LIBRARY OF 
 
 HENRY C. FALL. 
 
 AND KATHARINE A. FALL 
 
 Date of Purchase 
 Place ~J-s 
 Cos*
 
 ^r 
 
 
 
 ^~> ---,, ^ J. /
 
 
 ifcvBIG 
 
 by Ernest Thomjuon Jeton ^ 
 
 Author of 
 
 Wild Anim&U 1 hive known 
 Tra.il of the >Sa.ndhill *St^ 
 Biography of ^j&riwly 
 LivlES of the Hunted J 
 Two Little 'JWa.Q;e.y. Etc. 
 
 Publiihed by Ch^rle^ -yc 
 
 New YorK-1904
 
 Copyright, 1902, 1903, by 
 Ladies' Home Journal 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 Ernest Thompson Seton 
 
 First 
 
 Impression 
 
 October 
 
 3 
 
 1904 
 
 THE DE VINNE PRESS
 
 THIS BOOK 
 IS DEDICATED 
 
 To the memory of the daysinTallac's 
 Pines, where by the fire I heard this 
 epic tale. 
 
 Kind memory calls the picture up 
 before me now, clear, living clear: I see 
 them as they sat, the one small and 
 slight, the other tall and brawny, 
 leader and led, rough men of the hills. 
 They told me this tale in broken 
 bits they gave it, a sentence at a time. 
 They were ready to talk but knew not 
 how. Few their words, and those they 
 used would be empty on paper, mean- 
 
 2050969
 
 ingless without the puckered lip, the 
 interhiss, the brutal semi-snarl re- 
 strained by human mastery, the snap 
 and jerk of wrist and gleam of steel- 
 gray eye, that really told the tale, of 
 which the spoken word was mere head- 
 line. Another, a subtler theme was 
 theirs that night; not in the line but 
 in the interline it ran; and listening to 
 the hunter r s ruder tale, I heard as one 
 may hear the night bird singing in the 
 storm; amid the glitter of the mica I 
 caught the glint of gold, for theirs was 
 a parable of hill-born power that fades 
 when it finds the plains. They told 
 of the giant redwood's growth from a 
 tiny seed; of the avalanche that, born 
 a snowflake, heaves and grows on the 
 peaks, to shrink and die on the level 
 lands below. They told of the river 
 at our feet: of its rise, a thread-like 
 rill, afar on Tallac's side, and its
 
 growth a brook, a stream, a little 
 river, a river, a mighty flood that 
 rolled and ran from hills to plain to 
 meet a final doom so strange that only 
 the wise believe. Yes, I have seen it; 
 it is there to-day the river, the won- 
 derful river, that unabated flows, but 
 that never reaches the sea. 
 
 I give you the story then as it came 
 to me, and yet I do not give it, for 
 theirs is a tongue unknown to script: 
 I give a dim translation; dim, but in 
 all ways respectful, reverencing the in- 
 domitable spirit of the mountaineer, 
 worshiping the mighty Beast that na- 
 ture built a monument of power, and 
 loving and worshiping the clash, the 
 awful strife heroic, at the close, when 
 these two met.
 
 In this Book the designs for 
 cover, title-page, and gen- 
 eral make-up were done by 
 Grace Gallatin Seton.
 
 List of 
 Full-Pa^e Drawings 
 
 ^ 
 
 Page 
 
 "The pony bounded in terror while the 
 
 Grizzly ran almost alongside" ... 21 
 "Jack ate till his paunch looked like a rub- 
 ber balloon" 31 
 
 "'Honey Jacky honey'" 37 
 
 "Jack . . . held up his sticky, greasy arms" 53 
 
 The Thirty-foot Bear 93 
 
 "'Now, B r ar, I don't want no scrap with 
 
 you'" 143 
 
 "Rumbling and snorting, he made for the 
 
 friendly hills" 197 
 
 Monarch 215
 
 List of 
 The Chapters 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Two Springs 15 
 
