Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains / An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West

by William F. Drannan

We found plenty of men at Bent's Fort, and, as usual, they were all broke, having squandered the money earned the winter before for whiskey and card playing. Uncle Kit experienced no trouble in getting all the men he wanted, but had to furnish them with traps and provisions—which took considerable money—he to have half of the furs caught by each of them. Everything being understood we returned to Taos, the men agreeing to meet us there two weeks later. They were all on hand at the appointed time, but there being a large party to outfit it took some weeks to make preparations for the trip, there being eleven in the crowd. It was about the last of October when we arrived at the trapping-ground ready to begin work.

There was a man in the crowd named Charlie Jones, who was an old friend of Johnnie West, and they and I lived in the same cabin that winter. One morning after we had got fixed up comfortably in our winter quarters and Uncle Kit had returned to Taos with the horses, Charlie Jones waked us up very early, saying that there was a light snow and he thought we would be able to get a bear if we got out early. We rolled out, got breakfast and were off as soon as it was light enough to see.

There were three small ridges, all pointing to our cabin; Johnnie West took up the right-hand ridge, Charlie Jones the left and I the middle one. The ridges were open, with scattering pine trees here and there, but along the creek was heavy timber and a dense growth of underbrush. While walking along up the ridge, keeping a sharp lookout for bear, I came in sight of Johnnie West, who beckoned me to cross over to where he was, saying that in the thicket, which covered about an acre of ground, there was a small bear. I proposed calling Charlie Jones over before entering the thicket, but Johnnie said no, as it was such a small bear that Charlie would get mad and would not speak to either of us for a week if we should call him over for such a little bear, "and if we cannot kill that bear," he continued, "we had better quit the mountains."

We both cocked our guns and started into the brush side by side. When near the center of the thicket I saw the bear raise on its haunches. The snow was falling from the bushes so thickly that it was almost impossible to get a bead on him, but I fired, anyway, and hit too low, thus failing to bring him down.

He made a rush for us, but Johnnie had saved his charge in case I failed to kill, but the snow was falling from the bushes so fast and thick that he could not get a shot at the bear as he rushed for us, so we were both compelled to flee for our lives, Johnnie to the hillside, while I took down the canyon, jumping the small logs and falling over the large ones and riding down the brush, while I could almost feel the bear's breath on my posterior at every jump, and had it not been that West had saved his charge, you would now be reading some other book—certainly not this one, as it would never have been written.

Just as we crossed a little opening, Johnnie fired, the ball cutting Bear's jugular vein and also his windpipe, but the bear still seemed to have a "hankering" after me and kept coming for several yards.

After its windpipe was severed, the bear made a louder noise than ever, but not knowing the cause, I thought he was nearer me and I strained every nerve and fibre of my body to widen the distance between us, as I almost imagined his teeth clashing down on me, while Johnnie West was yelling: "Run, Willie; run for your life!"

Well I rather think I was running some about that time, for just then I came to a big log, and I jumped, climbed and fell over it, in fact, I never knew exactly how I did get over it; however, I fell on one side of the log, utterly exhausted, and the bear, not being able to get over, fell on the other side and died.

Of all the hunting and Indian fighting I have ever done, I never had anything to scare me as did that little, insignificant bear.

Charlie Jones, hearing the two shots and Johnnie yelling for me to run, came to the scene and had no little fun with me for running from so small a bear, saying: "If a little bear like that were to come at me, I would take it by the tail and beat its brains out against a tree."