[XIV.]
THE BEAR-SLAYER OF SAN DIEGO.
Let us now leave the great grizzly and the little marsh bear in spectacles behind us and tell about a boy, a bear-slayer; not about a bear, mind you. For the little fish-eating black bear which he killed and by which he got his name is hardly worth telling about. This bear lives in the brush along the sea-bank on the Mexican and Southern California coast and has huge feet but almost no hair. I don’t know any name for him, but think he resembles the “sun bear” (Ursus Titanus) more than any other. His habit of rolling himself up in a ball and rolling down hill after you is like that of the porcus or pig bear.
You may not know that a bear, any kind of a bear, finds it hard work running down hill, because of his short arms, so when a man who knows anything about bears is pursued, or thinks he is pursued, he always tries, if he knows himself, to run down hill. A man can escape almost any bear by running down hill, except this little fellow along the foothills by the Mexican seas. You see, he has good bear sense, like the rest of the bear family, and gets along without regard to legs of any sort, sometimes.
This boy that I am going to tell about was going to school on the Mexican side of the line between the two republics, near San Diego, California, when a she bear which had lost her cub caught sight of the boys at play down at the bottom of a high, steep hill, and she rolled for them, rolled right among the little, half-naked fellows, and knocked numbers of them down. But before she could get the dust out of her eyes and get up, this boy jumped on her and killed her with his knife.
The governor remembered the boy for his pluck and presence of mind and he was quite a hero and was always called “The Bear-Slayer” after that.
Some rich ladies from Boston, hearing about his brave act, put their heads together and then put their hands in their pockets and sent him to a higher school, where the following incident took place.
I ought to mention that this little Mexican bear, though he has but little hair on his body, has a great deal on his feet, making him look as if he wore pantalets, little short pantalets badly frayed out at the bottoms.
San Diego is one of the great new cities of Southern California. It lies within only a few minutes’ ride of Mexico. There is a pretty little Mexican town on the line between Mexico and California—Tia Juana—pronounced Te Wanna. Translated, the name means “Aunt Jane.” In the center of one of the streets stands a great gray stone monument, set there by the government to mark the line between the United States and Mexico.