A little before noon upon the fourth day, we arrived at one of the sheep camps, to which we had been directed by a stray herd, and where we were to find the foreman of the sheep gang. At that hour of the day there were naturally in camp but a few men. The cook was there, of course. His functions were simple enough—to make bread, tea, and boil mutton, or bake it in a Mexican oven beneath the coals. With him was the chief herder and a half-witted Portuguese, who, upon the day following, in the plenitude of his zeal and mental deficiency, insisted upon offering himself as live bait for a grizzly, as will be narrated.
During the afternoon I strolled further up the mountain with my rifle, in the hope of a shot at a stray deer, and to have a look at the lay of the land. Bear tracks I saw and a little deer sign also, but it was too early in the day regularly to hunt. All nature nodded in the dozy glare of the August afternoon, and after the hot journey in the saddle I found a siesta under the clean spruce trees refreshing. Toward sunset I awoke to find a pine martin in a tree across the gulch reconnoitering, and evidently turning over in his mind the probabilities whether the big creature curled up on the hillside "forninst" him were of the cast of hunter or hunted. I soon brought him out of that, and upon my return to camp the hide was graciously accepted by the chief herder, who converted the head of it into a tobacco pouch with neatness and dispatch. At the evening meal there were good-natured references to chile con oso—bear's meat cooked with red peppers—regret expressed that the camp's larder could at present afford none, and expressions of confidence that this delicacy would soon be set before us—all most politely and comfortably insinuated. They had the gratification of their desire; it was on the next day but one.
That night there was a great jabbering of bad Spanish around the camp-fire. Had this been the rendezvous of Sicilian brigands, it doubtless would have had a slightly more picturesque appearance, but the difference would have been only of degree, not at all of kind. The absence of rain made tents unnecessary. Piles of bedding, of cooking and riding equipment, defined the encampment. Around the fire a dozen Mexicans clustered, of whom, except the chief herder and Leonard, not one spoke English. They wore the broad hats of their race, and were arrayed for protection against the cool night winds of the Sierras in old and shabby cloaks, some of which had been originally bright in color, but now were subdued by age and dirt into comfortable harmony with the quiet tones of the mountain and the forest. Old quilts and sheepskins carpeted a small space where we had been invited to seat ourselves upon our arrival. Then, as throughout our stay, every possible mark of hospitality was shown us—a delicious, faint survival of Castilian courtesy.
Long after I had turned in, somewhere in the dead vast and middle of the night, I was aroused by the sound of scurry and scampering among the bunch of sheep which was rounded up near the camp. Experience has taught these creatures to efface themselves at night, and they are only too glad to sleep quietly, as near as possible to humans, with no disposition to wander after dark. They realize their danger from bears, yet the protection which a Mexican affords is a purely imaginary thing, as unsubstantial as the baseless fabric of a vision, of as little real substance for the protection of the flock as the dream of mutton stew and fat bear, by no means a baseless fabric, which engrosses the sleeping shepherd, body and mind. The disturbance upon this occasion soon subsided. One and another of the shepherds sleepily moved in his blankets—perhaps swore to himself a hurried prayer or two—but not one of them spoke aloud or indicated the slightest intention of investigating the cause of the commotion. Only too well they and the sheep knew what it signified. Quiet reigned again, and, attaching no importance to the incident, I was promptly asleep.
In the morning I learned that the disturbing cause had been the charge of a grizzly into the flock within a stone's throw of us, a sound too familiar to occasion comment at the time. There were the tracks, to leeward of the sheep, of a she grizzly and two cubs. Their approach had been without a sound; not the snap of a twig, or the faintest footfall, had given any signal of their presence. The mother had critically overhauled the flock in her mind from a slight rise of ground, on a level with their backs or slightly higher, and made deliberate choice of a fat wether, having a discriminating eye, and being too good a judge of sheep flesh to take any but such as are in prime condition. A single quick rush and she has secured her victim, in an instant, before the rest are fairly upon their feet, and is off, carrying the sheep in her mouth as easily as a cat would her kitten, her delighted cubs trotting behind. Every two or three nights this occurrence was repeated, with no interference upon the part of the Mexicans. "What recks it them?" "The hungry sheep look up and are not fed." On the contrary, the bears are. As for the Mexicans, they have "lost no bear!" To have seen the intruder would have been only a gratuitous anxiety, since nothing in the world would have tempted them to fire at it. Should they risk life and limb for a sheep? and that the patron's, who had so many! It was not their quarrel! The charge of the grizzly was a thing as much to be accepted as an incident of the Sierras as the thunderbolt—equally dangerous to him who should interfere as the lightning stroke to one daring to interpose his rifle between the angry heavens and the fore-doomed tree.