 II. The Springs and the Miner's Dam . 27 
 
 III. The Trout Pool 41 
 
 IV. The Stream that Sank in the Sand . 49 
 V. The River Held in the Foothills . 63 
 
 VI. The Broken Dam 79 
 
 VII. The Freshet 87 
 
 VIII. Roaring in the Canon 99 
 
 IX. Fire and Water Ill 
 
 X. The Eddy 121 
 
 XI. The Ford 137 
 
 XII. Swirl and Pool and Growing Flood . 145 
 
 XIII. The Deepening Channel .... 159 
 
 XIV. The Cataract 171 
 
 XV. The Foaming Flood 177 
 
 XVI. Landlocked . , 199
 
 THE story of Monarch is founded on 
 material gathered from many sources 
 as well as from personal experience, 
 and the <Bear is of necessity a compos- 
 ite. The great Grizzly Monarch, still 
 pacing his prison floor at the Golden 
 Gate 'ParA, is the central fact of the 
 tale. 
 
 In telling it I have taken two lib- 
 erties that I conceive to be proper in a 
 story of this sort. 
 
 First, I have selected for my hero an 
 unusual individual.
 
 Second, I have ascribed to that one 
 animal the adventures of several of his 
 kind. 
 
 The aim of the story is to picture the 
 life of a Grizzly with the added glamour 
 of a remarkable ^Bear personality. The 
 intention is to convey the known truth. 
 <But the fact that liberties have been 
 taken excludes the story from the cata- 
 logue of pure science. It must be con- 
 sidered rather an historical novel of 
 <Bear life. 
 
 Many differentftears were concerned 
 in the early adventures here related, but 
 the last two chapters, the captivity and 
 the despair of the ^ig 'Bear, are told as 
 they were told to me by several wit- 
 nesses, including my friends the two 
 mountaineers. 
 
 Jf
 
 THE TWO SPRINGS
 
 I 
 
 ( IGH above Sierra's peaks 
 stands grim Mount Tal- 
 lac. Ten thousand feet 
 above the sea it rears its 
 head to gaze out north 
 to that vast and wonderful turquoise 
 that men call Lake Tahoe, and north- 
 west, across a piney sea, to its great 
 white sister, Shasta of the Snows; 
 wonderful colors and things on every 
 side, mast-like pine trees strung with 
 jewelry, streams that a Buddhist would 
 have made sacred, hills that an Arab 
 
 qp -W/'/^ J 
 
 / V
 
 would have held holy. But Lan Kell- 
 yan's keen gray eyes were turned to 
 other things. The childish delight in 
 life and light for their own sakes had 
 faded, as they must in one whose train- 
 ing had been to make him hold them 
 very cheap. Why value grass? All the 
 world is grass. Why value air, when it is 
 everywhere in measureless immensity? 
 Why value life, when, all alive, his liv- 
 ing cameJTom taking life? His senses 
 were alert, not for the rainbow hills and 
 the gem-bright lakes, but for the liv- 
 ing things that he must meet in daily 
 rivalry, each staking on the game, his 
 life. Hunter was written on his 
 leathern garb, on his tawny face, on 
 his lithe and sinewy form, and shone 
 in his clear gray eye. 
 
 The cloven granite peak might 
 pass unmarked, but a faint dimple in 
 the sod did not. Calipers could not
 
 have told that it was widened at one 
 end, but the hunter's eye did, and 
 following, he looked for and found 
 another, then smaller signs, and he 
 knew that a big Bear and two little 
 ones had passed and were still close 
 at hand, for the grass in the marks 
 was yet unbending. Lan rode his 
 hunting pony on the trail. It sniffed 
 and stepped nervously, for it knew as 
 well as the rider that a Grizzly family 
 was near. They came to a terrace 
 leading to an open upland. Twenty 
 feet on this side of it Lan slipped to 
 the ground, dropped the reins, the well- 
 known sign to the pony that he must 
 stand at that spot, then cocked his rifle 
 and climbed the bank. At the top he 
 went with yet greater caution, and soon 
 saw an old Grizzly with her two cubs. 
 She was lying down some fifty yards 
 away and afforded a poor shot ; he fired
 
