HUNT TH BISON GRISLY Shot by Theodore Roosevelt, September 7J, 1884. Drawn by J. C. Beard HEAD OF GRIZZLY BEAR Hunting Tales of the West Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches An Account of the Big Game of the United States and its Chase with Horse Hound, and Rifle By Theodore Roosevelt ** y''J Author of " The Winning of the West," " American Ideals " ** Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," etc. 1 The Wilderness Hunter " Part It The Current Literature Publishing Company New York, 1908 PST'V , with huge jumps, and then settling down into its characteristic trot. The old hunter who followed the tracks said he would never have deemed it possible for any animal to make such strides while in a trot. Nevertheless, the grisly is only occasionally not normally, a formidable predatory beast, a killer of cattle and of large game. Although capable of far swifter movement than is promised by his frame of seemingly clumsy strength, and in spite of his power of charging with astonishing suddenness and speed, he yet lacks altogether the supple agility of such finished destroyers as the cougar and the wolf ; and for the absence of this agility no amount of mere huge^muscle can'atone. He is more apt OLD EPPIRAIM, THE GRISL Y BEAR, 63 to feast on animals which have met their death by accident, or which have been killed by other beasts or by man, than to do his own kill- ing. He is a very foul feeder, with a strong relish for carrion, and possesses a grewsome and cannibal fondness for the flesh of his own kind ; a bear carcass will toll a brother bear to the ambushed hunter better than almost any other bait, unless it is the carcass of a horse. Nor do these big bears always content them- selves merely with the carcasses of their brethren. A black bear would have a poor chance if in the clutches of a large, hungry grisly ; and an old male will kill and eat a cub, especially if he finds it at a disadvantage. A rather remarkable instance of this occurred in the Yellowstone National Park, in the spring of 1 89 1 . The incident is related in the follow- ing letter written to Mr. William Hallett Phillips, of Washington, by another friend, Mr. Elwood Hofer. Hofer is an old moun- tain-man ; I have hunted with him myself, and know his statements to be trustworthy. He was, at the time, at work in the Park getting animals for the National Museum at Washing- ton, and was staying at Yancey's " hotel " near Tower Falls. His letter which was dated June 2ist, 1891, runs in part as follows : " I had a splendid Grizzly or Roachback cub and was going to send him into the Springs next morning the team was here, I heard a racket outside went out and found him dead an old bear that made an 9 i-a 64 HUNTING THE GRISLY. inch track had killed and partly eaten him. Last night another one came, one that made an 8 1-2 inch track, and broke Yancy up in the milk business. You know how the cabins stand here. There is a hitching post between the saloon and old house, the little bear was killed there. In a creek close by was a milk house, last night another bear came there and smashed the whole thing up, leaving nothing but a few flattened buckets and pans and boards. I was sleeping in the old cabin, I heard the tin ware rattle but thought it was all right supposed it was cows or horses about. I don't care about the milk but the damn cuss dug up the remains of the cub I had buried in the old ditch, he visited the old meat house but found nothing. Bear are very thick in this part of the Park, and are getting very fresh. I sent in the game to Capt. Ander- son, hear its doing well." Grislies are fond of fish ; and on the Pacific slope, where the salmon run, they, like so many other beasts, travel many scores of miles and crowd down to the rivers to gorge themselves upon the fish which are thrown up on the banks. Wading into the water a bear will knock out the salmon right and left when they are running thick. Flesh and fish do not constitute the grisly's ordinary diet. At most times the big bear is a grubber in the ground, an eater of insects, roots, nuts, and berries. Its dangerous fore- claws are normally used to overturn stones and knock rotten logs to pieces, that it may OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 65 lap up the small tribes of darkness which swarm under the one and in the other. It digs up the camas roots, wild onions, and an occa- sional luckless woodchuckor gopher. If food is very plenty bears are lazy, but commonly they are obliged to be very industrious, it be- ing no light task to gather enough ants, beetles, crickets, tumble-bugs, roots, and nuts to satisfy the cravings of so huge a bulk. The sign of a bear's work is, of course, evi- dent to the most unpractised eye ; and in no way can one get a better idea of the brute's power than by watching it busily working for its breakfast, shattering big logs and upsetting boulders by sheer strength. There is always a touch of the comic, as well as a touch of the strong and terrible, in a bear's look and ac- tions. It will tug and pull, now with one paw, now with two, now on all fours, now on its hind legs, in the effort to turn over a large log or stone ; and when it succeeds it jumps round to thrust its muzzle into the damp hollow and lap up the affrighted mice or beetles while they are still paralyzed by the sudden ex- posure. , The true time of plenty for bears is the berry season. Then they feast ravenously on huckleberries, blueberries, kinnikinic berries, buffalo berries, wild plums, elderberries, and scores of other fruits. They often smash all the bushes in a berry patch, gathering the fruit with half-luxurious, half-laborious greed, sitting on their haunches, and sweeping the berries into their mouths with dexterous paws. So absorbed 5 66 HUNTING THE GRISLY. do they become in their feasts on the luscious fruit that they grow reckless of their safety, and feed in broad daylight, almost at midday ; while in some of the thickets, especially those of the mountain haws, they make so much noise in smashing the branches that it is a comparatively easy matter to approach them unheard. That still-hunter is in luck who in the fall finds an accessible berry-covered hill- side which is haunted by bears ; but, as a rule, the berry bushes do not grow close enough to- gether to give the hunter much chance. Like most other wild animals, bears which have known the neighborhood of man are beasts of the darkness, or at least of the dusk and the gloaming. But they are by no means such true night-lovers as the big cats and the wolves. In regions where they know little of hunters they roam about freely in the day- light, and in cool weather are even apt to take their noontide slumbers basking in the sun. Where they are much hunted they finally al- most reverse their natural habits and sleep throughout the hours of light, only venturing abroad after nightfall and before sunrise ; but even yet this is not the habit of those bears which exist in the wilder localities where they are still plentiful. In these places they sleep, or at least rest, during the hours of greatest heat, and again in the middle part of the night, un- less there is a full moon. They start on their rambles for food about mid-afternoon, and end their morning roaming soon after the sun is above the horizon. If the moon is full, how- OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 67 ever, they may feed all night long, and then wander but little in the daytime. Aside from man, the full-grown grisly has hardly any foe to fear. Nevertheless, in the early spring, when weakened by the hunger that succeeds the winter sleep, it behooves even the grisly, if he dwells in the mountain fastnesses of the far northwest, to beware of a famished troop of great timber wolves. These northern Rocky Mountain wolves are most formidable beasts, and when many of them band together in time of famine they do not hesitate to pounce on the black bear and cougar ; and even a full-grown grisly is not safe from their attacks, unless he can back up against some rock which will prevent them from assailing him from behind. A small ranchman whom I knew well, who lived near Flathead Lake, once in April found where a troop of these wolves had killed a good-sized yearling grisly. Either cougar or wolf will make a prey of a grisly which is but a few months old ; while any fox, lynx, wolverine, or fisher will seize the very young cubs. The old story about wolves fearing to feast on game killed by a grisly is all nonsense. Wolves are canny beasts, and they will not approach a carcass if they think a bear is hidden near by and likely to rush out at them ; but under or- dinary circumstances they will feast not only on the carcasses of the grisly's victims, but on the carcass of the grisly himself after he has been slain and left by the hunter. Of course wolves would only attack a grisly if in the 68 HUNTING THE GRISLY. most desperate straits for food, as even a vio tory over such an antagonist must be pur- chased with heavy loss of life ; and a hungry grisly would devour either a wolf or a cougar, or any one of the smaller carnivora off-hand if it happened to corner it where it could not get away. The grisly occasionally makes its den in a cave and spends therein the midday hours. But this is rare. Usually it lies in the dense shelter of the most tangled piece of woods in the neighborhood, choosing by preference some bit where the young growth is thick and the ground strewn with boulders and fallen logs. Often, especially if in a restless mood and roaming much over the country, it merely makes a temporary bed, in which it lies but once or twice ; and again it may make a more permanent lair or series of lairs, spending many consecutive nights in each. Usually the lair or bed is made some distance from the feeding ground ; but bold bears, in very wild localities, may lie close by a carcass, or in the middle of a berry ground. The deer-killing bear above mentioned had evidently dragged two or three of his victims to his den, which was under an impenetrable mat of bull-berries and dwarf box-alders, hemmed in by a cut bank on one side and a wall of gnarled cot- tonwoods on the other. Round this den, and rendering it noisome,were scattered the bones of several deer and a young steer or heifer. When we found it we thought we could easily kill the bear, but the fierce, cunning beast must OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 69 have seen or smelt us, for though we laid in wait for it long and patiently, it did not come back to its place; nor, on our subsequent visits, did we ever find traces of its having done so. Bear are fond of wallowing in the water, whether in the sand, on the edge of a rapid plains river, on the muddy margin of a pond, or in the oozy moss of a clear, cold mountain spring. One hot August afternoon, as I was clambering down a steep mountain-side near Pend'Oreille lake, I heard a crash some dis- tance below, which showed that a large beast was afoot. On making my way towards the spot, I found I had disturbed a big bear as it was lolling at ease in its bath ; the discolored water showed where it had scrambled hastily out and galloped off as I approached. The spring welled out at the base of a high granite rock, forming a small pool of shimmering broken crystal. The soaked moss lay in a deep wet cushion round about, and jutted ovel* the edges of the pool like a floating shelf. Graceful, water-loving ferns swayed to and fro. Above, the great conifers spread their murmuring branches, dimming the light, and keeping out the heat ; their brown boles sprang from the ground like buttressed col- umns. On the barren mountain-side beyond the heat was oppressive. It was small wonder that Bruin should have .sought the spot to cool his gross carcass in the fresh spring water. The bear is a solitary beast, and although many may assemble together, in what looks like a drove, on some favorite feeding-ground 43 B yo HUNTING THE GRISLY. usually where the berries are thick, or by the banks of a salmon-thronged river the association is never more than momentary, each going its own way as soon as its hunger is satisfied. The males always live alone by choice, save in the rutting season, when they seek the females. Then two or three may come together in the course of their pursuit and rough courtship of the female ; and if the rivals are well matched, savage battles follow, so that many of the old males have their heads seamed with scars made by their fellows' teeth. At such times they are evil tempered and prone to attack man or beast on slight provocation. The she brings forth her cubs, one, two, or three in number, in her winter den. They are very small and helpless things, and it is some time after she leaves her winter home before they can follow her for any distance. They stay with her throughout the summer and the fall, leaving her when the cold weather sets in. By this time they are well grown ; and hence, especially if an old male has joined the she, the family may number three or four indi- viduals, so as to make what seems like quite a .ittle troop of bears. A small ranchman who lived a dozen miles from me on the Little Missouri once found a she-bear and three half-grown cubs feeding at a berry-patch in a ravine. He shot the old she in the small of the back, whereat she made a loud roaring and squealing. One of the cubs rushed to- wards her ; but its sympathy proved misplaced, OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 71 for she knocked it over with a hearty cuff, either out of mere temper, or because she thought her pain must be due to an unpro- voked assault from one of her offspring. The hunter then killed one of the cubs, and the other two escaped. When bears are to- gether and one is wounded by a bullet, but does not see the real assailant, it often .alls tooth and nail upon its comrade, apparently attributing its injury to the latter. Bears are hunted in many ways. Some are killed by poison ; but this plan is only prac- tised by the owners of cattle or sheep who have suffered from their ravages. Moreover, they are harder to poison than wolves. Most often they are killed in traps, which are sometimes dead-falls, on the principle of the little figure- 4 trap familiar to every American country boy, sometimes log-pens in which the animal is taken alive, but generally huge steel gins. In some states there is a bounty for the de- struction of grislies ; and in many places their skins have a market price, although much less valuable than those of the black bear. The men who pursue them for the bounty, or for their fur, as well as the ranchmen who regard them as foes to stock, ordinarily use steel traps. The trap is very massive, need- ing no small strength to set, and it is usually chained to a bar or log of wood, which does not stop the bear's progress outright, but hampers and interferes with it, continually catching in tree stumps and the like. The animal when trapped makes off at once, bit- 72 HUNTING THE GRISLY. ing at the trap and the bar ; but it leaves a broad wake and sooner or later is found tan- gled up by the chain and b'ar. A bear is by no means so difficult to trap as a wolf or fox although more so than a cougar or a lynx. In wild regions a skilful trapper can often catch a great many with comparative ease. A cunning old grisly however, soon learns the danger, and is then almost impossible to trap, as it either avoids the neighborhood alto- gether or finds out some way by which to get at the bait without springing the trap, or else deliberately springs it first. I have been told of bears which spring traps by rolling across them, the iron jaws slipping harmlessly off the big round body. An old horse is the most common bait. It is, of course, all right to trap bears when they are followed merely as vermin or for the sake of the fur. Occasionally, however, hunters who are out merely for sport adopt this method ; but this should never be done. To shoot a trapped bear for sport is a thoroughly unsportsmanlike proceeding. A funny plea sometimes advanced in its favor is that it is " dangerous." No doubt in ex- ceptional instances this is true ; exactly as it is true that in exceptional instances it is " dan- gerous " for a butcher to knock over a steer in the slaughter-house. A bear caught only by the toes may wrench itself free as the hunter comes near, and attack him with pain- maddened fury ; or if followed at once, and if the trap and bar are light, it may be found in OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 73 some thicket, still free, and in a frenzy of rage. But even in such, cases the beast has been crippled, and though crazy with pain and anger is easily dealt with by a good shot ; while or- dinarily the poor brute is found in the last stages of exhaustion, tied tight to a tree where the log or bar has caught, its teeth broken to splintered stumps by rabid snaps at the cruel trap and chain. Some trappers kill the trapped grislies with a revolver ; so that it may easily be seen that the sport is not normally danger- ous. Two of my own cowboys, Seawell and Dow, were originally from Maine, where they had trapped a number of black bears; and they always killed them either with a hatchet or a small 32-calibre revolver. One of them, Seawell, once came near being mauled by a trapped bear, seemingly at the last gasp, which he approached incautiously with his hatchet. There is, however, one very real danger to which the solitary bear-trapper is exposed, the danger of being caught in his own trap. The huge jaws of the gin are easy to spring and most hard to open. If an unwary passer-by should tread between them and be caught by the leg, his fate would be doubtful, though he w ould probably die under the steadily growing torment of the merciless iron jaws, as they pressed ever deeper into the sore flesh and broken bones. But if caught by the arms, while setting or fixing the trap, his fate would be in no doubt at all, for it would be impossible for the stoutest man to free himself by any means. Terrible stories are told of solitary 74 HUNTING THE GRISLY. mountain hunters who disappeared, and were found years later in the lonely wilderness, as mouldering skeletons, the shattered bones of the forearms still held in the rusty jaws of the gin. Doubtless the grisly could be successfully hunted with dogs, if the latter were carefully bred and trained to the purpose, but as yet this has not been done, and though dogs are sometimes used as adjuncts in grisly hunting they are rarely of much service. It is some- times said that very small dogs are the best for this end. But this is only so with grislies that have never been hunted. In such a case the big bear sometimes becomes so irritated with the bouncing, yapping little terriers or fice-dogs that he may try to catch them and thus permit the hunter to creep upon him. But the minute he realizes, as he speedily does, that the man is his real foe, he pays no further heed whatever to the little dogs, who can then neither bring him to bay nor hinder his flight. Ordinary hounds, of the kinds used in the South for fox, deer, wild-cat, and black bear, are but little better. I have known one or two men who at different times tried to hunt the grisly with a pack of hounds and fice-dogs wonted to the chase of the black bear, but they never met with success. This was pro- bably largely owing to the nature of the country in which they hunted, a vast tangled mass of forest and craggy mountain ; but it was also due to the utter inability of the dogs to stop the quarry from breaking bay when it wished. OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 75 Several times a grisly was bayed, but always in some inaccessible spot which it took hard climbing to reach, and the dogs were never able to hold the beast until the hunters came up. Still a well-trained pack of large hounds which were both bold and cunning could doubtless bay even a grisly. Such dogs are the big half-breed hounds sometimes used in the Alleghanies of West Virginia, which are trained not merely to nip a bear, but to grip him by the hock as he runs and either throw him or twirl him round. A grisly could not disregard a wary and powerful hound capable of performing this trick, even though he paid small heed to mere barking and occasional nipping. Nor do I doubt that it would be possible to get together a pack of many large, fierce dogs, trained to dash straight at the head and hold on like a vice, which could fairly master a grisly and, though unable, of course, to kill him, would worry him breathless and hold him down so that he could be slain with ease. There have been instances in which five or six of the big so-called blood- hounds of the southern States not pure blood- hounds at all, but huge, fierce, ban-dogs, with a cross of the ferocious Cuban blood-hound, to give them good scenting powers have by themselves mastered the cougar and the black bear. Such instances occurred in the hunting history of my own forefathers on my mother's side, who during the last half of the eighteenth, and the first half of the present, century lived j6 HUNTING THE GRISLY. in Georgia and over the border in what are now Alabama and Florida. These big dogs can only overcome such foes by rushing in in a body and grappling all together ; if they hang back, lunging and snapping, a cougar or bear will destroy them one by one. With a quarry so huge and redoubtable as the grisly, no nun> ber of dogs, however large and fierce, could overcome him unless they all rushed on him in a mass, the first in the charge seizing by the head or throat. If the dogs hung back, or if there were only a few of them, or if they did not seize around the head, they would be des- troyed without an effort. It is murder to slip merely one or two close-quarter dogs at a grisly. Twice I have known a man take a large bull- dog with his pack when after one of these big bears, and in each case the result was the same. In one instance the bear was trotting when the bulldog seized it by the cheek, and without so much as altering its gait, it brushed off the hanging dog with a blow from the fore- paw that broke the latter's back. In the other instance the bear had come to bay, and when seized by the ear it got the dog*s body up to its jaws, and tore out the life with one crunch. A small number of dogs must rely on their activity, and must hamper the bear's escape by inflicting a severe bite and avoid- ing the counter-stroke. The only dog I ever heard of which, single-handed, was really of service in stopping a grisly, was a big Mexican sheep-dog, once owned by the hunter Tazewell Woody. It was an agile beast with powerful OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR. 77 jaws, and possessed both intelligence and a fierce, resolute temper. Woody killed three grislies with its aid. It attacked with equal caution and ferocity, rushing at the bear as the latter ran, and seizing the outstretched hock with a grip of iron, stopping the bear short, but letting go before the angry beast could whirl round and seize it. It was so active and wary that it always escaped da- mage ; and it was so strong and bit so severely that the bear could not possibly run from it at any speed. In consequence, if it once came to close quarters with its quarry, Woody could always get near enough for a shot. Hitherto, however, the mountain hunters as distinguished from the trappers who have followed the grisly have relied almost solely on their rifles. In my own case about half the bears I have killed I stumbled across almost by accident; and probably this proportion holds good generally. The hunter may be after bear at the time, or he may be after black- tail deer or elk, the common game in most of the haunts of the grisly ; or he may merely be travelling through the country or prospecting for gold. Suddenly he comes over the edge of a cut bank, or round the sharp spur of a mountain or the shoulder of a cliff which walls in a ravine, or else the indistinct game trail he has been following through the great trees twists sharply to one side to avoid a rock or a mass of down timber, and behold he surprises old Ephraim digging for roots, or munching berries, or slouching along the path, or perhaps rising 7 8 HUNTING THE GRISLY. suddenly from the lush, rank plants amid which ] he has been lying. Or it may be that the bear will be spied afar rooting in an open glade or on a bare hill-side. In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to find some favorite feeding ground, where there are many roots or berry-bearing bushes, or else to lure the grisly to a carcass. This last method of " baiting " forbear is under ordinary circumstances the only way which affords even a moderately fair chance of killing them. They are very cunning, with the sharpest of noses, and where they have had experience of hunters they dwell only in cover where it is al- most impossible for the best of still-hunters to approach them. Nevertheless, in favorable ground a man can often find and kill them by fair stalking, in berry time, or more especially in the early spring, before the snow has gone from the mountains, and while the bears are driven by hunger to roam much abroad and sometimes to seek their food in the open. In such cases the still-hunter is stirring by the earliest dawn, and walks with stealthy speed to some high point of observation from which he can over- look the feeding-grounds where he has previ- ously discovered sign. From the coign of vantage he scans the country far and near, either with his own keen eyes or with powerful glasses ; and he must combine patience and good sight with the ability to traverse long dis- tances noiselessly and yet at speed. He may spend two or three hours sitting still and look- OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISL Y BEAR. 79 ing over a vast tract of country before he will suddenly spy a bear ; or he may see nothing after the most careful search in a given place, and must then go on half a dozen miles to an- other, watching warily as he walks, and con- tinuing this possibly for several days before getting a glimpse of his game. If the bear are digging roots, or otherwise procuring their food on the bare hill sides and table-lands, it is of course comparatively easy to see them ; and it is under such circumstances that this kind of hunting is most successful. Once seen, the actual stalk may take two or three hours, the nature of the ground and the direction of the wind often necessitating a long circuit ; perhaps a gully, a rock, or a fallen log offers a chance for an approach to within two hun- dred yards, and although the hunter will, if possible, get much closer than this, yet even at such a distance a bear is a large enough mark to warrant risking a shot. Usually the berry grounds do not offer such favorable opportunities, as they often lie in thick timber, or are covered so densely with bushes as to obstruct the view ; and they are rarely commanded by a favorable spot from which to spy. On the other hand, as already said, bears occasionally forget all their watch- fulness while devouring fruit, and make such a noise rending and tearing the bushes that, if once found, a man can creep upon them un- observed. So HUNTING THE GRISLY. CHAPTER IV. HUNTING THE GRISLY. IF out in the late fall or early spring, it is often possible to follow a bear's trail in the snow ; having come upon it either by chance or hard hunting, or else having found where it leads from some carcass on which the beast has been feeding. In the pursuit one must exercise great caution, as at such times the hunter is easily seen a long way off, and game is always especially watchful for any foe that may follow its trail. Once I killed a grisly in this manner. It was early in the fall, but snow lay on the ground, while the gray weather boded a storm. My camp was in a bleak, wind-swept valley, high among the mountains which form the divide between the head-waters of the Salmon and Clarke's Fork of the Columbia. All night I had lain in my buffalo-bag, under the lea of a windbreak of branches, in the clump of fir- trees, where I had halted the preceding eve- ning. At my feet ran a rapid mountain tor- rent, its bed choked with ice-covered rocks ; I had been lulled to sleep by the stream's splashing murmur, and the loud moaning of the wind along the naked cliffs. At dawn I HUNTING THE GRISLY. 8 1 rose and shook myself free of the buffalo robe, coated with hoar-frost. The ashes of the fire were lifeless ; in the dim morning the air was bitter cold. I did not linger a moment, but snatched up my rifle, pulled on my fur cap and gloves, and strode off up a side ravine ; as I walked I ate some mouthfuls of venison, left over from supper. Two hours of toil up the steep mountain brought me to the top of a spur. The sun had risen, but was hidden behind a bank of sullen clouds. On the divide I halted, and gazed out over a vast landscape, inconceivably wild and dismal. Around me towered the stupen- dous mountain masses which make up the backbone of the Rockies. From my feet, as far as I could see, stretched a rugged and barren chaos of ridges and detached rock masses. Behind me, far below, the stream wound like a silver ribbon, fringed with dark conifers and the changing, dying foliage of poplar and quaking aspen. In front the bot- toms of the valleys were filled with the som- bre evergreen forest, dotted here and there with black, ice-skimmed tarns ; and the dark spruces clustered also in the higher gorges > and were scattered thinly along the mountain sides. The snow which had fallen lay in drifts and streaks, while, where the wind had scope it was blown off, and the ground left bare. For two hours I walked onwards across the ridges and valleys. Then among some scat- tered spruces, where the snow lay to the depth of half a foot, I suddenly came on the fresh, 82 HUNTING THE GRTSLY. broad trail of a grisly. The brute was evi- dently roaming restlessly about in search of a winter den, but willing, in passing, to pick up any food that lay handy. At once I took the trail, travelling above and to one side, and keeping a sharp look-out ahead. The bear was going across wind, and this made my task easy. I walked rapidly, though cautiously ; and it was only in crossing the large patches of bare ground that I had to fear making a noise. Elsewhere the snow muffled my foot- steps, and made the trail so plain that I scarcely had to waste a glance upon it, bending my eyes always to the front. At last, peering cautiously over a ridge crowned with broken rocks, I saw my quarry, a big, burly bear, with silvered fur. He had halted on an open hill-side, and was busily dig- ging up the caches of some rock gophers or squirrels. He seemed absorbed in his work, and the stalk was easy. Slipping quietly back, I ran towards the end of the spur, and in ten minutes struck a ravine, of which one branch ran past within seventy yards of where the bear was working. In this ravine was a rath- er close growth of stunted* evergreens, afford- ing good cover, although in one or two places I had to lie down and crawl through the snow. When I reached the point for which I was aiming, the bear had just finished rooting, and was starting off. A slight whistle brought him to a standstill, and I drew a bead behind his shoulder, and low down, resting the rifle across the crooked branch of a dwarf spruce. At HUNTING THE GRISLY. 83 the crack he ran off at- speed, making no sound, but the thick spatter of blood splashes, showing clear on the white snow, betrayed the mortal nature of the wound. For some min- utes I followed the trail ; and then, topping a ridge, I saw the dark bulk lying motionless in a snow drift at the foot of a low rock-wall, down which he had tumbled. The usual practice of the still-hunter who is after grisly is to toll it to baits. The hun- ter either lies in ambush near the carcass, or approaches it stealthily when he thinks the bear is at its meal. One day while carr >ed near the Bitter Root Mountains in Mon* na I found that a bear had been feeding o v < the carcass of a moose which lay some five miles from the little open glade in which my tent was pitched, and I made up my mind to try to get a shot at it that afternoon. I stayed in camp till about three o'clock, lying lazily back on the bed of sweet-smelling evergreen boughs, watching the pack ponies as they stood under the pines on the edge of the open, stamping now and then, and switching their tails. The air was still, the sky a glorious blue ; at that hour in the afternoon even the September sun was hot. The smoke from the smouldering logs of the camp fire curled thinly upwards. Little chip- munks scuttled out from their holes to the packs, which lay in a heap on the ground, and then scuttled madly back again. A couple of drab-colored whisky-jacks, with bold mien and fearless bright eyes, hopped and fluttered 84 HUNTING THE GRISLY, round, picking up the scraps, and uttering an extraordinary variety of notes, mostly discord- ant ; so tame were they that one of them lit on my outstretched arm as I half dozed, bask- ing in the sunshine. When the shadows began to lengthen, I shouldered my rifle and plunged into the woods. At first my route lay along a mountain side ; then for half a mile over a windfall, the dead timber piled about in crazy confusion. After that I went up the bottom of a valley by a little brook, the ground being carpeted with a sponge of soaked moss. At the head of this brook was a pond covered with water-lilies ; and a scramble through a rocky pass took me into a high, wet valley, where the thick growth of spruce was broken by occasional strips of meadow. In this valley the moose carcass lay, well at the upper end. In moccasined feet I trod softly through the soundless woods. Under the dark branches it was already dusk, and the air had the cool chill of evening. As I neared the clump where the body lay, I walked with redoubled caution, watching and listening with strained alertness. Then I heard a twig snap ; and my blood leaped, for I knew the bear was at his supper. In another moment I saw his shaggy, brown form. He was working with all his awkward giant strength, trying to bury the carcass, twisting it to one side and the other with wonderful ease. Once he got angry and suddenly gave it a tremendous cuff with his paw ; in his bearing he had something HUNTING THE GRISLY. 