The Black Bear

by William H. Wright

The racket that had been raised in dislodging the one cub had so frightened the other that he had climbed to the topmost branch of the tree, and here I found him with his head down, snorting and striking with his little paws. If he had weighed fifty pounds he would have been an ugly customer to handle, but as it was there was no danger from him. But there was considerable difficulty, for he had climbed so high that I did not dare trust my weight to the small branches, and, shake as I might, I was unable to dislodge him. Finally I climbed down to where the limbs were longer, cut one of them with my jack-knife, and, using it as a pole, succeeded in poking the cub out of his perch. And as he shot past me I called to the boys to look out and listen for the splash of his arrival. But instead of the expected sound I heard Martin call out that the cub had caught on a lower limb and was climbing back up the tree. This was aggravating, but I thought that at least I had the upper hand of him this time and started down to meet him.

He had taken refuge on one of the longest branches of the old fir, and as he was too far out for me to reach with my pole, I had recourse to my former tactics. I stood up on the branch the cub was on, grasped a higher one with both hands, and put all my strength and weight into a succession of violent shakes. The bear slipped inch by inch out toward the end of the limb; first one paw and then the other lost its grip; at last he hung down from the outermost fork by what looked like one toe nail. But further than this he refused to yield. Round and round he swung as long as the shaking lasted, which was until I was completely out of wind and compelled to stop for breath; and then back the little beggar climbed, and by the time I had got ready for another inning he was safe in the original position.

This was repeated again and again until it became evident that only complete exhaustion on the part of one or other of the contestants would end the bout. And I won by a hair. The plucky little fellow let go and was landed squalling in the sack with the others, while I rested up before undertaking my slower journey to the ground. Then we skinned the old bear, cut up the meat, packed the whole on the horses, fastened the sack containing the cubs to one of the packs, and returned to camp.

Just back of the bark shack which we had built there was a steep bank, and into this, with pick and shovel, we dug a hole. Over the top of the excavation we placed poles, and having covered these with bark threw a foot or more of dirt on top, thus making a nice little cave for the cubs. We then gathered pine needles, dried and warmed them by the fire, and filled up the den with them. From a tanned buckskin we cut long thongs, fastened little buckskin collars around our orphans’ necks, and so tied them to a stake driven into the ground in front of the cave. We each, naturally, laid claim to a cub. And as I was given first choice as a reward for the climbing I had done to get them, I chose the determined, spunky little chap that had been the last one caught. He was the middle one in size, but I made up my mind to treat him gently and keep him, if possible, until he should be a large bear. Jack took the first one caught, it being the smallest and a female. The other two were males. Spencer named his bear George, Jack decided to bring his up without any name, while I called my wee cublet Ben, after “Ben Franklin,” the pet grizzly of one of my boyhood’s heroes, old James Capen Adams, the tamer and exhibitor of grizzly bears who, in the fifties and sixties, became famous as Grizzly Adams.

But now that we had caught our cubs, housed them, parcelled them out, and named them, we had to face another problem. How were we going to feed them, and, worse still, what were we going to feed them? Old Grizzly Adams, when he caught his “Ben” as an even tinier cub than mine, had induced a greyhound that he had with him and that happened to have puppies at the time to nurse the foundling. But Jack’s dog could not help us that way and we had to make other arrangements.

We began by taking a frying-pan, a little flour and water, some condensed milk and a pinch of sugar, and stewing up a sort of pap. When this had cooled off we each took a teaspoon and a squalling, kicking cub and began experimenting. The cubs, small as they were, had sharp claws, teeth like needles, and a violent objection to being mollycoddled; and so, although we each had on heavy buckskin gloves, and each held a cub under one arm, its front paws with one hand and a teaspoon with the other, the babies took most of their first meal externally. The little rascals looked like pasty polar bears when the fight was over. But they acted better the second try and soon learned to like their new diet. And in a day or two they learned to feed themselves out of a plate. And it was not very long before our problem was, not to induce them to eat, but to satisfy their unappeasable appetites.

Meanwhile, however, we had had other troubles. At the conclusion of their first meal we had put them into their den, placed sections of bark against the opening, rolled a boulder in front of the improvised door, and left them, as we thought, for the night. But we were soon awakened by the cries of the lonesome little fellows, and, as there seemed to be no prospect of their quieting down, I finally got up, built a fire, warmed some of the gruel, and gave them another feed. I then warmed a couple of flat rocks, placed these under the pine needles, and again tucked the babies into bed. By daybreak I had to get up and give them an early breakfast.

This was the first night, but it was no sample of what followed. The interval between feeds became less and less until the feeding quieted them only so long as the feeding act lasted. Then, as soon as a cub was put down, it set up a bawling that was unbearable. One night we put them all in a sack and tied the mouth. This kept them from bawling so long as they could not get out of the sack, but they all fell to work with tooth and nail, and their combined voices soon announced that they had succeeded in freeing themselves and were pacing in front of their cave making it impossible for us to sleep. I got up and put them into another sack, and this sack inside another. Then I put the bundle in the den and, with the shovel, buried it more than a foot deep with dirt. Then I put rocks over the top and front of their house. At first the snuffing and snorting they made in working on the sack was nearly as bad as the bawling, but we finally got to sleep in spite of it; only, however, to be aroused later on by familiar sounds that proclaimed that the sacks had been clawed to bits, the cave dug open, and that the trio were waiting to see what kind of game we would next invent for their entertainment. This was our last attempt to keep them quiet. After that we fed them all they would eat and then let them howl.

During the day they would play contentedly in front of the den for a part of the time. But when the two male bears settled down to sleep the little vixen of a female would howl and fret and finally take to clawing and biting them, so that at last they would come out and join in her walking and bawling. As soon as we discovered this we separated them, making another cave for the female, and after this we were not bothered so much with the crying, and in a few days this ceased altogether.

We stayed at this camp more than two weeks, waiting for the weather to settle; and though we did some fishing and a little hunting we were, for the most part, held close by the steady rain and gave much time to the training of our cubs. Each of us of course adopted his own system of education. O’Brien, being an Irishman, would hear of no half measures; talked of “sparing the rod and spoiling the child,” and was determined to be master in his own house. In this way he soon developed a disposition in his little cub that I have never seen equalled for viciousness in any animal whatever. She would, at the mere sound of Jack’s voice, become a vindictive little devil; and she would spit, and strike at, and fight him until she was completely exhausted. And when she finally died from the effects of the constant whippings he gave her in trying to break her spirit, she tried to bite him with her last breath.