"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."