85 half humorous, half devilish. I crept up within forty yards; but for several minutes he would not keep his head still. Then some- thing attracted his attention in the forest, and he stood motionless looking towards it, broad- side to me, with his fore-paws planted on the carcass. This gave me my chance. I drew a very fine bead between his eye and ear, and pulled trigger. He dropped like a steer when struck with a pole-axe. If there is a good hiding-place handy it is better to lie in wait at the carcass. One day on the head-waters of the Madison, I found that a bear was coming to an elk I had shot some days before ; and I at once determined to ambush the beast when he came back that evening. The carcass lay in the middle of a valley a quarter of a mile broad. The bottom of this valley was covered by an open forest of tall pines ; a thick jungle of smaller ever- greens marked where the mountains rose on either hand. There were a number of large rocks scattered here and there, one, of very convenient shape, being only some seventy or eighty yards from the carcass. Up this I clambered. It hid me perfectly, and on its top was a carpet of soft pine needles, on which I could lie at my ease. Hour after hour passed by. A little black woodpecker with a yellow crest ran nimbly up and down the tree-trunks for some time and then flitted away with a party of chicka- dees and nut-hatches. Occasionally a Clarke's crow soared about overhead or clung in any 86 HUNTING THE GRISLY. position to the swaying end of a pine branch, chattering and screaming. Flocks of cross- bills, with wavy flight and plaintive calls, flew to a small mineral lick near by, where they scraped the clay with their queer little beaks. As the westering sun sank out of sight be- yond the mountains these sounds of bird-life gradually died away. Under the great pines the evening was still with the silence of prime- val desolation. The sense of sadness and loneliness, the melancholy of the wilderness, came over me like a spell. Every slight noise made my pulses throb as I lay motionless on the rock gazing intently into the gathering gloom. I began to fear that it would grow too dark to shoot before the grisly came. Suddenly and without warning, the great bear stepped out of the bushes and trod across the pine needles with such swift and silent footsteps that its bulk seemed unreal. It was very cautious, continually halting to peer around ; and once it stood up on its hind legs and looked long down the valley towards the red west. As it reached the carcass I put a bullet between its shoulders. It rolled over, while the woods resounded with its savage roaring. Immediately it struggled to its feet and staggered off ; and fell again to the next shot, squalling and yelling. Twice this was repeated ; the brute being one of those bears which greet every wound with a great outcry, and sometimes seem to lose their feet when hit although they will occasionally fight as savagely as their more silent brethren. In HUNTING THE GRISLY, 87 this case the wounds were mortal, and the bear died before reaching the edge of the thicket. I spent much of the fall of 1889 hunting on the head-waters of the Salmon and Snake in Idaho, and along the Montana boundary line from the Big Hole Basin and the head of the Wisdom River to the neighborhood of Red Rock Pass and to the north and west of Henry's Lake. During the last fortnight my companion was the old mountain man, already mentioned, named Griffeth or Griffin I can- not tell which, as he was always called either "Hank" or "Griff." He was a crabbedly honest old fellow, and a very skilful hunter ; but he was worn out with age and rheumatism, and his temper had failed even faster than his bodily strength. He showed me a greater variety of game than I had ever seen before in so short a time ; nor did I ever before or after make so successful a hunt. But he was an exceedingly disagreeable companion on account of his surly, moody ways. I gener- ally had to get up first, to kindle the fire and make ready breakfast, and he was very quarrel- some. Finally, during my absence from camp one day, while not very far from Red Rock pass, he found my whisky-flask, which I kept purely for emergencies, and drank all the con- tents. When I came back he was quite drunk. This was unbearable, and after some high words I left him, and struck off homeward through the woods on my own account. We had with us four pack and saddle horses ; and 88 HUNTING THE GRISLY. of these I took a very intelligent and gentle little bronco mare, which possessed the in- valuable trait of always staying near camp, even when not hobbled. I was not hampered with much of an outfit, having only my buffalo sleeping-bag, a fur coat, and my washing kit, with a couple of spare pairs of socks and some handkerchiefs. A frying-pan, some salt, flour, baking-powder, a small chunk of salt pork, and a hatchet, made up a light pack, which, with the bedding, I fastened across the stock saddle by means of a rope and a spare packing cinch. My cartridges and knife were in my belt; my compass and matches, as al- ways, in my pocket. I walked, while the little mare followed almost like a dog, often without my having to hold the lariat which served as halter. The country was for the most part fairly open, as I kept near the foot-hills where glades and little prairies broke the pine forest. The trees were of small size. There was no regular trail, but the course was easy to keep, and I had no trouble of any kind save on the second day. That afternoon I was following a stream which at last " can- yoned up," that is, sank to the bottom of a canyon-like ravine impassable for a horse. I started up a side valley, intending to cross from its head coulies to those of another valley which would lead in below the canyon. However, I got enmeshed in the tangle of winding valleys at the foot of the steep moun- tains, and as dusk was coming on I halted HUNTING THE GRISLY. 89 and camped in a little open spot by the side of a small, noisy brook, with crystal water. The place was carpeted with soft, wet, green moss, dotted red with the kinnikinnic berries, and at its edge, under the trees where the ground was dry, I threw down the buffalo bed on the mat of sweet-smelling pine needles. Making camp took but a moment. I opened the pack, tossed the bedding on a smooth spot, knee-haltered the little mare, dragged up a few dry logs, and then strolled off, rifle on shoulder, through the frosty gloaming, to see if I could pick up a grouse for supper. For half a mile I walked quickly and silently over the pine needles, across a succession of slight ridges separated by narrow, shallow valleys. The forest here was composed of lodge-pole pines, which on the ridges grew close together, with tall slender trunks, while in the valleys the growth was more open. Though the sun was behind the mountains there was yet plenty of light by which to shoot, but it was fading rapidly. At last, as I was thinking of turning towards camp, I stole up to the crest of one of the ridges, and looked over into the valley some sixty yards off. Immediately I caught the loom of some large, dark object ; and another glance showed me a big grisly walking slowly off with his head down. He was quartering to me, and I fired into his flank, the bullet, as I afterwards found, ranging forward and piercing one lung. At the shot he uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at 90 HUNTING THE GRISLY. a heavy gallop, while I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off. After going a few hundred feet he reached a laurel thicket, some thirty yards broad, and two or three times as long which he did not leave. I ran up to the edge and there halted, not liking to venture into the mass of twisted, close-growing stems and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, I heard him utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from the heart of the brush. Accord- ingly, I began to skirt the edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing earnestly to see if I could not catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was at the narrowest part of the thicket, he sud- denly left it directly opposite, and then wheeled and stood broadside to me on the hill-side, a little above. He turned his head stiffly to- wards me ; scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips ; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom. I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. In- stantly the great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs ; and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. I waited until he came to a fallen tree, raking him as he topped it with a ball, which entered his chest and went through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I had HUNTING THE GRISLY. 91 struck him. He came steadily on, and in another second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled trigger ; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leav- ing a pool of bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground ; but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps onwards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding only four, all of which I had fired. Then he tried to pull up, but as he did so his muscles seemed suddenly to give way, his head drooped, and he rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of my first three bullets had inflicted a mortal wound. It was already twilight, and I merely opened the carcass, and then trotted back to camp. Next morning I returned and with much labor took off the skin. The fur was very fine, the animal being in excellent trim, and unusually bright-colored. Unfortunately, in packing it out I lost the skull, and had to supply its place with one of plaster. The beauty of the trophy, and the memory of the circumstances under which I procured it, make me value it perhaps more highly than any other in my house. This is the onlv instance in which I have 92 HUNTING THE GRISLY. been regularly charged by a grisly. On the whole, the danger of hunting these great bears has been much exaggerated. At the begin- ning of the present century, when white hunters first encountered the grisly, he was doubtless an exceedingly savage beast, prone to attack without provocation, and a redoubt- able foe to persons armed with the clumsy, small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles of the day. But at present bitter experience has taught him caution. He has been hunted for sport, and hunted for his pelt, and hunted for the bounty, and hunted as a dangerous enemy to stock, until, save in the very wildest districts, he has learned to be more wary than a deer, and to avoid man's presence almost as carefully as the most timid kind of game. Except in rare cases he will not attack of his own ac- cord, and, as a rule, even when wounded his object is escape rather than battle. Still, when fairly brought to bay, or when moved by a sudden fit of ungovernable anger, the grisly is beyond peradventure a very dangerous antagonist. The first shot, if taken at a bear a good distance off and previously unwounded and unharried, is not usually fraught with much danger, the startled animal being at the outset bent merely on flight. It is always hazardous, however, to track a wounded and worried grisly into thick cover, and the man who habitually follows and kills this chief of American game in dense timber, never abandoning the bloody trail whitherso- ever it leads, must show no small degree oi HUNTING THE GRISLY. 93 skill and hardihood, and must not too closely count the risk to life or limb. Bears differ widely in temper, and occasionally one may be found who will not show fight, no matter how much he is bullied ; but, as a rule, a hunter must be cautious in meddling with a wounded animal which has retreated into a dense thicket, and has been once or twice roused ; and such a beast, when it does turn, will usually charge again and again, and fight to the last with unconquerable ferocity. The short distance at which the bear can be seen through the underbrush, the fury of his charge, and his tenacity of life make it necessary for the hunter on such occasions to have steady nerves and a fairly quick and accurate aim. It is always well to have two men in follow- ing a wounded bear under such conditions. This is not necessary, however, and a good hunter, rather than lose his quarry, will, under ordinary circumstances, follow and attack it, no matter how tangled the fastness in which it has sought refuge ; but he must act warily and with the utmost caution and resolution, if he wishes to escape a terrible and probably fatal mauling. An experienced hunter is rarely rash, and never heedless ; he will not, when alone, follow a wounded bear into a thicket, if by the exercise of patience, skill, and knowledge of the game's habits he can avoid the necessity ; but it is idle to talk of the feat as something which ought in no case to be attempted. While danger ought never to be needlessly incurred, it is yet true 44 94 HUNTING THE GRISLY. that the keenest zest in sport comes from its presence, and from the consequent exercise of the qualities necessary to overcome it. The most thrilling moments of an American hunter's life are those in which, with every sense on the alert, and with nerves strung to the highest point, he is following alone into the heart of its forest fastness the fresh and bloody footprints of an angered grisly ; and no other triumph of American hunting can compare with the victory to be thus gained. These big bears will not ordinarily charge from a distance of over a hundred yards ; but there are exceptions to this rule. In the fall of 1890 my friend Archibald Rogers was hunt- ing in Wyoming, south of the Yellowstone Park, and killed seven bears. One, an old he, was out on a bare table-land, grubbing for roots, when he was spied. It was early in the afternoon, and the hunters, who were on a high mountain slope, examined him for some time through their powerful glasses before making him out to be a bear. They then stalked up to the edge of the wood which fringed the table-land on one side, bU could get no nearer than about three hundred yards, the plains being barren of all cover. After waiting for a couple of hours Rogers risked the shot, in despair of getting nearer, and wounded the bear, though not very seriously. The animal made off, almost broadside to, and Rogers ran forward to intercept it. As soon as it saw him it turned and rushed straight for him, not heeding his second shot, HUNTING THE GRISLY. 95 and evidently bent on charging home. Rogers then waited until it was within twenty yards, and brained it with his third bullet. In fact bears differ individually in courage and ferocity precisely as men do, or as the Spanish bulls, of which it is said that not more than one in twenty is fit to stand the combat of the arena. One grisly can scarcely be bullied into resistance ; the next may fight to the end, against any odds, without flinching, or even at- tack unprovoked. Hence men of limited ex- perience in this sport, generalizing from the actions of the two or three bears each has happened to see or kill, often reach diametri- cally opposite conclusions as to the fighting temper and capacity of the quarry. Even old hunters who indeed, as a class, are very nar- row-minded and opinionated often genera- lize just as rashly as beginners. One will portray all bears as very dangerous ; another will speak and act as if he deemed them of no more consequence than so many rabbits. I knew one old hunter who had killed a score without ever seeing one show fight. On the other hand, Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A., who has had about as much experience with bears as I have had, informs me that he has been charged with the utmost determination three times. In each case the attack was de- livered before the bear was wounded or even shot at, the animal being roused by the ap- proach of the hunters from his day bed, and charging headlong at them from a distance of twenty or thirty paces. All three bears were 96 HUNTING THE GRISLY. killed before they could do any damage. There was a very remarkable incident con- nected with the killing of one of them. It occurred in the northern spurs of the Bighorn range. Dr. Merrill, in company with an old hunter, had climbed down into a deep, nar- row canyon. The bottom was threaded with well-beaten elk trails. While following one of these the two men turned a corner of the canyon and were instantly charged by an old she-grisly, so close that it was only by good luck that one of the hurried shots disabled her and caused her to tumble over a cut bank where she was easily finished. They found that she had been lying directly across the game trail, on a smooth well beaten patch of bare earth, which looked as if it had been dug up, refilled, and trampled down. Look- ing curiously at this patch they saw a bit of hide only partially covered at one end ; dig- ging down they found the body of a well grown grisly cub. Its skull had been crushed, and the brains licked out, and there were signs of other injuries. The hunters pondered long over this strange discovery, nd hazarded many guesses as to its meaning. At last they decided that probably the cub had been killed, and its brains eaten out, either by some old male-grisly or by a cougar, that the mother had returned and driven away the murderer, and that she had then buried the body and lain above it, waiting to wreak her vengeance on the first passer-by. Old Tazewell Woody, during his thirty HUNTING THE GRISLY* 97 years' life as a hunter in the Rockies and on the great plains, killed very many grislies. He always exercised much caution in dealing with them ; and, as it happened, he was by some suitable tree in almost every case when he was charged. He would accordingly climb the tree (a practice of which I do not approve however) ; and the bear would look up at him and pass on without stopping. Once, when he was hunting in the mountains with a com- panion, the latter, who was down in a valley, while Woody was on the hill-side, shot at a bear. The first thing Woody knew the wounded grisly, running up-hill, was almost on him from behind. As he turned it seized his rifle in its jaws. He wrenched the rifle round, while the bear still gripped it, and pulled trigger, sending a bullet into its shoul- der ; whereupon it struck him with its paw, and knocked him over the rocks. By good luck he fell in a snow bank and was not hurt in the least. Meanwhile the bear went on and they never got it. Once he had an experience with a bear which showed a very curious mixture of rash- ness and cowardice. He and a companion were camped in a little tepee or wigwam, with a bright fire in front of it, lighting up the night. There was an inch of snow on the ground. Just after they went to bed a grisly came close to camp. Their dog rushed out and they could hear it bark round in the dark- ness for nearly an hour ; then the bear drove it off and came right into camp. It went 7 98 HUNTING THE GRISLY. close to the fire, picking up the scraps of meat and bread, pulled a haunch of venison down from a tree, and passed and repassed in front of the tepee, paying no heed whatever to the two men, who crouched in the doorway talk- ing to one another. Once it passed so close that Woody could almost have touched it. Finally his companion fired into it, and off it ran, badly wounded, without an attempt at retaliation. Next morning they followed its tracks in the snow, and found it a quarter of a mile away. It was near a pine and had buried itself under the loose earth, pine needles, and snow ; Woody's companion al- most walked over it, and putting his rifle to its ear blew out its brains. In all his experience Woody had personally seen but four men who were badly mauled by bears. Three of these were merely wounded. One was bitten terribly in the back. Another had an arm partially chewed off. The third was a man named George Dow, and the acci- dent happened to him on the Yellowstone, about the year 1878. He was with a pack animal at the time, leading it on a trail through a wood. Seeing a big she-bear with cubs he yelled at her ; whereat she ran away, but only to cache her cubs, and in a minute, having hidden them, came racing back at him. His pack animal being slow he started to climb a tree ; but before he could get far enough up she caught him, almost biting a piece out of the calf of his leg, pulled him down, bit and HUNTING THE GRISLY. 99 cuffed him two or three times, and then went on her way. The only time Woody ever saw a man killed by a bear was once when he had given a touch of variety to his life by shipping on a New Bedford whaler which had touched at one of the Puget Sound ports. The whaler went up to a part of Alaska where bears were very plentiful and bold. One day a couple of boats' crews landed ; and the men, who were armed only with an occasional harppon or lance, scattered over the beach, one of them, a Frenchman, wading into the water after shell-fish. Suddenly a bear emerged from some bushes and charged among the aston- ished sailors, who scattered in every direction ; but the bear, said Woody, " just had it in for that Frenchman," and went straight at him. Shrieking with terror he retreated up to his neck in the water ; but the bear plunged in after him, caught him, and disembowelled him. One of the Yankee mates then fired a bomb lance into the bear's hips, and the savage beast hobbled off into the dense cover of the low scrub, where the enraged sailor folk were unable to get at it. The truth is that while the grisly generally avoids a battle if possible, and often acts with great cowardice, it is never safe to take liberties with him ; he usually fights desperately and dies hard when wounded and cornered, and exceptional individuals take the aggressive on small provocation. During the years I lived on the frontier I 100 HUNTING THE GRISLY. came in contact with many persons who had been severely mauled or even crippled for life by grislies; and a number of cases where they killed men outright were also brought under my ken. Generally these accidents, as was natural, occurred to hunters who had roused or wounded the game. A fighting bear sometimes uses his claws and sometimes his teeth. I have never known one to attempt to kill an antagonist by hug- ging, in spite of the popular belief to this effect; though he will sometimes draw an enemy towards him with his paws the better to reach him with his teeth, and to hold him so that he cannot escape from the biting. Nor does the bear often advance on his hind legs to the attack ; though, if the man has come close to him in thick underbrush, or has stumbled on him in his lair unawares, he will often rise up in this fashion and strike a single blow. He will also rise in clinching with a man on horseback. In 1882 a mounted In- dian was killed in this manner on one of the river bottoms some miles below where my ranch house now stands, not far from the junc- tion of the Beaver and Little Missouri. The bear had been hunted into a thicket by a band of Indians, in whose company my informant, a white squaw-man, with whom I afterward did some trading, was travelling. One of them in the excitement of the pursuit rode across the end of the thicket ; as he did so the great beast sprang at him with wonderful quickness, rising on its hind legs, and knock- HUNTING THE GRISLY. 101 - ing over the horse and rider with a single sweep of its terrible fore-paws. It then turned on the fallen man and tore him open, and though the other Indians came promptly to his rescue and slew his assailant, they were not in time to save their comrade's life. A bear is apt to rely mainly on his teeth or claws according to whether his efforts are directed primarily to killing his foe or to mak- ing good his own escape. In the latter event he trusts chiefly to his claws. If cornered, he of course makes a rush for freedom, and in that case he downs any man who is in his way with a sweep of his great paw, but passes on without stopping to bite him. If while sleep- ing or resting in thick brush some one suddenly stumbles on him close up he pursues the same course, less from anger than from fear, being surprised and startled. Moreover, if attacked at close quarters by men and dogs he strikes right and left in defence. Sometimes what is called a charge is rather an effort to get away. In localities where he has been hunted, a bear, like every other kind of game, is always on the look-out for an at- tack, and is prepared at any moment for im- mediate flight. He seems ever to have in his mind, whether feeding, sunning himself, or merely roaming around, the direction usually towards the thickest cover or most broken ground in which he intends to run if molested. When shot at he instantly starts towards this place ; or he may be so confused that he simply runs he knows not whither; and in either 4 4 102 HUNTING THE GRISLY. event he may take a line that leads almost directly to or by the hunter, although he had at first no thought of charging. In such a case he usually strikes a single knock-down blow and gallops on without halting, though that one blow may have taken life. If the claws are long and fairly sharp (as in early spring, or even in the fall, if the animal has been work- ing over soft ground) they add immensely to the effect of the blow, for they cut like blunt axes. Often, however, late in the season, and if the ground has been dry and hard, or rocky, the claws are worn down nearly to the quick, and the blow is then given mainly with the under side of the paw ; although even under this disadvantage a thump from a big bear will down a horse or smash in a man's breast. The hunter Hofer once lost a horse in this manner. He shot at and wounded a bear which rushed off, as ill luck would have it, past the place where his horse was picketed ; probably more in fright than in anger it struck the poor beast a blow which, in the end, proved mortal. If a bear means mischief and charges not to escape but to do damage, its aim is to grapple with or throw down its foe and bite him to death. The charge is made at a gallop, the animal sometimes coming on silently, with the mouth shut, and sometimes with the jaws open, the lips drawn back and teeth showing, utter- ing at the same time a succession of roars or of savage rasping snarls. Certain bears charge without any bluster and perfectly straight; HUNTING THE GRISLY. 103 while others first threaten and bully, and even when charging stop to growl, shake the head, and bite at a bush or knock holes in the ground with their fore-paws. Again, some of them charge home with a ferocious resolution which their extreme tenacity of life renders especially dangerous ; while others can be turned or driven back even by a shot which is not mortal. They show the same variability in their behavior when wounded. Often a big bear, especially if charging, will receive a bul- let in perfect silence, without flinching or seem- ing to pay any heed to it ; while another will cry out and tumble about, and if charging, even though it may not abandon the attack, will pause for a moment to whine or bite at the wound. Sometimes a single bite causes death. One of the most successful bear hunters I ever knew, an old fellow whose real name I never heard as he was always called Old Ike, was killed in this way in the spring or early sum- mer of 1886 on one of the head-waters of the Salmon. He was a very good shot, had killed nearly a hundred bears with the rifle, and, al- though often charged, had never met with any accident, so that he had grown somewhat care- less. On the day in question he had met a couple of mining prospectors and was travelling with them, when a grisly crossed his path. The old hunter immediately ran after it, rapidly gain- ing, as the bear did not hurry when it saw itself pursued, but slouched slowly forwards, occas- ionally turning its head to grin and growl. 104 HUNTING THE GRISLY. soon went into a dense grove of young spruce, and as the hunter reached the edge it charged fiercely out. He fired one hasty shot, evi- dently wounding the animal, but not seriously enough to stop or cripple it ; and as his two companions ran forward they saw the bear seize him with its wide-spread jaws, forcing him to the ground. They shouted and fired, and the beast abandoned the fallen man on the instant and sullenly retreated into the spruce thicket, whither they dared not follow it. Their friend was at his last gasp; for the whole side of the chest had been crushed in by the one bite, the lungs showing between the rent ribs. Very often, however, a bear does not kill a man by one bite, but after throwing him lies on him, biting him to death. Usually, if no assis- tance is at hand, such a man is doomed ; al- though if he pretends to be dead, and has the nerve to lie quiet under very rough treatment, it is just possible that the bear may leave him alive,perhaps after half burying what it believes to be the body. In a very few exceptional in- stances men of extraordinary prowess with the knife have succeeded in beating off a bear, and even in mortally wounding it, but in most cases a single-handed struggle, at close quarters, with a grisly bent on mischief, means death. Occasionally the bear, although vicious, is also frightened, and passes on after giving one or two bites ; and frequently a man who is knocked down is rescued by his friends before he is killed, the big beast mayhap using his HUNTING THE GRISLY. 105 weapons with clumsiness. So a bear may kill a foe with a single blow of its mighty fore-arm, either crushing in the head or chest by sheer force of sinew, or else tearing open the body with its formidable claws ; and so on the other hand he may, and often does, merely disfigure or maim the foe by a hurried stroke. Hence it is common to see men who have escaped the clutches of a grisly, but only at the cost of features marred beyond recognition, or a body rendered almost helpless for life. Almost every old resident of western Montana or northern Idaho has known two or three unfor- tunates who have suffered in this manner. I have myself met one such man in Helena, and another in Missoula ; both were living at least as late as 1889, the date at which I last saw them. One had been partially scalped by a bear's teeth ; the animal was very old and so the fangs did not enter the skull. The other had been bitten across the face, and the wounds never entirely healed, so that his disfigured visage was hideous to behold. Most of these accidents occur in following a wounded or worried bear into thick cover ; and under such circumstances an animal ap- parently hopelessly disabled, or in the death throes, may with a last effort kill one or more of its assailants. In 1874 my wife's uncle,. Captain Alexander Moore, U. S. A., and my friend Captain Bates, with some men of the 2d and 3^ Cavalry, were scouting in Wyom- ing, near the Freezeout Mountains. One morning they roused a bear in the open prairie 106 HUNTING THE GRISLY. and followed it at full speed as it ran towards a small creek. At one spot in the creek beavers had built a dam, and as usual in such places there was a thick growth of bushes and willow saplings. Just as the bear reached the edge of this little jungle it was struck by several balls, both of its forelegs being broken. Neverthe- less, it managed to shove itself forward on its hind-legs, and partly rolled, partly pushed itself into the thicket, the bushes though low being so dense that its body was at once completely hidden. The thicket was a mere patch of brush, not twenty yards across in any direction. The leading troopers reached the edge almost as the bear tumbled in. One of them, a tall and powerful man named Miller, instantly dismounted and prepared to force his way in among the dwarfed willows, which were but breast-high. Among the men who had ridden up were Moore and Bates, and also the two famous scouts, Buffalo Bill long a companion of Captain Moore, and California Joe, Cus- ter's faithful follower. California Joe had spent almost all his life on the plains and in the mountains, as a hunter and Indian fighter ; and when he saw the trooper about to rush into the thicket he called out to him not to do so, warning him of the danger. But the man was a very reckless fellow and he answered by jeering at the old hunter for his over-caution in being afraid of a crippled bear. California Joe made no further effort to dissuade him, re- marking quietly : " Very well, sonny, go in ; it's your own affair." Miller then leaped off HUNTING THE GRISLY. 