Recollections of a Pioneer

by J. W. Gibson

[CHAPTER VI.]
A Bear Hunt.

By March, our cattle were fat, and we began marketing. A bunch of dairy cows shipped across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco brought two hundred dollars a head. A month later we took over one hundred beef cattle and sold them to Miller and Lucks for one hundred dollars per head, and at various intervals throughout the spring months, we culled out the fattest cattle still on hand and took them over, receiving for all of them prices ranging from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty dollars per head.

Our plan was to stay in California during this summer, and we congratulated ourselves that we were to escape the burning plains. We had very little to do, had plenty of money and plenty to eat, and I believe every man in the camp was pretty well satisfied with California.

Late in the fall, as was our custom, we organized another hunt. I would not mention it but for an incident that occurred out in the mountains which may be interesting. The party consisted of my brothers, William, James and Zack, Joe and Barsh Kessler, and myself. We reached a good place to camp late one evening and pitched our tent. Some of the boys went to work about the camp, others took their guns and went out to look for camp meat and found it. One of the boys brought down a nice deer, and brought it in in time for supper. Next morning the party was up bright and early, and took off in various directions to look for game. We had not been separated a half hour until I heard the guns popping in various directions. I was crawling along the side of a gulch making my way up the mountain, and had concluded luck was against me. Shortly after I had made this reflection, I heard the sound of brother William's gun, which I knew very well, off to my right and across the canon. Then I heard a dreadful growling and howling and knew that William had wounded a bear. In a moment I heard a second shot, but the growling continued. I ran down the side of the gulch, crossed the ravine at the bottom, and started up the other side when I saw farther up the mountain a big grizzly making his way slowly along sniffing, growling and plowing through the wild oats that covered the side of the mountain. I was satisfied it was the bear that William had wounded, and I knew it was not safe for me to get very close to him. However, I was then in safe quarters, and I decided to move on to a position where I could get a shot that would bring him down, and, if I could not do this, it was my plan to keep him in sight so I could direct William, who was on horseback, how to follow him. In passing through the brush and undergrowth, however, I lost sight of the bear. I stopped and listened, but could hear nothing. I was in fairly open ground and could see some distance away, and as the bear was quite a distance ahead, I decided to move cautiously along. I really thought the bear had gone over the mountain. I moved slowly and as I approached fairly well toward the top, I noticed a thick bunch of weeds off at a distance, but it did not occur to me that the bear had stopped there. However, I continued up the mountain, intending to leave the weeds to my left. I slipped along until I got opposite the weeds, and there to my great astonishment, I saw the bear not thirty yards from me. His eyes were set upon me and his hair all turned the wrong way. I then thought for the first time how indiscreet I had been. I had only one chance, and I took that in a hurry. I dropped my gun and started down the mountain for a scrubby tree which stood about sixty yards away. When I started to run the bear took after me. I ran with all my might and as I passed under the tree, I jumped up and grabbed the lower limb and swung myself up. The bear came growling and plowing down the mountain, and raised on his hind feet, and grabbed my boot with one of his paws just as he passed under me, but the ground was so steep and his momentum was so great that it forced him on down the side of the mountain beyond me. This gave me time to go up the tree as high as I could, though it was so small that I could not feel very secure. The bear came back growling and snarling, and came up to the tree, stood up on his hind feet with his paws around the tree, and tried to reach me. I was not over five feet above him, but he could not reach me. I pulled off my hat and threw it upon the ground. He growled and fell back after it, and tore it all to pieces. This seemed to satisfy him for he did not come back to the tree any more, but stood looking around for a while and then walked away. He went on up the side of the mountain, perhaps a hundred yards, and crawled into a thicket of chapparal brush and laid down. I called William as loud as I could but got no answer. I called again and again, and finally he heard me. The first thing he said was, "Look out, there is a wounded bear up there." I called back to him and told him it was gone, but he didn't understand me. He said, "Get back, get away from there, there is a wounded bear in the weed patch right by you." I answered and told him to come on up, and he did so. He seemed surprised to see me in a tree, but I soon related my experience and pointed out the chapparal brush in which the bear was lying.

I had had a pretty narrow call, but I was not willing to give up without the bear. The question was how could we get him. I would not risk getting down and walking up to the brush patch. One experience of that kind was enough. There was a tree standing a few yards from the thicket, and after looking the situation over a while, I told William to go and ride between the tree and the brush, and keep a close lookout, and I would get down, run to the tree, climb it, and go out on a limb that extended toward the brush where I thought perhaps I could see to get a shot. He said it was a little dangerous, but I told him I was willing to give the old bear a dare anyway, that he had caught me off my guard the first time. We waited quite a long time and heard nothing from the bear, so William concluded to try it. He rode around up the side of the mountain between the brush and the tree, and made considerable noise, but the bear lay still. He called me, and I climbed down, ran as hard as I could, and was soon up the other tree and out of danger. This was a large tree and gave me plenty of protection. After I was well up the tree, I pointed out where I had dropped my gun and William went and got it. He said he had hard work to find it, as it was almost covered with wild oats straw and dust which the bear had dragged over it in his chase after me. The gun was father's old Tennessee rifle and as true a weapon as I ever used.

William handed the gun up to me and I examined it to see if it was all right. I then climbed high up in the tree and went out on the limb that extended toward the brush. From this point I had a good view down into the thicket and I soon located the bear. I laid my gun across a limb and drew a bead on his head. At the crack of the gun he straightened out and began to tremble and kick, and I knew the fight was over. His struggles dislodged him from his position on the steep mountain side and he tumbled over and over down the slant to the bottom of the gulch. He looked as big as an ox, but not half so dreadful to me as when I was scampering away from him an hour before.

We dressed him and went to camp. The other boys were there and each had a story to tell. Ours was of big game and easily carried away the honors.

We put in a week or more at this camp and had a good time and got any quantity of venison. Everything was so free, the air and water were so pure, and the wild tent life so fascinating that I often think of those days with delight.

Shortly after our return from this hunt, Joe Kessler and I loaded our pack mules and started back across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to meet brother Isaac, who was about due with his drove of cattle from across the plains. We had heard nothing from him since he left us the summer before, but he had told us he expected to get a herd of cattle and come. We met him on Carson River, and as I recall now, there were a number of Buchanan County boys with him—William James, John Sweeney and John Bridgeman were three that I recall. They had some eight hundred or a thousand cattle, and had crossed the plains without any very great difficulty, except the suffering and hardship from the drouth and alkali which could always be expected. We got the cattle across the mountains and on the ranch without difficulty and turned the poor things out to rest and get fat.