 I 
 
 at what seemed to be the shoulder. 
 The aim was true, but the Bear got 
 only a flesh-wound. She sprang to 
 her feet and made for the place where 
 the puff of smoke arose. The Bear had 
 fifty yards to cover, the man had fif- 
 teen, but she came racing down the 
 bank before he was fairly on the horse, 
 and for a hundred yards the pony 
 bounded in terror while the old Grizzly 
 ran almost alongside, striking at him 
 and missing by a scant hair's-breadth 
 each time. But the Grizzly rarely 
 keeps up its great speed for many yards. 
 The horse got under full headway, 
 and the shaggy mother, falling behind, 
 gave up the chase and returned to her 
 cubs. 
 
 She was a singular old Bear. She 
 had a large patch of white on her 
 breast, white cheeks and shoulders, 
 graded into the brown elsewhere, and
 
 Lan from this remembered her after- 
 ward as the " Pinto." She had almost 
 caught him that time, and the hunter 
 was ready to believe that he owed her 
 a grudge. 
 
 A week later his chance came. As 
 he passed along the rim of Pocket 
 Gulch, a small, deep valley with sides 
 of sheer rock in most places, he saw 
 afar the old Pinto Bear with her two 
 little brown cubs. She was crossing 
 from one side where the wall was low 
 to another part easy to climb. As she 
 stopped to drink at the clear stream 
 Lan fired with his rifle. At the shot 
 Pinto turned on her cubs, and slapping 
 first one, then the other, she chased 
 them up a tree. Now a second shot 
 struck her and she charged fiercely up 
 the sloping part of the wall, clearly 
 recognizing the whole situation and de- 
 termined to destroy that hunter. She
 
 came snorting up the steep acclivity 
 wounded and raging, only to receive a 
 final shot in the brain that sent her 
 rolling back to lie dead at the bottom 
 of Pocket Gulch. The hunter, after 
 waiting to make sure, moved to the 
 edge and fired another shot into the 
 old one's body; then reloading, he went 
 / | cautiously down to the tree where still 
 
 / werethecubs. They gazed at him with 
 
 wild seriousness as he approached 
 ( v ^ *' y them, and when he began to climb they 
 -\ a te ) scrambled up higher. Here one set up 
 ^ *5'* i a plaintive whining and the other an 
 N ^ an ^ r y growling, their outcries increas- 
 
 ing as he came nearer. 
 
 He took out a stout cord, and noos- 
 ing them in turn, dragged them to the 
 ground. One rushed at him and, though 
 little bigger than a cat, would certainly 
 have done him serious injury had he 
 not held it off with a forked stick.
 
 After tying them to a strong but sway- 
 ing branch he went to his horse, got a 
 grain-bag, dropped them into that, and 
 rode with them to his shanty. He fas- 
 tened each with a collar and chain to 
 a post, up which they climbed, and sit- 
 ting on the top they whined and growled, 
 according to their humor. For the first 
 few days there was danger of the cubs 
 strangling themselves or of starving to 
 death, but at length they were beguiled 
 into drinking some milk most ungently 
 procured from a range cow that was 
 lassoed for the purpose. In another 
 week they seemed somewhat recon- 
 ciled to their lot, and thenceforth 
 plainly notified their captor whenever 
 they wanted food or water. 
 
 And thus the two small rills ran 
 on, a little farther down the moun- 
 tain now, deeper and wider, keeping 
 near each other; leaping bars, rejoic-
 
 ing in the sunlight, held for a while 
 by some trivial dam, but overleaping 
 that and running on with pools and 
 deeps that harbor bigger things.
 