107 the bank on which they stood and strode into the thicket, holding his rifle at the port. Hardly had he taken three steps when the bear rose in front of him, roaring with rage and pain. It was so close that the man had no chance to fire. Its fore-arms hung useless and as it reared unsteadily on its hind-legs, lunging forward at him, he seized it by the ears and strove to hold it back. His strength was very great, and he actually kept the huge head from his face and braced himself so that he was not overthrown ; but the bear twisted its muzzle from side to side, biting and tear- ing the man's arms and shoulders. Another soldier jumping down slew the beast with a single bullet, and rescued his comrade ; but though alive he was too badly hurt to recover and died after reaching the hospital. Buffalo Bill was given the bear-skin, and I believe has it now. The instances in which hunters who have rashly followed grislies into thick cover have been killed or severely mauled might be multi- plied indefinitely. I have myself known of eight cases in which men have met their deaths in this manner. It occasionally happens that a cunning old grisly will lie so close that the hunter almost steps on him ; and he then rises suddenly with a loud, coughing growl and strikes down or seizes the man before the latter can fire off his rifle. More rarely a bear which is both vicious and crafty deliberately permits the hunter to approach fairly near to, or perhaps io8 HUNTING THE GRISLY. pass by, its hiding-place, and then suddenly charges him with such rapidity that he has barely time for the most hurried shot. The danger in such a case is of course great. Ordinarily, however, even in the brush, the bear's object is to slink away, not to fight, and very many are killed even under the most unfav- orable circumstances without accident. If an unwounded bear thinks itselt unobserved it is not apt to attack ; and in thick cover it is really astonishing to see how one of these large animals can hide, and how closely it will lie when there is danger. About twelve miles below my ranch there are some large river bottoms and creek bottoms covered with a matted mass of cottonwood, box-alders, bull- berry bushes, rosebushes, ash, wild plums, and other bushes. These bottoms have harbored bears ever since I first saw them ; but, though often in company with a large party, I have repeatedly beaten through them, and though we must at times have been very near indeed to the game, we never so much as heard it run. When bears are shot, as they usually must be, in open timber or on the bare mountain, the risk is very much less. Hundreds may thus be killed with comparatively little danger ; yet even under these circumstances they will often charge, and sometimes make their charge good. The spice of danger, especially to a man armed with a good repeating rifle, is only enough to add zest to the chase, and the chief triumph is in outwitting the wary quarry and HUNTING THE GRISLY. 109 getting within range. Ordinarily the only ex- citement is in the stalk, the bear doing noth- ing more than keep a keen look-out and mani- fest the utmost anxiety to get away. As is but natural, accidents occasionally occur; yet' they are usually due more to some failure in man or weapon than to the prowess of the bear. A good hunter whom I once knew, at a time when he was living in Butte, received fatal injuries from a bear he attacked in open woodland. The beast charged after the first shot, but slackened its pace on coming almost up to the man. The latter 's gun jambed, and as he was endeavoring to work it he kept step- ping slowly back, facing the bear which fol- lowed a few yards distant, snarling and threatening. Unfortunately while thus walk- ing backwards the man struck a dead log and fell over it, whereupon the beast instantly sprang on him and mortally wounded him be- fore help arrived. On rare occasions men who are not at the time hunting it fall victims to the grisly. This is usually because they stumble on it un- awares and the animal attacks them more in fear than in anger. One such case, resulting fatally, occurred near my own ranch. The man walked almost over a bear while crossing a little point of brush, in a bend of the river, and was brained with a single blow of the paw. In another instance which came to my knowl- edge the man escaped with a shaking up, and without even a fright. His name was Perkins, and he was out gathering huckleberries in the HO HUNTING THE GRISLY. woods on a mountain side near Pend'Oreille Lake. Suddenly he was sent flying head over heels, by a blow which completely knocked the breath out of his body ; and so instantan- eous was the whole affair that all he could ever recollect about it was getting a vague glfmpse of the bear just as he was bowled over. When he came to he found himself lying some dis- tance down the hill-side, much shaken, and without his berry pail, which had rolled a hundred yards below him, but not otherwise the worse for his misadventure ; while the foot- prints showed that the bear, after delivering the single hurried stroke at the unwitting dis- turber of its day-dreams, had run off up-hill as fast as it was able. A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dan- gerous beast ; yet even under such conditions different grislies act in directly opposite ways. Some she-grislies, when their cubs are young, but are able to follow them about, seem al- ways worked up to the highest pitch of anxious and jealous rage, so that they are likely to at- tack unprovoked any intruder or even passer- by. Others when threatened by the hunter leave their cubs to their fate without a visible qualm of any kind, and seem to think only of their own safety. In 1882 Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, now of New York, met with a very singular adventure with a she-bear and cub. He was in Harvard when I was, but left it and, like a good many other Harvard men of that time, took to cow- punching in the West. He went on a ranch HUNTING THE GRISLY. TIT in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, and was a keen hunter, especially fond of the chase of cougar, bear, and elk. One day while riding a stony mountain trail he saw a little grisly cub watching him from the chaparral above, and he dismounted to try to capture it ; his rifle was a 40-90 Sharp's. Just as he neared the cub, he heard a growl and caught a glimpse of the old she, and he at once turned up-hill, and stood under some tall, quaking aspens. From this spot he fired at and wounded the she, then seventy yards off ; and she charged furiously. He hit her again, but as she kept coming like a thunderbolt he climbed hastily up the aspen, dragging his gun with him, as it had a strap. When the bear reached the foot of the aspen she reared, and bit and clawed the slender trunk, shaking it for a moment, and he shot her through the eye. Off she sprang for a few yards, and then spun round a dozen times, as if dazed or partially stunned ; for the bullet had not touched the brain. Then the vindictive and resolute beast came back to the tree and again reared up against it ; this time to receive a bullet that dropped her lifeless. Mr. Whitney then climbed down and walked to where the cub had been sitting as a looker-on. The little animal did not move until he reached out his hand ; when it suddenly struck at him like an angry cat, dove into the bushes, and was seen no more. In the summer of 1888 an old-time trapper, named Charley Norton, while on Loon Creek, 112 HUNTING THE GRISLY. i of the middle fork of the Salmon, meddled with a she and her cubs. She ran at him and with one blow of her paw almost knocked off his lower jaw ; yet he recovered, and was alive when I last heard of him. Yet the very next spring the cowboys with my own wagon on the Little Missouri round- up killed a mother bear which made but little more fight than a coyote. She had two cubs, and was surprised in the early morning on the prairie far from cover. There were eight or ten cowboys together at the time, just starting off on a long circle, and of course they all got down their ropes in a second, and putting spurs to their fiery little horses started toward the bears at a run, shouting and swinging their loops round their heads. For a moment the old she tried to bluster and made a half- hearted threat of charging ; but her courage failed before the rapid onslaught of her yell- ing, rope-swinging assailants ; and she took to her heels and galloped off, leaving the cubs to shift for themselves. The cowboys were close behind, however, and after half a mile's run she bolted into a shallow cave or hole in the side of a butte, where she stayed cowering and growling, until one of the men leaped off his horse, ran up to the edge of the hole, and killed her with a single bullet from his revolver, fired so close that the powder burned her hair. The unfortunate cubs were roped, and then so dragged about that they were speedily killed instead of being brought alive to camp, as ought to have been done. HUNTING THE GRISLY. 113 In the cases mentioned above the grisly at* tacked only after having been itself assailed, or because it feared an assault, for itself or for its young. In the old days, however, it may almost be said that a grisly was more apt to attack than to flee. Lewis and Clarke and the early explorers who immediately succeeded them, as well as the first hunters and trappers, the " Rocky Mountain men " of the early decades of the present century, were repeat* edly assailed in this manner ; and not a few of the bear hunters of that period found that it was unnecessary to take much trouble about approaching their quarry, as the grisly was usually prompt to accept the challenge and to advance of its own accord, as soon as it discov- ered the foe. All this is changed now. Yet even at the present day an occasional vicious old bear may be found, in some far-off and little-trod fastness, which still keeps up the former habit of its kind. All old hunters have tales of this sort to relate, the prowess, cunning, strength, and ferocity of the grisly being favorite topics for camp-fire talk throughout the Rockies ; but in most cases it is not safe to accept these stories without careful sifting. Still, it is just as unsafe to reject them all. One of my own cowboys was once attacked by a grisly, seemingly in pure wantonness. He was riding up a creek bottom, and had just passed a clump of rose and bullberry bushes when his horse gave such a leap as almost to un- seat him, and then darted madly forward. Turning round in the saddle to his utter aston- 8 114 HUNTING THE GRISLY. ishment he saw a large bear galloping after him, at the horse's heels. For a few jumps the race was close, then the horse drew away and the bear wheeled and went into a thicket of wild plums. The amazed and indignant cow- boy, as soon as he could rein in his steed, drew his revolver and rode back to and around the thicket, endeavoring to provoke his late pur- suer to come out and try conclusions on more equal terms ; but prudent Ephraim had ap- parently repented of his freak of ferocious bravado, arid declined to leave the secure shelter of the jungle. Other attacks are of a much more explicable nature. Mr. Huffman, the photographer of Miles City, informed me that once when butch- ering some slaughtered elk he was charged twice by a she-bear and two well-grown cubs. This was a piece of sheer bullying, undertaken solely with the purpose of driving away the man and feasting on the carcasses ; for in each charge the three bears, after advancing with much blustering, roaring, and growling, halted just before coming to close quarters. In an- other instance a gentleman I once knew, a Mr. S. Carr, was charged by a grisly from mere ill temper at being disturbed at meal- time. The man was riding up a valley ; and the bear was at an elk carcass, near a clump of firs. As soon as it became aware of the approach of the horseman, while he was yet over a hundred yards distant, it jumped on the carcass, looked at him a moment, and then ran straight for him. There was no particular HUNTING THE GRISLY. 115 reason why it should have charged, for it was fat and in good trim, though when killed its head showed scars made by the teeth of rival grislies. Apparently it had been living so well, principally on flesh, that it had become quarrelsome ; and perhaps its not over sweet disposition had been soured by combats with others of its own kind. In yet another case, a grisly charged with even less excuse. An old trapper, from whom I occasionally bought fur, was toiling up a mountain pass when he spied a big bear sitting on his haunches on the hill-side above. The trapper shouted and waved his cap ; whereupon, to his amazement, the bear uttered a loud " wough " and charged straight down on him only to fall a victim to misplaced boldness. I am even inclined to think that there have been wholly exceptional occasions when a grisly has attacked a man with the deliberate purpose of making a meal of him ; when, in other words, it has started on the career of a man-eater. At least, on any other theory I find it difficult to account for an attack which once came to my knowledge. I was at Sand Point, on Pend' Oreille Lake, and met some French and Meti trappers, then in town with their bales of beaver, otte , and sable. One of them, who gave his name as Japtiste La- moche, had his head twisted over to one side, the result of the bite of a bear. When the accident occurred he was out on a trapping trip with two companions. They had pitched camp right on the shore of a cove in a little Tt6 HUNTING THE GRISLY. lake, and his comrades were off fishing in a dugout or pirogue. He himself was sitting near the shore, by a little lean-to, watching some beaver meat which was sizzling over the dying embers. Suddenly, and without warning, a great bear, which had crept silently up beneath the shadows of the tall evergreens, rushed at him, with a guttural roar, and seized him be- fore he could rise to his feet. It grasped him with its jaws at the junction of the neck and shoulder, making the teeth meet through bone, sinew, and muscle ; and turning, tracked off towards the forest, dragging with it the helpless and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in sight of, and close to, camp. The man in the bow, seeing the plight of their comrade, seized his rifle and fired at tne bear. The bullet went through the beast's lungs, and it forth- with dropped its prey, and running off some two hundred yards, lay down on its side and died. The rescued man recovered full health and strength, but never again carried his head straight. Old hunters and mountain-men tell many stories, not only of malicious grislies thus at- tacking men in camp, but also of their even dogging the footsteps of some solitary hunter and killing him when the favorable opportun- ity occurs. Most of these tales are mere fables ; but it is possible that in altogether ex- ceptional instances they rest on a foundation of fact. One old hunter whom I knew told me such a story. He was a truthful old fellow, HUNTING THE GRISLY. 117 and there was no doubt that he believed what he said, and that his companion was actually killed by a bear ; but it is probable that he was mistaken in reading the signs of his comrade's fate, and that the latter was not dogged by the bear at all, but stumbled on him and was slain in the surprise of the moment. At any rate, cases of wanton assaults by grislies are altogether out of the common. The ordinary hunter may live out his whole life in the wilderness and never know aught of a bear attacking a man unprovoked ; and the great majority qf bears are shot under cir- cumstances of no special excitement, as they either make no fight at all, or, if they do fight, are killed before there is any risk of their doing damage. If surprised on the plains, at some distance from timber or from badly broken ground, it is no uncommon feat for a single horseman to kill them with a revolver. Twice of late years it has been performed in the neighborhood of my ranch. In both instances the men were not hunters out after game, but simply cowboys, riding over the range in early morning in pursuance of their ordinary duties among the cattle. I knew both men and have worked with them on the round-up. Like most cowboys they carried 44-calibre Colt re- volvers, and were accustomed to and fairly expert in their use, and they were mounted on ordinary cow-ponies quick, wiry, plucky little beasts. In one case the bear was seen from quite a distance, lounging across a broad table-land. The cowboy, by taking advantage Il8 HUNTING THE GRISLY. , of a winding and rather shallow coulie, got quite close to him. He then scrambled out of the coulie, put spurs to his pony, and raced up to within fifty yards of the astonished bear ere the latter quite understood what it was that was running at him through the gray dawn. He made no attempt at fight, but ran at top speed towards a clump of brush not fai off at the head of a creek. Before he could reach it, however, the galloping horseman was alongside, and fired three shots into his broad back. He did not turn, but ran on in- to the bushes and then fell over and died. In the other case the cowboy, a Texan, was mounted on a good cutting pony, a spirited, handy, agile little animal, but excitable, and with a habit of dancing, which rendered it difficult to shoot from its back. The man was with the round-up wagon, and had been sent off by himself to make a circle through some low, barren buttes, where it was not thought more than a few head of stock would be found. On rounding the corner of a small washout he almost ran over a bear which was feeding on the carcass of a steer that had died in an alkali hole. After a moment of stunned surprise the bear hurled himself at the intruder with furious impetuosity ; while the cowboy, wheel- ing his horse on its haunches and dashing in the spurs, carried it just clear of his assail- ant's headlong rush. After a few springs he reined in and once more wheeled half round, having drawn his revolver, only to find the bear again charging and almost on him. HUNTING THE GRISLY. \\$ 'This time he fired into it, near the joining of ^he neck and shoulder, the bullet going down- wards into the chest hollow ; and again by a quick dash to one side he just avoided the rush of the beast and the sweep of its mighty forepaw. The bear then halted for a minute, and he rode close by it at a run, firing a couple of shots, which brought on another resolute charge. The ground was somewhat rugged and broken, but his pony was as quick on its feet as a cat, and never stumbled, even when going at full speed to avoid the bear's first mad rushes. It speedily became so excited, however, as to render it almost impossible for the rider to take aim. Sometimes he would come up close to the bear and wait for it to charge, which it would do, first at a trot, or rather rack, and then at a lumbering but swift gallop ; and he would fire one or two shots before being forced to run. At other times, if the bear stood still in a good place, he would run by it, firing as he rode. He spent many cartridges, and though most of them were wasted occasionally a bullet went home. The bear fought with the most savage courage, champing its bloody jaws, roaring with rage, and looking the very incarnation of evil fury. For some minutes it made no effort to flee, either charging or standing at bay. Then it began to move slowly towards a patch of ash and wild plums in the head of a coulie, some distance off. Its pursuer rode after it, and when close enough would push by it and fire, while the bear would spin quickly round 120 HUNTING THE GRISLY. and charge as fiercely as ever, though evi- dently beginning to grow weak. At last, when still a couple of hundred yards from cover the man found he had used up all his cartridges, and then merely followed at a safe distance. The bear no longer paid heed to him, but walked slowly forwards, swaying its great head from side to side, while the blood streamed from between its half-opened jaws. On reach- ing the cover he could tell by the waving of the bushes that it walked to the middle and then halted. A few minutes afterwards some of the other cowboys rode up, having been attracted by the incessant firing. They sur- rounded the thicket, firing and throwing stones into the bushes. Finally, as nothing moved, they ventured in and found the indomitable grisly warrior lying dead. Cowboys delight in nothing so much as the chance to show their skill as riders and rop- ers ; and they always try to ride down and rope any wild animal they come across in favorable ground and close enough up. If a party of them meets a bear in the open they have great fun ; and the struggle between the shouting, galloping rough-riders and their shaggy quarry is full of wild excitement and not unaccompanied by danger. The bear often throws the noose from his head so rap- idly that it is a difficult matter to catch him ; and his frequent charges scatter his tormentors in every direction while the horses become wild with fright over the roaring, bristling beast for horses seem to dread a bear more HUNTING THE GRISLY. 121 than any other animal. If the bear cannot reach cover, however, his fate is sealed. Sooner or later, the noose tightens over one leg, or perchance over the neck and fore-paw, and as the rope straightens with a " pluck," the horse braces itself desperately and the bear tumbles over. Whether he regains his feet or not the cowboy keeps the rope taut ; soon another noose tightens over a leg, and the bear is speedily rendered helpless. I have known of these feats being per- formed several times in northern Wyoming, although never in the immediate neighbor- hood of my ranch. Mr. Archibald Roger's cowhands have in this manner caught several bears, on or near his ranch on the Gray Bull, which flows into the Bighorn ; and those of Mr. G. B. Grinnell have also occasionally done so. Any set of moderately good ropers and riders, who are accustomed to back one another up and act together, can accomplish the feat if they have smooth ground and plenty of room. It is, however, indeed a feat of skill and daring for a single man ; and yet I have known of more than one instance in which it has been accomplished by some reckless knight of the rope and the saddle. One such occurred in 1887 on the Flathead Reservation, the hero being a half-breed ; and another in 1890 at the mouth of the Bighorn, where a cowboy roped, bound, and killed a large bear single-handed. My friend General " Red " Jackson, of Bellemeade, in the pleasant mid-county of 122 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Tennessee, once did a feat which casts into the shade even the feats of the men of the lariat. General Jackson, who afterwards be- came one of the ablest and most renowned of the Confederate cavalry leaders, was at the time a young officer in the Mounted Rifle Regiment, now known as the 3d United States Cavalry. It was some years before the Civil War, and the regiment was on duty in the Southwest, then the debatable land of Co- manche and Apache. While on a scout after hostile Indians, the troops in their march roused a large grisly which sped off across the plain in front of them. Strict orders had been issued against firing at game, because of the nearness of the Indians. Young Jack- son was a man of great strength, a keen swordsman, who always kept the finest edge on his blade, and he was on a swift and met- tled Kentucky horse, which luckily had but one eye. Riding at full speed he soon over- took the quarry. As the horse hoofs sounded nearer, the grim bear ceased its flight, and whirling round stood at bay, raising itself on its hind-legs and threatening its pursuer with bared fangs and spread claws. Carefully rid- ing his horse so that its blind side should be towards the monster, the cavalryman swept by at a run, handling his steed with such dar- ing skill that he just cleared the blow of the dreaded fore-paw, while with one mighty sabre stroke he cleft the bear's skull, slaying the grinning beast as it stood upright. THE COUGAR. 123 CHAPTER V. THE COUGAR. NO animal of the chase is so difficult to kill by fair still-hunting as the cougar that beast of many names, known in the East as panther and painter, in the West as moun- tain lion, in the Southwest as Mexican lion, and in the southern continent as lion and puma. Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain that from the still-hunter's standpoint it hardly deserves to rank as game at all though, by the way, it is itself a more skilful still-hunter than any human rival. It prefers to move abroad by night or at dusk ; and in the day- time usually lies hid in some cave or tangled thicket where it is absolutely impossible even to stumble on it by chance. It is a beast of stealth and rapine ; its great, velvet paws, never make a sound, and it is always on the watch whether for prey or for enemies, while it rarely leaves shelter even when it thinks itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements and uniformity of color make it difficult to dis- cover at best, and its extreme watchfulness helps it ; but it is the cougar's reluctance to 124 HUNTING THE GRISLY. leave cover at any time, its habit of slinking off through the brush, instead of running in the open, when startled, and the way in which it lies motionless in its lair even when a man is within twenty yards, that render it so diffi- cult to still-hunt. In fact it is next to impossible with any hope of success regularly to hunt the cougar without dogs or bait. Most cougars that are killed by still-hunters are shot by accident while the man is after other game. This has been my own experience. Although not com- mon, cougars are found near my ranch, where the ground is peculiarly favorable for the solitary rifleman ; and for ten years I have, off and on, devoted a day or two to their pur- suit ; but never successfully. One Decem- ber a large cougar took up his abode on a densely wooded bottom two miles above the ranch house. I did not discover his existence until I went there one evening to kill a deer, and found that he had driven all the deer off the bottom, having killed several, as well as a young heifer. Snow was falling at the time, but the storm was evidently almost over ; the leaves were all off the trees and bushes ; and I felt that next day there would be such a chance to follow the cougar as fate rarely offered. In the morning by dawn I was at the bottom, and speedily found his trail. Fol- lowing it I came across his bed, among some cedars in a dark, steep gorge, where the buttes bordered the bottom. He had evidently just left it, and I followed his tracks all day. But THE COUGAR. 125 I never caught a glimpse of him, and late in the afternoon I trudged wearily homewards. When I went out next morning I found that as soon as I abandoned the chase, my quarry, according to the uncanny habit sometimes displayed by his kind, coolly turned likewise, and deliberately dogged my footsteps to with- in a mile of the ranch house ; his round foot- prints being as clear as writing in the snow. This was the best chance of the kind that I ever had ; but again and again I have found fresh signs of cougar, such as a lair which they had just left, game they had killed, or one of our venison caches which they had robbed, and have hunted for them all day without success. My failures were doubtless due in part to various shortcomings in hunter's-craft on my own part ; but equally without doubt they were mainly due to the quarry's wariness and its sneaking ways. I have seen a wild cougar alive but twice, and both times by chance. On one occasion one of my men, Merrifield, and I surprised one eating a skunk in a bullberry patch ; and by our own bungling frightened it away from its unsavory repast without getting a shot. On the other occasion luck befriended me. I was with a pack train in the Rockies, and one day, feeling lazy, and as we had no meat in camp, I determined to try for deer by lying in wait beside a recently travelled game trail. The spot I chose was a steep, pine- clad slope leading down to a little mountain lake. I hid behind a breastwork of rotten 4s 126 HUNTING THE GRISLY. logs, with a few young evergreens in front an excellent ambush. A broad game trail slanted down the hill directly past me. I lay perfectly quiet for about an hour, listening to the murmur of the pine forests, and the occa- sional call of a jay or woodpecker, and gaz- ing eagerly along the trail in the waning light of the late afternoon. Suddenly, without noise or warning of any kind, a cougar stood in the trail before me. The unlooked-for and unheralded approach of the beast was fairly ghost-like. With its head lower than its shoulders, and its long tail twitching, it slouched down the path, treading as softly as a kitten. I waited until it had passed and then fired into the short ribs, the bullet rang- ing forward. Throwing its tail up in the air, and giving a bound, the cougar galloped off over a slight ridge. But it did not go far ; within a hundred yards I found it stretched on its side, its jaws still working convulsively. The true way to hunt the cougar is to follow it with dogs. If the chase is conducted in this fashion, it is very exciting, and resembles on a larger scale the ordinary method of hunting the wildcat or small lynx, as practised by the sport-loving planters of the southern States. With a very little training, hounds readily and eagerly pursue the cougar, show- ing in this kind of chase none of the fear and disgust they are so prone to exhibit when put on the trail of the certainly no more danger- ous wolf. The cougar, when the hounds are on its track, at first runs, but when hard* THE COUGAR. 127 pressed takes to a tree, or possibly comes to bay in thick cover. Its attention is then so taken up with the hounds that it can usually be approached and shot without much diffi- culty ; though some cougars break bay when the hunters come near, and again make off, when they can only be stopped by many large and fierce hounds. Hounds are often killed in these rights ; and if hungry a cougar will pounce on any dog for food ; yet, as I have else- where related, I know of one instance in which a small pack of big, savage hounds killed a cougar unassisted. General Wade Hampton, who with horse and hound has been the mightiest hunter America has ever seen, in- forms me that he has killed with his pack some sixteen cougars, during the fifty years he has hunted in South Carolina and Missis- sippi. I believe they were all killed in the latter State. General Hampton's hunting has been chiefly for bear and deer, though his pack also follows the lynx and the gray fox ; and, of course, if good fortune throws either a wolf or a cougar in his way it is followed as the game of all others. All the cougars he killed were either treed or brought to bay in a canebrake by the hounds ; and they often handled the pack very roughly in the death struggle. He found them much more dangerous antagonists than the black bear when assailed with the hunting knife, a weapon of which he was very fond. How- ever, if his pack had held a few very large, savage dogs, put in purely for fighting when 128 HUNTING THE GRISLY. the quarry was at bay, I think the danger would have been minimized. General Hampton followed his game on horseback ; but in following the cougar with dogs this is by no means always necessary. Thus Col. Cecil Clay, of Washington, killed a cougar in West Virginia, on foot with only three or four hounds. The dogs took the cold trail, and he had to run many miles over the rough, forest-clad mountains after them. Finally they drove the cougar up a tree ; where he found it, standing among the branches, in a half-erect position, its hind-feet on one limb and its fore-feet on another, while it glared down at the dogs, and switched its tail from side to side. He shot it through both shoulders, and down it came in a heap, whereupon the dogs jumped in and worried it, for its fore-legs were useless, though it managed to catch one dog in its jaws and bite him severely. A wholly exceptional instance of the kind was related to me by my old hunting friend Willis. In his youth, in southwest Missouri, he knew a half-witted " poor white " who was very fond of hunting coons. He hunted at night, armed with an axe, and accompanied by his dog Penny, a large, savage, half-starved cur. One dark night the dog treed an animal which he could not see ; so he cut down the tree, and immediately Penny jumped in and grabbed the beast. The man sung out " Hold on, Penny," seeing that the dog had seized some large, wild animal; the next moment THE COUGAR. 129 the brute knocked the dog endways, and at the same instant the man split open its head with the axe. Great was his astonishment, and greater still the astonishment of the neighbors next day when it was found that he had actually killed a cougar. These great cats often take to trees in a perfectly foolish manner. My friend, the hunter Woody, in all his thirty years' experience in the wilds never killed but one cougar. He was lying out in camp with two dogs at the time ; it was about midnight, the fire was out, and the night was pitch-black. He was roused by the furious barking of his two dogs, who had charged into the gloom, and were apparently baying at something in a tree close by. He kindled the fire, and to his astonishment found the thing in the tree to be a cougar. Coming close underneath he shot it with his revolver ; thereupon it leaped down, ran some forty yards, and climbed up another tree, where it died among the branches. If cowboys come across a cougar in open ground they invariably chase and try to rope it as indeed they do with any wild animal. I have known several instances of cougars being roped in this way ; in one the animal was brought into camp alive by two strapping cowpunchers. The cougar sometimes stalks its prey, and sometimes lies in wait for it beside a game- trail or drinking pool very rarely indeed does it crouch on the limb of a tree. When excited by the presence of game it is sometimes very 9 1 30 HUNTING THE GRISLY. bold. Willis once fired at some bighorn sheep, on a steep mountain-side ; he missed, and im- mediately after his shot, a cougar made a dash into the midst of the flying band, in hopes to secure a victim. The cougar roams over long distances, and often changes its hunting ground, perhaps remaining in one place two or three months, until the game is exhausted, and then shifting to another. When it does not lie in wait it usually spends most of the night, winter and summer, in prowling restlessly around the places where it thinks it may come across prey, and it will patiently follow an animal's trail. There is no kind of game, save the full-grown grisly and buffalo, which it does not at times assail and master. It readily snaps up grisly cubs or buffalo calves ; and in at least one instance, I have known of it springing on, slaying, and eating a full-grown wolf. I presume the latter was taken by sur- prise. On the other hand, the cougar itself has to fear the big timber wolves when maddened by the winter hunger and gathered in small parties ; while a large grisly would of course be an overmatch for it twice over, though its superior agility puts it beyond the grisly's power to harm it, unless by some un- lucky chance taken in a cave. Nor could a cougar overcome a bull moose, or a bull elk either, if the latter 's horns were grown, save by taking it unawares. By choice, with such big game, its victims are the cows and young. The prong-horn rarely comes within reach of its spring ; but it is the dreaded enemy of big THE COUGAR. 