THE TRUTH ABOUT BEARS
The black bear's coat is all of a glossy black, save just the muzzle, which is light brown. In weight the black bear runs from two hundred to five hundred pounds. Though he is found throughout the Great Northern Forest, he is a comparative stay-at-home, for he seldom roams, even in summer time, more than ten miles from his den, where, if undisturbed, he goes into the same winter quarters, year after year. Consequently, his paths are often clearly defined and well-beaten, for he has the habit of treading repeatedly in his old tracks, and occasionally he blazes his trail by clawing and biting, as high as he can reach, a neighbouring tree. There, too, he frequently leaves other signs—as a dog does at a post. Dog-like, also, other bears that happen along manifest pleasure or rage according to whether the sign has been left by friend or foe. The mating season is in June, though the female rarely bears young except every second year. The young are born in January while the mother is hibernating; and the cubs, usually two in number, are at birth very small, weighing only about ten ounces. The she-bear makes a good mother, for though she shows great affection for her babies, she nevertheless reprimands them, and cuffs them as well, whenever they misbehave or fail to comply with her wishes. The cubs are easily tamed, and being natural little romps, they soon become proficient wrestlers and boxers, and in latter years, show so much agility in the manly art that they strike and parry with amazing power, speed, and skill. When hurt, however, the cubs whimper and cry just like children, and if the little tots are badly wounded, the distress of the mother is pitiful to see, for she moans and sheds tears just as any tender-hearted human mother would. Bear-cubs are droll little mischiefs. Not only do they, when tamed, frequently get into trouble through the pranks they play, but they like to imitate at any risk to themselves the doings of others. As the following example shows:
Years ago, near Fort Pelly, on the Assiniboine River, an old Indian killed a she-bear that was followed by two cubs. Though he skinned and cut up the carcass of the mother, he did not touch the whimpering babes, and on going to camp, he sent his wife out with a horse to bring in the meat. When the Indian woman arrived at the spot, she found the two cubs cuddled up against the dressed meat of their mother, and crying as if their poor hearts would break. Their affectionate behaviour so touched the motherly heart of the old woman that, after loading the meat aboard the travois—a framework of poles stretched out behind the horse—she picked up the sobbing children and, wrapping them in a blanket to keep them from falling off the travois, bestrode her horse, and brought them whimpering into camp.
For some time she kept them tethered beside her lodge where she took good care of them, but when they grew larger and seemed well behaved, she released them and allowed them to run and play with the dogs around camp. In the fall it was her habit to take a hand-net and go down to the river to fish. Standing upon a rock and every once in a while casting in her net, she would land a fish on the bank. For several days the cubs watched her with interest, and then one day, it seems, they decided they ought to try and help their foster-mother; so wading in on their hind legs till the water covered their little round tummies, they would stand perfectly still until a fish would swim near. Then they would make a violent lunge for it, and striking lightning-like blows with their paws, they, too, would land a fish upon the bank. Over and over they repeated the manoeuvre, with evident excitement and pleasure. At last, every time the old woman picked up her net to go fishing, these two went along and helped her with her work. So fond of the sport did they become that, presently, they didn't even wait for her to accompany them, but scurried down to the river by themselves and would often have a day's fishing caught and ready for her before she had put in her appearance.
But a few months later, when the cubs had grown still larger and stronger, they became so boisterous and mischievous that they not only handled the dogs too roughly, but when the old Indian and his wife left camp at any time, they went on the rampage: chasing the dogs about, ransacking the larder, turning the camp topsy-turvy, and scattering everything in confusion. So the old couple decided that it was now high time to put their skins upon the skin-stretcher in readiness to sell to the fur-trader.
The black bear is a good swimmer and an excellent tree climber, and the speed with which he can rush up a hillside is surprising. His diet is a varied one, for he is always ready to eat vegetables, roots, berries, insects, nuts, fish, eggs, meat, fruit, and of course sugar or honey; furthermore, he is a killer of small game—when he is extra-hungry. The black bear has been given so bad a name by uninformed writers and dishonest story-tellers that most people dread to meet him in the woods; whereas, in truth he is usually more frightened at meeting human beings than they are of meeting him—for man is always his greatest and most dangerous enemy. Though I have seen many bears in the bush—seventeen on one trip—they never caused me any anxiety, and at once took flight. But on one of two rare occasions they did not run, perhaps because they were three in number and all full-grown.
It happened up on the borderline of Alaska. I was walking alone through the mountains on my way to Stewart, and wishing to cross the Marmot River, I took advantage of a great, permanent snowslide that had been annually added to by avalanches from the snow-capped glaciers. The snowslide not only completely blocked the cañon, but on either side it reached many hundreds of feet up the almost perpendicular mountains, yet in the middle, where it bridged the river, it was no more than two hundred feet high, though it was about two thousand feet in width. Year in and year out that great snow-bridge spanned the little river, and now when I wanted to make use of it, I had no sooner started over than I discovered three bears with the same intention. They, too, had just come out of the woods, and were only forty paces from me—as I afterward measured. We were all going in the same direction, and though we were exactly opposite one another and all walking in a parallel line, no one ran, and for two thousand feet or more, without stick or stone between us, we had a good opportunity to study each other. As usual, I was armed—as I always take care to be—with a penknife and a pocket handkerchief.
Occasionally one reads in the daily press shocking stories of the ferocity of bears. What a pity that the truth of these stories cannot always be run to earth! Billy Le Heup, a prospector and guide of northern Ontario, once having occasion to call for his mail in a little backwoods settlement, opened a newspaper and was shocked to learn that a most harrowing affliction had befallen an old friend of his, by name—But I'm sorry I have forgotten it, so let us call him Jones. The paper reported that while several of Jones's children were out berry-picking, a great, black bear had attacked them, and killing the youngest, a little girl, had devoured her entirely, save only one tiny fragment; for when the rescue party went in search of the poor little child they found nothing but her blood-stained right hand. Le Heup was so overcome with sorrow and so filled with indignation that he then and there determined to get together a few trapper friends of his and at once start by canoe for the scene of the tragedy, only a few miles away; there to condole with the poor father, trail the huge brute and wreak vengeance upon the child-eating monster. So Bill, with several of the best bear-hunters in that region, all well armed, set out in haste for the Jones's clearing. When they arrived, Jones was splitting wood outside his shack. The sorrowing trappers, with downcast eyes, moved slowly toward the bereaved father, and Le Heup, appointed spokesman, offered their condolences on the terrible death of his favourite child. Jones was completely dumbfounded. When it was explained to him what a dreadful thing had happened to his child, he swore he had no idea a bear had ever eaten any one of his children; but he was willing to put their story to the proof, so as he had a lot of children, he called them all out of the house to check them over. To the joyful surprise of the visitors, there among them was little Eva—supposed to be eaten, and she even retained her right hand. Thus another newspaper libel upon the poor old black bear—the buffoon of the forest—was shown to be devoid of truth; yet that story was published in the Toronto papers, and, no doubt, was copied all over the United States.
But though the black bear is a shy, playful brute, usually ready for flight if danger approaches, the tyro should remember that if wounded or cornered he will readily fight. Furthermore, if one is unlucky enough to get between a bear cub and its mother, and if the cub should cry out as though you were giving it pain, the mother will attack you as readily as any mother would—be she chicken, moose, or woman.