadow right up the trail. He knew the sign, because the Grizzly put only the heel of his off forefoot to the ground and there was a round mark in the track that looked as though it were made by the end of a bone.
"As I was saying, Taylor recognized the tracks and was sure he had got old Whitehead, but he was sort of puzzled when he noticed a hog's track in the same trail and saw that those were sometimes wiped out by the bear's tracks. When he got near the spring gun he saw bits of meat hanging in the brush, but no fur anywhere. He kept on, and pretty soon he saw a dark mass lying on the ground in front of the wreck of the old musket. He stepped up to look at it and saw that it was the mangled corpse of the biggest hog on the ranch. One of the hams was gone, and apparently it had been cut away with a knife. The head and all the fore part of the hog had been blown to flinders, and the brush was just festooned with pork.
"Taylor thought somebody had happened along and cut a ham out of the dead hog, but there were no man tracks anywhere; nothing but hog and bear tracks. It was plain that the cunning old bear had driven the hog ahead of him up the trail to spring the gun, but that missing ham could not be accounted for.
"Another curious thing was noticed about all the cattle that the Grizzly killed. Ordinarily, you know, the Grizzly strikes a blow that breaks a steer's neck or shoulder, and then pulls him down and finishes him. In the Piru country a great many cattle were found with their throats neatly cut, and old Whitehead's tracks were invariably found near the carcasses. The only man that the Grizzly ever killed, so far as is known, was a Mexican sheepherder, and he was found with a slash in the side of the head that looked like the work of a hatchet or other sharp tool. Some people didn't believe that the Mexican was killed by a bear, but there were no other tracks where his body was found, and I know for a fact that old Whitehead did kill him.
"I was pirooting around in the brush on a hill pretty well up toward the head of Piru Creek one afternoon, when I caught sight of a bear about twenty yards ahead of me. I could see only a part of his fur, and couldn't tell how he was lying or what part of him was in sight. I figured around a few minutes, but couldn't get a better sight, and so I just took chances and let drive for luck at what I could see. It was a fool thing to do, of course, but I just happened to feel careless and confident. There was a snort and a crash, and old Whitehead loomed up madder than a hornet. I had shot him in the haunch and he felt insulted. He made a rush at me, and I skipped aside and jumped for a small tree standing on the brink of a little ravine. My rifle dropped into the ravine, and I went up the tree like a monkey up a pole, and by the time the old bear had put his helm down and swung around to take a whack at me I was out of his reach and felt safe.
"The bear sat down and deliberately sized up the situation, and then he walked up to the tree and began striking at the trunk with his right paw. That made me laugh at first, but I was just paralyzed with amazement when I saw clean-cut chips flying at every stroke and caught a metallic gleam as his paw swung in the air. I didn't have much time to investigate the matter because the old Grizzly was a boss chopper and my tree began to totter very soon. I had sense enough to see that if I came down with the tree on the upper side the bear would nail me with one jump, and I threw my weight on the other side so as to fall the tree into the ravine. I thought I might have the luck to land without breaking any bones, and then I'd have quite a start of the bear and perhaps be able to pick up my rifle.
"As the tree toppled over the edge of the ravine and began to fall I swung around to the upper side and braced myself for the crash. During the fall I managed to throw my legs out over a branch, and when the tree struck bottom I shot out feet foremost, sliding down through the brushy top and landing with a pretty solid jar right side up and no damage except a few bruises and scratches. The first thing I looked for was my rifle, and, luckily, it wasn't two yards away. I grabbed it and ran up the other side of the ravine to a rocky ledge, while the Grizzly was crashing down through the brush on his side, expecting to find me under the fallen tree. Before he knew what had happened I was shooting him full of holes and he was dead in a minute.
"When I examined the dead Grizzly I found the most singular thing I ever came across. In the sole of his right forepaw was an ivory-handled bowie-knife, firmly imbedded and partly surrounded by calloused gristle as hard as bone. The handle was out of sight, but the butt of it made a knob in the heel of the bear's foot and left a mark on the ground. Evidently he walked on that heel to keep the blade from striking stones and getting dulled. That knife accounted for all the mysteries about the white-headed Grizzly.
"What's that? Mystery about how the knife got into his foot? Not at all; that's simple enough. He swallowed the knife during some fight or other, and it worked around in his system and down into his foot just as a needle does in a man."
CHAPTER XIII.
SMOKED OUT.
What a bear may do under given circumstances may be guessed with reasonable certainty by one who has had experience, but it is not always safe to risk much on the accuracy of the guess. Bruin's general nature is not to be depended upon in special cases. He has individual characteristics and eccentricities and is subject to freaks, and these variations from the line of conduct which he is expected to follow are what makes most of the trouble for people who are after his pelt. Morgan Clark, the old bear hunter of Siskiyou, never hesitates about going into a den in the winter to drive out a bear, provided the cavern is wide enough to let the bear pass him. He takes a torch in his hand and stalks boldly in, because his experience has made the proceeding seem perfectly safe.
