True Bear Stories

by Joaquin Miller

Having secured one leg, it was comparatively easy to get another chain around his other paw and two ropes around his hind legs, and then he was stretched out, spread-eagle fashion, on the floor of the trap.

The next move was to fasten a heavy chain around his neck in such a way that it could not choke him, and to accomplish this it was necessary to muzzle the Monarch. A stick about eighteen inches long and two inches thick was held under his nose, and he promptly seized it in his jaws. Before he dropped it a stout cord was made fast to one end of the stick, passed over his nose, around the other end of the stick, under his jaw, and then wound around his muzzle and the stick in such a way as to bind his jaws together, a turn back of his head holding the gag firmly in place.

The Monarch was now bound, gagged and utterly helpless, but he never ceased roaring with rage at his captors and struggling to get just one blow at them with his paw. It was an easy matter for a man to get upon his back, put a chain collar around his neck, and fasten the heavy chain with a swivel to the collar. The collar was kept in place by a chain rigged like a martingale and passed under his arms and over his back. A stout rope made fast about his body completed the Monarch’s fetters and the gag was then removed from the royal mouth. The King of the mountains was a hopeless prisoner—Gulliver, tied hand and foot by the Lilliputians.

The next morning Monarch was lashed upon a rough sled—a contrivance known to lumbermen as a “go-devil”—to make the journey down the mountain. The first team of horses procured to haul him could not be driven anywhere near the bear. They plunged and snorted and became utterly unmanageable, and finally they broke away and ran home. The next team was but little better, and small progress was made the first day.

At night the Monarch was released from the “go-devil” and secured only by his chains to a large tree. The ropes were removed from his legs, and he was allowed considerable freedom to move about, but a close watch was kept upon him. After several futile efforts to break away, he accepted the situation, stretched himself at the foot of the tree and watched the camp-fire all night.

In the morning the ropes were replaced, after a lively combat, and the bear was again lashed to the sled. Four horses were harnessed to it and the journey was resumed. Men with axes and bars went ahead to make a road, and it was with no small amount of labor that they made it passable. The poor old bear was slammed along over the rocks and through the brush, but he never whimpered at the hardest jolts. With all the care that could be observed, it was impossible to make his ride anything but a series of bumps, slides and capsizes, and the progress was slow. At the steep places men held the sled back with ropes and tried to keep it right side up.

Four days on a “go-devil” is no pleasure excursion, even for a tough grizzly, and when the Monarch was released from his uncomfortable vehicle, at the foot of the mountain, he seemed glad to get a chance to stretch himself and rest. For nearly a week he was left free of all fetters except the chain on his neck and the rope around his body, and he spent his days in slumber and his nights eating and digging a great hole in the ground. Having convinced himself that he could neither break his chain nor bite it in two, he accepted the situation with surly resignation and asked only to be let alone and fed decently.

While the bear was recuperating and becoming reconciled to what couldn’t be helped, a cage was being built of Oregon pine lumber with an iron-barred door, and when it was finished he was dragged into it by the heels. As soon as he saw the ropes, Monarch knew that mischief was afoot, and when a man began throwing back into the hole the dirt that he had dug out, he mounted the heap and silently but strenuously began to dig for himself a new hole. He worked twice as fast as two men with shovels, and in his efforts to escape he only assisted in filling up the old hole.

For some time he baffled all attempts to get ropes on his forepaws, having learned the trick of throwing them off and seizing the loops with his teeth, but he was soon secured and stretched out on his back. The Monarch roared his remonstrances and did his best to get even for the outrages that had been done to his rights and his feelings, but the ropes were tough and he could not get a chance to use his enormous strength. He was dragged on his back into the cage, the door was dropped and the ropes were removed, but the chain remained around his neck and that was made fast to the bars. As soon as he found himself shut up in a box the angry and insulted bear ceased roaring and in a short time he philosophically stretched himself on the floor and wondered what would happen next.

The next thing that happened to him was the standing of his cage on end, but that did not appear to disturb him. A wagon was backed up, and the cage was tilted down again and placed upon the wagon, which was then hauled down the canyon and along the river bed to a little water station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, where the cage was put upon a stock car. The car was provisioned with a quarter of beef, and a lot of watermelons, and attached to a freight train, then men who had helped to bring the bear out of the mountains waved their hats, and the Monarch caught a last glimpse of his native hills as the train whirled him and the correspondent northward.