The Life of a Fossil Hunter

by Charles H. Sternberg

Learning that a sheep-owner a few miles away had killed a grizzly, I went out to his camp to see it. Sure enough, there lay the mighty carcass, encircled with four inches of grease, enough for the polls of all the boys in Oregon. It seemed that as the time for his winter nap was approaching, Mr. Bruin had been laying in a supply of fuel by devouring the fat wethers of our friend’s flock. The latter had built a heavy brush fence around the sheep, and with the help of a large number of hounds, had kept his range free from coyotes, but he had been helpless before the attacks of this big bear. When he watched on top of the brush fence, he was not molested, but no sooner did he seek the comfortable cot in his tent, than his slumbers were broken by the piteous bleat of some sheep, as it was carried off to the woods by the bear.

About ten days before I reached Klamath, he had been awakened in the middle of the night by a commotion in the flock, and rushing out in his shirt into the cool night air, had seen the bear only ten feet away, across a deep and narrow stream. Without thinking of the consequences to himself if he only wounded the creature, he opened fire with his Winchester, and the first shot broke the bear’s neck.

When I arrived, the skin had been removed, but the huge carcass, which must have weighed at least a ton, had been lying in the hot August sun ever since. The sheep-owner (I am sorry that I have forgotten his name, as I was under heavy obligations to him) promised me that after breakfast he would help me in the not very enviable task of removing the decaying flesh from the bones. But after one whiff from the windward side, he asked a pertinent question, was I fond of trout, and upon my answering yes, remarked that he knew of a creek where he could get some beauties, and immediately disappeared. I saw him no more that morning.

At the first thrust of my knife into the bear, the stench was so horrible that I grew deathly sick. I filled my pipe and tried to find relief in smoking, but even then the odor was overpowering, and I smoked and sickened through the livelong day, until I had cleaned the filthy flesh from the bones, and they had been tied up in gunny-sacks and hung in a tree to dry. Then into the creek I went and with soap and sand scrubbed and scoured my body; but the horrid smell still hung about me, and I could eat neither supper nor breakfast the next morning, although at dinner I managed to stow away a good square meal. But even now, after thirty years, if you say “bear” to me, I can smell that bear.

At Klamath I hired for my assistant a man named George Loosely. I also bought two saddle ponies and one to carry the pack; and with a government tent and other outfit and rations purchased at the commissary,—we had our flour baked into bread by the post baker,—we started for Silver Lake, although no one at the post could give us any directions. I had a department map, sent to me by Professor Cope, which recorded, mistakenly as we found later, that Sprague River rose in Silver Lake. The government road to the east crossed the Williamson River on a government bridge, and came to an abrupt end in an Indian village on the western bank of Sprague River. So we decided to take the road as far as we could and then follow up the river to its source in the lake.

When we reached the Williamson River, we found there the lodge of a Snake Indian, who appeared dressed in red paint and a breech-cloth, and demanded toll. But as American citizens we had paid taxes to help pay for that bridge; so we refused to pay toll for the use of our own property, and rode across in spite of the threats hurled at us.

We reached Sprague River that same evening, and went into camp a short distance from a large Indian town. The houses, built by government contractors of rough logs, consisted of a single room with a shake roof. The Indians had torn out the board floors, and instead of using the fireplaces and chimneys which the builders had erected for their convenience, they had cut holes in the roofs, and built their fires in the middle of the floor, sleeping around them at night as their fathers used to do in their lodges or Sibley tents.

George, who was more familiar with them than I was, learned that a chief lay dying in one of the houses, and after supper he left me and went to witness the death ceremonies. After stowing away the bread and coffee between our mattresses and covering them with blankets, and hiding the bacon at the bottom of the mess box with tin dishes piled on top of it so that I should hear the rattle if a thieving Indian attempted to get at it, I, being tired, dropped off to sleep.

About three o’clock in the morning, George appeared, having been shut up in the house with the dying chief all night. When the medicine man began his incantations, the doors and windows were closed, while the steaming Indians danced in a circle around the dying chief, forcing the unwilling George to take part in the ceremonies. All night long they moved around in their death dance to the music of their drums and the wild gesticulations of the medicine man, and when George finally got away, he was about exhausted. He was soon lost in sleep, and as I habitually lie on my sound ear, neither of us heard anything through the night. But the next morning, when George had put on the coffee to boil and went into the mess box for the bacon, it had disappeared. The dishes had been carefully replaced.

After a breakfast of bread and coffee, we were early in the saddle, taking a heavy trail that led north and skirted Sprague River. By the merest chance, we met a white man, the first we had seen since leaving the post, and we stopped to ask the way to Silver Lake. A number of Snake Indians were standing around at the time. The man told us to go north on the trail to a sheep camp in Sican Valley, where we would receive further directions, and thanking him, we rode confidently forward.