"All you've got to do," says Morgan, "is to stand to one side and keep quiet, and the bear'll just scoot by without noticing you. It's the light that's bothering him, and all he's thinking about is getting out of that hole as fast as he can. He don't like the smoke and the fire, and he won't pay any attention to anything else until he gets outside, but then you want to look out. He goes for the first live thing in sight when he's clear of the cave and the smudge, and he don't go very slow either. Jim Brackett found that out over in Squaw Valley one day. He found a bear in a den, and built a fire at the mouth to smoke him out. The fire was burning rather slowly, Brackett thought, and he stood looking around and waiting for something to happen. While he had his back turned to the den something did happen, and it happened dog-gone sudden. That fire was plenty fast enough for the bear, and the old cuss came out without waiting to be choked. He came out galleycahoo, and the first thing he saw was Brackett leaning on his gun and waiting for the show to begin. He just grabbed Brackett by the back of the neck and slammed him around through the manzanita brush like a dog shaking a groundhog, Brackett told me that he never felt so surprised and hurt in his life. He hadn't cal'lated on that bear coming out for a good two minutes more; but mebbe the bear had stronger objections to smoking than Brackett knew. If it hadn't been for Brackett's little cur dog, that he supposed wasn't fit for nothing but barking at chipmunks, I reckon the bear would have chawed and thumped the life out of him. The cur seemed to tumble to the situation right away, and he went for the bear's heels in good shape. It generally takes time and a few knock-out cuffs from bear's paw to teach a dog that there's two ends to a bear and only one of them safe to tackle, but that little ornery kiyi knew it from the start. If there's anything a bear can't stand, it's a dog nipping his heels, and when the cur began snapping at his hind legs and yelping, he lost interest in Brackett and attended to the disturbance in the rear. The little cuss was cute and spry enough to keep out of his reach, though, and he made such a nuisance of himself, without doing any serious damage of course, that the bear got disgusted with the whole performance and hiked out through the brush. Brackett was hurt too badly to follow him or to fire a gun, and it was two months before he was able to get around. But he wouldn't have sold that little scrub cur for all the money he ever saw."
Budd Watson, who used to hunt and trap on the Pitt River and the McCloud, had an adventure with a bear that didn't conduct his part of the hunt according to Hoyle. Budd and Joe Mills tracked a big Cinnamon to a den in the mountains near the McCloud and built a big smudge to smoke him out. The wind blew the wrong way to drive the smoke in, and so Budd took a torch and went after the bear, leaving Mills on guard outside. Like Morgan Clark, he knew the bear would pass him head down and make for the open air without delay, and he wasn't afraid. When the bear got up with a growl at the appearance of the torch and started for the exit, Budd quietly stepped aside and gave him room to pass, but the Cinnamon developed individuality in an unexpected direction and made a grab for Budd's right leg as he passed. Budd threw his leg up to avoid the grab, lost his balance and fell flat on top of the bear. Instinctively he caught hold of the thick fur on the bear's hind quarters with both hands, still holding the torch in his right, but dropping his gun, and winding his legs about the bear's body he rode out into the daylight before he hardly knew what had happened.
Mills was ready to shoot when the bear appeared, but seeing his partner riding the game, he was too much surprised to take the brief chance offered at the bear's head, and in another instant it was too late. To fire after the pair had passed was too dangerous, as he might hit the rider instead of the steed. The Cinnamon, in his first panic, plunged wildly down the hill, trying to shake off his strange burden, and went so rapidly that Budd was afraid to let go. But Budd's principal fear was that the bear would recover his presence of mind and turn upon him, and his game was to keep the beast on the jump as long as he could, trusting to chance for a way out of the scrape.
The torch, made of rags soaked in oil, was still blazing in his right hand. Taking a firmer grip with his legs and a good hold just above the tail with his teeth, he applied the torch to the bear's rump. This application and the hair-raising yells of Mills, who was plunging along madly in the wake, caused an astonishing burst of speed, and the Cinnamon thundered through the brush like a runaway locomotive on a down grade, with such lurches and rolls and plunges that Budd dropped his torch and hung on, tooth and nail, for dear life.
The unfeeling Mills was taking a frivolous view of the case by this time, and as he strode rapidly along behind, losing ground at every jump, however, he encouraged Budd and the bear alternately with flippant remarks: "Stick to him, Budd! Whoaouw! Go it bar!" "You're the boss bar-buster, old man. Can't buck you off!" "Whoopee Hellitylarrup!" "Who's bossing that job, Budd; you or the bar?" "Say Budd, goin' ter leave me here? Give a feller a ride, won't ye?" "Hi-yi; that's a bully saddle bar!"