131 horn, white goat, and every kind of deer, while it also preys on all the smaller beasts, such as foxes, coons, rabbits, beavers, and even gophers, rats, and mice. It sometimes makes a thorny meal of the porcupine, and if sufficiently hungry attacks and eats its smaller cousin the lynx. It is not a brave animal ; nor does it run its prey down in open chase. It always make its attacks by stealth, and if possible from behind, and relies on two or three tre- mendous springs to bring it on the doomed creature's back. It uses its claws as well as its teeth in holding and killing the prey. If possible it always seizes a large animal by the throat, whereas the wolf's point of attack is more often the haunch or flank. Small deer or sheep it will often knock over and kill, merely using its big paws ; sometimes it breaks their necks. It has a small head compared to the jaguar, and its bite is much less danger- ous. Hence, as compared to its larger and bolder relative, it places more trust in its claws and less in its teeth. Though the cougar prefers woodland, it is not necessarily a beast of the dense forests only ; for it is found in all the plains country, living in the scanty timber belts which fringe the streams, or among the patches of brush in the Bad Lands. The persecution of hunters however always tends to drive it into the most i thickly wooded and broken fastnesses of the mountains. The she has from one to three kittens, brought forth in a cave or a secluded lair, under a dead log or in very thick brush, 132 HUNTING THE GRISLY. It is said that the old he's kill the small male kittens when they get a chance. They cer- tainly at times during the breeding season fight desperately among themselves. Cougars are very solitary beasts ; it is rare to see more than one at a time, and then only a mother and young, or a mated male and female. While she has kittens, the mother is doubly des- tructive to game. The young begin to kill for themselves very early. The first fall, after they are born, they attack large game, and from ignorance are bolder in making their attacks than their parents ; but they are clumsy and often let the prey escape. Like all cats, cougars are comparatively easy to trap, much more so than beasts of the dog kind, such as the fox and wolf. They are silent animals ; but old hunters say that at mating time the males call loudly, while the females have a very distinct answer. They are also sometimes noisy at other seasons. I am not sure that I ever heard one ; but one night, while camped in a heavily timbered coulie near Kildeer Mountains, where, as their footprints showed, the beasts were plentiful, I twice heard a loud, wailing scream ring- ing through the impenetrable gloom which shrouded the hills around us. My companion, an old plainsman, said that this was the cry of the cougar prowling for its prey. Cer- tainly no man could well listen to a stranger and wilder sound. Ordinarily the rifleman is in no danger from a hunted cougar ; the beast's one idea seems THE COUGAR. 133 to be flight, and even if its assailant is very close, it rarely charges if there is any chance for escape. Yet there are occasions when it will show fight. In the spring of 1890, a man with whom I had more than once worked on the round-up though I never knew his name was badly mauled by a cougar near my ranch. He was hunting with a companion and they unexpectedly came on the cougar on a shelf of sandstone above their herds, only some ten feet off. It sprang down on the man, mangled him with teeth and claws for a moment, and then ran away. Another man I knew, a hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a small ranch near Helena, was once charged by a wounded cougar ; he received a couple of deep scratches, but was not seriouly hurt. Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the cougar's occasionally itself making the attack, and dogging to his death some unfortunate wayfarer. Many others laugh such tales to scorn. It is certain that if such attacks occur they are altogether exceptional, being indeed of such extreme rarity that they may be en- tirely disregarded in practice. I should have no more hesitation in sleeping out in a wood where there were cougars, or walking through it after nightfall, than I should have if the cougars were tomcats. Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional instances attacks may occur. Cougars vary wonderfully in size, and no less in temper. Indeed I think that by nature they are as ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are 4 SB 134 HUNTING THE GRISLY. cowardly ; and that their habit of sometimes dogging wayfarers for miles is due to a desire for bloodshed which they lack the courage to realize. In the old days, when all wild beasts were less shy than at present, there was more danger from the cougar ; and this was es- pecially true in the dark canebrakes of some of the southern States, where the man a cougar was most likely to encounter was a nearly naked and unarmed negro. General Hampton tells me that near his Mississippi plantation, many years ago, a negro who was one of a gang engaged in building a railroad through low and wet ground was waylaid and killed by a cougar late one night as he was walking alone through the swamp. I knew two men in Missoula who were once attacked by cougars in a very curious manner. It was in January, and they were walking home through the snow after a hunt, each carrying on his back the saddle, haunches, and hide of a deer he had slain. Just at dusk, as they were passing through a narrow ravine, the man in front heard his partner utter a sudden loud call for help. Turning, he was dumb- founded to see the man lying on his face in the snow, with a cougar which had evidently just knocked him down standing over him, grasping the deer meat ; while another cougar was galloping up to assist. Swinging his rifle round he shot the first one in the brain, and it dropped motionless, whereat the second halted, wheeled, and bounded into the woods. His companion was not in the least hurt or even THE COUGAR. 135 frightened, though greatly amazed. The cougars were not full grown, but young of the year. Now in this case I do not believe the beasts had any real intention of attacking the men. They were young animals, bold, stupid, and very hungry. The smell of the raw meat ex- cited them beyond control, and they probably could not make out clearly what the men were, as they walked bent under their burdens, with the deer skins on their backs. Evidently the cougars were only trying to get at the venison. In 1886 a cougar killed an Indian near Flathead Lake. Two Indians were hunting together on horseback when they came on the cougar. It fell at once to their shots, and they dismounted and ran towards it. Just as they reached it it came to, and seized one, killing him instantly with a couple of savage bites in the throat and chest ; it then raced after the other, and, as he sprung on his horse, struck him across the buttocks, inflicting a deep but not dangerous scratch. I saw this survivor a year later. He evinced great re- luctance to talk of the event, and insisted that the thing which had slain his companion was not really a cougar at all, but a devil. A she-cougar does not often attempt to avenge the loss of her young, but sometimes she does. A remarkable instance of the kind happened to my friend, Professor John Bache McMaster, in 1875. He was camped near the head of Green River, Wyoming. One after- noon he found a couple of cougar kittens, and 136 HUNTING THE GRISLY. took them into camp; they were clumsy, playful, friendly little creatures. The next afternoon he remained in camp with the cook. Happening to look up he suddenly spied the mother cougar running noiselessly down on them, her eyes glaring and tail twitching. Snatching up his rifle, he killed her when she was barely twenty yards distant. A ranchman, named Trescott, who was at one time my neighbor, told me that while he was living on a sheep-farm in the Argentine, he found pumas very common, and killed many. They were very destructive to sheep and colts, but were singularly cowardly when dealing with men. Not only did they never attack human beings, under any stress of hunger, but they made no effective resistance when brought to bay, merely scratching and cuffing like a big cat ; so that if found in a cave, it was safe to creep in and shoot them with a revolver. Jag- uars, on the contrary, were very dangerous antagonists. A PECCARY HUNT OAT THE NUECES. 137 CHAPTER VI. A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. In the United States the peccary is only found in the southernmost corner of Texas. In April 1892, I made a flying visit to the ranch country of this region, starting from the town of Uvalde with a Texan friend, Mr. John Moore. My trip being very hurried, I had but a couple of days to devote to hunting. Our first halting-place was at a ranch on the Frio ; a low, wooden building, of many rooms, with open galleries between them, and verandas round about. The country was in some re- spects like, in others strangely unlike, the northern plains with which I was so well acquainted. It was for the most part covered with a scattered growth of tough, stunted mes- quite trees, not dense enough to be called a forest, and yet sufficiently close to cut off the view. It was very dry, even as compared with the northern plains. The bed of the Frio was filled with coarse gravel, and for the most part dry as a bone on the surface, the water seeping through underneath, and only appearing in occasional deep holes. These deep holes or ponds never fail, even after a year's drouth ; they were filled with fish. 138 HUNTING THE GRISLY. One lay quite near the ranch house, under a bold rocky bluff ; at its edge grew giant cypress trees. In the hollows and by the watercourses were occasional groves of pecans, live-oaks, and elms. Strange birds hopped among the bushes ; the chaparral cock a big, handsome ground-cuckoo of remarkable habits, much given to preying on small snakes and lizards ran over the ground with ex- traordinary rapidity. Beautiful swallow-tailed king-birds with rosy plumage perched on the tops of the small trees, and soared and flitted in graceful curves above them. Blackbirds of many kinds scuttled in flocks about the corrals and outbuildings around the ranches. Mocking-birds abounded, and were very noisy, singing almost all the daytime, but with their usual irritating inequality of performance, wonderfully musical and powerful snatches of song being interspersed with imitations of other bird notes and disagreeable squalling. Throughout the trip I did not hear one of them utter the beautiful love song in which they sometimes indulge at night. The country was all under wire fence, unlike the northern regions, the pastures however being sometimes many miles across. When we reached the Frio ranch a herd of a thou- sand cattle had just been gathered, and two or three hundred beeves and young stock were being cut out to be driven northward over the trail. The cattle were worked in pens much more than in the North, and on all the ranches there were chutes with steering gates, by A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 139 means of which the individuals of a herd could be dexterously shifted into various corrals. The branding of the calves was done ordinarily in one of these corrals and on foot, the calf being always roped by both fore- legs ; otherwise the work of the cowpunchers was much like that of their brothers in the North. As a whole, however, they were dis- tinctly more proficient with the rope, and at least half of them were Mexicans. There were some bands of wild cattle living only in the densest timber of the river bot- toms which were literally as wild as deer, and moreover very fierce and dangerous. The pursuit of these was exciting and hazardous in the extreme. The men who took part in it showed not only the utmost daring but the most consummate horsemanship and wonder- ful skill in the use of the rope, the coil being hurled with the force and precision of an iron quoit ; a single man speedily overtaking, roping, throwing, and binding down the fiercest steer or bull. There had been many peccaries, or, as the Mexicans and cowpunchers of the border usually call them, javalinas, round this ranch a few years before the date of my visit. Until 1886, or thereabouts, these little wild hogs were not much molested, and abounded in the dense chaparral around the lower Rio Grande. In that year, however, it was sud- denly discovered that their hides had a market value, being worth four bits that is, half a dollar apiece ; and many Mexicans and not I 4 o HUNTING THE GRISLY. a few shiftless Texans went into the business of hunting them as a means of livelihood. They were more easily killed than deer, and, as a result, they were speedily exterminated in many localities where they had formerly been numerous, and even where they were left were to be found only in greatly dimin- ished numbers. On this particular Frio ranch the last little band had been killed nearly a year before. There were three of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of the cowboys stumbled on them early one morning while out with a dog. After half a mile's chase the three peccaries ran into a hollow pecan tree, and one of the cowboys, dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his knife to the end of a pole, and killed them all. Many anecdotes were related to me of what they had done in the old days when they were plentiful on the ranch. They were then usually found in parties of from twenty to thirty, feeding in the dense chaparral, the sows rejoining the herd with the young very soon after the birth of the latter, each sow usually having but one or two at a litter. At night they sometimes lay in the thickest cover, but always, where possible, preferred to house in a cave or big hollow log, one in* variably remaining as a sentinel close to the mouth, looking out. If this sentinel were shot, another would almost certainly take his place. They were subject to freaks of stupidity, and were pugnacious to a degree. Not only would A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 141 they fight if molested, but they would often at- tack entirely without provocation. Once my friend Moore himself, while out with another cowboy on horseback, was at- tacked in sheer wantonness by a drove of these little wild hogs. The two men were riding by a grove of live-oaks along a wood- cutter's cart track, and were assailed without a moment's warning. The little creatures completely surrounded them, cutting fiercely at the horses 1 legs and jumping up at the riders' feet. The men, drawing their revolv- ers, dashed through and were closely followed by their pursuers for three or four hundred yards, although they fired right and left with good effect. Both of the horses were badly cut. On another occasion the bookkeeper of the ranch walked off to a water hole but a quarter of a mile distant, and came face to face with a peccary on a cattle trail, where the brush was thick. Instead of getting out of his way the creature charged him instantly, drove him up a small mesquite tree, and kept him there for nearly two hours, looking up at him and champing its tusks. I spent two days hunting round this ranch but saw no peccary sign whatever, although deer were quite plentiful. Parties of wild geese and sandhill cranes occasionally flew overhead. At nightfall the poor-wills wailed everywhere through the woods, and coyotes yelped and yelled, while in the early morning the wild turkeys gobbled loudly from their roosts in the tops of the pecan trees. 142 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Having satisfied myself that there were no javalinas left on the Frio ranch, and being nearly at the end of my holiday, I was about to abandon the effort to get any, when a passing cowman happened to mention the fact that some were still to be found on the Nueces River thirty miles or thereabouts to the south- ward. Thither I determined to go, and next morning Moore and I started in a buggy drawn by a redoubtable horse, named Jim Swinger, which we were allowed to use be- cause he bucked so under the saddle that nobody on the ranch could ride him. We drove six or seven hours across the dry, waterless plains. There had been a heavy frost a few days before, which had blackened the budding mesquite trees, and their twigs still showed no signs of sprouting. Occasionally we came across open spaces where there was nothing but short brown grass. In most places, however, the leafless, sprawling mes- quites were scattered rather thinly over the ground, cutting off an extensive view and merely adding to the melancholy barrenness of the landscape. The road was nothing but a couple of dusty wheel-tracks ; the ground was parched, and the grass cropped close by the gaunt, starved cattle. As we drove along buzzards and great hawks occasionally soared overhead. Now and then we passed lines of wild-looking, long-horned steers, and once we came on the grazing horses of a cow-outfit, just preparing to start northward over the trail to the fattening pastures. Occasionally A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 143 we encountered one or two cowpunchers: either Texans, habited exactly like their brethren in the North, with broad-brimmed gray hats, blue shirts, silk neckerchiefs, and leather leggings ; or else Mexicans, more gaudily dressed, and wearing peculiarly stiff, very broad-brimmed hats, with conical tops. Toward the end of our ride we got where the ground was more fertile, and there had recently been a sprinkling of rain. Here we came across wonderful flower prairies. In one spot I kept catching glimpses through the mesquite trees of lilac stretches which I had first thought must be ponds of water. On coming nearer they proved to be acres on acres thickly covered with beautiful lilac- colored flowers. Farther on we came to where broad bands of red flowers covered the ground for many furlongs ; then their places were taken by yellow blossoms, elsewhere by white. Generally each band or patch of ground was covered densely by flowers of the same color, making a great vivid streak across the landscape ; but in places they were mixed together, red, yellow, and purple, interspersed in patches and curving bands, carpeting the prairie in a strange, bright pattern. Finally, toward evening we reached the Nueces. Where we struck it first the bed was dry, except in occasional deep, malarial-look- ing pools, but a short distance below there began to be a running current. Great blue herons were stalking beside these pools, and from one we flushed a white ibis. In the *44 HUNTING THE GRISLY. woods were reddish cardinal birds, much less brilliant in plumage than the true cardinals and the scarlet tanagers ; and yellow-headed titmice which had already built large domed nests. In the valley of the Nueces itself, the brush grew thick. There were great groves of pe- can trees, and ever-green live-oaks stood in many places, long, wind-shaken tufts of gray moss hanging from their limbs. Many of the trees in the wet spots were of giant size, and the whole landscape was semi-tropical in char- acter. High on a bluff shoulder overlooking the course of the river was perched the ranch house, toward which we were bending our steps; and here we were received with the hearty hospitality characteristic of the ranch country everywhere. The son of the ranchman, a tall, well-built young fellow, told me at once that there were peccaries in the neighborhood, and that he had himself shot one but two or three days before, and volunteered to lend us horses and pilot us to the game on the morrow, with the help of his two dogs. The last were big black curs with, as we were assured, " considerable hound " in them. One was at the time stay- ing at the ranch house, the other was four or five miles off with a Mexican goat-herder, and it was arranged that early in the morning we should ride down to the latter place, tak- ing the first dog with us and procuring his companion when we reached the goat-herder'a house. A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 145 We started after breakfast, riding powerful cow-ponies, well trained to gallop at full speed through the dense chaparral. The big black hound slouched at our heels. We rode down the banks of the Nueces, crossing and recross- ing the stream. Here and there were long, deep pools in the bed of the river, where rushes and lilies grew and huge mailed garfish swam slowly just beneath the surface of the water. Once my two companions stopped to pull a mired cow out of a slough, hauling with ropes from their saddle horns. In places there were half-dry pools, out of the regular current of the river, the water green and fetid. The trees were very tall and large. The streamers of pale gray moss hung thickly from the branches of the live-oaks, and when many trees thus draped stood close together they bore a strangely mournful and desolate look. We finally found the queer little hut of the Mexican goat-herder in the midst of a grove of giant pecans. On the walls were nailed the skins of different beasts, raccoons, wild- cats, and the tree-civet, with its ringed tail. The Mexican's brown wife and children were in the hut, but the man himself and the goats were off in the forest, and it took us three or four hours' search before we found him. Then it was nearly noon, and we lunched in his hut, a square building of split logs, with bare earth floor, and roof of clap-boards and bark. Our lunch consisted of goat's meat and pan de mats. The Mexican, a broad- chested man with a stolid Indian face, was 10 146 HUNTING THE GRISLY. evidently quite a sportsman, and had two or three half-starved hounds, besides the funny, hairless little house dogs, of which Mexicans seem so fond. Having borrowed the javalina hound of which we were in search, we rode off in quest of our game, the two dogs trotting gayly ahead. The one which had been living at the ranch had evidently fared well, and was very fat ; the other was little else but skin and bone, but as alert and knowing as any New York street-boy, with the same air of disreput- able capacity. It was this hound which always did most in finding the javalinas and bringing them to bay, his companion's chief use being to make a noise and lend the moral support of his presence. We rode away from the river on the dry up- lands, where the timber, though thick, was small, consisting almost exclusively of the thorny mesquites. Mixed among them were prickly pears, standing as high as our heads on horseback, and Spanish bayonets, look- ing in the distance like small palms; and there were many other kinds of cactus, all with poisonous thorns. Two or three times the dogs got on an old trail and rushed off giving tongue, whereat we galloped madly af- ter them, ducking and dodging through and among the clusters of spine-bearing trees and cactus, not without getting a considerable number of thorns in our hands and legs. It was very dry and hot. Where the javalinas live in droves in the river bottoms they often A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 147 drink at the pools ; but when some distance from water they seem to live quite comfort- ably on the prickly pear, slaking their thirst by eating its hard, juicy fibre. At last, after several false alarms, and gal- lops which led to nothing, when it lacked but an hour of sundown we struck a band of five of the little wild hogs. They were running off through the mesquites with a peculiar hopping or bounding motion, and we all, dogs and men, tore after them instantly. Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred yards, but speedily tire, lose their wind, and come to bay. Almost immediately one of these, a sow, as it turned out, wheeled and charged at Moore as he passed. Moore never seeing her but keeping on after another. The sow then stopped and stood still, chattering her teeth savagely, and I jumped off my horse and dropped her dead with a shot in the spine, over the shoulders. Moore meanwhile had dashed off after his pig in one direction, and killed the little beast with a shot from the sad- dle when it had come to bay, turning and going straight at him. Two of the peccaries got off ; the remaining one, a rather large boar, was fol- lowed by the two dogs, and as soon as I had killed the sow I leaped again on my horse and made after them,guided by the yelping and bay- ing. In less than a quarter of a mile they were on his haunches, and he wheeled and stood un- der a bush, charging at them when they came near him, and once catching one, inflicting an ugly cut. All the while his teeth kept going 148 HUNTING THE GRISLY. like castanets, with a rapid champing sound. I ran up close and killed him by a shot through the backbone where it joined the neck. His tusks were fine. The few minutes* chase on horseback was great fun, and there was a certain excitement in seeing the fierce little creatures come to bay ; but the true way to kill these peccaries would be with the spear. They could often be speared on horseback, and where this was im- possible, by using dogs to bring them to bay they could readily be killed on foot ; though, as they are very active, absolutely fearless, and inflict a most formidable bite, it would usually be safest to have two men go at one together. Peccaries are not difficult beasts to kill, because their short wind and their pugnacity make them come to bay before hounds so quickly. Two or three good dogs can bring to a halt a herd of considerable size. They then all stand in a bunch, or else with their sterns against a bank, chattering their teeth at their antagonists. When angry and at bay, they get their legs close together, their shoulders high, and their bristles all ruffled and look the very incarnation of anger, and they fight with reckless indiffer- ence to the very last. Hunters usually treat them with a certain amount of caution ; but, as a matter of fact, I know of but one case where a man was hurt by them. He had shot at and wounded one, was charged both by it and by its two companions, and started to climb a tree ; but as he drew himself from the ground, one sprang at him and bit him through the A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 149 calf, inflicting a very severe wound. I have known of several cases of horses being cut, however, and dogs are very commonly killed. Indeed, a dog new to the business is almost certain to get very badly scarred, and no dog that hunts steadily can escape without some injury. If it runs in right at the heads of the animals, the probabilities are that it will get killed ; and, as a rule, even two good-sized hounds cannot kill a peccary, though it is no larger than either of them* However, a wary, resolute, hard-biting dog of good size speedily gets accustomed to the chase, and can kill a peccary single-handed, seizing it from behind and worrying it to death, or watching its chance and grabbing it by the back of the neck where it joins the head. Peccaries have delicately moulded short legs, and their feet are small, the tracks looking peculiarly dainty in consequence. Hence, they do not swim well, though they take to the water if necessary. They feed on roots, prickly pears, nuts, insects, lizards, etc. They usually keep entirely separate from the droves of half-wild swine that are so often found in the same neighborhoods ; but in one case, on this very ranch where I was staying, a peccary deliberately joined a party of nine pigs and associated with them. When the owner of the pigs came up to them one day the peccary manifested great suspicion at his presence, and finally sidled close up and threatened to attack him, so that he had to shoot it. The ranchman's son told me that he had never but 150 HUNTING THE GRISLY. once had a peccary assail him unprovoked, and even in this case it was his dog that was the object of attack, the peccary rushing out at it as it followed him home one evening through the chaparral. Even around this ranch the peccaries had very greatly decreased in numbers, and the survivors were learning some caution. In the old days it had been no un- common thing for a big band to attack entire- ly of their own accord, and keep a hunter up a tree for hours at a time. a UN TING WITH HOUNDS. 151 CHAPTER VII. HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. IN hunting American big game with hounds, several entirely distinct methods are pur- sued. The true wilderness hunters, the men who in the early days lived alone in, or moved in parties through, the Indian-haunted sol- itudes, like their successors of to-day, rarely made use of a pack of hounds, and, as a rule, did not use dogs at all. In the eastern for- ests occasionally an old time hunter would own one or two track-hounds, slow, with a good nose, intelligent and obedient, of use mainly in following wounded game. Some Rocky Mountain hunters nowadays employ the same kind of a dog, but the old-time trappers of the great plains and the Rockies led such wander- ing lives of peril and hardship that they could not readily take dogs with them. The hunters of the Alleghanies and the Adirondacks have, however, always used hounds to drive deer, killing the animal in the water or at a run- away. As soon, however, as the old wilderness hunter type passes away, hounds come into use among his successors, the rough border settlers of the backwoods and the plains. 152 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Every such settler is apt to have four or five large mongrel dogs with hound blood in them, which serve to drive off beasts of prey from the sheepfold and cattle-shed, and are also used, when the occasion suits, in regular hunt- ing, whether after bear or deer. Many of the southern planters have always kept packs of fox-hounds, which are used in the chase, not only of the gray and the red fox, but also of the deer, the black bear, and the wildcat. The fox the dogs themselves run down and kill, but as a rule in this kind of hunting, when after deer, bear, or even wild- cat, the hunters carry guns with them on their horses, and endeavor either to get a shot at the fleeing animal by hard and dexterous rid- ing, or else to kill the cat when treed, or the bear when it comes to bay. Such hunting is great sport. Killing driven game by lying in wait for it to pass is the very poorest kind of sport that can be called legitimate. This is the way the deer is usually killed with hounds in the East. In the North the red fox is often killed in somewhat the same manner, being followed by a slow hound and shot at as he circles before the dog. Although this kind of fox-hunting is inferior to hunting on horseback, it never- theless has its merits, as the man must walk and run well, shoot with some accuracy, and show considerable knowledge both of the country and of the habits of the game. During the last score of years an entirely different type of dog from the fox-hound has HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 153 firmly established itself in the field of Amer- ican sport. This is the greyhound, whether the smooth-haired, or the rough-coated Scotch deer-hound. For half a century the army officers posted in the far West have occasion- ally had greyhounds with them, using the dogs to course jack-rabbit, coyote, and sometimes deer, antelope, and gray wolf. Many of them were devoted to this sport, General Custer, for instance. I have myself hunted with many of the descendants of Custer's hounds. In the early, 70*3 the ranchmen of the great plains themselves began to keep greyhounds for coursing (as indeed they had already been used for a considerable time in California, after the Pacific coast jack-rabbit), and the sport speedily assumed large proportions and a permanent form. Nowadays the ranchmen of the cattle country not only use their grey- hounds after the jack-rabbit, but also after every other kind of game animal to be found there, the antelope and coyote being especial favorites. Many ranchmen soon grew to own fine packs, coursing being the sport of all sports for the plains. In Texas the wild tur- key was frequently an object of the chase, and wherever the locality enabled deer to be fol- lowed in the open, as for instance in the In- dian territory, and in many places in the neighborhood of the large plains rivers, the whitetail was a favorite quarry, the hunters striving to surprise it in the early morning when feeding on the prairie. I have myself generally coursed with scratch 154 HUNTING THE GRISLY. packs, including perhaps a couple of grey- hounds, a wire-haired deer-hound, and two or three long-legged mongrels. However, we generally had at least one very fast and sav- age dog a strike dog in each pack, and the others were of assistance in turning the game, sometimes in tiring it, and usually in helping to finish it at the worry. With such packs I have had many a wildly exciting ride over the great grassy plains lying near the Little Missouri and the Knife and Heart rivers. Usually our proceedings on such a hunt were perfectly simple. We started on horseback and when reaching favorable ground beat across it in a long scattered line of men and dogs. Anything that we put up. from a fox to a coyote or a prong-buck, was fair game, and was instantly followed at full speed. The animals we most frequently killed were jack- rabbits. They always gave good runs, though like other game they differed much individu- ally in speed. The foxes did not run so well, and whether they were the little swift, or the big red prairie fox, they were speedily snapped up if the dogs had a fair showing. Once our dogs roused a blacktail buck close up out of a brush coulie where the ground was moderately smooth, and after a headlong chase of a mile they ran into him, threw him, and killed him before he could rise. (His stiff- legged bounds sent him along at a tremendous pace at first, but he seemed to tire rather easily ) On two or three occasions we killed whitetail deer, and several times antelope. HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 155 Usually, however, the antelopes escaped. The bucks sometimes made a good fight, but generally they were seized while running, some dogs catching by the throat, others by the shoulders, and others again by the flank just in front of the hind-leg. Wherever the hold was obtained, if the dog made his spring cleverly, the buck was sure to come down with a crash, and if the other dogs were anywhere near he was probably killed before he could rise, although not infrequently the dogs them- selves were more or less scratched in the con- tests. Some greyhounds, even of high breed- ing, proved absolutely useless from timidity, being afraid to take hold ; but if they got ac- customed to the chase, being worked with old dogs, and had any pluck at all, they proved singularly fearless. A big ninety-pound grey- hound or Scotch deer-hound is a very formid- able fighting dog ; I saw one whip a big mas- tiff in short order, his wonderful agility being of more account than his adversary's superior weight. The proper way to course, however, is to take the dogs out in a wagon and drive them thus until the game is seen. This prevents their being tired out. In my own hunting, most of the antelope aroused got away, the dogs being jaded when the chase began. But really fine greyhounds, accustomed to work together and to hunt this species of game, will usually render a good account of a prong-buck if two or three are slipped at once, fresh, and within a moderate distance. 