 THE SPRINGS AN<D THE 
 MINER'S <DAM
 
 II 
 
 ACK and Jill, the hunter 
 named the cubs; and Jill, 
 the little fury, did nothing 
 to change his early im- 
 pression of her bad tem- 
 per. When at food-time the man came 
 she would get as far as possible up the 
 post and growl, or else sit in sulky fear 
 and silence; Jack would scramble down 
 and strain at his chain to meet his 
 captor, whining softly, and gobbling his 
 food at once with the greatest of gusto 
 and the worst of manners. He had
 
 many odd ways of his own, and he was 
 a lasting rebuke to those who say an 
 animal has no sense of humor. In a 
 month he had grown so tame that he 
 was allowed to run free. He followed 
 his master like a dog, and his tricks 
 and funny doings were a continual de- 
 light to Kellyan and the few friends 
 he had in the mountains. 
 
 On the creek-bottom below the 
 shack was a meadow where Lan cut 
 enough hay each year to feed his two 
 ponies through the winter. This year 
 when hay-timecame Jack was his daily 
 companion, either following him about 
 in dangerous nearness to the snorting 
 scythe, or curling up an hour at a time 
 on his coat to guard it assiduously from 
 such aggressive monsters as Ground 
 Squirrels and Chipmunks. An in- 
 teresting variation of the day came 
 about whenever the mower found a
 
 JACK ATE TILL HIS PAUNCH LOOKED LIKE A RUBBER BALLOON '
 
 bumblebees' nest. Jack loved honey, 
 of course, and knew quite well what a 
 bees' nest was, so the call, " Honey 
 Jacky honey!" never failed to bring 
 him in waddling haste to the spot. 
 Jerking his nose up in token of plea- 
 sure, he would approach cautiously, 
 for he knew that bees have stings. 
 Watching his chance, he would dexter- 
 ously slap at them with his paws till, 
 one by one, they were knocked down 
 and crushed ; then sniffing hard for the 
 latest information, he would stir up the 
 nest gingerly till the very last was 
 tempted forth to be killed. When the 
 dozen or more that formed the swarm 
 were thus got rid of, Jack would care- 
 fully dig out the nest and eat first the 
 honey, next the grubs and wax, and 
 last of all the bees he had killed, 
 champing his jaws like a little Pig 
 at a trough, while his long red, snaky
 
 tongue was ever busy lashing the strag- 
 glers into his greedy maw. 
 
 Lan's nearest neighbor was Lou 
 Bonamy, an ex-cowboy and sheep- 
 herder, now a prospecting miner. He 
 lived, with his dog, in a shanty about 
 a mile below Kellyan's shack. Bon- 
 amy had seen Jack "perform on a 
 bee-crew." And one day, as he came 
 to Kellyan's, he called out: " Lan, 
 bring Jack here and we f ll have some 
 fun." He led the way down the stream 
 into the woods. Kellyan followed him, 
 and Jacky waddled at Kellyan's heels, 
 sniffing once in a while to make sure 
 he was not following the wrong pair 
 of legs. 
 
 u There, Jacky, honey honey!" 
 and Bonamy pointed up a tree to an 
 immense wasps' nest. 
 
 Jack cocked his head on one side 
 and swung his nose on the other.
 
 Certainly those things buzzing about 
 looked like bees, though he never be- 
 fore saw a bees' nest of that shape, 
 or in such a place. 
 
 But he scrambled up the trunk. 
 The men waited Lan in doubt as to 
 whether he should let his pet cub go 
 into such danger, Bonamy insisting it 
 would be a capital joke "to spring 
 a surprise" on the little Bear. Jack 
 reached the branch that held the big 
 nest high over the deep water, but went 
 with increasing caution. He had never 
 seen a bees' nest like this; it did not 
 have the right smell. Then he took 
 another step forward on the branch 
 what an awful lot of bees ; another step 
 still they were undoubtedly bees; 
 he cautiously advanced a foot and 
 bees mean honey; a little farther 
 he was now within four feet of the 
 great paper globe. The bees hummed
 
 angrily and Jack stepped back, in doubt. 
 The men girled; then Bonamy called 
 softly and untruthfully : " Honey 
 Jacky honey ! " 
 