[Illustration: A Bully Saddle Bear.]
But Budd was waiting for a chance to dismount, and as the bear rose to leap a big log in his path, Budd let go all holds and slid head first to the ground. He bumped his forehead and skinned his nose on a rock. His legs and back were scratched and torn by the brush, his clothes were in tatters, and he was almost seasick from the lurching motion of his steed.
Mills came up roaring with laughter. He thought it was the funniest thing he ever had seen in his life. But Budd was not a man of much humor and he failed to appreciate the ridiculous features of the adventure. He got up slowly, ruefully brushed away the blood and dirt from his face, and solemnly and methodically gave Joe Mills the most serious and matter-of-fact licking that a man ever got in this world.
CHAPTER XIV.
A CRY IN THE NIGHT.
In the flickering of the camp-fire the glooming wall of firs advanced and receded like the sea upon the shore, whispering, too, like the sea, of mysteries within its depths; for this is true: the wind in the forest and the wave upon the beach make the same music and tell the same strange tales. Through a rift in the darkening wall the last afterglow on the snow-cap of Mount Hood made a rosy point against the western sky, a "goodnight" flashed from the setting sun to the man by the camp-fire.
Out from the enfolding night that fell as a mantle when the light died on Mount Hood, came a shape, followed by a shadow that seemed to be with but not of the shape. Like a menacing enemy the shadow dogged the steps of the man who came out of the night, now towering over him in monstrous height against a tree trunk, now suddenly falling backward and darting swiftly down a forest aisle in panic fear, only to spring forth with gigantic leaps and grotesque waxings and wanings and inane caperings at his heels as the firelight rose and fell.
A cheery "Howdy, stranger!" drew the attention of the man by the fire—known to his Indian guide by the generic name of "Boston," which is Chinook for white man—and he returned the greeting to the tall, gray-bearded man who strode toward him, glad to have company in the absence of the Indian, Doctor Tom, who had gone down to the Columbia for supplies. A haunch of venison confirmed the stranger's brief explanation that he was hunting and made his arrival doubly welcome.
When the pipes were lighted, Boston drew the old fellow out, found that he hunted for a living and soon had a hunt for the next day all arranged. They were telling camp-fire yarns, and the stranger was speaking in an animated way of some adventure, when Boston noticed a sudden change in his expression and an abrupt halt in his speech.
Turning in the direction toward which the stranger's apprehensive gaze was directed, Boston saw a dark figure standing motionless in the shadow of a fir, and he laid his hand upon his rifle. The figure advanced into the firelight and Boston recognized Doctor Tom. The Indian said nothing, but placed his pack upon the ground in silence, and Boston saw him cast one swift, glowering look at the stranger, who was apparently trying to conceal his uneasiness under an assumption of indifference.
Doctor Tom had travelled all day and must have been hungry, but he did not take any food out of the pack or even go to the fire for a cup of tea, and he shook his head when Boston offered him a piece of broiled venison. Not a bite would he touch, but sat, silent and motionless as a statue, upon a log away from the fire and with his back turned to the stranger.
Boston tried to resume the camp-fire stories, but the grizzled hunter was thinking of something else and replied with monosyllables. Soon he arose, made up his pack, threw his rolled blanket over his shoulder and picked up his rifle. Boston, in some surprise, urged him to remain, and reminded him of the arrangement for the next day's hunt. There was a slight movement of Doctor Tom's head, and he seemed about to arise, but the almost imperceptible tension of his limbs instantly relaxed, and he remained apparently indifferent and unheeding.
"Fact is," said the stranger, "I forgot that I'd got to be up to Hood River to-morrow, and I reckon I'll just mosey along to-night so as to make it. I know the trail with my eyes shut." He was about to stride out of camp, when his eye caught Doctor Tom's old musket leaning against the tree. "You don't shoot with this?" he asked with a little, uneasy laugh, as he picked up the ancient piece and toyed with the lock. Boston laughingly replied, "Well, hardly," and the stranger replaced the gun, said "So long," and was lost in the gloom.
It was ten minutes before Doctor Tom moved, and then he got his musket and brought it to the fire. He lifted the hammer, removed the cap, and taking a pin from his waist band worked at the nipple until he extracted a splinter of wood. Then he drew the charge, blew down the barrel to see that it was clear and reloaded the musket. Doctor Tom took some smoked salmon from his pouch, made a cup of coffee and silently ate his supper, and Boston began to comprehend that there was a reason for his refusal to eat while the stranger was in camp. But it was useless to try to make Doctor Tom talk until he had smoked, and Boston waited patiently.