156 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Although most Westerners take more kindly to the rifle, now and then one is found who is a devotee of the hound. Such a one was an old Missourian, who may be called Mr. Cow- ley, whom I knew when he was living on a ranch in North Dakota, west of the Missouri. Mr. Cowley was a primitive person, of much nerve, which he showed not only in the hunt- ing field but in the startling political conven- tions of the place and period. He was quite well off, but he was above the niceties of per- sonal vanity. His hunting garb was that in which he also paid his rare formal calls calls throughout which he always preserved the gravity of an Indian, though having a discon- certing way of suddenly tip-toeing across the room to some unfamiliar object, such as a peacock screen or a vase, feeling it gently with one forefinger, and returning with noise- less gait to his chair, unmoved, and making no comment. On the morning of a hunt he would always appear on a stout horse, clad in a long linen duster, a huge club in his hand, and his trousers working half-way up his legs. He hunted everything on all possible occa- sions ; and he never under any circumstances shot an animal that the dogs could kill. Once when a skunk got into his house, with the direful stupidity of its perverse kind, he turned the hounds on it ; a manifestation of sporting spirit which aroused the ire of even his long- suffering wife. As for his dogs, provided they could run and fight, he cared no more for their looks than for his own ; he preferred HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 157 the animal to be half greyhound, but the other half could be fox-hound, colley, or setter, it mattered nothing to him. They were a wicked, hardbiting crew for all that, and Mr. Cowley, in his flapping linen duster, was a first-class hunter and a good rider. He went almost mad with excitement in every chase. His pack usually hunted coyote, fox, jack-rabbit, and deer; and I have had more than one good run with it. My own experience is too limited to allow me to pass judgment with certainty as to the relative speed of the different beasts of the chase, especially as there is so much individ- ual variation. I consider the antelope the fleetest of all however ; and in this opinion I am sustained by Col. Roger D. Williams, of Lexington, Kentucky, who, more than any other American, is entitled to speak upon coursing, and especially upon coursing large game. Col. Williams, like a true son of Ken- tucky, has bred his own thoroughbred horses and thoroughbred hounds for many years ; and during a series of long hunting trips extending over nearly a quarter of a century he has tried his pack on almost every game animal to be found among the foot-hills of the Rockies and on the great plains. His dogs, both smooth- haired greyhounds and rough-coated deer- hounds, have been bred by him for generations with a special view to the chase of big game not merely of hares ; they are large animals, excelling not only in speed but in strength, endurance, and ferocious courage. The sur* 158 HUNTING THE GRISLY. vivors of his old pack are literally seamed all over with the scars of innumerable battles. When several dogs were together they would stop a bull-elk, and fearlessly assail a bear or cougar. This pack scored many a triumph over blacktail, whitetail, and prong-buck. For a few hundred yards the deer were very fast; but in a run of any duration the ante- lope showed much greater speed, and gave the dogs far more trouble, although always over- taken in the end, if a good start had been obtained. Col. Williams is a firm believer in the power of the thoroughbred horse to out- turn any animal that breathes, in a long chase ; he has not infrequently run down deer, when they were jumped some miles from cover; and on two or three occasions he ran down uninjured antelope, but in each case only after a desperate ride of miles, which in one in- stance resulted in the death of his gallant horse. This coursing on the prairie, especially after big game, is an exceedingly manly and attractive sport ; the furious galloping, often over rough ground with an occasional deep washout or gully, the sight of the gallant hounds running and tackling, and the exhilar- ation of the pure air and wild surrounding, all combine to give it a peculiar zest. But there is really less need of bold and skilful horse- manship than in the otherwise less attractive and more artificial sport of fox-hunting, or riding to hounds, in a closed and long-settled country. HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 159 Those of us who are in part of southern blood have a hereditary right to be fond of cross-country riding; for our forefathers in Virginia, Georgia, or the Carolinas, have for six generations followed the fox with horse, horn, and hound. In the long-settled North- ern States the sport has been less popular, though much more so now than formerly ; yet it has always existed, here and there, and in certain places has been followed quite steadily. In no place in the Northeast is hunting the wild red fox put on a more genuine and healthy basis than in the Genesee Valley, in central New York. There has always been fox-hunt- ing in this valley, the farmers having good horses and being fond of sport ; but it was conducted in a very irregular, primitive man- ner, until some twenty years ago Mr. Austin Wadsworth turned his attention to it. He has been master of fox- hounds ever since, and no pack in the country has yielded better sport than his, or has brought out harder riders among the men and stronger jumpers among the horses. Mr. Wadsworth began his hunt- ing by picking up some of the various trencher- fed hounds of the neighborhood, the hunting of that period being managed on the principle of each farmer bringing to the meet the hound or hounds he happened to possess, and ap- pearing on foot or horseback as his fancy dic- tated. Having gotten together some of these native hounds and started fox-hunting in local- ities where the ground was so open as to 160 HUNTING THE GRISLY. necessitate following the chase on horseback, Mr. Wadsworth imported a number of dogs from the best English kennels. He found these to be much faster than the American dogs and more accustomed to work together, but less enduring, and without such good noses. The American hounds were very obstinate and self-willed. Each wished to work out the trail for himself. But once found, they would puzzle it out, no matter how cold, and would follow it if necessary for a day and night. By a judicious crossing of the two Mr. Wadsworth finally got his present fine pack, which for its own particular work on its own ground would be hard to beat. The country ridden over is well wooded, and there are many foxes. The abundance of cover, however, naturally decreases the num- ber of kills. It is a very fertile land, and there are few farming regions more beautiful, for it is prevented from being too tame in aspect by the number of bold hills and deep ravines. Most of the fences are high posts- and-rails or " snake " fences, although there is an occasional stone wall, haha, or water-jump. The steepness of the ravines and the density of the timber make it necessary for a horse to be sure-footed and able to scramble anywhere, and the fences are so high that none but very good jumpers can possibly follow the pack. Most of the horses used are bred by the farm- ers in the neighborhood, or are from Canada 5 and they usually have thoroughbred or trot- ting-stock blood in them. HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 161 One of the pleasantest days I ever passed in the saddle was after Mr. Wads worth's hounds. I was staying with him at the time, in company with my friend Senator Cabot Lodge, of Boston. The meet was about twelve miles distant from the house. It was only a small field of some twenty-five riders, but there was not one who did not mean going. I was mounted on a young horse, a powerful, big-boned black, a great jumper, though perhaps a trifle hot-headed. Lodge was on a fine bay, which could both run and jump. There were two or three other New Yorkers and Bostonians present, several men who had come up from Buffalo for the run, a couple of retired army officers, a number of farmers from the neighborhood ; and finally several members of a noted local family of hard riders, who formed a class by themselves, all having taken naturally to every variety of horsemanship from earliest infancy. It was a thoroughly democratic assemblage ; every one was there for sport, and nobody cared an ounce how he or anybody else was dressed. Slouch hats, brown coats, corduroy breeches, and leggings, or boots, were the order of the day. We cast off in a thick wood. The dogs struck a trail almost imme- diately and were off with clamorous yelping, while the hunt thundered after them like a herd of buffaloes. We went headlong down the hill-side into and across a brook. Here the trail led straight up a sheer bank. Most of the riders struck off to the left for an easier XI 1 62 HUNTING THE GRISLY. place, which was unfortunate for them, for the eight of us who went straight up the side (one man's horse falling back with him) were the only ones who kept on terms with the hounds. Almost as soon as we got to the top of the bank we came out of the woods over a low but awkward rail fence, where one of our number, who was riding a very excitable sor- rel colt, got a fall. This left but six, including the whip. There were two or three large fields with low fences ; then we came to two high, stiff doubles, the first real jumping of the day, the, fences being over four feet six, and so close together that the horses barely had a chance to gather themselves. We got over, however, crossed two or three stump-strewn fields, gal- loped through an open wood, picked our way across a marshy spot, jumped a small brook and two or three stiff fences, and then came a check. Soon the hounds recovered the line and swung off to the right, back across four or five fields, so as to enable the rest of the hunt, by making an angle, to come up. Then we jumped over a very high board fence into the main road, out of it again, and on over ploughed fields and grass lands, separated by stiff snake fences. The run had been fast and the horses were beginning to tail. By the time we suddenly rattled down into a deep ra- vine and scrambled up the other side through thick timber there were but four of us left, Lodge and myself being two of the lucky ones. Beyond this ravine we came to one of the worst jumps of the day, a fence out of the HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 163 wood, which was practicable only at one spot, where a kind of cattle trail led up to a panel. It was within an inch or two of five feet high. However, the horses, thoroughly trained to timber jumping and to rough and hard scrambling in awkward places, and by this time well quieted, took the bars without mis- take, each one in turn trotting or cantering up to within a few yards, then making a couple of springs and bucking over with a great twist of the powerful haunches. I may explain that there was not a horse of the four that had not a record of five feet six inches in the ring. We now got into a perfect tangle of ravines, and the fox went to earth ; and though we started one or two more in the course of the afternoon, we did not get another really first-class run. At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoy- ment of this sport are exceptionally favorable. In the Northeast generally, although there are now a number of well-established hunts, at least nine out of ten runs are after a drag. Most of the hunts are in the neighborhood of great cities, and are mainly kept up by young men who come from them. A few of these are men of leisure, who can afford to devote their whole time to pleasure ; but much the larger number are men in business, who work hard and are obliged to make their sports ac- commodate themselves to their more serious occupations. Once or twice a week they can get off for an afternoon's ride across country, and they then wish to be absolutely certain of 1 64 HUNTING THE GRISLY. having their run, and of having it at the appointed time ; and the only way to insure this is to have a drag-hunt. It is not the lack of foxes that has made the sport so commonly take the form of riding to drag-hounds, but rather the fact that the majority of those who keep it up are hard-working business men who wish to make the most out of every moment of the little time they can spare from their regular occupations. A single ride across country, or an afternoon at polo, will yield more exercise, fun, and excitement than can be got out of a week's decorous and dull rid- ing in the park, and many young fellows have waked up to this fact. At one time I did a good deal of hunting with the Meadowbrook hounds, in the north- ern part of Long Island. There were plenty of foxes around us, both red and gray, but partly for the reasons given above, and partly because the covers were so large and so nearly continuous, they were not often hunted, al- though an effort was always made to have one run every week or so after a wild fox, in order to give a chance for the hounds to be properly worked and to prevent the runs from becom- ing a mere succession of steeple-chases. The sport was mainly drag-hunting, and was most exciting, as the fences were high and the pace fast. The Long Island country needs a pecu- liar style of horse, the first requisite being that he shall be a very good and high timber jumper. Quite a number of crack English and Irish hunters have at different times been HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 165 imported, and some of them have turned out pretty well; but when they first come over they are utterly unable to cross our country, blundering badly at the high timber. Few of them have done as well as the American horses. I have hunted half a dozen times in England, with the Pytchely, Essex, and North Warwickshire, and it seems to me probable that English thoroughbreds, in a grass coun- try, and over the peculiar kinds of obstacles they have on the other side of the water, would gallop away from a field of our Long Island horses ; for they have speed and bottom, and are great weight carriers. But on our own ground, where the cross-country riding is more like leaping a succession of five and six-bar gates than anything else, they do not as a rule, in spite of the enormous prices paid for them, show themselves equal to the native stock. The highest recorded jump, seven feet two inches, was made by the American horse File- maker, which I saw ridden in the very front by Mr. H. L. Herbert, in the hunt at Saga- more Hill, about to be described. When I was a member of the Meadowbrook hunt, most of the meets were held within a dozen miles or so of the kennels : at Farm- ingdale, Woodbury, Wheatly, Locust Valley, Syosset, or near any one of twenty other queer, quaint old Long Island hamlets. They were almost always held in the afternoon, the busi- ness men who had come down from the city jogging over behind the hounds to the ap- pointed place, where they were met by the 1 66 HUNTING THE GRISLY. men who had ridden over direct from their country-houses. If the meet was an important one, there might be a crowd of onlookers in every kind of trap, from a four-in-hand drag to a spider-wheeled buggy drawn by a pair of long-tailed trotters, the money value of which many times surpassed that of the two best hun- ters in the whole field. Now and then a break- fast would be given the hunt at some country- house, when the whole day was devoted to the sport ; perhaps after wild foxes in the morn- ing, with a drag in the afternoon. After one meet, at Sagamore Hill, I had the curiosity to go on foot over the course we had taken, measuring the jumps ; for it is very difficult to form a good estimate of a fence's height when in the field, and five feet of tim- ber seems a much easier thing to take when sitting around the fire after dinner than it does when actually faced while the hounds are run- ning. On the particular hunt in question we ran about ten miles, at a rattling pace, with only two checks, crossing somewhat more than sixty fences, most of them post-and-rails, stiff as steel, the others being of the kind called " Virginia " or snake, and not more than ten or a dozen in the whole lot under four feet in height. The highest measured five feet and half an inch, two others were four feet eleven, and nearly a third of the number averaged about four and a half. There were also sev- eral rather awkward doubles. When the hounds were cast off some forty riders were present, but the first fence was a savage one, HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 167 and stopped all who did not mean genuine hard going. Twenty-six horses crossed it, one of them ridden by a lady. A mile or so farther on, before there had been a chance for much tailing, we came to a five-bar gate, out of a road a jump of just four feet five inches from the take-off. Up to this, of course, we went one at a time, at a trot or hand-gallop, and twenty-five horses cleared it in succession without a single refusal and with but one mistake. Owing to the severity of the pace, combined with the average height of the timber (although no one fence was of phenomenally noteworthy proportions), a good many falls took place, resulting in an unusu- ally large percentage of accidents. The mas- ter partly dislocated one knee, another man broke two ribs, and another the present writer broke his arm. However, almost all of us managed to struggle through to the end in time to see the death. On this occasion I owed my broken arm to the fact that my horse, a solemn animal origin- ally taken out of a buggy, though a very clever fencer, was too coarse to gallop alongside the blooded beasts against which he was pitted. But he was so easy in his gaits, and so quiet, being ridden with only a snaffle, that there was no difficulty in following to the end of the run. I had divers adventures on this horse. Once I tried a pair of so-called " safety " stirrups, which speedily fell out, and I had to ride through the run without any, at the cost of several tumbles. Much the best 1 68 HUNTING THE GRISLY. hunter I ever owned was a sorrel horse named Sagamore. He was from Geneseo, was fast, a remarkably good jumper, of great endurance, as quick on his feet as a cat, and with a daunt- less heart. He never gave me a fall, and generally enabled me to see all the run. It would be very unfair to think the sport especially dangerous on account of the occa- sional accidents that happen. A man who is fond of riding, but who sets a good deal of value, either for the sake of himself, his family, or his business, upon his neck and limbs, can hunt with much safety if he gets a quiet horse, a safe fencer, and does not try to stay in the front rank. Most accidents occur to men on green or wild horses, or else to those who keep in front only at the expense of pumping their mounts ; and a fall with a done-out beast is always peculiarly disagree- able. Most falls, however, do no harm what- ever to either horse or rider, and after they have picked themselves up and shaken them- selves, the couple ought to be able to go on just as well as ever. Of course a man who wishes to keep in the first flight must expect to face a certain number of tumbles ; but even he will probably not be hurt at all, and he can avoid many a mishap by easing up his horse whenever he can that is, by always taking a gap wheri possible, going at the lowest panel of every fence, and not calling on his animal for all there is in him unless it cannot possibly be avoided. It must be remembered that hard riding is a very different thing from HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 169 good riding ; though a good rider to hounds must also at times ride hard. Cross-country riding in the rough is not a difficult thing to learn ; always provided the would-be learner is gifted with or has acquired a fairly stout heart, for a constitutionally timid person is out of place in the hunting field. A really finished cross-country rider, a man who combines hand and seat, heart and head, is of course rare ; the standard is too high for most of us to hope to reach. But it is compara- tively easy to acquire a light hand and a capacity to sit fairly well down in the saddle ; and when a man has once got these, he will find no especial difficulty in following the hounds on a trained hunter. Fox-hunting is a great sport, but it is as foolish to make a fetish of it as it is to decry it. The fox is hunted merely because there is no larger game to follow. As long as wolves, deer, or antelope remain in the land, and in a country where hounds and horsemen can work, no one would think of following the fox. It is pursued because the bigger beasts of the chase have been killed out. In England it has reached its present prominence only within two centuries ; nobody followed the fox while the stag and the boar were common. At the present day, on Exmoor, where the wild stag is still found, its chase ranks ahead of that of the fox. It is not really the hunting proper which is the point in fox-hunting. It is the horsemanship, the galloping and jumping, and the being out in the open air. Very naturally, 170 HUNTING THE GRISLY. however, men who have passed their lives as fox-hunters grow to regard the chase and the object of it alike with superstitious venera- tion. They attribute almost mythical charac- ters to the animal. I know some of my good Virginian friends, for instance, who seriously believe that the Virginia red fox is a beast quite unparalleled for speed and endurance no less than for cunning. This is of course a mistake. Compared with a wolf, an antelope, or even a deer, the fox's speed and endurance do not stand very high. A good pack of hounds starting him close would speedily run into him in the open. The reason that the hunts last so long in some cases is because of the nature of the ground which favors the fox at the expense of the dogs, because of his having the advantage in the start, and because of his cunning in turning to account every- thing which will tell in his favor and against his pursuers. In the same way I know plenty of English friends who speak with bated breath of fox-hunting but look down upon rid- ing to drag-hounds. Of course there is a difference in the two sports, and the fun of actually hunting the wild beast in the one case more than compensates for the fact that in the other the riding is apt to be harder and the jumping higher ; but both sports are really artificial, and in their essentials alike. To any man who has hunted big game in a wild country the stress laid on the differences be- tween them seems a little absurd, in fact cock- ney. It is of course nothing against either HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 171 that it is artificial ; so are all sports in long- civilized countries, from lacrosse to ice yacht- ing. It is amusing to see how natural it is for each man to glorify the sport to which he has been accustomed at the expense of any other. The old-school French sportsman, for instance, who followed the boar, stag, and hare with his hounds, always looked down upon the chase of the fox ; whereas the average Englishman not only asserts but seriously believes that no other kind of chase can compare with it, al- though in actual fact the very points in which the Englishman is superior to the continental sportsman that is, in hard and straight riding and jumping are those which drag-hunting tends to develop rather more than fox-hunt- ing proper. In the mere hunting itself the continental sportsman is often unsurpassed. Once, beyond the Missouri, I met an ex- patriated German baron, an unfortunate who had failed utterly in the rough life of the frontier. He was living in a squalid little hut, almost unfurnished, but studded around with the diminutive horns of the European roebuck. These were the only treasures he had taken with him to remind him of his former life, and he was never tired of describ- ing what fun it was to shoot roebucks when driven by the little crooked-legged dachshunds. There were plenty of deer and antelope round- about, yielding good sport to any rifleman, but this exile cared nothing for them ; they were not roebucks, and they could not be 172 HUNTING THE GRISLY. chased with his beloved dachshunds. So, among my neighbors in the cattle country, is a gentleman from France, a very successful ranchman, and a thoroughly good fellow ; he cares nothing for hunting big game, and will not go after it, but is devoted to shooting cotton-tails in the snow, this being a pastime having much resemblance to one of the recog- nized sports of his own land. However, our own people afford precisely similar instances. I have met plenty of men accustomed to killing wild turkeys and deer with small-bore rifles in the southern forests who, when they got on the plains and in the Rockies, were absolutely helpless. They not only failed to become proficient in the art of killing big game at long ranges with the large- bore rifle, at the cost of fatiguing tramps, but they had a positive distaste for the sport and would never allow that it equalled their own stealthy hunts in eastern forests. So I know plenty of men, experts with the shot- gun, who honestly prefer shooting quail in the East over well-trained setters or pointers, to the hardier, manlier sports of the wilderness. As it is with hunting, so it is with riding. The cowboy's scorn of every method of riding save his own is as profound and as ignorant as is that of the school rider, jockey, or fox- hunter. The truth is that each of these is best in his own sphere and is at a disadvant- age when made to do the work of any of the others. For all-around riding and horseman- ship, I think the West Point graduates is HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 173 somewhat ahead of any of them. Taken as a class, however, and compared with other classes as numerous, and not with a few ex- ceptional individuals, the cowboy, like the Rocky Mountain stage-driver, has no supe- riors anywhere for his own work ; and they are fine fellows, these iron-nerved reinsmen and rough-riders. When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Europe they made a practice in England, France, Germany, and Italy of offering to break and ride, in their own fashion, any horse given them. They were frequently given spoiled animals from the cavalry services in the different countries through which they passed, animals with which the trained horse- breakers of the European armies could do nothing ; and yet in almost all cases the cow- punchers and bronco-busters with Buffalo Bill mastered these beasts as readily as they did their own western horses. At their own work of mastering and riding rough horses they could not be matched by their more civilized rivals ; but I have great doubts whether they in turn would not have been beaten if they had essayed kinds of horsemanship utterly alien to their past experience, such as riding mettled thoroughbreds in a steeple-chase, or the like. Other things being equal (which, however, they generally are not), a bad, big horse fed on oats offers a rather more diffi- cult problem than a bad little horse fed on grass. After Buffalo Bill's men had returned, I occasionally heard it said that they had 174 HUNTING THE GRTSLY. tried cross-country riding in England, and had shown themselves pre-eminently skilful thereat, doing better than the English fox- hunters, but this I take the liberty to disbe- lieve. I was in England at the time, hunted occasionally myself, and was with many of the men who were all the time riding in the most famous hunts ; men, too, who were greatly impressed with the exhibitions of rough riding then being given by Buffalo Bill and his men, and who talked of them much ; and yet I never, at the time, heard of an in- stance in which one of the cowboys rode to hounds with any marked success. 