True Bear Stories Part 10

"As the Polar bear is able to obtain food all through the Arctic winter, there is not the same necessity, as in the case of the vegetable-eating bears, for hibernating. In fact, the males and young females roam about through the whole winter, and only the older females retire for the season. These--according to the Eskimo account, quoted by Captain Lyon--are very fat at the commencement of winter, and on the first fall of snow lie down and allow themselves to be covered, or else dig a cave in a drift, and then go to sleep until the spring, when the cubs are born. By this time the animal's heat has melted the snow for a considerable distance, so that there is plenty of room for the young ones, who tumble about at their ease and get fat at the expense of their parent, who, after her long abstinence, becomes gradually very thin and weak. The whole family leave their abode of snow when the sun is strong enough to partially melt its roof.

"The Polar bear is regularly hunted with dogs by the Eskimo. The following extract gives an account of their mode of procedure:

"Let us suppose a bear scented out at the base of an iceberg. The Eskimo examines the track with sagacious care, to determine its age and direction, and the speed with which the animal was moving when he pa.s.sed along. The dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter courses over the ice in silence. As he turns the angle of the berg his game is in view before him, stalking along, probably, with quiet march, sometimes snuffing the air suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a nest of broken hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening a wild, wolfish yell, the driver shrieking 'Nannook! Nannook!' and all straining every nerve in pursuit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pressed more severely, the bear stands at bay.--Page 155.]

"The bear rises on his haunches, then starts off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs, leaning over his sledge, seizes the traces of a couple of his dogs and liberates them from their burthen. It is the work of a minute, for the motion is not checked, and the remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease.

"Now, pressed more severely, the bear makes for an iceberg, and stands at bay, while his two foremost pursuers halt at a short distance and await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance, and, tumbling through the snow and ice, prepares for the encounter.

"If there be two hunters, the bear is killed easily; for one makes a feint of thrusting the spear at the right side, and, as the animal turns with his arms toward the threatened attack, the left is unprotected and receives the death wound."

XVI.

MONNEHAN, THE GREAT BEAR-HUNTER OF OREGON.

He wore a tall silk hat, the first one I had ever seen, not at all the equipment of "a mighty hunter before the Lord;" but Phineas Monnehan, Esq., late of some castle (I forget the name now), County of Cork, Ireland, would have been quite another personage with another sort of hat. And mighty pretension made he to great estates and t.i.tles at home, but greatest of all his claims was that of "a mighty hunter."

Clearly he had been simply a schoolmaster at home, and had picked up all his knowledge of wild beasts from books. He had very impressive manners and had come to Oregon with an eye to political promotion, for he more than once hinted to my quiet Quaker father, on whose hospitality he had fastened himself, that he would not at all dislike going to Congress, and would even consent to act as Governor of this far-off and half-savage land known as Oregon. But, as observed a time or two before, Monnehan most of all things desired the name and the renown, like Nimrod, the builder of Babylon, of a "mighty hunter."

He had brought no firearms with him, nor was my father at all fond of guns, but finally we three little boys, my brother John, two years older than I, my brother James, two years younger, and myself, had a gun between us. So with this gun, Monnehan, under his tall hat, a pipe in his teeth and a tremendously heavy stick in his left hand would wander about under the oaks, not too far away from the house, all the working hours of the day. Not that he ever killed anything. In truth, I do not now recall that he ever once fired off the gun. But he got away from work, all the same, and a mighty hunter was Monnehan.

He carried this club and kept it swinging and sweeping in a semi-circle along before him all the time because of the incredible number of rattlesnakes that infested our portion of Oregon in those early days. I shall never forget the terror in this brave stranger's face when he first found out that all the gra.s.s on all our grounds was literally alive with snakes. But he had found a good place to stay, and he was not going to be driven out by snakes.

You see, we lived next to a mountain or steep stony hill known as Rattlesnake b.u.t.te, and in the ledges of limestone rock here the rattlesnakes hibernated by thousands. In the spring they would crawl out of the cracks in the cliffs, and that was the beginning of the end of rattlesnakes in Oregon. It was awful!

But he had a neighbor by the name of Wilkins, an old man now, and a recent candidate for Governor of Oregon, who was equal to the occasion. He sent back to the States and had some black, bristly, razor-backed hogs brought out to Oregon. These hogs ate the rattlesnakes. But we must get on with the bear story; for this man Monnehan, who came to us the year the black, razor-backed hogs came, was, as I may have said before, "a mighty hunter."

The great high hills back of our house, black and wild and woody, were full of bear. There were several kinds of bear there in those days.

"How big is this ere brown bear, Squire?" asked Monnehan.

"Well," answered my father, "almost as big as a small sawmill when in active operation."

"Oi think Oi'll confine me operations, for this hunting sayson, to the smaller s.p.a.cies o' bear," said Mr. Monnehan, as he arose with a thoughtful face and laid his pipe on the mantel-piece.