At last Doctor Tom said, abruptly, "You know um?" Boston replied that he did not know the stranger, told briefly how he came into camp, and by adroit questioning drew, in laconic sentences, a story from the taciturn Indian.
The man was a hunter, who had been a famous bear-killer many years ago. In the days of muzzle-loaders he had two rifles, one of which was always carried for him by an Indian whom he hired for that service. If his first shot failed to kill, he handed the empty rifle to the Indian to exchange for the second weapon, and usually brought down his bear while the Indian was reloading. A member of Doctor Tom's tribe, probably a relative, was gun-bearer for the hunter on one of his expeditions. They ran across a she-bear with cubs and the hunter shot her, but the wound only stung her, and she rushed fiercely upon him. The second shot did not stop her, and the hunter and the Indian had to turn and run for their lives.
But a Grizzly in a rage can outrun any man in a long race, and the angry she-bear rapidly overhauled her foes. The white man and the Indian ran side by side, although the Indian could have outstripped him. The red man had his knife in hand ready for the moment when the bear should seize one of them. The white man glanced over his shoulder, saw the bear lurching along within one jump of them, seized the Indian by the shoulders and hurled him backward into the very jaws of the furious brute. The white man escaped with his life, and the Indian lived just long enough to tell those who found him, a torn and bloody mass of flesh and broken bones, how he had been sacrificed to a coward's love of life.
Doctor Tom told this in his uncouth jargon of English and Chinook, without a tremor, but his black eyes glowed with a gleam of light not reflected from the dying embers of the campfire, and Boston was glad that the stranger had gone. Then he knew why Doctor Tom sat silently apart and would taste no food while the stranger was in camp. The stranger might accept Boston's hospitality and eat salt with him, but the Indian would not acknowledge by any act that he, Doctor Tom, had any interest in that camp, or bind himself by Indian custom to treat the stranger as his guest.
Boston awoke in the still dark hours before dawn and lay thinking over Doctor Tom's story and the demeanor of the man who had wandered into camp. A cry clove through the silence of the night like a lightning flash through a black cloud, and as the gloom becomes deeper after the flash, so the silence seemed more intense and oppressive after that cry. It came from across the canyon, clear and far, a cry of mortal terror.
It is a panther, thought Boston, and he listened for its repetition or an answer from the mate, but the stillness was unbroken. He turned over to see if Doctor Tom had heard or noticed it, and thought the dark bundle by the side of the log seemed rather small for the sleeping Indian. Boston got up and walked over to the log. Doctor Tom's blanket only was there. Boston looked for the musket; it was in its old place against the tree. His own rifle was undisturbed. Boston concluded that Doctor Tom had gone for water or was off on some incomprehensible Indian freak, the reason of which was not worth a white man's time to puzzle out, rolled up in his blanket again and became oblivious to the realities around him.
It was daylight when Boston awoke again. Doctor Tom had not returned. Boston made a fire, and while cooking breakfast he noticed that the Indian's long knife was gone from the log where he had left it sticking after supper. He halloed to Tom, but received no answer save the echo. Calmly confident of Doctor Tom's ability to look out for himself, Boston went about his business without more ado, ate his breakfast and was taking a second cup of coffee when Doctor Tom came into camp, silent and grave as usual, but rather paler. He came from the direction of the canyon.
The Indian drank some coffee and then carefully took his left arm with his right hand from the bosom of his shirt, where it had been resting, and said, "Broke um." Boston examined the arm and found that it was badly bruised and broken above the elbow. He heated some water and bathed the arm and then told Tom to brace his breast against a tree and hold on with his right arm. Boston took hold of the left arm on the opposite side of the tree, braced his feet and pulled. Rough splints were soon made and applied, and a big horn of whiskey made Doctor Tom feel more comfortable. While making the splints Boston asked Tom for his knife, having carefully mislaid his own. "Lose um," said Doctor Tom, but he offered no more explanation. When asked how he broke his arm, he replied, "Fall down." Evidently he had fallen down, but there were five odd-looking marks on his throat, and Boston thought of that cry in the night and wondered if the whispering firs could tell of another mystery hidden in the forest; of a menacing shadow dogging the footsteps of a man and grappling with him in the dark.
Boston and Doctor Tom broke camp and started back over the mountain on the Hood River trail. Boston was in the lead, and as he walked along he looked closely for the tracks of the stranger's boots, as he had said he was going to Hood River. There were no tracks. The stranger had not gone over that trail.
CHAPTER XV.
A CAMPFIRE SYMPOSIUM.
