The Black Bear

by William H. Wright

My story of Ben starts on the 22d of June, 1890. Ben’s own story had begun some four or five months earlier, in the den where his mother, who was a Black Bear, had spent the winter; but although I came to know Ben rather intimately later on, he never spoke of his early childhood to me and I never asked him about it. So we’ll take that part for granted.

Early in May of that year three of us, Martin Spencer, Jack O’Brien, and myself, had set out from Spokane, Washington, to hunt grizzlies and prospect for gold in the rugged and, at that time, largely unexplored Bitter Root Mountains, in Idaho. We had a small pack train and a large stock of enthusiasm, and we arrived at the foothills with both in good condition. But although it was well past the middle of the month when we reached the mountains, we soon found ourselves floundering in snow-drifts that increased in depth as we climbed, and when, for several days on end, we had cut our way with a two-handed saw through fallen trees that barred our progress and had dug the saddle and pack horses out of pot holes in the snow into which a misstep or an act of deliberate stupidity had sent them rolling, both men and horses had become exhausted. And so, when a cold storm had added itself to our other troubles, we had pitched camp in a little opening facing the south and settled down to wait for better days. And we had waited there three solid weeks.

Once, on the morning of the 19th of June, dawn had shown us a clear sky, against which, fifty miles to the east of us, we could see the main range of the jagged Bitter Roots; and after eating a cheerful breakfast we had hastily broken camp, packed our horses, and started for the summit of the ridge along which we proposed to travel. But here, roaring up out of the next valley, we had met another great storm of icy wind and swirling snow, and I had soon been forced to leave my companions with the horses while I stumbled down the mountain and hunted up another sheltered spot where we could take refuge from the huge storm. And so by noon we had once more found ourselves crowded under a hemlock bark lean-to, thankfully facing a blazing fire of logs and listening to the wind howling overhead. And it was not until the afternoon of the 21st that the storm had passed. Then at last the sun had come out hot and clear and had begun forcing the great masses of snow that clung to the limbs of the trees to loosen their grip so that the forest was filled with the splash of their falling, while laden bushes jerked their heads free from the weight that bore them down and the horses stood steaming with the warm air.

But the burnt child fears the fire, and we had determined to be dead sure of the weather conditions this time before we went ahead; so we first climbed to the top of the ridge to study the country through our glasses and at the same time try to look a little bit into the future in the matter of the weather. The storm, we found, covered a tract of country about fifteen miles in width and fifty to sixty miles in length, and where we stood was about midway of the western end of its range. Some two miles along the ridge on which we were we could see a gap in the hills, and Spencer and I started over to explore this, while Jack took his rifle and a dog that he had brought along and started down the mountain.

Spencer and I, after reconnoitring the gap, catching a mess of small trout from a stream that flowed through it, and following the track of a large grizzly for some miles, reached camp after dark, and found that O’Brien had returned some time before after having had a more interesting adventure. It seemed that, when some two miles from camp, he had heard, above the constant splash of falling snow, the crying of some animals, and as the sound seemed to be coming nearer and nearer he had crouched down behind a large log and, holding his dog in check, had waited and watched. Shortly, out from among the trees, there appeared a large Black Bear followed by three tiny cubs, the whole family having evidently just left their winter quarters. It must have been an amusing procession, for the old bear was ploughing her way through the soft and slushy snow, making large holes into which the baby bears would fall, and out of which, being so small, they were scarcely able to flounder. They were quite unable, therefore, to keep the pace set by their mother, and the old bear would slouch along for a while and then sit down and watch them as they struggled to catch up. And all the time they kept up the whimpering, crying sound that had attracted Jack’s attention.

But I am afraid O’Brien was more interested in bear meat than in bear habits, for as soon as these animals drew near his hiding-place he let loose the dog, who drove the mother up one tree and the cubs up another; and having shot the old one and decided that it might be possible to catch the youngsters alive next day, he returned to camp.

The next morning, as soon as we had had breakfast, we put pack saddles on a couple of ponies and, taking some empty gunny-sacks along in which to put the cubs if we caught them, started out to bring in the meat and hide of the old bear. It had come on to rain again during the night, and a cold drizzle was falling as we started out; and in that steep-sided and unbroken wilderness, half buried in the melting snows of a mountain winter, the going was both slow and dangerous. However, we managed to reach the bottom of the ravine where Jack had seen the bears without accident, and once near the place we tied the horses and crept forward as silently as might be, thinking to steal up on the cubs unheard and perhaps catch them before they could reach and climb a tree. The carcass of the dead bear lay about fifty feet from a huge fir tree, and we soon saw the three cubs, huddled together, and sitting on the body of their dead mother. But it was evident that they were aware of our approach, for they were on the alert and keeping a sharp lookout in our direction. So when we had worked up as near as possible, and had reached the last cover between ourselves and them, we crouched behind a fallen log and laid out a plan of campaign.

It was plain to be seen that we were not going to catch the cubs off their guard, and it was equally evident that we would have to do some mighty quick sprinting if we were going to beat them to the foot of the big fir tree. So we agreed to move forward little by little until the bears began to be alarmed, and then to make a dash for the tree in hope of intercepting them. But we had scarcely wormed our way over the log and begun our sneaking approach, when all three cubs rose on their hind legs for a clearer view of their suspicious visitors, and a moment later they bounded down from their bed in the dead mother’s fur and began floundering through the snow and water toward the fir tree.

The little fellows (the largest of them would not have weighed over five pounds) had looked to be half dead with cold and misery, and the snow and slush was over their heads; but for all that they reached the tree ahead of us, and started up the rough trunk like so many cats. I just managed to grab the hindmost of them by one leg as she was scrambling out of reach, and after a good deal of squalling, clawing, and biting, the little woolly ball was landed in one of the gunny-sacks, the mouth tied up, and the package deposited on a log out of the way. Then we began figuring out ways and means of catching the two cubs in the big fir tree. The rough trunk of this old settler shot up forty feet from the ground without a limb, and the cubs looked down at us from the lowest branches, pushing out their upper lips and uttering short “whoofs,” exactly as a grown bear would have done. There seemed to be but one way to get them alive, and this was to shin up the old tree and shake them down as one would ripe plums. Spencer and Jack agreed to catch them before they could again take to a tree, if I would undertake the climbing and shaking: and after some little talk I closed the bargain. The hardest part of the task seemed to me to be the shinning of the old tree. The rest looked easy, but that was before I had tried it. Any one who has never had the pleasure of dislodging a bear from the limb of a tree by shaking is apt to think it an easy matter; but he will change his mind after a little experience.

The bark of the fir tree was rough and afforded good finger holds, and it also scraped the skin off the inside of my knee, but in due time I reached the lower limbs and, seating myself on one of these, rested for a few minutes. Then I began climbing up after the cubs, who moved higher up at my approach. One of them, after climbing some twenty feet, crawled out on a branch and, as I came to him first, I gave the limb a gentle shake expecting to see him roll off and go tumbling down through the boughs to the ground below. As the cub did not drop at the first shake, I gave another and harder one. As this did not dislodge him, I stood on the branch and, grasping the limb over my head with both hands jumped up and down with all my might and, after several minutes of this exercise, saw the youngster lose his desperate grip on the small branches and go smashing down out of sight. And a moment later a loud splash announced his arrival at his destination. Even then, I learned afterward, he got to his feet and had nearly reached another tree before he was captured.