A few mornings later you would have thought, on looking at our porch, that a very large negro from a very muddy place had been walking bare-footed up and down the length of it. This was not a big bear by the sign, only a small black cub; but we got the gun out, cleaned and loaded it, and by high noon we three little boys, my father and Monnehan, the mighty hunter, were on the track of that little black bear. We had gone back up the narrow canyon with its one little clump of dense woods that lay back of our house and reached up toward the big black hills.

Monnehan took the gun and his big club and went along up and around above the edge of the brush. My father took the pitchfork and my younger brother James kept on the ridge above the brush on the other side of the canyon, while my older brother John and myself were directed to come on a little later, after Mr. Monnehan had got himself in position to do his deadly work, and, if possible, drive the terrible beast within range of his fatal rifle.

Slowly and cautiously my brother and I came on, beating the brush and the tall rye gra.s.s. As we advanced up the canyon, Mr. Monnehan was dimly visible on the high ridge to the right, and father now and then was to be seen with little brother and his pitchfork to the left.

Suddenly there was such a shout as almost shook the walls of the canyon about our ears. It was the voice of Monnehan calling from the high ridge close above the clump of dense wood; and it was a wild and a desperate and a continuous howl, too. At last we could make out these words:

"Oi've thrade the bear! Oi've thrade the bear! Oi've thrade the bear!"

Down the steep walls came father like an avalanche, trailing his pitchfork in one hand and half dragging little brother James with the other.

"Run, boys, run! right up the hill! He's got him treed, he's got him treed! Keep around the bush and go right up the hill, fast as you can.

He's got him treed, he's got him treed! Hurrah for Monnehan, at last!

He's got him treed, he's got him treed!"

Out of breath from running, my father sat down at the foot of the steep wall of the canyon below Monnehan and we boys clambered on up the gra.s.sy slope like goats.

Meantime, Monnehan kept shouting wildly and fearfully as before. Such lungs as Monnehan had! A mighty hunter was Monnehan. At last we got on the ridge up among the scattering and storm-bent and low-boughed oaks; breathless and nearly dead from exhaustion.

"Here, byes, here!"

We looked up the hill a little ahead of us from where the voice came, and there, straddled across the leaning bough of a broad oak tree hung Monnehan, the mighty hunter. His hat was on the ground underneath him, his club was still in his daring hand, but his gun was in the gra.s.s a hundred yards away.

"Here, boys, right up here. Come up here an' get a look at 'im!

Thot's vaght Oi got up 'ere fur, to get a good look at 'im! Right up now, byes, an' get a good look at 'im! Look out fur me hat there!"

My brother hastily ran and got and handed me the gun and instantly was up the tree along with Monnehan, peering forward and back, left and right, everywhere. But no sign, no sound or scent of any bear anywhere.

By this time my father had arrived with his pitchfork and a very tired little boy. He sat down on the gra.s.s, and, wearily wiping his forehead, he said to Monnehan,

"Mr. Monnehan, how big was the bear that you saw?"

"Well, now, Squire, upon the sowl o' me, he was fully the size of a very extraordinary black dog," answered Mr. Monnehan, as he descended and came and stood close to my father, as if to defend him with his club. Father rose soon after and, with just the least tinge of impatience and vexation in his voice, said to brother John and me,

"Boys, go up and around the thicket with your gun and beat the bush down the canyon as you come down. Mr. Monnehan and I will drop down to the bottom of the canyon here between the woods and the house and catch him as he comes out."

Brother and I were greatly cheered at this; for it was evident that father had faith that we would find the bear yet. And believing that the fun was not over, we, tired as we were, bounded forward and on and up and around the head of the canyon with swift feet and beating hearts. Here we separated, and each taking a half of the dense copse of wood and keeping within hailing distance, we hastily descended through the steep tangle of grapevine, wild hops, wild gourdvines and all sorts of things, shouting and yelling as we went. But no bear or sign of bear as yet.

We were near the edge of the brush. I could see, from a little naked hillock in the copse where I paused to take breath, my father with his pitchfork standing close to the cow path below the brush, while a little further away and a little closer to the house stood Mr.

Monnehan, club in hand and ready for the raging bear.

Suddenly I heard the brush break and crackle over in the direction of my brother. I dropped on my knee and c.o.c.ked my gun. I got a glimpse of something black tearing through the brush like a streak, but did not fire.

Then I heard my brother shout, and I thought I heard him laugh, too.

Just then there burst out of the thicket and on past my father and his pitchfork a little black, razor-backed sow, followed by five black, squealing pigs! Monnehan's bear!

XVII.

THE BEAR "MONARCH."

HOW HE WAS CAPTURED.

Much having been said about bears of late, a young Californian of great fortune and enterprise resolved to set some questions at rest, and, quite regardless of cost or consequences, sent into the mountains for a live grizzly. The details of his capture, the plain story of the long, wild quest, the courage, the cunning, the final submission of the monster, and then the last bulletin about his health, habits and all that, make so instructive and pleasing a narrative that I have asked for permission to add it to my own stories. The bear described is at present in our San Francisco Zoo, a fine and greatly admired monarch.