"Speaking of bears, Joe," said one of a party of hunters sitting around a campfire at old Fort Tejon, "Old Ari Hopper has had more queer experiences with bears than anybody. He has given up hunting now, but he used to be the greatest bear-killer in the mountains. Ari has a voice like a steam, fog-horn—the effects of drinking a bottle of lye one night by mistake for something else, and when he speaks in an ordinary tone you can hear him several blocks away. You can always tell when Ari comes to town as soon as he strikes the blacksmith's shop up at the cross-roads and says, 'Holloa' to the smith. Ari was out on the Alamo mountain one day and got treed by a big black bear—"
"A black bear on the Alamo?" interrupted Dad. "There ain't nothing but Grizzlies and Cinnamons over there. I was over there once—"
"Hold on, Dad, it's my turn yet. You never heard of a Grizzly climbing a tree, did you?"
"Oh, well, if you've got to have your bear go up a tree, all right. We'll call it a black bear. Besides, if it's one of Ari's bear stories, anything goes."
"The bear treed Ari," resumed the other, "and just climbed up after him in a hurry. Ari went up as high as he could and then shinned out on a long limb. The bear followed, and Art kept inching out until he got as far as he dared trust his weight. The bear was climbing out after him and the limb was bending too much for safety when Ari yelled at the bear: 'Go back, you d——d fool. You'll break this limb and kill both of us. Want to break your cussed neck, goldarn ye?'
"Well, sir, that bear stopped, looked at Ari, and then down to the ground, and then he just backed along the limb to the trunk, slid down and lit out for the brush. Ari swears that the bear understood him. Bears have a heap of sabe, but I'm inclined to think that it was Ari's stentorian roar that scared him away."
"That's one of Art's fairy tales," said Joe. "Let Ari tell it, and he has had more bear fights and killed more Grizzlies than anybody, but the fact is that his brother-in-law, Jim Freer, did all the killing. You never heard of Ari going bear hunting without Jim. When they'd find any bears Ari would go up a tree and Jim would stand his ground and do up the bear. Jim never gets excited in a scrimmage, and he's a dead shot. He'll stand in his tracks and wait for a bear, and when the brute gets near him he'll raise his rifle as steadily as though he were at a turkey shoot and put the bullet in the exact spot every time. If that had been the piebald Grizzly of the Piru that treed Art, he wouldn't have scared him out of the tree."
"What's the piebald Grizzly?" inquired Dad in an incredulous tone. "I never heard of no such bear as that."
"Oh, you needn't think I'm lying. I wouldn't lie about bears."
"How about deer?"
"Well, that's different. I never knew a hunter or any chap that likes a gun and a tramp in the mountains who wouldn't lie about a deer except Jim Bowers. He doesn't lie worth a cent. Why Bowers will go out after venison, come back without a darned thing, and then tell how many deer he shot at and missed. I've known him to miss a sleeping deer at thirty yards and come into camp and tell all about it. When I do a thing like that I come back and lie about it. I swear I haven't seen a deer all day long."
"If you told the truth," said Dad, "we'd hear nothing but deer stories—the missing kind—all night."
"That's all right, but I'm telling about bears now. This bear I speak of is a big Grizzly that some people call Old Clubfoot. Jim Freer knows him better than anybody, I reckon. Jim got caught in a mountain fire over on the Frazier one day, and he had to hunt for water pretty lively. He found a pool about five yards across down in a gully, and he jumped in there and laid down in the water. He hadn't more than got settled when the big piebald bear came tearing along ahead of the fire and plunged into the same pool. It was no time to be particular about bedfellows, and the bear lay right down alongside of Jim in the water. They laid there pretty near half an hour as sociable as old maids at a tea party, and neither one offered to touch the other. The bear kept one eye on Jim and Jim kept both eyes on the bear, and as soon as the fire had passed Jim crawled out and scooted for camp, leaving the Grizzly in soak."
"Did you ever see that piebald Pinto of the Piru?" inquired Dad.