1 In the same way I have sometimes in New York or London heard of men who, it was alleged, had been out West and proved better riders than the bronco-busters themselves, just as I have heard of similar men who were able to go out hunting in the Rockies or on the plains and get more game than the western hunters ; but in the course of a long experience in the West I have yet to see any of these men, whether from the eastern States or from Europe, act- tually show such superiority or perform such feats. It would be interesting to compare the per- formances of the Australian stock-riders with those of our own cowpunchers, both in cow- work and in riding. The Australians have an entirely different kind of saddle, and the 1 It is, however, quite possible, now that Buffalo Bill's company has crossed the water several times, that a number of the cowboys have by practice become proficient in riding to hounds, and m eteeple-chasing. HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 175 use of the rope is unknown among them. A couple of years ago the famous western rifle shot, Carver, took some cowboys out to AUL tralia, and I am informed that many of the Australians began themselves to practise with the rope after seeing the way it was used by the Americans. An Australian gentleman, Mr. A. J. Sage, of Melbourne, to whom I had written asking how the saddles and styles of riding compared, answered me as follows : " With regard to saddles, here it is a moot question which is the better, yours or ours, for buck-jumpers. Carver's boys rode in their own saddles against our Victorians in theirs, all on Australian buckers, and honors seemed easy. Each was good in his own style, but the horses were not what I should call really good buckers, such as you might get on a back station, and so there was nothing in the show that could unseat the cowboys. It is only back in the bush that you can get a really good bucker. I have often seen one of them put both man and saddle off." This last is a feat I have myself seen per- formed in the West. I suppose the amount of it is that both the American and the Australian rough riders are, for their own work, just as good as men possibly can be. One spring I had to leave the East in the midst of the hunting season, to join a round- up in the cattle country of western Dakota, and it was curious to compare the totally dif- ferent styles of riding of the cowboys and the cross-country men. A stock-saddle weighs 176 HUNTING THE GRISLY. thirty or forty pounds instead of ten or fifteen and needs an utterly different seat from that adopted in the East. A cowboy rides with very long stirrups, sitting forked well down between his high pommel and cantle, and de- pends upon balance as well as on the grip of his thighs. In cutting out a steer from a herd, in breaking a vicious wild horse, in sitting a bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede of many hundred maddened animals, or in the performance of a hundred other feats of reck- less and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely unequalled ; and when he has his own horse gear he sits his animal with the ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless the first time he gets astride one of the small eastern saddles. One summer, while pur- chasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch fore- men had to get on an ordinary saddle to ride out of town and see a bunch of steers. He is perhaps the best rider on the ranch, and will without hesitation mount and master beasts that I doubt if the boldest rider in one of our eastern hunts would care to tackle ; yet his uneasiness on the new saddle was fairly comical. At first he did not dare to trot, and the least plunge of the horse bid fair to unseat him, nor did he begin to get accustomed to the situation until the very end of the journey. In fact, the two kinds of riding are so very different that a man only accustomed to one, feels almost as ill at ease when he first tries the other as if he had never sat on a horse's back before. It is rather HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 177 funny to see a man who only knows one kind, and is conceited enough to think that that is really the only kind worth knowing, when first he is brought into contact with the other. Two or three times I have known men try to follow hounds on stock-saddles, which are about as ill-suited for the purpose as they well can be ; while it is even more laughable to see some young fellow from the East or from England who thinks he knows entirely too much about horses to be taught by barbar- ians, attempt in his turn to do cow-work with his ordinary riding or hunting rig. It must be said, however, that in all probability cowboys would learn to ride well across country much sooner than the average cross- country rider would master the dashing and peculiar style of horsemanship shown by those whose life business is to guard the wandering herds of the great western plains. Of course, riding to hounds, like all sports in long settled, thickly peopled countries, fails to develop in its followers some of the hardy qualities necessarily incident to the wilder pursuits of the mountain and the forest. While I was on the frontier I was struck by the fact that of the men from the eastern States or from England who had shown them- selves at home to be good riders to hounds or had made their records as college athletes, a larger proportion failed in the life of the wilderness than was the case among those who had gained their experience in such rough pastimes as mountaineering in the high ia 1 78 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Alps, winter caribou-hunting in Canada, or deer-stalking not deer-driving in Scotland. Nevertheless, of all sports possible in civ- ilized countries, riding to hounds is perhaps the best if followed as it should be, for the sake of the strong excitement, with as much simplicity as possible, and not merely as a fashionable amusement. It tends to develop moral no less than physical qualities ; the rider needs nerve and head ; he must possess daring and resolution, as well as a good deal of bodily skill and a certain amount of wiry toughness and endurance. WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. CHAPTER VIII. WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. THE wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation. It is still found scattered thinly throughout all the wilder portions of the United States, but has everywhere retreated from the advance of civilization. Wolves show an infinite variety in color, size, physical formation, and temper. Al- most all the varieties intergrade with one another, however, so that it is very difficult to draw a hard and fast line between any two of them. Nevertheless, west of the Mississippi there are found two distinct types. One is the wolf proper, or big wolf, specifically akin to the wolves of the eastern States. The other is the little coyote, or prairie wolf. The coyote and the big wolf are found together in almost all the wilder districts from the Rio Grande to the valleys of the upper Missouri and the upper Columbia. Throughout this region there is always a sharp line of demark- ation, especially in size, between the coyottes and the big wolves of any given district ; but in certain districts the big wolves are very much larger than their brethren in other dis- X8o HUNTING THE GRISLY. tricts. In the upper Columbia country, for instance, they are very large ; along the Rio- Grande they are small. Dr. Hart Merriam informs me that, according to his experience, the coyote is largest in southern California. In many respects the coyote differs altogether in habits from its big relative. For one thing it is far more tolerant of man. In some lo- calities coyotes are more numerous around settlements, and even in the close vicinity of large towns, than they are in the frowning and desolate fastnesses haunted by their grim elder brother. Big wolves vary far more in color than the coyotes do. I have seen white, black, red, yellow, brown, gray, and grizzled skins, and others representing every shade between, al- though usually each locality has its prevailing tint. The grizzled, gray, and brown often have precisely the coat of the coyote. The difference in size among wolves of different localities, and even of the same locality, is quite remarkable, and so, curiously enough, is the difference in the size of the teeth, in some cases even when the body of one wolf is as big as that of another. I have seen wolves from Texas and New Mexico which were under- sized, slim animals with rather small tusks, in no way to be compared to the long-toothed giants of their race that dwell in the heavily timbered mountains of the Northwest and in the far North. As a rule, the teeth of the co- yote are relatively smaller than those of the gray wolf. WOLVES AND WOLFHOUNDS. 181 Formerly wolves were incredibly abundant in certain parts of the country, notably on the great plains, where they were known as buffalo wolves, and were regular attendants on the great herds of the bison. Every traveller and hunter of the old days knew them as among the most common sights of the plains, and they followed the hunting parties and emigrant trains for the sake of the scraps left in camp. Now, however, there is no district in which they are really abundant. The wolfers, or profes- sional wolf-hunters, who killed them by poison- ing for the sake of their fur, and the cattle- men, who likewise killed them by poisoning because of their raids on the herds, have doubt- less been the chief instruments in working their decimation on the plains. In the '70*3, and even in the early '8o's, many tens of thousands of wolves were killed by the wolfers inMontana and northern Wyoming and western Dakota. Nowadays the surviving wolves of the plains have learned caution ; they no longer move abroad at midday, and still less do they dream of hanging on the footsteps of hunter and traveller. Instead of being one of the most common they have become one of the rarest sights of the plains. A hunter may wander far and wide through the plains for months now- adays and never see a wolf, though he will probably see many coyotes. However, the diminution goes on, not steadily but by fits and starts, and, moreover, the beasts now and then change their abodes, and appear in numbers in places where they have been scarce for a 182 HUNTING THE GRISLY. long period. In the present winter of 1892- '93 big wolves are more plentiful in the neigh- borhood of my ranch than they have been for ten years, and have worked some havoc among the cattle and young horses. The cowboys have been carrying on the usual vindictive campaign against them ; a number have been poisoned, and a number of others have fallen victims to their greediness, the cowboys sur- prising them when gorged to repletion on the carcass of a colt or calf, and, in consequence, unable to run, so that they are easily ridden down, roped, and then dragged to death. Yet even the slaughter wrought by man in certain localities does not seem adequate to explain the scarcity or extinction of wolves, throughout the country at large. In most places they are not followed any more eagerly than are the other large beasts of prey, and they are usually followed with less success. Of all animals the wolf is the shyest and hardest to slay. It is almost or quite as difficult to still- hunt as the cougar, and is far more difficult to kill with hounds, traps, or poison ; yet it scarcely holds its own as well as the great cat, and it does not begin to hold its own as well as the bear, a beast certainly more readily killed, and one which produces fewer young at a birth. Throughout the East the black bear is common in many localities from which the wolf has vanished completely. It at pres- ent exists in very scanty numbers in northern . Maine and the Adirondacks ; is almost or quite extinct in Pennsylvania; lingers here WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 183 and there in the mountains from West Virginia to east Tennessee, and is found in Florida ; but is everywhere less abundant than the bear. It is possible that this destruction of the wolves is due to some disease among them, perhaps to hydrophobia, a terrible malady from which it is known that they suffer greatly at times. Perhaps the bear is helped by its habit of hibernating, which frees it from most dangers during winter ; but this cannot be the com- plete explanation, for in the South it does not hibernate, and yet holds its own as well as in the North. What makes it all the more curi- ous that the American wolf should disappear sooner than the bear is that the reverse is the case with the allied species of Europe, where the bear is much sooner killed out of the land. Indeed the differences of this sort between nearly related animals are literally inexplicable. Much of the difference in temperament be- tween such closely allied species as the Amer- ican and European bears and wolves is doubt- less due to their surroundings and to the instincts they have inherited through many generations; but for much of the variation it is not possible to offer any explanation. In the same way there are certain physical dif- ferences for which it is very hard to account, as the same conditions seem to operate in directly reverse ways with different animals. No one can explain the process of natural selection which has resulted in the otter of America being larger than the otter of Europe, 1 84 HUNTING THE GRISLY. while the badger is smaller ; in the mink being with us a much stouter animal than its Scan- dinavian and Russian kinsman, while the re- verse is true of our sable or pine marten. No one can say why the European red deer should be a pigmy compared to its giant brother, the American wapiti; why the Old World elk should average smaller in size than the almost indistinguishable New World moose ; and yet the bison of Lithuania and the Caucasus be on the whole larger and more formidable than its American cousin. In the same way no one can tell why under like con- ditions some game, such as the white goat and the spruce grouse, should be tamer than other closely allied species, like the mountain sheep and ruffed grouse. No one can say why on the whole the wolf of Scandinavia and north- ern Russia should be larger and more danger- ous than the average wolf of the Rocky Mountains, while between the bears of the same regions the comparison must be exactly reversed. The difference even among the wolves of different sections of our own country is very notable. It may be true that the species as a whole is rather weaker and less ferocious than the European wolf ; but it is certainly not true of the wolves of certain localities. The great timber wolf of the central and northern chains of the Rockies and coast ranges is in every way a more formidable creature than the buf- falo wolf of the plains, although they inter- grade. The skins and skulls of the wolves of WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS* 185 north-western Montana and Washington which I have seen were quite as large and showed quite as stout claws and teeth as the skins and skulls of Russian and Scandinavian wolves, and I believe that these great timber wolves are in every way as formidable as their Old World kinsfolk. However, they live where they come in contact with a population of rifle- bearing frontier hunters, who are very different from European peasants or Asiatic tribesmen ; and they have, even when most hungry, a wholesome dread of human beings. Yet I doubt if an unarmed man would be entirely safe should he, while alone in the forest in mid- winter encounter a fair-sized pack of ravenous- ly hungry timber wolves. A full-grown dog-wolf of the northern Rock- ies, in exceptional instances, reaches a height of thirty-two inches and a weight of 130 pounds; a big buffalo wolf of the upper Missouri stands thirty or thirty-one inches at the shoulder and weighs about no pounds. A Texan wolf may not reach over eighty pounds. The bitch- wolves are smaller ; and moreover there is of- ten great variation even in the wolves of closely neighboing localities. The wolves of the southern plains were not often formidable to large animals, even in the days when they most abounded. They rarely attacked the horses of the hunter, and indeed were but little regarded by these experienced animals. They were much more likely to gnaw off the lariat with which the horse was tied, than to try to molest the steed himself. They 186 HUNTING THE GRISLY. preferred to prey on young animals, or on the weak and disabled. They rarely molested a /ull-grown cow or steer, still less a full-grown buffalo, and, if they did attack such an animal, it was only when emboldened by numbers. In the plains of the upper Missouri and Saskatch- ewan the wolf was, and is, more dangerous, while in the northern Rockies his courage and feroc\ty attain their highest pitch. Near my own ranch the wolves have sometimes com- mitted great depredations on cattle, but they seem to have queer freaks of slaughter. Us- ually they prey only upon calves and sickly animals ; but in midwinter I have known one single-handed to attack and kill a well-grown steer or cow, disabling its quarry by rapid snaps at the hams or flanks. Only rarely have I known it to seize by the throat. Colts are likewise a favorite prey, but with us wolves rarely attack full-grown horses. They are sometimes very bold in their assaults, falling on the stock while immediately around the ranch houses. They even venture into the hamlet of Medora itself at night as the coy- otes sometimes do by day. In the spring of '92 we put on some eastern two-year-old steers ; they arrived, and were turned loose from the stock-yards, in a snowstorm, though it was in early May. Next morning we found that one had been seized, slain, and partially devoured by a big wolf at the very gate of the stockyard ; probably the beast had seen it standing near the yard after nightfall, feeling miserable after its journey, in the storm and its unaccustomed WOLVES AND WOLFHOUNDS. 187 surroundings, and had been emboldened to make the assault so near town by the evident helplessness of the prey. The big timber wolves of the northern Rocky Mountains attack every four-footed beast to be found where they live. They are far from contenting themselves with hunting deer and snapping up the pigs and sheep of the farm. When the weather gets cold and food scarce they band together in small parties, perhaps of four or five individuals, and then assail any- thing, even a bear or a panther. A bull elk or bull moose, when on its guard, makes a most dangerous fight ; but a single wolf will fre- quently master the cow of either animal, as well as domestic cattle and horses. In attacking such large game, however, the wolves like to act in concert, one springing at the animal's head, and attracting its attention, while the other hamstrings it. Nevertheless, one such big wolf will kill an ordinary horse. A man I knew, who was engaged in packing into the the Cceur d'Alenes, once witnessed such a feat on the part of a wolf. He was taking his pack train down into a valley when he saw a horse grazing therein ; it had been turned loose by another packing outfit, because it became ex- hausted. He lost sight of it as the trail went down a zigzag, and while it was thus out of sight he suddenly heard it utter the appalling scream, unlike and more dreadful than any other sound, which a horse only utters in ex- treme fright or agony. The scream was re- peated, and as he came in sight again he saw l88 HUNTING THE GRISLY. that a great wolf had attacked the horse. The poor animal had been bitten terribly in its haunches and was cowering upon them, while the wolf stood and looked at it a few paces off. In a moment or two the horse partially recovered and made a desperate bound forward, starting at full gallop. Im- mediately the wolf was after it, overhauled it in three or four jumps, and then seized it by the hock, while its legs were extended, with such violence as to bring it completely back on its haunches. It again screamed piteously ; and this time with a few savage snaps the wolf hamstrung and partially disembowelled it, and it fell over, having made no attempt to defend itself. I have heard of more than one incident of this kind. If a horse is a good fighter, however, as occasionally, though not often, happens, it is a most difficult prey for any wild beast, and some veteran horses have no fear of wolves whatsoever, well knowing that they can cither strike them down with their fore- feet or repulse them by lashing out behind. Wolves are cunning beasts and will often try to lull their prey into unsuspicion by play- ing round and cutting capers. I once saw a young deer and a wolf-cub together near the hut of the settler who had captured both. The wolf was just old enough to begin to feel vi- cious and bloodthirsty, and to show symptoms of attacking the deer. On the occasion in question he got loose and ran towards it, but it turned, and began to hit him with its fore- feet* seemingly in sport ; whereat he rolled WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 189 over on his back before it, and acted like a puppy at play. Soon it turned and walked off ; immediately the wolf, with bristling hair, crawled after, and with a pounce seized it by the haunch, and would doubtless have mur- dered the bleating, struggling creature, had not the bystanders interfered. Where there are no domestic animals, wolves feed on almost anything from a mouse to an elk. They are redoubted enemies of foxes. They are easily able to overtake them in fair chase, and kill numbers. If the fox can get into the underbrush, however, he can dodge around much faster than the wolf, and so escape pursuit. Sometimes one wolf will try to put a fox out of a cover while another waits outside to snap him up. Moreover, the wolf kills even closer kinsfolk than the fox. When pressed by hunger it will undoubtedly some- times seize a coyote, tear it in pieces and de- vour it, although during most of the year the two animals live in perfect harmony. I once myself, while out in the deep snow, came across the remains of a coyote that had been killed in this manner. Wolves are also very fond of the flesh of dogs, and if they get a chance promptly kill and eat any dog they can master and there are but few that they can- not. Nevertheless, I have been told of one instance in which a wolf struck up an extraor- dinary friendship with a strayed dog, and the two lived and hunted together for many months, being frequently seen by the settlers 47 190 HUNTING THE GRISLY. of the locality. This occurred near Thomp- son's Falls, Montana. Usually wolves are found singly, in pairs, or in family parties, each having a large beat over which it regularly hunts, and also at times shifting its ground and travelling immense dis- tances in order to take up a temporary abode in some new locality for they are great wanderers. It is only under stress of severe weather that they band together in packs. They prefer to creep on their prey and seize it by a sudden pounce, but, unlike the cougar, they also run it down in fair chase. Their slouching, tireless gallop enables them often to overtake deer, antelope, or other quarry ; though under favorable circumstances, espe- cially if near a lake, the latter frequently escape. Whether wolves run cunning I do not know ; but I think they must, for coyotes certainly do. A coyote cannot run down a jack-rabbit ; but two or three working to- gether will often catch one. Once I saw three start a jack, which ran right away from them ; but they spread out, and followed. Pretty soon the jack turned slightly, and ran near one of the outside ones, saw it, became much frightened, and turned at right angles, so as soon to nearly run into the other outside one, which had kept straight on. This happened several times, and then the confused jack lay down under a sage-bush and was seized. So I have seen two coyotes attempting to get at a newly dropped antelope kid. One would make a feint of attack, and lure the dam into WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 191 a rush at him, while the other stole round to get at the kid. The dam, as always with these spirited little prong-bucks, made a good fight, and kept the assailants at bay ; yet I think they would have succeeded in the end, had I not interfered. Coyotes are bold and cunning in raiding the settlers' barn-yards for lambs and hens ; and they have an especial liking for tame cats. If there are coyotes in the neighborhood a cat which gets into the habit of wandering from home is surely lost. Though, I have never known wolves to attack a man, yet in the wilder portion of the far Northwest I have heard them come around camp very close, growling so savagely as to make one almost reluctant to leave the camp fire and go out into the darkness unarmed. Once I was camped in the fall near a lonely little lake in the mountains, by the edge of quite a broad stream. Soon after nightfall three or four wolves came around camp and . kept me awake by their sinister and dismal howling. Two or three times they came so close to the fire that I could hear them snap their jaws and growl, and at one time I posi- tively thought that they intended to try to get into camp, so excited were they by the smell of the fresh meat. After a while they stopped howling ; and then all was silent for an hour or so. I let the fire go out and was turning into bed when I suddenly heard some animal of considerable size come dowu to the stream nearly opposite me and begin to splash across, first wading, then swimming. It was pitch ig2 HUNTING THE GRTSLY. dark and I could not possibly see, but I felt sure it was a wolf. However after coming half-way over it changed its mind and swam back to the opposite bank ; nor did I see or hear anything more of the night marauders. Five or six times on the plains or on my ranch I have had shots at wolves, always obtained by accident and always, I regret to say, missed. Often the wolf when seen was running at full speed for cover, or else was so far off that though motionless my shots went wide of it. But once have I with my own rifle killed a wolf, and this was while travelling with a pack train in the mountains. We had been making considerable noise, and I never understood how an animal so wary permitted our near approach. He did, nevertheless, and just as we came to a little stream which we were to ford I saw him get on a dead log some thirty yards distant and walk slowly off with his eyes turned toward us. The first shot smashed his shoulders and brought him down. The wolf is one of the animals which can only be hunted successfully with dogs. Most ' dogs however do not take at all kindly to the pursuit. A wolf is a terrible fighter. He will decimate a pack of hounds by rabid snaps with his giant jaws while suffering little dam- age himself ; nor are the ordinary big dogs, supposed to be fighting dogs, able to tackle him without special training. I have known one wolf to kill a bulldog which had rushed at it with a single snap, while another which WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 193 had entered the yard of a Montana ranch house slew in quick succession both of the large mastiffs by which it was assailed. The immense agility and ferocity of the wild beast, the terrible snap of his long-toothed jaws, and the admirable training in which he always is, give him a great advantage over fat, small- toothed, smooth-skinned dogs, even though they are nominally supposed to belong to the fighting classes. In the way that bench com- petitions are arranged nowadays this is but natural, as there is no temptation to produce a worthy class of fighting dog when the rewards are given upon technical points wholly uncon- nected with the dog's usefulness. A prize- winning mastiff or bulldog may be almost use- less for the only purposes for which his kind is ever useful at all. A mastiff, if properly trained and of sufficient size, might possibly be able to meet a young or undersized Texan wolf ; but I have never seen a dog of this variety which I would esteem a match single- handed for one of the huge timber wolves of western Montana. Even if the dog was the heavier of the two, his teeth and claws would be very much smaller and weaker and his hide less tough. Indeed I have known of but one dog which single-handed encountered and slew a wolf ; this was the large vicious mongrel whose feats are recorded in my Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. General Marcy of the United States Army informed me that he once chased a huge wolf which had gotten away with a small trap on '3 194 HUNTING THE GRISLV, its foot It was, I believe, in Wisconsin, and he had twenty or thirty hounds with him, but they were entirely untrained to wolf- hunting, and proved unable to stop the crippled beast. Few of them would attack it at all, and those that did went at it singly and with a certain hesitation, and so each in turn was disabled by a single terrible snap, and left bleeding on the snow. General Wade Hamp- ton tells me that in the course of his fifty years' hunting with horse and hound in Mis- sissippi, he has on several occasions tried his pack of fox-hounds (southern deer-hounds) after a wolf. He found that it was with the greatest difficulty, however, that he could per- suade them to so much as follow the trail. Usually, as soon as they came across it, they would growl, bristle up, and then retreat with their tails between their legs. But one of his dogs ever really tried to master a wolf by itself, and this one paid for its temerity with its life ; for while running a wolf in a cane- brake the beast turned and tore it to pieces. Finally General Hampton succeeded in get- ting a number of his hounds so they would at any rate follow the trail in full cry, and thus drive the wolf out of the thicket, and give a chance to the hunter to get a shot. . In this way he killed two or three. The true way to kill wolves, however, is to hunt them with greyhounds on the great plains. Nothing more exciting than this sport can possibly be imagined. It is not always necessary that the greyhounds should be oi WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 195 absolutely pure blood. Prize-winning dogs of high pedigree often prove useless for the purposes. If by careful choice, however, a ranchman can get together a pack composed both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the rough-haired Scotch deer-hound, he can have excellent sport. The greyhounds sometimes do best if they have a slight cross of bulldog in their veins ; but this is not necessary. If once a greyhound can be fairly entered to the sport and acquires confidence, then its won- derful agility, its sinewy strength and speed, and the terrible snap with which its jaws come together, render it a most formidable assail- ant. Nothing can possibly exceed the gallan- try with which good greyhounds, when their blood is up, fling themselves on a wolf or any other foe. There does not exist, and there never has existed on the wide earth, a more perfect type of dauntless courage than such a hound. Not Gushing when he steered his little launch through the black night against the great ram Albemarle, not Custer dashing into the valley of the Rosebud to die with all his men, not Farragut himself lashed in the rigging of the Hartford as she forged past the forts to encounter her iron-clad foe, can stand as a more perfect type of dauntless valor. Once I had the good fortune to witness a very exciting hunt of this character among the foot-hills of the northern Rockies. I was staying at the house of a friendly cowman, whom I will call Judge Yancy Stump. Judge 196 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Yancy Stump was a Democrat who, as he phrased it, had fought for his Democracy; that is, he had been in the Confederate Army. He was at daggers drawn with his nearest neighbor, a cross-grained mountain farmer, who may be known as old man Prindle. Old man Prindle had been in the Union Army, and his Republicanism was of the blackest and most uncompromising type. There was one point, however, on which the two came together. They were exceedingly fond of hunting with hounds. The Judge had three or four track-hounds, and four of what he called swift-hounds, the latter includ- ing one pure-bred greyhound bitch of won- derful speed and temper, a dun-colored yelp- ing animal which was a cross between a grey- hound and a fox-hound, and two others that were crosses between a greyhound and a wire- haired Scotch deer-hound. Old man Prindle's contribution to the pack consisted of two im- mense brindled mongrels of great strength and ferocious temper. They were unlike any dogs I have ever seen in this country. Their mother herself was a cross between a bull mastiff and a Newfoundland, while the father was described as being a big dog that be- longed to a "Dutch Count." The "Dutch Count " was an outcast German noble, who had drifted to the West, and, after failing in the mines and foiling in the cattle country, had died in a squalid log shanty while striv- ing to eke out an existence as a hunter among the foot-hills. His dog, I presume, from the WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 197 description given me, must have been a boar- hound or Ulm dog. As I was v o ,ry anxious to see a wolf-hunt the Judge volunteered to get one up, and asked old man Prindle to assist, for the sake of his two big fighting dogs ; though the very names of the latter, General Grant and Old Abe, were gall and wormwood to the unrecon- structed soul of the Judge. Still they were the only dogs anywhere around capable of tackling a savage timber wolf, and without their aid the Judge's own high-spirited animals ran a serious risk of injury, for they were al- together too game to let any beast escape without a struggle. Luck favored us. Two wolves had killed a calf and dragged it into a long patch of dense brush where there was a little spring, the whole furnishing admirable cover for any wild beast. Early in the morning we started on horseback for this bit of cover, which was some three miles off. The party consisted of the Judge, old man Prindle, a cowboy, myself, and the dogs. The judge and I carried our rifles and the cowboy his revolver, but old man Prindle had nothing but a heavy whip, for he swore, with many oaths, that no one should interfere with his big dogs, for by themselves they would surely " make the wolf feel sicker than a stuck hog." Our shaggy ponies racked along at a five-mile gait over the dewy prairie grass. The two big dogs trotted behind their master, grim and fero- cious. The track-hounds were tied in couples, 47 B 198 HUNTING THE GRISLY. and the beautiful greyhounds loped lightly and gracefully alongside the horses. The coun- try was fine. A mile to our right a small plains river wound in long curves between banks fringed with cottonwoods. Two or three miles to our left the foot-hills rose sheer and bare, with clumps of black pine and cedar in their gorges. We rode over gently rolling prairie, with here and there patches of brush at the bottoms of the slopes around the dry watercourses. At last we reached a somewhat deeper val- ley, in which the wolves were harbored. Wolves lie close in the daytime and will not leave cover if they can help it ; and as they had both food and water within we knew it was most unlikely that this couple would be gone. The valley was a couple of hundred yards broad and three or four times as long, filled with a growth of ash and dwarf elm and cedar, thorny underbrush choking the spaces between. Posting the cowboy, to whom he gave his rifle, with two greyhounds on one side of the upper end, and old man Prindle with two others on the opposite side, while I was left at the lower end to guard against the possibility of the wolves breaking back, the Judge himself rode into the thicket near me and loosened the track-hounds to let them find the wolves' trail. The big dogs also were uncoupled and allowed to go in with the hounds. Their power of scent was very poor, but they were sure to be guided aright by the baying of the hounds, and their presence WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. ^99 would give confidence to the latter and make them ready to rout the wolves out of the thicket, which they would probably have shrunk from doing alone. There was a mo- ment's pause of expectation after the Judge entered the thicket with his hounds. We sat motionless on our horses, eagerly looking through the keen fresh morning air. Then a clamorous baying from the thicket in which both the horseman and dogs had disappeared showed that the hounds had struck the trail of their quarry and were running on a hot scent. For a couple of minutes we could not be quite certain which way the game was go- ing to break. The hounds ran zigzag through the brush, as we could tell by their baying, and once some yelping and a great row showed that they had come rather closer than they had expected upon at least one of the wolves. In another minute, however, the latter found it too hot for them and bolted from the thicket. My first notice of this was seeing the cowboy, who was standing by the side of his horse, suddenly throw up his rifle and fire, while the greyhounds who had been springing high in the air, half maddened by the clamor in the thicket below, for a moment dashed off the wrong way, confused by the report of the gun. I rode for all I was worth to where the cow- boy stood, and instantly caught a glimpse of two wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which having been turned by his shot had started straight over the hill across the plain toward 200 HUNTING THE GRISLY. the mountains three miles away. As soon as I saw them I saw also that the rearmost of the couple had been hit somewhere in the body and was lagging behind, the blood run- ning from its flanks, while the two greyhounds were racing after it ; and at the same moment the track-hounds and the big dogs burst out of the thicket, yelling savagely as they struck the bloody trail. The wolf was hard hit, and staggered as he ran. He did not have a hun- dred yards' start of the dogs, and in less than a minute one of the greyhounds ranged up and passed him with a savage snap that brought him too ; and before he could recover the whole pack rushed at him. Weakened as he was he could make no effective fight against so many foes, and indeed had a chance for but one or two rapid snaps before he was thrown down and completely covered by the bodies of his enemies. Yet with one of these snaps he did damage, as a shrill yell told, and in a second an over-rash track-hound came out of the struggle with a deep gash across his shoulders. The worrying, growling, and snarling were terrific, but in a minute the heaving mass grew motionless and the dogs drew off, save one or two that still continued to worry the dead wolf as it lay stark and stiff with glazed eyes and rumpled fur. No sooner were we satisfied that it was dead than the Judge, with cheers and oaths and crackings of his whip, urged the dogs after the other wolf. The two greyhounds that had been with old man Prindle had for* WOLVES AND WOLFHOUNDS. 