 The little Bear, fortunately for him- 
 self, went slowly, since in doubt; he 
 made no sudden move, and he waited 
 a lorn* time, though urged to go on, till 
 the whole swarm of bees had reentered 
 their nest. Now Jacky jerked his nose 
 up, hitched softly out a little farther 
 till right over the fateful paper globe. 
 He reached out, and by lucky chance 
 put one horny little paw-pad over the 
 hole; his other arm grasped the nest, 
 and leaping from the branch he plunged 
 headlong into the pool below, taking 
 the whole thing with him. As soon as 
 he reached the water his hind feet were 
 seen tearing into the nest, kicking it 
 to pieces; then he let it go and struck 
 out for the shore, the nest floating in
 
 ; ' HONEY JACKY HONEY' :
 
 rags down-stream. He ran alongside 
 till the comb lodged against a shallow 
 place, then he plunged in again; the 
 wasps were drowned or too wet to be 
 dangerous, and he carried his prize 
 to the bank in triumph. No honey; of 
 course, that was a disappointment, but 
 there were lots of fat white grubs 
 almost as good and Jack ate till his 
 paunch looked like a little rubber bal- 
 loon. 
 
 "How is that?" chuckled Lan. 
 
 "The laugh is on us," answered ,... 
 Bonamy, with a grimace. < N
 
 7
 
 THE T^OUT POOL
 
 Ill 
 
 ACK. was now growing 
 into a sturdy cub, and 
 he would follow Kellyan 
 even as far as Bonamy's 
 shack. One day, as they 
 watched him rolling head over heels 
 in riotous glee, Kellyan remarked to 
 his friend: u I 'm afraid some one will 
 happen on him an' shoot him in the 
 woods for a wild B'ar." 
 
 " Then why don't you ear-mark him 
 with them thar new sheep-rings ? " was 
 the sheep-man's suggestion.
 
 , ^. Thus it was that, much against his 
 
 *'& will, Jack's ears were punched and he 
 
 %( was decorated with earrings like a prize 
 
 r^^" ram. The intention was good, but 
 
 / x2 \ they were neither ornamental nor com- 
 \ fortable. Jack fought them for days, 
 and when at length he came home 
 trailing a branch that was caught in 
 the jewel of his left ear, Kellyan im- 
 patiently removed them. 
 
 At Bonamy's he formed two new 
 acquaintances, a blustering, bullying 
 old ram that was "in storage n for a 
 sheep-herder acquaintance, and which 
 inspired him with a lasting enmity for 
 everything that smelt of sheep and 
 Bonamy's dog. 
 
 This latter was an active t yapping, 
 unpleasant cur that seemed to think 
 it rare fun to snap at Jacky's heels, 
 then bound out of reach. A joke is a 
 joke, but this horrid beast did not know
 
 where to stop, and Jack's first and sec- 
 ond visits to the Bonamy hut were 
 quite spoiled by the tyranny of the dog. 
 If Jack could have got hold of him he 
 might have settled the account to his 
 own satisfaction, but he was not quick 
 enough for that. His only refuge was 
 up a tree. He soon discovered that he 
 was happier away from Bonamy's,and 
 thenceforth when he saw his protector 
 take the turn that led to the miner's 
 cabin, Jack said plainly with a look, 
 "No, thank you/' and turned back to 
 amuse himself at home. 
 
 His enemy, however, often came 
 with Bonamy to the hunter's cabin, and 
 there resumed his amusement of teas- 
 ing the little Bear. It proved so in- 
 teresting a pursuit that the dog learned 
 to come over on his own account when- 
 ever he felt like having some fun, until 
 at length Jack was kept in continual
 
 terror of theyellow cur. But it all ended 
 very suddenly. 
 