"Did I ever see him? Well, I had the d—-dest time with him I ever had in my life except the day I was chased by a spotted mountain lion on Pine Mountain. I was hunting deer over on the Mutaw when I saw Old Clubfoot in the brush and fired at him. He turned and rushed towards me and I had just time enough to get up a tree. The tree was a pinon about a foot thick and would have been a safe refuge from any other bear, and I felt all right perched about twenty feet from the ground. But Old Clubfoot is different from other bears. He's a persistent, wicked old cuss, and would just as soon sit down at the foot of a tree and starve a man out as hunt sheep. He came up to the tree, looked it all over, sized it up, and then stood on his hind legs and took a good hold of the trunk with his arms. He couldn't quite reach me, and at first I thought he was going to climb up, which made me laugh, but I didn't laugh long. The old bear began to shake that tree until it rocked like a reed in a gale, and I had all I could do to hold on with arms and legs. It's a fact that he pretty nearly made me seasick. He shook the tree for about ten minutes, and when he saw that it was a little too stout and that he couldn't shake me down, he began tearing the trunk at the base with his teeth and claws. The way he made the bark and splinters fly was something surprising. He gnawed about half way through, and there was a wicked glitter in his little green eyes as he stood up to take another grip on the tree. I saw that he'd shake me down sure that time, and I got ready to take the last desperate chance for life. Looking around, I noticed a barranca, or gully, twenty feet wide about a hundred yards away, and I determined to make for that. If I could reach the bank, jump across and get to some heavy timber on the other side, I would be all right. Twenty feet is a big jump and I knew the bear couldn't make it. It was doubtful if I could, but a man will do some astonishing things when he's at the head of a procession of that sort. When the Grizzly began to shake, I took a firm hold on the big limb with my hands and swung clear of the trunk. He made that tree snap like a whip, and as it swayed over toward the barranca I threw my feet out ahead and I let go. I shot through the air like a stone out of a sling, and struck the ground nearly fifty yards from the tree. It was that fifty yards that saved me, for by the time I had picked myself up and started on a run the bear was coming hellitywhoop. I ran like a scared wolf and I think my momentum would have carried me across the barranca if the bank had been firm, but the earth caved under me as I took off for the leap, and down I went into the gully under a mass of loose earth. I reckon there was about a ton of dirt on top of me, and I was in danger of being smothered under it. I couldn't move a limb and I'd have passed in my chips right there and been reckoned among the mysterious disappearances if it hadn't been for the bear. The piebald Grizzly of the Piru saved my life."
"Did he dig you out?" asked Dad, grinning.
"That's what he did."
"And then he ate you up, I suppose?"
"No; I'm coming to that. The bear came tumbling down into the barranca on top of the dirt and he began to dig right away. He was as good as a steam paddy, and in a few moments I was able to get a breath of air. I was wondering-which would be the worse, smothering or being chewed up by a bear, when he raked the dirt off my head and I saw daylight. I shut my eyes, thinking I would play dead as a last ruse, when I heard a roar and a rush. There was a trembling of the ground, a dull, heavy shock, and I felt something warm on my face. At the same moment I heard a growl of rage and surprise from the bear and felt relieved of his weight above me. A terrific racket followed. As soon as I could free myself from the dirt, I crawled out cautiously and saw a strange thing. A big black bull, the boss of the Mutaw ranch, had charged on the Grizzly and knocked him over just in time to save me. One of his horns had gored the bear's neck, and it was the warm blood that I felt on my face. They were old enemies, each bore scars of wounds inflicted by the other, and they were having a battle royal down there in the barranca."
"Which licked?" inquired Dad, eagerly.
"I don't know. I'd had enough bear fight for one day, and I lit out for camp and left them clawing and charging and tearing up the ground. I didn't see any necessity for remaining as referee of that scrimmage. You remember, father, that I came into camp covered with blood, and that you thought I had been monkeying with a mountain lion."
"Ye-es, I recollect the circumstances, but I never heard about the bear and bull episode before. I seem to have sort of a dim notion that you were packing a deer home on your back and fell into a barranca with it and lost it in a mud slough, but perhaps I'm mistaken. You forgot to tell me the facts, I guess."
"Shouldn't wonder," said Dad; "Joe does sometimes forget to tell the facts, but he wouldn't lie about a bear."
"I haven't forgotten the facts about your bear trap in Sonoma," retorted Joe.
"I allow that little accident never lost anything by your telling. 'Taint worth telling nohow. You'd better turn in and go to sleep and not be telling durn lies about folks that's old enough to be your great-grandfather, but ain't too old yet to give ye a licking, b'gosh! Don't ye go to fergittin' that I'm a constable, and can arrest people who use language cal'lated to provoke a breach of the peace."
"Dad was a devil of a bear catcher," continued Joe, "and once he built a big trap up in Sonoma. The door weighed about three hundred pounds, and it took two men and a crowbar to lift it. Dad had fixed it so that no bear in Sonoma could raise it from the inside. It was a bully trap, and when it was all finished Dad set the trigger and went inside to tie the bait on. He forgot to prop the door, and as soon as he monkeyed with the trigger he set it off and down came the door with a bang. It worked beautifully.
"When Dad realized that he had caught himself he was sorry he had made such a solid door. He couldn't think of any way of getting out, and there wasn't nobody within five miles. Dad yelled for about an hour and then quit. After a while he heard something coming, and thinking it might be a neighbor riding along the trail, he shouted again. Peering out between' the logs he saw two bears in the moonlight making straight for the trap, and he stopped his noise. The bears came up, sniffed all around, smelt Dad and the bait and began clawing at the logs to get inside. Then Dad was sorry he hadn't built the trap stronger and used heavier logs. He tried to scare the bears by yelling, but the more he yelled, the harder they dug to get at him, and it wasn't long before he heard a mountain lion answering his shout and coming nearer every minute. The lion came down off the mountain, jumped on top of the trap and began tearing at the log's up there. He got his paw down through the trigger-hole, and Dad had to go to the other end of the trap to keep out of reach. Then the bears got the logs torn so that they could reach in between them in two or three places, and they kept Dad on the jump inside. Before morning there was another lion and three more bears at work on the Dad-trap, and they'd have got him by noon that next day if a party of hunters hadn't come along and scared them away. These are the facts, but Dad used to tell it differently.
