ON THE SHORE OF YELLOWSTONE LAKE.
After the departure of the black bear we retraced our steps, but before getting to the hotel I suggested to one of my companions, Del. Hay, that if we returned to the refuse pile we might see another bear. We accordingly went back on the trail to within a few yards of where we stood before. When we stopped we heard, in the timber near by, a great noise, as if dead pine branches were being smashed, and there emerged into the open a large grizzly. Although he was not quite so familiar as the black bear, he showed no hesitation, but walked straight toward us and the object of his visit—the swill. Before reaching his destination, however, he stopped and squatted on his haunches, calmly surveying the scene before him. The reason why he stopped became at once apparent. From the same hill down which the black bear had come we saw another grizzly, larger than the first, moving toward us at a rapid gait, in fact, on a lope, while the first grizzly regarded him with a look not altogether friendly or cordial. The second bear did not stop an instant until he reached the swill heap, where he proceeded to devour everything in sight, without any regard to us or to his fellow squatted near by. The latter apparently had had some experience on a former occasion which he was not desirous of repeating.
Three men coming through the timber toward us made a considerable racket, and the two bears moved off at no rapid gait in opposite directions; but they went only a short way. Until we left the spot we could see them on the edge of the timber, looking toward us, and, no doubt, waiting for more quiet before partaking of the delights before them. It was not easy to realize the scene before us was actual. The dim twilight, the huge forms of the bears pacing to and fro through the whitened dead timber, made it appear the creation of a disordered fancy. It did not seem natural to be in close proximity with animals esteemed so ferocious, at liberty in their native wilds, with no desire to attack them and with no disposition on their part to attack us. When the three men joined us and were talking about the bears, one of them shouted, "Here come two more," and before we could realize it we saw two good-sized cinnamons at the feast. They paid no attention whatever to us, but were entirely absorbed in finishing up what the other bears had left. By this time it was fast becoming dark and we returned to the hotel. I should have said that we measured the distance from the nearest point from the black bear to where we stood, and found it to be exactly twenty-one feet. The other bears were but a few yards further.
When we returned to the house we entertained our friends with an account of what we had seen, and had there not been many eye-witnesses we probably would have been entirely disbelieved.[14] As we were narrating our story a man came into the room and said, "If you want some fun, come outside; we have a bear up a tree." We went outside of the hotel, and not over forty feet from it found a black bear in a pine tree. It seems that the wagon, already mentioned, had been stopped at the pine tree and the horses had been taken out. The owner, returning to his wagon, found the bear in it, and this was the explanation why the bear had so suddenly taken to the tree.
The animal was considerably smaller than the one we had seen earlier; in fact, it was not more than half as large, but still full grown. Quite a number of packers and teamsters stood about, amusing themselves by making the bear climb higher, till at last one of them asked our driver, Jim McMasters, why he did not climb the tree and shake the bear out. It was quite dark, and McMasters replied that he would not mind doing so if there were enough daylight for him to see. His companions continuing to banter him, he finally said, "I believe I'll go up anyhow," and up he went, climbing, however—instead of the tree the bear had ascended—a companion tree which grew alongside of the other, the trunks of the two not being more than a foot or so apart and the branches interlaced. We soon lost sight of McMasters and of the bear also; for, as Jim climbed the bear would climb too, until at last they both had reached the top of their respective perches, when we heard Jim cry out, "Boys, he's got to come down; I can reach him." With that he proceeded to break off a small branch of his tree, and we could hear him whack the bear with it, and also could hear the bear remonstrating with a very unpleasant voice, at times approaching a roar. But at last the bear seemed to have made up his mind that it was better to come down than stay up and be whacked with a pine branch, so down he came, but not with any great rapidity, stopping at every resting place, until Jim came down too and gave him a little persuading.
We could now see the action, but its dangerous features were lost sight of in its amusing ones. Jim had climbed into the tree down which the bear was descending, and when he was not persuading the bear he was pleading with us somewhat as follows: "Now, boys, don't throw up here, and don't none of you hit him until he gets down. If he should make up his mind to come up again he'd clean me out, sure." After each speech of this sort he would move down to where the bear was and apply his branch, whereupon both the man and the animal would descend a few pegs lower. At last the bear was almost near the ground. We all formed a circle around the tree, prepared to give both man and beast a reception when they should alight. The beast came first, and every fellow who had anything in the way of wood in his hand gave the bear a blow or two as a warning not to return to the wagon again. Bruin made off into the timber with great precipitancy. Jim, when he got down, did not seem to think that he had done anything more than if the bear had been a "possum," which he had shaken out of the tree.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Colonel John Hay, of Washington, was one of the spectators of this curious scene. Captain Albrecht Heese, of the German Embassy, tells us that in July, 1895, while stopping at the Lake Hotel, he saw a very large bear eating out of a trough in the daytime while a number of tourists were present; and that the bear was finally chased away from the trough by a cow. At the Upper Geyser Basin a bear was domiciled in the hotel; it took food from the hands of the hotel keeper, following him around like a dog.