We may feel sure that the lesson is not lost upon the cubs. They are taught energy, sagacity, craft in maturing their plans, courage and promptness in their execution. They are taught reverence for the ursine genius, unbounded admiration for their mother's leadership and steadiness of nerve, at the same time that they are taught contempt for the stupidity of sheep and the pusillanimity of humans. It may be that an apologist for the latter might find a word to mitigate their too severe sentence. A she grizzly of the Sierras, at night, with hungry cubs to feed, is not an altogether pleasant thing to face when infuriated by wounds, none of which may be bad enough to cripple her, yet combined are amply sufficient to make her pretty cross and dangerous. The Mexican is a poor shot, but what can you expect? His vocation is a humble one. Were he of more positive and determined temperament, he would be a vaquero of the plains, or boyero (Anglicè "bull-whacker") on the Santa Fé trail or down in old Mexico; and not the dry nurse of these "woolly idiots," in whose race, for innumerable centuries, man has elaborately cultivated stupidity, and, by systematic process of artificial selection, has faithfully eliminated every sign of insubordination and the last trace of individuality of temperament, and that which in our race is called character. No native-born white man in this country can be induced to follow, for any length of time, the vocation of shepherd. The deadly monotony of the occupation drives him either to imbecility or desperation. It is well known that men who habitually care for any animal come in time to resemble him. Stable boys, bred to the vocation of groom, become horse-faced and equine of disposition, eventually they wheeze and whistle like a curry-comb. Cowboys partake of the scatter-brained recklessness of the Texas steer which they tend. No one can admit dogs to be daily and familiar companions without absorbing into his system somewhat of their sense of humor and of their faithfulness. The lion-tamer, who enters unscathed the den of his charge, must share the robustious courage and determination of the beast with which he associates. The rat-catcher, whether he be ferret or man, partakes of the fierce slyness of the game he follows; and I remember that, years ago, before I ever heard mention of this peculiarity of resemblance, I could detect, plainly writ in the face of the attendant of "Mr. Crowley," when he was kept in the old arsenal building in Central Park, the reflected temperament and animalism of the poor, indolent, captive chimpanzee, whose fellow and all too sympathetic friend he had made himself. Naturalists are well aware of this phenomenon.
If this be so, and stupidity catching, what more potent influence of fatty degeneration of the intellect could there be than the uninterrupted society of sheep, with nothing in the world to think of except their care—without even the stimulating influence of gain to redeem the paralyzing service. The sheep are not their own, and if the bears eat them up the keepers do not feel the stimulating ache in their money-pocket that might tempt them, however feebly, to resist aggression. Moreover, as a rule, they are wretchedly armed. Each of these men carried an old six-shooter of an outlandish and forgotten pattern, good enough to try a chance shot at another Mexican with, but only a source of more or less pleasurable titillation to a bear, were one ever to be discharged at him, and about as effective as pelting an alligator with strawberries. If the last stage of misery for a horse be to drag, along its rigid road of stone and iron, the city horse-car with its thankless freight of fares, the corresponding degradation of the "gun" is to rest upon the hip of a degenerate sheep-herder, half Spaniard, half Indian and half coyote. Any self-respecting weapon reduced to such straits would be conscious of its low estate; its magazine would revolve in a creaky, half-hearted, reluctant fashion; it would doubtless fire an apologetic bullet; its report would be something between "scat" and "beg your pardon," to which a bear would pay but slight heed. Others of the Mexicans were armed with old muskets, somewhat rusty and ramshackly, but with a furry longitudinal perforation throughout their length, along which—it could not creditably be called a bore—a ball could after a fashion, if you gave it time enough, be propelled. Leonard was exceptionally fortunate in this respect; he carried an old rim-fire .44-40 Winchester, the action of which occasionally worked and occasionally did not. Comparatively speaking, he was rather a swell in the matter of firearms; but if one should put his trust in him in case of emergency as a sheet anchor to windward, there was always the remote possibility, were the strain too intense, that he might not be a dependence of absolute security.
The afternoon of this day, much against my real inclination, but in accordance with the prevailing desire, we started out, the whole rabble of us, to follow the she grizzly's trail. It could not be called a "still-hunt," for the reason that six men hunting in a pack are never still; however, it did not matter. We found in a neighboring gulch bits of the fleece, bones and hides of three sheep, and the sufficiently plain evidence, upon the trampled and bloody ground, of recent feasts. Yet this was the banqueting hall and not the children's nursery. A bear thinks nothing of a little stroll of ten miles or so before or after eating. It aids digestion, and in case of a female, as this was, wards off an attack of the nerves. Particularly a bear with cubs would put at least that distance between herself and hunters. Moreover they are so clever that I doubt not this one knew already by scent and subtle process of ratiocination how many of us there were in camp, where we were from, the color of our hair, what sort of rifles we carried, their caliber, how heavy a bullet and how many grains of powder they fired. This is said in the light of after events and of further experience.
That afternoon, in our unjustifiably sanguine forecast, we had hopes of finding this particular bear. The half-witted "Portugee," of whom I have spoken, showed especial zeal in the presence of the patron, and insisted, in spite of mild and repeated caution, in going ahead and scrupulously investigating every possible ambuscade where there was the remotest chance of finding the bear, or, what was much more likely, of the bear finding him. In consideration of the fact that this was a she one which we were after, that she was proud and well fed, and on the lookout for pursuit, had the "Portugee" found her, she would in all probability have received his visit with cordial warmth. Not speaking his tongue fluently, I was unable to express my solicitude except by signs and admonitory gestures. The rest of the party apparently seemed to think that, while the bear was interested and occupied with him, a good opportunity would be offered for getting in a shot; and as Portuguese were a drug in the market in that part of California, and grizzly bears, dead, a great rarity, he was suffered to contribute his mite to the success of la chasse, and all went merrily. Not a thicket or a den did he leave unprobed.
An hour or two were spent in beating up the gulch to its head. Then a barren mountain side presented itself, three or four miles of it, with no shelter. Leonard ran the trail here like a dog, literally ran it, and the pack of hunters tailed behind him for a half or three-quarters of a mile. A bit before sundown we were at the edge of the chaparral—a tangle of bushes and quaking asp—rather a baddish place in which to stumble upon her serene highness. However, my companions did me the honor to promote me to the "Portugee's" place and function. With rifle across the crook of arm, we stole as silently as might be—the United States army would have made more noise—into the jungle. Sunset overtook us up on the far edge, with a stretch of open forest in sight, and, I doubt not, with Madam Bruin and her cubs miles ahead in some inaccessible snarl of bushes, where the crackling underbrush would warn her of approach as fully as could the most complete system of burglar alarms.