"Dad said he pulled up one of the floor logs and began to dig with his knife and hands. He sunk a hole two or three feet deep and then run a drift under the trap to a big hollow tree that stood just behind it. While the bears were digging in, Dad was digging out. He struck the root of the tree with his tunnel and made an upraise to the inside of the trunk. He climbed up about ten feet and struck into a mass of honey and comb, and crawled through that to a hole about fifty feet from the ground, where he could look out. Just about that time the bears and the lions broke into the trap and began to fight over the bait. The growling and yelling were fearful, and the air was full of flying fur, bark and chips. While Dad was watching the fight he heard a great scratching and scrambling in the tree beneath him, and he knew that one of the bears had caught the scent of the honey and was following it through his drift and upraise. Dad crawled out through the bee hole, slid down the tree and lit out for home. When he came back with his boys and neighbors he found the trap chock full of dead bears and lions. He cut down the bee tree, killed the bear that was inside and got half a ton of fine honey. That's the way Dad tells it."
"I never told no such dogdurned lie as that since I was born," snorted Dad, "and my boys got me out with a crow-bar."
CHAPTER XVI.
BRAINY BEARS OF THE PECOS.
The people who live on the Pecos, away up in the canyon, almost in the afternoon shadow of Baldy and just this side of the Truchas Peaks, do not assert that the bears of that region are wiser than the bears of any other country on earth, for they are ready to admit that in this wide world are many things concerning which they know nothing. But they have never heard of any bears more thoughtful than the bears of the Pecos, and it is doubtful if anybody else ever has.
No man can associate with bears for any considerable length of time without having it impressed upon him that Ursus Americanus is nobody's fool. Senor Mariano Ortiz of the Upper Pecos affirms upon the faith of a descendant of the Conquistadores that this is so, and he ought to know, for he and the bears have been joint occupants of the ranch for years. There was a time when Senor Ortiz thought the Pecos country admirably adapted to the raising of hogs, but that was before he tried to raise hogs there and before he had learned to appreciate the mental capacities of bears.
Senor Ortiz went down to Pecos town and bought some hogs, drove them up the river, and turned them into his alfalfa field to fatten. They were of genuine thoroughbred razor-back variety, trained down to sprinting form, agile, self-reliant as mules, tougher than braided rawhide, and disorderly in their conduct. They broke through the fence the first night, went up into a quaking asp patch where there was nothing eatable, and had a scrap with two bears who thought Senor Ortiz had invested in edible pork. The hogs were wiry and pugnacious, and the circumstantial evidence plainly indicated that the bears had no walk-over. However, the bears managed to get one emaciated porker after a long chase, and they bit several samples out of him. They didn't devour the whole carcass, and they didn't try pork again for two months.
After a few days, the hogs ceased breaking out of the field, and settled down to the business of laying leaf lard upon their rugged frames, a line of conduct which merited and received the hearty approval of Don Mariano, and, as subsequent events proved, was joyously appreciated by the bears. Don Mariano was fearful that the bears, having discovered the prevalence of pork, would raid his field and introduce difficulties into the business of hog raising, and he watched the drove with some solicitude. But, to his surprise, he missed no pigs.
One evening, just at dusk, Don Mariano saw two bears come out of the woods just above the alfalfa field and waddle calmly down to the fence. He hid behind a tree and watched them. When they reached the fence they stood up and placed their forepaws upon the top rail. Thinking they were about to go a-porking, Don Mariano picked up a club and prepared to stampede them, but they made no move to climb the fence, and he waited to see what their game might be. With their paws upon the rail and their snouts resting lazily upon their paws, like two old farmers discussing the crop prospects, the bears inspected the pigs in clover. One of them presently lifted a hind foot and placed it upon the bottom rail, and Don Mariano was about to break forth with a yell, when he saw that the bear was only getting into a more lazily comfortable position. Then the bear cocked his head to one side and thoughtfully scratched his ear. The hogs were nosing around in the clover, and the whole drove was in full view of the bears. The hogs were still lean and athletic.
[Illustration: The Bears Inspected the Pigs in Clover.]