 One hot day, while the two men 
 smoked in front of Kellyan's house, the 
 dog chased Jack up a tree and then 
 stretched himself out for a pleasant 
 nap in the shade of its branches. Jack 
 was forgotten as the dog slumbered, 
 The little Bear kept very quiet for a 
 while, then, as his twinkling brown 
 eyes came back to that hateful dog, 
 that he could neither catch nor get 
 away from, an idea seemed to grow in 
 his small brain. He began to move 
 slowly and silently down the branch 
 until he was over the foe, slumbering, 
 twitching his limbs, and making little 
 sounds that told of dreams of the chase, 
 or, more likely, dreams of tormenting 
 a helpless Bear cub. Of course, Jack 
 knewnothingofthat. His one thought, 
 doubtless, was that he hated that cur
 
 and now he could vent his hate. He 
 came just over the tyrant, and taking 
 careful aim, he jumped and landed 
 squarely on the dog's ribs. It was a 
 terribly rude awakening, but the dog 
 gave no yelp, for the good reason that 
 the breath was knocked out of his 
 body. No bones were broken, though 
 he was barely able to drag himself away 
 in silent defeat, while Jacky played a 
 lively tune on his rear with paws that 
 were fringed with meat-hooks. 
 
 Evidently it was a most excellent 
 plan; and when the dog came around 
 after that, or when Jack went to Bon- 
 amy's with his master, as he soon again 
 ventured to do, he would scheme with 
 more or less success to "get the drop 
 on the purp," as the men put it. The 
 dog now rapidly lost interest in Bear- 
 baiting, and in a short time it was a 
 forgotten sport.
 
 IV 
 
 THE STREAM THAT S/JNK 
 IN THE SAN<D
 
 IV 
 
 ACK. was funny; Jill was 
 sulky. Jack was petted 
 and given freedom, so 
 grew funnier; Jill was 
 beaten and chained, so 
 grew sulkier. She had a bad name 
 and she was often punished for it; it 
 is usually so. 
 
 One day, while Lan was away, Jill 
 got free and joined her brother. They 
 broke into the little storehouse and 
 rioted among the provisions. They 
 gorged themselves with the choicest
 
 sorts ; and the common stuffs, like flour, 
 butter, and baking-powder, brought 
 fifty miles on horseback, were good 
 enough only to be thrown about the 
 ground or rolled in. Jack had just torn 
 open the last bag of flour, and Jill was 
 puzzling over a box of miner's dy- 
 namite, when the doorway darkened 
 and there stood Kellyan, a picture of 
 amazement and wrath. Little Bears 
 do not know anything about pictures, 
 but they have some acquaintance with 
 wrath. They seemed to know that they 
 were sinning, or at least in danger, and 
 Jill sneaked, sulky and snuffy, into a 
 dark corner, where she glared defi- 
 antly at the hunter, Jack put his head 
 on one side, then, quite forgetful of all 
 his misbehavior, he gave a delighted 
 grunt, and scuttling toward the man, 
 he whined, jerked his nose, and held 
 up his sticky, greasy arms to be lifted
 
 
 ' JACK . . . HELD UP HIS STICKY, GREASY ARMS '
 
 and petted as though he were the best 
 little Bear in the world. 
 
 Alas, how likely we are to be taken 
 at our own estimate ! The scowl faded 
 from the hunter's brow as the cheeky 
 and deplorable little Bear began to 
 climb his leg. "You little divil," he 
 growled," I'llbreakyourcussedneck"; 
 but he did not. He lifted the nasty, 
 sticky little beast and fondled him as 
 usual, while Jill, no worse even more 
 excusable, because less trained suf- 
 fered all the terrors of his wrath and 
 was double-chained to the post, so as 
 to have no further chance of such ill- 
 doing. 
 
 This was a day of bad luck for Kell- 
 yan. That morning he had fallen and 
 broken his rifle. Now, on his return 
 home, he found his provisions spoiled, 
 and a new trial was before him. 
 
 A stranger with a small pack-train
 
 called at his place that evening and 
 passed the night with him. Jack was 
 in his most frolicsome mood and 
 amused them both with tricks half- 
 puppy and half-monkey like, and in the 
 morning, when the stranger was leav- 
 ing, he said: "Say, pard, I '11 give you 
 twenty-five dollars for the pair." Lan 
 hesitated, thought of the wasted pro- 
 visions, his empty purse, his broken 
 rifle, and answered : " Make it fifty and 
 it's a go." 
 
 " Shake on it." 
 