201 Innately not been able to see the wolves when they first broke from the cover, and never saw the wounded wolf at all, starting off at full speed after the unwounded one the instant he topped the crest of the hill. He had taken advantage of a slight hollow and turned, and now the chase , was crossing us half a mile away. With whip and spur we flew towards them, our two greyhounds stretching out in front and leaving us as if we were standing still, the track-hounds and big dogs running after them just ahead of the horses. Fortu- nately the wolf plunged for a moment into a little brushy hollow and again doubled back, and this gave us a chance to see the end of the chase from nearby. The two greyhounds which had first taken up the pursuit were then but a short distance behind. Nearer they crept until they were within ten yards, and then with a tremendous race the little bitch ran past him and inflicted a vicious bite in the big beast's ham. He whirled around like a top and his jaws clashed like those of a sprung bear-trap, but quick though he was she was quicker and just cleared his savage rush. In another moment he resumed his flight at full speed, a speed which only that of the greyhounds exceeded ; but almost immedi- ately the second greyhound ranged along- side, and though he was not able to bite, be- cause the wolf kept running with its head turned around threatening him, yet by his feints he delayed the beast's flight so that in a moment or two the remaining couple of 202 HUNTING THE GRISLY. swift hounds arrived on the scene. For a moment the wolf and all four dogs galloped along in a bunch ; then one of the greyhounds, watching his chance, pinned the beast cleverly by the hock and threw him completely over. The others jumped on it in an instant ; but rising by main strength the wolf shook himself free, catching one dog by the ear and tearing it half off. Then he sat down on his haunches and the greyhounds ranged themselves around him some twenty yards off, forming a ring which forbade his retreat, though they them- selves did not dare touch him. However the end was at hand. In another moment Old Abe and General Grant came running up at headlong speed and smashed into the wolf like a couple of battering-rams. He rose on his hind-legs like a wrestler as they came at him, the greyhounds also rising and bouncing up and down like rubber balls. I could just see the wolf and the first big dog locked to- gether, as the second one made good his throat-hold. In another moment over all three tumbled, while the greyhounds and one or two of the track-hounds jumped in to take part in the killing. The big dogs more than occupied the wolf's attention and took all the punishing, while in a trice one of the grey- hounds, having seized him by the hind-leg, stretched him out, and the others were biting his undefended belly. The snarling and yel- ling of the worry made a noise so fiendish that it was fairly bloodcurdling ; then it grad- ually died down, and the second wolf lay limp WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS. 203 on the plain, killed by the dogs unassisted. This wolf was rather heavier and decidedly taller than either of the big dogs, with more sinewy feet and longer fangs. I have several times seen wolves run down and stopped by greyhounds after a break-neck gallop and a wildly exciting finish, but this was the only occasion on which I ever saw the dogs kill a big, full-grown he-wolf unaided. Nevertheless various friends of mine own packs that have performed the feat again and again. One pack, formerly kept at Fort Ben- ton, until wolves in that neighborhood became scarce, had nearly seventy-five to its credit, most of them killed without any assistance from the hunter ; killed moreover by the grey- hounds alone, there being no other dogs with the pack. These greyhounds were trained to the throat-hold, and did their own killing in fine style ; usually six or eight were slipped together. General Miles informs me that he once had great fun in the Indian Territory hunting wolves with a pack of greyhounds. They had with the pack a large stub-tailed mongrel, of doubtful ancestry but most un- doubted fighting capacity. When the wolf was started the greyhounds were sure to over- take it in a mile or two ; they would then bring it to a halt and stand around it in a ring until the fighting dog came up. The latter promptly tumbled on the wolf, grabbing him anywhere, and often getting a terrific wound himself at the same time. As soon as he had seized the wolf and was rolling over with him 204 HUNTING THE GRISLY. in the grapple the other dogs joined in the fray and dispatched the quarry without much danger to themselves. During the last decade many ranchmen in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, have de- veloped packs of greyhounds able to kill a wolf unassisted. Greyhounds trained for this purpose always seize by the throat ; and the light dogs used for coursing jack-rabbits are not of much service, smooth or rough-haired greyhounds and deer-hounds standing over thirty inches at the shoulder and weighing over ninety pounds being the only ones that, together with speed, courage, and endurance, possess the requisite power. One of the most famous packs in the West was that of the Sun River Hound Club, in Montana, started by the stockmen of Sun River to get rid of the curse of wolves which infested the neighborhood and worked very serious damage to the herds and flocks. The pack was composed of both greyhounds and deerhounds, the best being from the kennels of Colonel Williams and of Mr. Van Hummel, of Denver; they were handled by an old plainsman and veteran wolf-hunter named Porter. In the season of '86 the astonishing number of 146 wolves were killed with these dogs. Ordinarily, as soon as the dogs seized a wolf, and threw or held it, Porter rushed in and stabbed it with his hunting-knife ; one day, when out with six hounds, he thus killed no less than twelve out of the fifteen wolves start- ed, though one of the greyhounds was WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS* 205 and all the others were cut and exhausted. But often the wolves were killed without his aid. The first time the two biggest hounds deer-hounds or wire-haired greyhounds were tried, when they had been at the ranch only three days, they performed such a feat. A large wolf had killed and partially eaten a sheep in a corral close to the ranch house, and Porter started on the trail, and followed him at a jog-trot nearly ten miles before the hounds sighted him. Running but a few rods, he turned viciously to bay, and the two great greyhounds struck him like stones hurled from a catapult, throwing him as they fastened on his throat ; they held him down and strangled him before he could rise, two other hounds getting up just in time to help at the end of the worry. Ordinarily, however, no two greyhounds or deer-hounds are a match for a gray wolf, but I have known of several instances in Col- orado, Wyoming, and Montana, in which three strong veterans have killed one. The feat can only be performed by big dogs of the highest courage, who all act together, rush in at top speed, and seize by the throat ; for the strength of the quarry is such that otherwise he will shake off the dogs, and then speedily kill them by rabid snaps with his terribly armed jaws. Where possible, half a dozen dogs should be slipped at once, to minimize the risk of injury to the pack ; unless this is done, and unless the hunter helps the dogs in the worry, accidents will be frequent, and an 206 HUNTING THE GRISLY. occasional wolf will be found able to beat off, maiming or killing, a lesser number of assail- ants. Some hunters prefer the smooth grey- hound, because of its great speed, and others the wire-coated animal, the rough deer-hound, because of its superior strength ; both, if of the right kind, are dauntless fighters. Colonel Williams' greyhounds have per- formed many noble feats in wolf-hunting. He spent the winter of 1875 in the Black Hills, which at that time did not contain a single settler, and fairly swarmed with game. Wolves were especially numerous and very bold and fierce, so that the dogs of the party were continually in jeopardy of their lives. On the other hand they took an ample ven- geance, for many wolves were caught by the pack. Whenever possible, the horsemen kept close enough to take an immediate hand in the fight, if the quarry was a full-grown wolf, and thus save the dogs from the terrible pun- ishment they were otherwise certain to receive. The dogs invariably throttled, rushing straight at the throat, but the wounds they themselves received were generally in the flank or belly ; in several instances these wounds resulted fatally. Once or twice a wolf was caught, and held by two greyhounds until the horsemen came up; but it took at least five dogs to overcome and slay unaided a big timber wolf. Several times the feat was performed by a party of five, consisting of two greyhounds, one rough-coated deer-hound, and two cross- bloods ; and once by a litter of seven young WOL VES A ND WOLF- HO UNDS. 207 greyhounds, not yet come to their full strength. Once or twice the so-called Russian wolf- hounds or silky coated greyhounds, the " borzois," have been imported and tried in wolf-hunting on the western plains ; but hith- erto they have not shown themselves equal, at either running or fighting, to the big American- bred greyhounds of the type produced by Colonel Williams and certain others of our best western breeders. Indeed I have never known any foreign greyhounds, whether Scotch, English, or from continental Europe, to per- form such feats of courage, endurance, and strength, in chasing and killing dangerous game, as the homebred greyhounds of Colonel Williams. 2o8 HUNTING THE GRISLY. CHAPTER IX. IN COWBOY LAND. OUT on the frontier, and generally among those who spend their lives in, or on the borders of, the wilderness, life is reduced to its elemental conditions. The passions and emotions of these grim hunters of the moun- tains, and wild rough-riders of the plains, are simpler and stronger than those of people dwelling in more complicated states of society. As soon as the communities become settled and begin to grow with any rapidity, the American instinct for law asserts itself ; but in the earlier stages each individual is obliged to be a law to himself and to guard his rights with a strong hand. Of course the transition periods are full of incongruities. Men have not yet adjusted their relations to morality and law with any niceness. They hold strongly by certain rude virtues, and on the other hand they quite fail to recognize even as shortcom- ings not a few traits that obtain scant mercy in older communities. Many of the despera- does, the man-killers, and road-agents have good sides to their characters. Often they are people who, in certain stages of civiliza- tion, do, or have done, good work, but who, IN COWBOY LAND, 209 when these stages have passed, find themselves surrounded by conditions which accentuate their worst qualities, and make their best qual- ities useless. The average desperado, for in- stance, has, after all, much the same standard of morals that the Norman nobles had in the days of the battle of Hastings, and, ethically and morally, he is decidedly in advance of the vikings, who were the ancestors of these same nobles and to whom, by the way, he himself could doubtless trace a portion of his blood. If the transition from the wild lawlessness of life in the wilderness or on the border to a higher civilization were stretched out over a term of centuries, he and his descendants would doubtless accommodate themselves by degrees to the changing circumstances. But unfortunately in the far West the transition takes place with marvellous abruptness, and at an altogether unheard-of speed, and many a man's nature is unable to change with suffi- cient rapidity to allow him to harmonize with his environment. In consequence, unless he leaves for still wilder lands, he ends by getting hung instead of founding a family which would revere his name as that of a very capable, al- though not in all respects a conventionally moral, ancestor. Most of the men with whom I was inti- mately thrown during my life on the frontier and in the wilderness were good fellows, hard- working, brave, resolute, and truthful. At times, of course, they were forced of necessity to do deeds which would seem startling to 210 HUNTING THE GRISLY. dwellers in cities and in old settled places ; and though they waged a very stern and re- lentless warfare upon evil-doers whose mis- deeds had immediate and tangible bad results, they showed a wide toleration of all save the most extreme classes of wrong, and were not given to inquiring too curiously into a strong man's past, or to criticising him over-harshly for a failure to discriminate in finer ethical questions. Moreover, not a few of the men with whom I came in contact with some of whom my relations were very close and friendly had at different times led rather tough careers. This fact was accepted by them and by their companions as a fact, and nothing more. There were certain offences, such as rape, the robbery of a friend, or mur- der under circumstances of cowardice and treachery, which were never forgiven ; but the fact that when the country was wild a young fellow had gone on the road that is, become a highwayman, or had been chief of a gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves, and cattle- killers, was scarcely held to weigh against him, being treated as a regrettable, but cer- tainly not shameful, trait of youth. He was regarded by his neighbors with the same kindly tolerance which respectable mediaeval Scotch borderers doubtless extended to their wilder young men who would persist in raid- ing English cattle even in time of peace. Of course if these men were asked outright as to their stories they would have refused to tell them or else would have lied about IN CO WBO Y LAND. 2 1 1 them; but when they had grown to regard a man as a friend and companion they would often recount various incidents of their past lives with perfect frankness, and as they com- bined in a very curious degree both a decided sense of humor, and a failure to appreciate that there was anything especially remarkable in what they related, their tales were always entertaining. Early one spring, now nearly ten years ago, I was out hunting some lost horses. They had strayed from the range three months be- fore, and we had in a roundabout way heard that they were ranging near some broken country, where a man named Brophy had a ranch, nearly fifty miles from my own. When I started thither the weather was warm, but the second day out it grew colder and a heavy snowstorm came on. Fortunately I was able to reach the ranch all right, finding there one of the sons of a Little Beaver ranchman, and a young cowpuncher belonging to a Texas outfit, whom I knew very well. After putting my horse into the corral and throwing him down some hay I strode into the low hut, made partly of turf and partly of cottonwood logs, and speedily warmed myself before the fire. We had a good warm supper, of bread, potatoes, fried venison, and tea. My two companions grew very sociable and began to talk freely over their pipes. There were two bunks one above the other. I climbed into the upper, leaving my friends, who occupied the lower, sitting together on a bench recount* 212 HUNTING THE GRISLY. ing different incidents in the careers of them- selves and their cronies during the winter that had just passed. Soon one of them asked the other what had become of a certain horse, a noted cutting pony, which I had myself noticed the preceding fall. The question aroused the other to the memory of a wrong which still rankled, and he began (I alter one or two of the proper names) : " Why, that was the pony that got stole. I had been workin' him on rough ground when I was out with the Three Bar outfit and he went tender forward, so I turned him loose by the Lazy B ranch, and when I come back to git him there wasn't anybody at the ranch and I couldn't find him. The sheep-man who lives about two miles west, under Red Clay butte, told me he seen a fellow in a wolfskin coat, ridin' a pinto bronco, with white eyes, leadin* that pony of mine just two days be- fore ; and I hunted round till I hit his trail and then I followed to where I 'd reckoned he was headin' for the Short Pine Hills. When I got there a rancher told me he had seen the man pass on towards Cedartown, and sure enough when I struck Cedartown I found he lived there in a ' dobe house, just outside the town. There was a boom on the town and it looked pretty slick. There was two hotels and I went into the first, and I says, ' Where 7 s the justice of the peace ? ' says I to the bar- tender. " ' There ain't no justice of the peace,' says he/ the justice of the peace got shot.' IN CO WBO Y LAND. 2 13 " * Well, where 's the constable ? ' says I, " * Why, it was him that shot the justice of the peace 1 ' says he ; ' he's skipped the coun- try with a bunch of horses.' " < Well, ain't there no officer of the law left in this town ? ' says I. " * Why, of course,' says he, ' there 's a pro- bate judge ; he is over tendin' bar at the Last Chance Hotel' " So I went over to the Last Chance Hotel and I walked in there. 'Mornin',' says I. " Mornin',' says he. " * You 're the probate judge ? ' says I. " That 's what I am,' says he. ' What do you want ? ' says he. " ' I want justice,' says I. " * What kind of justice do you want ? ' says he. ' What 's it for ? ' u * It 's for stealin' a horse,' says I. Then by God you '11 git it,' says he. * Who stole the horse ? ' says he. " * It is a man that lives in a 'dobe house, just outside the town there,' says I. " ' Well, where do you come from your* self ? ' said he. " From Medory,' said I. " With that he lost interest and settled kind o' back, and says he, ' There won't no Cedar- town jury hang a Cedartown man for stealin' a Medory man's horse,' said he. " ' Well, what am I to do about my horse ? ' says I. " * Do ? ' says he ; ' well, you know where the man lives, don't you ? ' says he ; then sit HUNTING THE GRISLY. up outside his house to-night and shoot him when he comes in,' says he> * and skip out with the horse.' " All right/ says I, 'that is what I '11 do,' and I walked off. " So I went off to his house and I laid down behind some sage-brushes to wait for him. He was not at home, but I could see his wife movin' about inside now and then, and I waited and waited, and it growed darker, and I begun to say to myself, * Now here you are lyin' out to shoot this man when he comes home ; and it 's gettin' dark, and you don't know him, and if you do shoot the next man that comes into that house, like as not it won't be the fellow you're after at all, but some perfectly innocent man a-comin' there after the other man's wife I ' " So I up and saddled the bronc' and lit out for home," concluded the narrator with the air of one justly proud of his own self- abnegating virtue. The " town " where the judge above- mentioned dwelt was one of those squalid, pretentiously named little clusters of make- shift dwellings which on the edge of the wild country spring up with the rapid growth of mushrooms, and are often no longer lived. In their earlier stages these towns are fre- quently built entirely of canvas, and are sub- ject to grotesque calamities. When the terri- tory purchased from the Sioux, in the Dakotas, a couple of years ago, was thrown open to settlement, there was a furious inrush of men IN CO WBO Y LAND. 215 on horseback and in wagons, and various am- bitious cities sprang up overnight. The new settlers were all under the influence of that curious craze which causes every true western- er to put unlimited faith in the unknown and untried ; many had left all they had in a far better farming country, because they were true to their immemorial belief that, wherever they were, their luck would be better if they went somewhere else. They were always on the move, and headed for the vague beyond. As miners see visions of all the famous mines of history in each new camp, so these would-be city founders saw future St. Pauls and Oma- has in every forlorn group of tents pitched by some muddy stream in a desert of gumbo and sage-brush ; and they named both the towns and the canvas buildings in accordance with their bright hopes for the morrow, rather than with reference to the mean facts of the day. One of these towns, which when twenty- four hours old boasted of six saloons, a " court- house," and an " opera house," was over- whelmed by early disaster. The third day of its life a whirlwind came along and took off the opera house and half the saloons ; and the following evening lawless men nearly finished the work of the elements. The riders of a huge trail-outfit from Texas, to their glad surprise discovered the town and abandoned themselves to a night of roaring and lethal carousal. Next morning the city authorities were lamenting, with oaths of bitter rage, that " them hell-and-twenty Flying A cowpunchers 216 HUNTING THE GRISLY. had cut the court-house up into pants." It was true. The cowboys were in need of shaps, and with an admirable mixture of ad- venturousness, frugality, and ready adapta- bility to circumstances, had made substitutes therefor in the shape of canvas overalls, cut from the roof and walls of the shaky temple of justice. One of my valued friends in the mountains, and one of the best hunters with whom I ever travelled, was a man who had a peculiarly light-hearted way of looking at conventional social obligations. Though in some ways a true backwoods Donatello, he was a man of much shrewdness and of great courage and resolution. Moreover, he possessed what only a few men do possess, the capacity to tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons. He was pre-eminently a philoso- pher, of a happy, sceptical turn of mind. He had no prejudices. He never looked down, as so many hard characters do, upon a per- son possessing a different code of ethics. His attitude was one of broad, genial toler* ance. He saw nothing out of the way in the fact that he had himself been a road-agent, a professional gambler, and a desperado at different stages of his career. On the other hand, he did not in the least hold it against any one that he had always acted within the law. At the time that I knew him he had become a man of some substance, and IN* CO WBO Y LAND. 2 1 7 naturally a staunch upholder of the existing order of things. But while he never boasted of his past deeds, he never apologized for them, and evidently would have been quite as incapable of understanding that they needed an apology as he would have been in- capable of being guilty of mere vulgar boast- fulness. He did not often allude to his past career at all. When he did, he recited its incidents perfectly naturally and simply, as events, without any reference to or regard for their ethical significance. It was this quality which made him at times a specially pleasant companion, and always an agreeable narrator. The point of his story, or what seemed to him the point, was rarely that which struck me. It was the incidental sidelights the story threw upon his own nature and the somewhat lurid surroundings amid which he had moved. On one occasion when we were out to- gether we killed a bear, and after skinning it, took a bath in a lake. I noticed he had a scar on the side of his foot and asked him how he got it, to which he responded, with in- difference : " Oh, that ? Why, a man shootin* at me to make me dance, that was all." I expressed some curiosity in the matter, and he went on : "Well, the way of it was this: It was when I was keeping a saloon in New Mexico, and there was a man there by the name of 218 HUNTING THE GRISLY. Fowler, and there was a reward on him of three thousand dollars " " Put on him by the State ? " " No, put on by his wife," said my friend ; " and there was this " " Hold on," I interrupted ; " put on by his wife did you say ? " " Yes, by his wife. Him and her had been keepin' a faro bank, you see, and they quar- relled about it,' so she just put a reward on him, and so " " Excuse me," I said, " but do you mean to say that this reward was put on publicly ? " to which my friend answered, with an air of gen- tlemanly boredom at being interrupted to gratify my thirst for irrelevant detail : " Oh, no, not publicly. She just mentioned it to six or eight intimate personal friends." " Go on," I responded, somewhat overcome by this instance of the primitive simplicity with which New Mexican matrimonial disputes were managed, and he continued : " Well, two men come ridin' in to see me to borrow my guns. My guns was Colt's self- cockers. It was a new thing then, and they was the only ones in town. These come to me, and ' Simpson/ says they, ' we want to borrow your guns ; we are goin' to kill Fowler.' " ' Hold on for a moment,' said I, * I am willin' to lend you them guns, but I ain't go- in' to know what you 'r' goin' to do with them, no sir ; but of course you can have the guns.' " Here my friend's face lightened pleasantly, and he continued : IN CO WBO Y LAND, 2 19 " Well, you may easily believe I felt sur- prised next day when Fowler come ridin' in, and, says he, * Simpson, here's your guns ! ' He had shot them two men ! ' Well, Fowler, 7 says I, * if I had known them men was after you, I 'd never have let them have them guns nohow/ says I. That was n't true, for I did know it, but there was no cause to tell him that." I murmured my approval of such prudence, and Simpson continued, his eyes gradually brightening with the light of agree- able reminiscence : " Well, they up and they took Fowler before the justice of the peace. The justice of the peace was a Turk." " Now, Simpson, what do you mean by that ? " I interrupted : " Well, he come from Turkey," said Simp- son, and I again sank back, wondering briefly what particular variety of Mediterranean out- cast had drifted down to New Mexico to be made a justice of the peace. Simpson laughed and continued : "That Fowler was a funny fellow. The Turk, he committed Fowler, and Fowler, he riz up and knocked him down and tromped all over him and made him let him go I " " That was an appeal to a higher law," I observed. Simpson assented cheerily, and continued : " Well, that Turk, he got nervous for fear Fowler he was goin' to kill him, and so he comes to me and offers me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from Fowler ; and I went 220 HUNTING THE GRISLY. to Fowler, and ' Fowler,' says I, c that Turk 's offered me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from you. Now, I ain't goin' to get shot for no twenty-five dollars a day, and if you are goin' to kill the Turk, just say so and go and do it ; but if you ain't goin' to kill the Turk, there 's no reason why I should n't earn that twenty-five dollars a day 1 ' and Fowler, says he, * I ain't goin' to touch the Turk; you just go right ahead and protect him.' " So Simpson " protected " the Turk from the imaginary danger of Fowler, for about a week, at twenty-five dollars a day. Then one evening he happened to go out and met Fow- ler, " and," said he, " the moment I saw him I knowed he felt mean, for he begun to shoot at my feet," which certainly did seem to offer presumptive evidence of meanness. Simpson continued : " I didn't have no gun, so I just had to stand there and take it until something dis- tracted his attention, and I went off home to get my gun and kill him, but I wanted to do it perfectly lawful ; so I went up to the mayor (he was playin' poker with one of the judges), and says I to him, ' Mr. Mayor,' says I, * I am goin' to shoot Fowler. And the mayor he riz out of his chair and he took me by the hand, and says he, ' Mr. Simpson, if you do I will stand by you ; ' and the judge, he says, * I'll go on your bond.' " Fortified by this cordial approval of the ex- ecutive and judicial branches of the govern- ment, Mr. Simpson started on his quest IN COWBOY LAND. 221 Meanwhile, however, Fowler had cut up an- other prominent citizen, and they already had him in jail. The friends of law and order feeling some little distrust as to the perma- nency of their own zeal for righteousness, thought it best to settle the matter before there was time for cooling, and accordingly^ headed by Simpson, the mayor, the judge, the Turk, and other prominent citizens of the town, they broke into the jail and hanged Fowler. The point in the hanging which especially tickled my friend's fancy, as he lingered over the reminiscence, was one that was rather too ghastly to appeal to our own sense of humor. In the Turk's mind there still rankled the memory of Fowler's very unprofessional con- duct while figuring before him as a criminal. Said Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the eye : " Do you know that Turk, he was a right funny fellow too after all. Just as the boys were going to string up Fowler, says he, * Boys, stop ; one moment, gentlemen, Mr. Fowler, good-by,' and he blew a kiss to him ! " In the cow-country, and elsewhere on the wild borderland between savagery and civiliz- ation, men go quite as often by nicknames as by those to which they are lawfully entitled. Half the cowboys and hunters of my acquaint- ance are known by names entirely unconnected with those they inherited or received when they were christened. Occasionally some would-be desperado or make-believe mighty hunter tries to adopt what he deems a title 222 HUNTING THE GRISLY. suitable to his prowess ; but such an effort is never attempted in really wild places, where it would be greeted with huge derision ; for all of these names that are genuine are bestowed by outsiders, with small regard to the wishes of the person named. Ordinarily the name refers to some easily recognizable accident of origin, occupation, or aspect ; as witness the innumerable Dutcheys, Frcncheys, Kentucks, Texas Jacks, Bronco Bills, Bear Joes, Buck- skins, Red Jims, and the like. Sometimes it is apparently meaningless ; one of my cow- puncher friends is always called " Sliver " or " Splinter " why, I have no idea. At other times some particular incident may give rise to the title : a clean-looking cowboy formerly in my employ was always known as " Muddy Bill," because he had once been bucked off his horse into a mud hole. The grewsome genesis of one such name is given in the following letter which I have just received from an old hunting-friend in the Rockies, who took a kindly interest in a fron- tier cabin which the Boone and Crockett Club was putting up at the Chicago World's Fair. " Feb i6th 1893 ^er Sir : I see in the newspapers that your club the Daniel Boon and Davey Crockityou Intend to erect a fruntier Cabin at the world's Far at Chicago to represent the erley Pianears of our coun- try I would like to see you maik a success I have all my life been a fruntiersman and feel interested in your undertaking and I hoap you wile get a good assort- ment of relicks I want to maik one suggestion to you that is in regard to geting a good man and a genuine Mauntanner to take charg of your haus at Chicago I want to recommend a man for you to get it is Liver- IN CO WBO Y LAND. 223 eating Johnson that is the naim he is generally called he is an olde mauntneer and large and fine looking and one of the Best Story Tellers in the country and Very Polight genteel to every one he meets I wil tel you how he got that naim Liver-eating in a hard Fight with the Black Feet Indians thay Faught ail day John- son and a few Whites Faught a large Body of Indians all day after the fight Johnson cam in contact with a wounded Indian and Johnson was aut of ammunition and thay faught it out with thar Knives and Johnson got away with the Indian and in the fight cut the livver out of the Indian and said to the Boys did thay want any Liver to eat that is the way he got the naim of Liver-eating Johnson ' Yours truly " etc., etc. Frontiersmen are often as original in their theories of life as in their names ; and the originality may take the form of wild savagery, of mere uncouthness, or of an odd combina- tion of genuine humor with simple acceptance of facts as they are. On one occasion I ex- pressed some surprise at learning that a cer- tain Mrs. P. had suddenly married, though her husband was alive and in jail in a neigh- boring town ; and received for answer : " Well, you see, old man Pete he skipped the country, and left his widow behind him, and so Bob Evans he up and married her 1 " which was evidently felt to be a proceeding requiring no explanation whatever. In the cow-country there is nothing more refreshing than the light-hearted belief enter- tained by