Seventy Years on the Frontier

by Alexander Majors

The bear's life each year is divided into three distinct periods. From the first of April to the middle of September they live upon vegetables, such as they can find in the wild woods, fruits of every description, and meats of every kind, from the insect to the largest animal that lives; periwinkles, frogs, and fish of all kinds; all living things in the water as well as on the land. From the middle of September they cease to eat of the various things they have lived on during the summer, and take entirely to eating mast, that is, acorns, beech-nuts, pecans, chestnuts, and chincapins. On commencing to eat mast, they begin to fatten very rapidly. I should have remarked that during the summer months, the season in which they live on insects and meats of every variety, they lose every particle of the fat they had accumulated while eating mast. On account of his abstemious habits the prohibitionists should value the bear as emblematical of their order. Coming out of their long sleep the first of April, or when the vegetation has grown sufficient for them to feed upon, they commence to eat herbs, meats, and fruits of every kind. They are remarkably fond of swine at this period, and unlike the wolf, who seeks to catch the young pigs, the bear picks up the mother and walks off with her. She affords him a splendid opportunity for so doing, it being a trait of the mother hog, as it is of the mother bear, to fight ferociously for her young. The strength of the bear is phenomenal. They can take up in their mouths and carry off with perfect ease an ordinary sized hog, calf, or sheep. During this season they frequent corn fields, devouring the corn when it comes to the size of roasting ears. Indeed there is little to be found that is edible by man or beast that the bear at some period of his life does not eat. When they commence eating mast, which is about the middle of September or the first of October, as stated, they eat nothing else until about the 15th to the 20th of December, by which time most of them become exceedingly fat; so much so, indeed, that in some cases it is difficult for them to run very fast, not half as fast as they could before becoming so fat. All of the very fat ones, about the middle of December, cease to eat or drink anything, make themselves beds and lie down in them, preparatory to going into their caves or dens for their long sleep. They lie in these beds, which may be several miles from the caves in which they intend to take their winter sleep, several days, or sometimes a week, and by this temporary stay in the open air, nature is given time to dispose of every particle of water and food in the body. After this time has elapsed, they leave these temporary beds and go as straight as the crow flies to their intended quarters, which are generally caves in the rocks, if such can be found in the regions they inhabit. This sleep is taken when the animals are the very fattest. None but the very fat ones go through the period of hibernating. They do not lose one pound's weight during this sleep, unless it be in respiration, which is a very small quantity compared with the entire mass, for no excretions are made during that period. Entering the caves they remain there from three to four months, this being their dormant or hibernating period, and for this reason they are known among hunters as one of the family of seven sleepers. Each makes his bed in the bottom of the cave by scratching out a large, round, basin-shaped place in the dirt; these beds after being once made remain intact, as the caves are invariably dry, and are used by the same bear year after year if he is not disturbed; and after his demise will be adopted by another of his kind. Some of these caves have been perhaps for ages during the winter time the abode of a number of these "seven sleepers."

In my opinion there is no animal in the world that is so healthy, and the meat of which is more beneficial to mankind, than is the meat of the black bear. The doctors invariably recommend it for patients who are troubled with indigestion or chest diseases. Bear's oil (for that is what it really is) is considered a better curative and much preferable on account of its pleasant taste, to cod-liver oil, which is very disagreeable.

In settling the Mississippi Valley, when bear's meat was such a factor in the way of food, each of the frontiersmen kept a pack of dogs—all the way from three to half-a-dozen—partly for bear hunting, which was a very exciting sport, in fact the most of any other game hunting. I have been long and well acquainted with the courage shown by dogs in hunting and fighting game, and there is nothing I ever saw a dog undertake that arouses his courage so much as a contest with a bear. The dog seems to think a fight with a bear the climax of his existence. One familiar with, and accustomed to, bear hunting can tell at long distances whether the dogs are having a combat with a bear or some other animal, by the energy they put into their yelping. When fighting a bear the dogs continually snap and bite at his hind legs, as this is the only way they have of exasperating and irritating him, as they dare not approach him in front.

The full-grown bear is able to stand off any number of dogs that can get around him. So strong are they that if they can get hold of a dog in their forearms or mouth, he is very likely to be killed. The large she-bear can take an ordinary sized dog in her fore paws and crush him to death, and they can strike with such force as to send the sharp nails of their paws fairly through the dog. On account of the adeptness with which bears use their fore paws, the dogs try constantly to be in their rear, and the bears are always trying to confront them. The bear in moving his paws to strike never draws them back, but invariably makes a forward movement, which is a surprise to the dogs, as it gives them no warning, hence the aim of the former to confront the enemy, and of the latter not to be confronted.

I have stood several times, when a boy, upon the doorstep of my father's log-cabin and watched the men and dogs in their chase after a bear, only a few hundred yards away. This was, of course, only a few months after the first settlers came into the country, for it was the habit of these bears to leave as soon as they knew the white people had come to stay.

Bears roam in the very thickest woods and roughest portions of the country, and it is difficult to find one so far away from the rough woods that he can not reach such locality in a very few moments after he is attacked; and unlike other game that was found on the frontier, instead of trying to get into the open prairie, where they can run, they make at once after being disturbed for the cliffs of the rivers and creeks and the canebrakes; in fact into the very roughest places they can find, and take the shortest cut to get to them.

Bears do not depend on the senses of sight and hearing for their protection as much as upon the sense of smell, by which they can distinguish perfectly their friends or enemies. The scent of man would strike terror to their hearts as much as the sight of him, and they scent him much farther than they can see him, especially when they are in the thick woods or canebrakes, where they often feed.

Frequently instead of fighting dogs on the ground, when tired, the bear climbs a tree, sometimes going up fifty feet, and there rests, lodged in a fork or upon a limb, surveying with complacency the howling pack of dogs, and they in turn, becoming more bold as the distance between their victim and themselves increases, defiantly extend their necks toward their black antagonist in the tree. Notwithstanding the bear's dread of the howling pack of dogs in waiting for their prey, if he sees a man he loses his hold and drops, falling among the dogs, sometimes falling on one or more and killing them.

I have known the hunter to be so cautious in showing himself that before he came near enough to shoot he would select the trunks of large trees, hiding behind them as he approached, until being near enough, and concealed from the bear by one of these trunks, he moved his head a little to one side to take aim; the moment he moved his head sufficient to do so, if the bear chanced to be looking that way, he would let go his hold and drop, showing that, after all, he knew where the real danger was.

It is very desirable in bear hunting that the bear should climb a tree and give his pursuer an opportunity to fire at him there, for while he is in the fight with the dogs it would be almost impossible for the hunter to shoot the bear without taking the chance of injuring or killing one or more of the dogs. The dogs are also in great danger when a bear weighing from three to five hundred pounds falls a distance of forty or fifty feet, be the bear dead or alive. No other animal that I know of could fall such a distance and not be more or less hurt, but bears are not injured in the least, being protected by their immense covering of fat, which forms a complete shield, or cushion, around the body.