After contemplating the drove for about ten minutes, one of the bears turned about, walked two or three steps upright, came down to all fours, and, with a grunt, shambled slowly away. The other leisurely followed, and they disappeared in the woods. Now, Don Mariano didn't understand at the time, but he learned later that those bears were sizing up his hogs, and after inspection they had decided that there wasn't one in the lot fat enough to kill.
During the next month Don Mariano saw bears loafing about the edge of the woods or lolling over his fence at least a dozen times, and he couldn't at all make out what they were at, as they did not molest his hogs. One day he noticed with satisfaction that the hogs were improving and that one youngster, who had attended strictly to his feed, was actually growing fat. The bears must have caught on at about the same time, for that pig was missing the next morning.
From that time on the alfalfa field was raided nearly every night, and the fattest pig was taken every time. A five-string barb-wire fence proved to be no protection, and the bears wouldn't go near a spring gun, and so, to save the remnant of his drove Senor Ortiz set about building a stockade corral, so high that no bear could climb over it. It was slow work cutting, hauling and setting the logs, and when the corral was finished there was only an old sow left to be put into it.
The sow soon had a litter of a dozen pigs, and Don Mariano fed them and saw them grow with satisfaction and certainty that the bears would not get them. When they were about roasting size Don Mariano looked into the corral one morning and counted only eleven little pigs. The missing pig could not have got out, as there was no hole in the corral, and Don Mariano eyed the old sow with suspicion. Still he was inclined, like all good Mexican people, to explain inexplicable things by the simple formula: "It is the will of God," and with a shrug he dismissed the mystery from his mind.
But when he missed a second and a third little pig from the litter, he openly and violently accused the old sow of devouring her offspring, and talked of sending down to El Macho for the Padre. He did better than that, however, for he isolated the old sow in a board pen and gave the youngsters the run of the corral. A day or two later another pig mysteriously disappeared, and Don Mariano began to suspect his next door neighbor of reprehensible practices, and talked about sending for the constable. Upon second thought, he strung barb wire on the top of the stockade and set steel-traps cunningly outside. Then half a dozen little porkers were spirited away in rapid succession, and when Don Mariano satisfied himself that nobody on the Peco's had feasted upon roast pig since last Christmas, he concluded that the devil had a hand in the business for sure.
Now, Don Mariano had been heard frequently to say that he was not afraid of the devil, and truly he was no idle braggart, for he loaded up his gun and laid in wait for him inside the old sow's pen, grimly determined, if the devil swooped down after another pig, to take a shot at him flying. He felt sure of at least winging the satanic thief, for he had scratched a cross on every buckshot in the load.
It was a moonlight night. Don Mariano lay upon the clean straw that he had placed in the old sow's pen and waited for the hour of midnight, at which time, as is well known, churchyards yawn and devils flit about. He had apologized to the bereaved mother for entertaining unworthy suspicions of her, and they were on amicable terms. Don Mariano was almost dozing when he was startled broad awake by a familiar grunt. Peering between two of the posts of the stockade, he saw coming across the clearing, looming huge and distinct in the moonlight, two bears. They were headed straight for the corral. Don Mariano knew they could not climb the stockade, and he watched them with languid interest. But the corral was evidently their objective point, for they lumbered along right toward it.
"Now, look at those infatuated fool bears," said Don Mariano to himself. "They'll get into one of the traps and make a grand row and frighten the devil away, so that I won't get a shot. Por Dios!"
But the two fool bears did not get into a trap. Without delay they clambered up into a large tree beside which the corral was built, and made their way out along a big limb that hung over the corral. There was no hesitation in their movements; clearly, they had been there before. One of them, the lighter and more active, went well out toward the end of the limb, and the other advanced slowly until their combined weight bent the limb down over the top of the stockade, when the first swung himself off by his forepaws and dropped into the corral.
"That's a very smart trick," muttered Don Mariano. "You are in, no doubt of that, but how the devil you are going to get back is another story."
The bear seized a pig in no time, and having broken its neck and stopped its squealing with a dexterous right-hander on the ear, he shuffled back to a position under the limb and stood upright, holding the pig in his arms. Then the other and heavier bear moved out toward the end of the limb until it bent beneath his weight so that he could reach the pig as the lighter one held it up. The big bear took the pig, and the other bear seized the limb and drew it down until he got a firm hold with all four feet. Then the big bear backed away toward the trunk and the other followed, and the limb slowly sprang up to its natural level. The two bears backed down to the ground and waddled across the clearing, the big one walking upright and carrying the pig in his arms.
Don Mariano did not shoot. "The Good Father," he said, "has given brains like that only to such of his children as have souls. I would not commit murder for the value of a pig. Besides, I casually noticed that I had miraculously forgotten to put caps on the gun. Nevertheless I cut away all the limbs from the tree on the side toward the corral, and I still have the old sow and one pig."