the average man to the effect that any animal which by main force has been sad- dled and ridden, or harnessed and driven 3 couple of times, is a "broke horse." My 224 HUNTING THE GRISLY. present foreman is firmly wedded to this idea, as well as to its complement, the belief that any animal with hoofs, before any vehicle with wheels, can be driven across any coun- try. One summer on reaching the ranch I was entertained with the usual accounts of the adventures and misadventures which had be- fallen my own men and my neighbors since I had been out last. In the course of the con- versation my foreman remarked : " We had a great time out here about six weeks ago. There was a professor from Ann Arbor came out with his wife to see the Bad Lands, and they asked if we could rig them up a team, and we said we guessed we could, and Foley s boy and I did ; but it ran away with him and broke his leg ! He was here for a month. I guess he did n't mind it though." Of this I was less certain, forlorn little Medora being a " busted " cow-town, concerning which I once heard another of my men remark, in reply to an mquisitive commercial traveller : " How many people lives here ? Eleven counting the chickens when they're all in town 1 " My foreman continued : " By George, there was something that professor said afterwards that made me feel hot. I sent word up to him by Foley 's boy that seein' as how it had come out we would n't charge him nothin' for the rig ; and that professor he answered that he was glad we were showing him some sign of consideration, for he'd begun to believe he'd fallen into a den of sharks, and that we gave him a runaway team a purpose. That made AV COWBOY LAND. 225 me hot, calling that a runaway team. Why, there was one of them horses never could have run away before ; it had n't never been druv but twice ! and the other horse maybe had run away a few times, but there was lots of times he had rft run away. I esteemed that team full as liable not to run away as it was to run away," concluded my foreman, evidently deem- ing this as good a warranty of gentleness as the most exacting could require. The definition of good behavior on the frontier is even more elastic for a saddle-horse than for a team. Last spring one of the Three-Seven riders, a magnificent horseman was killed on the round-up near Belfield, his horse bucking and falling on him. u It was accounted a plumb gentle horse too," said my informant, " only it sometimes sulked and acted a little mean when it was cinched up behind." The unfortunate rider did not know of this failing of the " plumb gentle horse," and as soon as he was in the saddle it threw itself over sideways with a great bound, and he fell on his head, and never spoke again. Such accidents are too common in the wild country to attract very much attention ; the men accept them with grim quiet, as inevitable in such lives as theirs lives that are harsh and narrow in their toil and their pleasure alike, and that are ever-bounded by an iron horizon of hazard and hardship. During the last year and a half three other men from the ranches in my immediate neighborhood have met their deaths in the course of their work. One, 15 226 HUNTING THE GRISLY. a trail boss of the O X, was drowned while swimming his herd across a swollen river. Another, one of the fancy ropers of the W Bar, was killed while roping cattle in a corral ; his saddle turned, the rope twisted round him, he was pulled off, and was trampled to death by his own horse. The fourth man, a cowpuncher named Hamilton, lost his life during the last week of October, 1891, in the first heavy snowstorm of the season. Yet he was a skilled plainsman, on ground he knew well, and just before straying himself, he successfully instructed two men who did not know the country how to get to camp. They were all three with the round-up, and were making a circle through the Bad Lands ; the wagons had camped on the eastern edge of these Bad Lands, where they merged into the prairie, at the head of an old disused road, which led about due east from the Little Missouri. It was a gray, lowering day, and as darkness came on Hamilton's horse played out, and he told his two companions not to wait, as it had begun to snow, but to keep on towards the north, skirting some particularly rough buttes, and as soon as they struck the road to turn to the right and follow it out to the prairie, where they would find camp ; he particularly warned them to keep a sharp look-out, so as not to pass over the dim trail unawares in the dusk and the storm. They followed his advice, and reached camp safely ; and after they had left him nobody ever again saw him alive. Evi- IN COWBOY LAND, 227 dently he himself, plodding northwards, passed over the road without seeing it in the gather- ing gloom ; probably he struck it at some point where the ground was bad, and the dim trail in consequence disappeared entirely, as is the way with these prairie roads making them landmarks to be used with caution. He must then have walked on and on, over rugged hills and across deep ravines, until his horse came to a standstill ; he took off its saddle and picketed it to a dwarfed ash. Its frozen carcass was found with the saddle near by, two months later. He now evidently recog- nized some landmark, and realized that he had passed the road, and was far to the north of the round-up wagons; but he was a res- olute, self-confident man, and he determined to strike out for a line camp, which he knew lay about due east of him, two or three miles out on the prairie, on one of the head branches of Knife River. Night must have fallen by this time, and he missed the camp, probably passing it within less than a mile ; but he did pass it, and with it all hopes of life, and walked wearily on to his doom, through the thick darkness and the driving snow. At last his strength failed, and he lay down in the tall grass of a little hollow. Five months later, in the early spring, the riders from the line camp found his body, resting face downwards, with the forehead on the folded arms. Accidents of less degree are common. Men break their collar-bones, arms, or legs by fall- ing when riding at speed over dangerous 228 HUNTING THE GRISLY, ground, when cutting cattle or trying to con* trol a stampeded herd, or by being thrown or rolled on by bucking or rearing horses ; or their horses, and on rare occasions even they themselves, are gored by fighting steers. Death by storm or in flood, death in striving to master a wild and vicious horse, or in handling maddened cattle, and too often death in brutal conflict with one of his own fellows any one of these is the not unnatural end of the life of the dweller on the plains or in the mountains. But a few years ago other risks had to be run from savage beasts, and from the Indians. Since I have been ranching on the Little Missouri, two men have been killed by bears in the neighborhood of my range ; and in the early years of my residence there, several men living or travelling in the country were slain by small war-parties of young braves. All the old-time trappers and hunters could tell stir- ring tales of their encounters with Indians. My friend, Tazewell Woody, was among the chief actors in one of the most noteworthy adventures of this kind. He was a very quiet man, and it was exceedingly difficult to get him to talk over any of his past experiences ; but one day, when he was in high good-humor with me for having made three consecutive straight shots at elk, he became quite com- municative, and I was able to get him to tell me one story which I had long wished to hear from his lips, having already heard of it through one of the other survivors of the in- IN COWBOY LAND. 229 cident. When he found that I already knew a good deal old Woody told me the rest. It was in the spring of 1875, and Woody and two friends were trapping on the Yellow- stone. The Sioux were very bad at the time and had killed many prospectors, hunters, cow- boys, and settlers ; the whites retaliated when- ever they got a chance, but, as always in Indian warfare, the sly, lurking, bloodthirsty savages inflicted much more loss than they suffered. The three men, having a dozen horses with them, were camped by the river-side in a tri- angular patch of brush, shaped a good deal like a common flat-iron. On reaching camp they started to put out their traps ; and when he came back in the evening Woody informed his companions that he had seen a great deal of Indian sign, and that he believed there were Sioux in the neighborhood. His companions both laughed at him, assuring him that they were not Sioux at all but friendly Crows, and that they would be in camp next morning ; " and sure enough," said Woody, meditatively, " they were in camp next morning." By dawn one of the men went down the river to look at some of the traps, while Woody started out to where the horses were, the third man remaining in camp to get breakfast. Suddenly two shots were heard down the river, and in another moment a mounted Indian swept towards the horses. Woody fired, but missed him, and he drove off five while Woody, running forward, succeeded in herding the other seven into camp. Hardly had this been accomplished before the 4-6 B 230 HUNTING THE GRISLY. man who had gone down the river appeared, out of breath with his desperate run, having been surprised by several Indians, and just succeeding in making his escape by dodging from bush to bush, threatening his pursuers with his rifle. These proved to be but the forerunners of a great war party, for when the sun rose the hills around seemed black with Sioux. Had they chosen to dash right in on the camp, running the risk of losing several of their men in the charge, they could of course have eaten up the three hunters in a minute ; but such a charge is rarely practised by Indians, who, although they are admirable in defensive war- fare, and even in certain kinds of offensive movements, and although from their skill in hiding they usually inflict much more loss than they suffer when matched against white troops, are yet very reluctant to make any movement where the advantage gained must be offset by considerable loss of life. The three men thought they were surely doomed, but being veteran frontiersmen and long inured to every kind of hardship and danger, they set to work with cool resolution to make as effective a de- fence as possible, to beat off their antagonists if they might, and if this proved impracticable, to sell their lives as dearly as they could. Having tethered the horses in a slight hollow, the only one which offered any protection, each man crept out to a point of the triangular brush patch and lay down to await events. In a very short while the Indians began IN CO WBO Y LAND. 23 1 closing in on them, taking every advantage of cover, and then, both from their side of the river and from the opposite bank, opened a perfect fusillade, wasting their cartridges with a recklessness which Indians are apt to show when excited. The hunters could hear the hoarse commands of the chiefs, the war-whoops and the taunts in broken English which some of the warriors hurled at them. Very soon all of their horses were killed, and the brush was fairly riddled by the incessant volleys ; but the three men themselves, lying flat on the ground and well concealed, were not harmed. The more daring young warriors then began to creep toward the hunters, going stealthily from one piece of cover to the next ; and now the whites in turn opened fire. They did not shoot recklessly, as did their foes, but coolly and quietly, endeavoring to make each shot tell. Said Woody : " I only fired seven times all day ; I reckoned on getting meat every time I pulled trigger." They had an immense ad- vantage over their enemies, in that whereas they lay still and entirely concealed, the Indians of course had to move from cover to cover in order to approach, and so had at times to expose themselves. When the whites fired at all they fired at a man, whether moving or motionless, whom they could clearly see, while the Indians could only shoot at the smoke, which imperfectly marked the position of their unseen foes. In consequence the assailants speedily found that it was a task of hopeless danger to try in such a manner to close in on 232 HUNTING THE GRISLY. three plains veterans, men of iron nerve and skilled in the use of the rifle. Yet some of the more daring crept up very close to the patch of brush, and one actually got inside it, and was killed among the bedding that lay by the smouldering camp-fire. The wounded and such of the dead as did not lie in too exposed positions were promptly taken away by their comrades ; but seven bodies fell into the hands of the three hunters. I asked Woody how many he himself had killed. He said he could only be sure of two that he got ; one he shot in the head as he peeped over a bush, and the other he shot through the smoke as he attempted to rush in. " My, how that Indian did yell," said Woody, retrospectively , " he was no great of a Stoic." After two or three hours of this deadly skirmishing, which resulted in nothing more serious to the whites than in two of them being slightly wounded, the Sioux became disheartened by the loss they were suffering and withdrew, confining themselves thereafter to a long range and harmless fusillade. When it was dark the three men crept out to the river bed, and taking advantage of the pitchy night broke through the circle of their foes ; they managed to reach the settlements without further molestation, having lost everything ex- cept their rifles. For many years one of the most important of the wilderness dwellers was the West Point officer, and no man has played a greater part than he in the wild warfare which opened the regions beyond the Mississippi to white settle' IN CO WBO Y LAND. 233 ment. Since 1879, there has been but little regular Indian fighting in the North, though there have been one or two very tedious and wearisome campaigns waged against the Apaches in the South. Even in the North, however, there have been occasional upris- ings which had to be quelled by the regular troops. After my elk hunt in September, 1891, I came out through the Yellowstone Park, as I have elsewhere related, riding in company with a surveyor of the Burlington and Quincy railroad, who was just coming in from his summer's work. It was the first of October. There had been a heavy snow-storm and the snow was still falling. Riding a stout pony each, and leading another packed with our bedding, etc., we broke our way from the upper to the middle geyser basin. Here we found a troop of the ist Cavalry camped, under the command of old friends of mine, Captain Frank Edwards and Lieutenant (now Captain) John Pitcher. They gave us hay for our horses and insisted upon our stopping to lunch, with the ready hospitality always shown by army officers. After lunch we be- gan exchanging stories. My travelling com- panion, the surveyor, had that spring per- formed a feat of note, going through one of the canyons of the Big Horn for the first time. He went with an old mining inspector, the two of them dragging a cottonwood sledge over the ice. The walls of the canyon are so sheer and the water so rough that it can be 234 HUNTING THE GRISLY. descended only when the stream is frozen. However, after six days' labor and hardship the descent was accomplished ; and the sur- veyor, in concluding, described his experience in going through the Crow Reservation. This turned the conversation upon Indians, and it appeared that both of our hosts had been actors in Indian scrapes which had attracted my attention at the time they oc- curred, as they took place among tribes that I knew and in a country which I had sometime visited, either when hunting or when pur- chasing horses for the ranch. The first, which occurred to Captain Edwards, happened late in 1886, at the time when the Crow Medicine Chief, Sword-Bearer, announced himself as the Messiah of the Indian race, during one of the usual epidemics of ghost dancing. Sword-Bearer derived his name from always wearing a medicine sword that is, a sabre painted red. He claimed to pos- sess magic power, and, thanks to the perfor- mance of many dextrous feats of juggling, and the lucky outcome of certain prophecies, he deeply stirred the Indians, arousing the young warriors in particular to the highest pitch of excitement. They became sullen, began to paint, and armed themselves ; and the agent and the settlers nearby grew so apprehensive that the troops were order- ed to go to the reservation. A body of cavalry, including Captain Edwards' troop, was accordingly marched thither, and found the Crow warriors, mounted on their war ponies IN- CO WBO Y LAND. 235 and dressed in their striking battle-garb, wait- ing on a hill. The position of troops at the beginning oi such an affair is always peculiarly difficult. The settlers round-about are sure to clamor bitterly against them, no matter what they do, on the ground that they are not thorough enough and are showing favor to the savages, while on the other hand, even if they fight purely in self-defence, a large number of worthy but weak-minded sentimentalists in the East are sure to shriek about their having brutally attacked the Indians. The war authorities always insist that they must not fire the first shot under any circumstances, and such were the orders at this time. The Crows on the hill-top showed a sullen and threatening front, and the troops advanced slowly towards them and then halted for a parley. Meanwhile a mass of black thunder- clouds gathering on the horizon threatened one of those cloudbursts of extreme severity and suddenness so characteristic of the plains country. While still trying to make arrange- ments for a parley, a horseman started out of the Crow ranks and galloped headlong down towards the troops. It was the medi- cine chief, Sword-Bearer. He was painted and in his battle-dress, wearing his war-bonnet of floating, trailing eagle feathers, while the plumes of the same bird were braided in the mane and tail of his fiery little horse. On he came at a gallop almost up to the troops and then began to circle around them, calling and 236 HUNTING THE GRISLY. singing and throwing his crimson sword into the air, catching it by the hilt as it fell. Twice he rode completely around the soldiers, who stood in uncertainty, not knowing what to make of his performance, and expressly forbidden to shoot at him. Then paying no further heed to them he rode back towards the Crows. It appears that he had told them that he would ride twice around the hostile force, and by his incantations would call down rain from heaven, which would make the hearts of the white men like water, so that they should go back to their homes. Sure enough, while the arrangements for the parley were still going forward, down came the cloudburst, drenching the command and mak~ ing the ground on the hills in front nearly impassable ; and before it dried a courier ar- rived with orders to the troops to go back to camp. This fulfilment of Sword-Bearer's prophecy of course raised his reputation to the zenith and the young men of the tribe prepared for war, while the older chiefs, who more fully realized the power of the whites, still hung back. When the troops next appeared they came upon the entire Crow force, the women and children with their tepees being off to one side beyond a little stream while almost all the warriors of the tribe were gathered in front. Sword-Bearer started to repeat his former ride, to the intense irritation of the soldiers. Luckily, however, this time some of his young men could not be restrained. They IN CO WBO Y LAND. 237 too began to ride near the troops, and one of them was unable to refrain from firing on Captain Edwards' troop, which was in the van. This gave the soldiers their chance. They instantly responded with a volley, and Captain Edwards 7 troop charged. The fight lasted but a minute or two, for Sword-Bearer was struck by a bullet and fell, and as he had boasted himself invulnerable, and promised that his warriors should be invulner- able also if they would follow him, the hearts of the latter became as water and they broke in every direction. One of the amusing, though irritating, incidents of the affair was to see the plumed and painted warriors race headlong for the camp, plunge into the stream, wash off their war paint, and remove their feathers; in another moment they would be stolidly sitting on the ground, with their blankets over their shoulders, rising to greet the pursuing cavalry with unmoved composure and calm assurances that they had always been friendly and had much disapproved the conduct of the young bucks who had just been scattered on the field outside. It was much to the credit of the discipline of the army that no bloodshed followed the fight proper. The loss to the whites was small. The other incident, related by Lieutenant Pitcher, took place in 1890, near Tongue River, in northern Wyoming. The command with which he was serving was camped near the Cheyenne Reservation. One day two young Cheyenne bucks, met one of the govern- 238 HUNTING THE GRISLY. ment herders, and promptly killed him in a sudden fit, half of ungovernable blood lust, half of mere ferocious lightheartedness. They then dragged his body into the brush and left it v The disappearance of the herder of course attracted attention, and a search was organ- ized by the cavalry. At first the Indians stout- ly denied all knowledge of the missing man ; but when it became evident that the search party would shortly find him, two or three of the chiefs joined them, and piloted them to where the body lay; and acknowledged that he had been murdered by two of their band, though at first they refused to give their names. The commander of the post de- manded that the murderers be given up. The chiefs said that they were very sorry, that this could not be done, but that they were willing to pay over any reasonable number of ponies to make amends for the death. This offer was of course promptly refused, and the commander notified them that if they did not surrender the murderers by a certain time he would hold the whole tribe responsible and would promptly move out and attack them. Upon this the chiefs, after holding full counsel with the tribe, told the commander that they had no power to surrender the murderers, but that the latter had said that sooner than see their tribe involved in a hopeless struggle they would of their own accord come in and meet the troops anywhere the latter chose to appoint, and die fighting. To this the commander responded: "All right; let them come into IN COWBOY LAND. 239 the agency in half an hour." The chiefs ac- quiesced, and withdrew. Immediately the Indians sent mounted messengers at speed from camp to camp, sum- moning all their people to witness the act of fierce self-doom ; and soon the entire tribe of Cheyennes, many of them having their faces blackened in token of mourning, moved down and took up a position on the hill-side close to the agency. At the appointed hour both young men appeared in their handsome war dress, galloped to the top of the hill near the encampment, and deliberately opened fire on the troops. The latter merely fired a few shots to keep the young desperadoes off, while Lieutenant "Pitcher and a score of cavalrymen left camp to make a circle and drive them in ; they did not wish to hurt them, but to capture and give them over to the Indians, so that the latter might be forced themselves to inflict the punishment. However, they were unable to accomplish their purpose ; one of the young braves went straight at them, firing his rifle and wounding the horse of one of the cavalry- men, so that, simply in self-defence, the latter had to fire a volley, which laid low the assail- ant; the other, his horse having been shot, was killed in the brush, fighting to the last. All the while, from the moment the two doomed braves appeared until they fell, the Chey- ennes on the hill-side had been steadily sing- ing the death chant. When the young men had both died, and had thus averted the fate which their misdeeds would else have brought 240 HUNTING THE GRISLY. upon the tribe, the warriors took their bodies and bore them away for burial honors, the soldiers looking on in silence. Where the slain men were buried the whites never knew ; but all that night they listened to the dismal wailing of the dirges with which the tribesmen celebrated their gloomy funeral rites. Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very superstitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and have too little imagination in things spiritual and supernatural. I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the frontier, and these few were of a perfectly commonplace and conventional type. But I once listened to a goblin story which rather impressed me. It was told by a grisled, weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman, who was born and had passed all his life on the frontier. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale ; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore, so that many fear- some superstitions were latent in his mind ; besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medicine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and the spectres, and the formless evil beings that haunt the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wan- derer who after nightfall passes through the regions where they lurk ; and it may be that when overcome by the horror of the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the IN CO WBO Y LAND. 241 awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attri- bute, both at the time and still more in re- membrance, weird and elfin traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast ; but whether this was so or not, no man can say. When the event occurred Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through which ran a small stream , said to contain many beaver. The pass had an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered into it was there slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half-eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who had passed his camp only the night before. The memory of this event, however, weighed very lightly with the two trappers, who were as adventurous and hardy as others of their kind. They took their two lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass, where they left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground being from thence onwards impracticable for horses. They then struck out on foot through the vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached a little open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of game were plenty. Bancroft Library There was still an hour or two of daylight -^ left, and after building a brush lean-to and 16 242 HUNTING THE GRISLY. throwing down and opening their packs, they started up stream. The country was very dense and hard to travel through, as there was much down timber, although here and there the sombre woodland was broken by small glades of mountain grass. At dusk they again reached camp. The glade in which it was pitched was not many yards wide, the tall, close-set pines and firs rising round it like a wall. On one side was a little stream, beyond which rose the steep mountain-slopes, covered with the unbroken growth of the evergreen forest. They were surprised to find that during their short absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp, and had rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness destroy- ing their lean-to. The footprints of the beast tarere quite plain, but at first they paid no par- ticular heed to them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds and stores, and lighting the fire. While Bauman was making ready supper, it being already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to follow them up, where the intruder had walked along a game trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspection of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked : " Bauman, IN CO WBO Y LAND. 243 that bear has been walking on two legs." Bauman laughed at this, but his partner in- sisted that he was right, and upon again ex- amining the tracks with a torch, they certainly did seem to be made by but two paws, or feet. However, it was too dark to make sure. After discussing whether the footprints could pos- sibly be those of a human being, and coming to the conclusion that they could not be, the two men rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep under the lean-to. At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild- beast odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately afterwards he heard the smashing of the underwood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetra- ble blackness of the forest and the night. After this the two men slept but little, sit- ting up by the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more. In the morning they started out to look at the few traps they had set the previous evening and to put out new ones. By an unspoken agreement they kept together all day, and returned to camp towards evening. On nearing it they saw, hardly to their as- tonishment, that the lean-to had been again torn down. The visitor of the preceding day had returned, and in wanton malice had tossed about their camp kit and bedding, and des 244 HUNTING THE GRISLY. troyed the shanty. The ground was marked up by its tracks, and on leaving the camp it had gone along the soft earth by the brook, where the footprints were as plain as if on snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing was, it had walked off on but two legs. The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great heap of dead logs, and kept up a roaring fire throughout the night, one or the other sit- ting on guard most of the time. About mid- night the thing came down through the forest opposite, across the brook, and stayed there on the hill-side for nearly an hour. They could hear the branches crackle as it moved about, and several times it uttered a harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. Yet it did not venture near the fire. In the morning the two trappers, after dis- cussing the strange events of the last thirty- six hours, decided that they would shoulder their packs and leave the valley that afternoon. They were the more ready to do this because in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign they had caught % very little fur. However, it was necessary first to go along the line of their traps and gather them, and this they started out to do. All the morning they kept together, picking up trap after trap, each one empty. On first leaving camp they had the disagreeable sen- sation of being followed. In the dense spruce thickets they occasionally heard a branch snap after they had passed ; and now and then there IN COWBOY LAND. 245 were slight rustling noises among the small pines to one side of them. At noon they were back within a couple of miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight their fears seemed absurd to the two armed men, accustomed as they were, through long years of lonely wandering in the wilderness to face every kind of danger from man, brute, or element. There were still three beaver traps to collect from a little pond in a wide ravine near by. Bauman volunteered to gather these and bring them in, while his companion went ahead to camp and make ready the packs. On reaching the pond Bauman found three beaver in the traps, one of which had been pulled loose and carried into a beaver house. He took several hours in securing and pre- paring the beaver, and when he started home- wards he marked with some uneasiness how low the sun was getting. As he hurried to- wards camp, under the tall trees, the silence and desolation of the forest weighed on him. His feet made no sound on the pine needles, and the slanting sun rays, striking through among the straight trunks, made-a gray twilight in which objects at a distance glimmered in- distinctly. There was nothing to break the ghostly stillness which, when there is no breeze, always broods over these sombre primeval forests. At last he came to the edge of the little glade where the camp lay, and shouted as he approached it, but got no answer. The camp fire had gone out, though the thin blue smoke 246 HUNTING THE GRISLY. was still curling upwards. Near it lay the packs, wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody ; nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing to- wards it the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm, but that the neck was broken, while there were four great fang marks in the throat. The footprints of the unknown beast-crea- ture, printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story. The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion. While thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which must have been lurking nearby in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch one of the ad- venturers unprepared, came silently up from behind, walking with long, noiseless steps, and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently un- heard, it reached the man, and broke his neck by wrenching his head back with its forepaws, while it buried its teeth in his throat. It had not eaten the body, but apparently had romped and gambolled round it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasionally rolling over and over it ; and had then fled back into the soundless depths of the woods. Bauman, utterly unnerved, and believing that the creature with which he had to deal JN COWBOY LAND. 247 was something either half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, abandoned every- thing but his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached the bea- ver meadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he rode onwards through the night, until far beyond the reach of pursuit