The Life Story of a Black Bear

by Harry Perry Robinson

We took the cubs down to the stream and showed them how to root along the edges among the grass and weeds for frogs and snails, and water-beetles and things, and when the trout came upstream we caught some for them, and showed them how to do it; but fishing is a thing that needs too much patience to commend itself to cubs.

Wahka did not have any adventure with a puma, but he had one experience which might have been even more serious. He had wandered away from his mother and myself, just as he had been told hundreds of times not to do, when suddenly there was the noise of a scuffle from his direction, and he was screaming with all his might. I was there in a moment, with his mother close behind me, and saw two huge gray wolves which had already rolled him over, and in another instant would have done for him. We charged them, but they were gone before we reached the spot; and beyond a bad shaking and one scar on his shoulder Wahka was none the worse. He was a thoroughly frightened cub, however, and it would have taken a great deal of persuasion to make him leave his mother’s side for the rest of that day. Indeed, it was necessary to be careful for more than that day, because the wolves hung around us, hoping still to catch either him or Kahwa alone where they could make away with them.

I dislike wolves immensely. In spite of their size and the strength of their jaws, they are cowardly animals, and one wolf will never attack even a much smaller beast than himself alone, if he can get another to help him. Bears are not like that. We want to have our fighting to ourselves. We would much rather have any other bear that is near stand and look on instead of coming to help us—unless, of course, it is a case of husband and wife, and one or other is overmatched. What we do, we do in the open, and prefer that people should understand our intentions clearly, and take us just as we are. A wolf is exactly the opposite. He never does anything openly that he can do in secret. He likes to keep out of sight, and hunt by stealth, owing what he gets to his cunning and to superior numbers, rather than to his own individual fighting spirit.

We recognise that wolves know many things that we do not; though some of them are things that we would not want to know. And they think us fools—but they keep out of our way. There have indeed, I believe, been cases where a number of wolves together have succeeded in killing a bear—not in fair fight, but by dogging and following him for days, preventing his either eating or sleeping, until from sheer exhaustion he has been unable to resist them when they have attacked him in force and pulled him down. This, however, could not happen in the mountains. The wolves are only there in the summer, and then they run in couples, or alone, or at most in families of two old ones and the cubs together. In the autumn they go down to the foot-hills and the plains, and then it is only in hard weather that they collect in packs. At that time the bears are usually in their winter dens, and all the wolves that were ever born could never get a bear out of his den, where they can reach him only in front.

In this case, the wolves which had attacked Wahka seldom showed themselves, but that they were constantly near us, and watching us, we knew. With all their cunning, they could not help getting between us and the wind once in a while, and sometimes, when they were a little distance away, we could hear them quarrelling between themselves over some small animal they had killed, or some scrap of food that they had found in the forest. It is not pleasant being shadowed, whether it is your child or yourself that is being hunted, and we had to be extremely cautious not to let either Kahwa or Wahka out of our sight. Nor was it always easy, in spite of his recent fright, to keep the latter under restraint, for he was an independent, self-reliant youngster, of inexhaustible inquisitiveness.

One day, when we knew the wolves were following us, and we were keeping Wahka well in hand, we met a family of elk,[4] two parents and quite a young fawn, and Wahka must needs go and try to find out all about the fawn. He meant no harm whatever, and had no idea that there was any danger. He only thought the fawn would be a nice thing to play with; and before we could stop him he had trotted straight up to it. Elk are jealous animals, and, like all deer, in spite of their timidity, will fight to protect their young; and with his tremendous antlers and great strength a big stag is a person to be let alone.

Wahka knew nothing about all this, and went straight towards the fawn in the friendliest and most confiding way. Fortunately, the stag was some yards away, and we were able to put Wahka on his guard in time. But it was a narrow escape, and I do not think the stag’s antler missed his tail by half an inch. Wooffa jumped in the stag’s way, and for a minute it looked as if there would be a fight. Of course it would have ended in our killing the stag—and probably also his wife and the fawn as well—but one or the other of us would have been likely to have had the end of an antler through the ribs before the fight was over.

The stag showed not the slightest intention of running away, though he must have known perfectly well that the odds were hopelessly against him; but he stood facing Wooffa, with his head down, snorting and pawing the ground, and telling her to come on. She was so angry at the attack on Wahka that for a moment she was inclined to do it, but I spoke to her, and she cooled down, and we moved away, leaving the stag, still pawing the ground and shaking his head, in possession of the field.

I have already said that we had had warning that the wolves were hanging about us that day, and we had not gone far after the meeting with the elk before we heard that some sort of trouble was in progress behind. It was not difficult to guess what it was; the snarling and yapping of the wolves, the breaking of branches, and the clashing of the elk’s antlers, told the story. The wolves, following us, had made up their minds that the fawn would be easier prey and better eating than a bear-cub; and the stag, we knew, was doing his best to defend his young. We were very much inclined to go down and help the stag; but we stood and listened, and suddenly the noise stopped. The silence that ensued was too much for our curiosity, and back we went.