 So the bargain was made, the money 
 paid, and in fifteen minutes the stranger 
 was gone with a little Bear in each 
 pannier of his horse. 
 
 Jill was surly and silent; Jack kept 
 up a whining that smote on Lan's 
 heart with a reproachful sound, but 
 he braced himself with, " Guess 
 they 're better out of the way ; could n't
 
 afford another storeroom racket/' and 
 soon the pine forest had swallowed 
 up the stranger, his three led horses, 
 and the two little Bears. 
 
 "Well, I 'm glad he 's gone," said 
 Lan, savagely, though he knew quite 
 well that he was already scourged with 
 repentance. He began to set his shanty 
 in order. He went to the storehouse 
 and gathered the remnants of the pro- 
 visions. After all, there was a good 
 deal left. He walked past the box 
 where Jack used to sleep. How silent 
 itwas! He noted the place where Jack 
 used to scratch the door to get into the 
 cabin, and started at the thought that 
 he should hear it no more, and told 
 himself,with many cuss-words, that he 
 was " mighty glad of it." He pottered 
 about, doing doing oh, anything, 
 for an hour or more ; then suddenly he 
 leaped on his pony and raced madly
 
 down the trail on the track of the 
 stranger. He put the pony hard to it, 
 and in two hours he overtook the train 
 at the crossing of the river. 
 
 "Say, pard, I done wrong. I didn't 
 orter sell them little B'ars, leastwise 
 not Jacky. I I wall, now, I want to 
 call it off. Here 's yer yellow." 
 
 " I 'm satisfied with my end of it/ 1 
 said the stranger, coldly. 
 
 "Well, I ain't," said Lan, with 
 warmth, "an' I want it off." 
 
 "Ye 're wastin' time if that's what 
 ye come for," was the reply. 
 
 "We'll see about that," and Lan 
 threw the gold pieces at the rider and 
 walked over toward the pannier, where 
 Jack was whining joyfully at the sound 
 of the familiar voice. 
 
 " Hands up," said the stranger, with 
 the short, sharp tone of one who 
 had said it before, and Lan turned to
 
 find himself covered with a .45 navy 
 Colt. 
 
 " Ye got the drop on me/' he said; 
 " I ain't got no gun ; but look-a here, 
 stranger, that there little B'ar is the 
 only pard I got; he r s my stiddy com- 
 pany an r we r re almighty fond o' each 
 other. I didn't know how much I was 
 a-goin f to miss him. Now look-a here: 
 take back yer fifty; ye give me Jack 
 an' keep Jill." 
 
 "If ye got five hundred cold plunks 
 in yaller ye kin get him; if not, you 
 walk straight to that tree thar an' 
 don't drop yer hands or turn or I '11 
 fire. Now start." 
 
 Mountain etiquette is very strict, 
 and Lan, being without weapons, must 
 needs obey the rules. He marched to 
 the distant tree under cover of the re- 
 volver. The wail of little Jack smote 
 painfully on his ear, but he knew the
 
 ways of the mountaineers too well to 
 turn or make another offer, and the 
 stranger went on. 
 
 Many a man has spent a thousand 
 dollars in efforts to capture some wild 
 thing and felt it worth the cost for 
 a time. Then he is willing to sell 
 it for half cost, then for quarter, and at 
 length he ends by giving it away. The 
 stranger was vastly pleased with his 
 comical Bear cubs at first, and valued 
 them proportionately; but each day 
 they seemed more troublesome and less 
 amusing, so that when, a week later, at 
 the Bell-Cross Ranch, he was offered 
 a horse for the pair, he readily closed, 
 and their days of hamper-travel were 
 over. 
 
 The owner of the ranch was neither 
 mild, refined, nor patient. Jack, good- 
 natured as he was, partly grasped these 
 facts as he found himself taken from
 
 the pannier, but when it came to get- 
 ting cranky little Jill out of the basket 
 and into a collar, there ensued a scene 
 so unpleasant that no collarwas needed. 
 The ranchman wore his hand in a sling 
 for two weeks, and Jacky at his chain's 
 end paced the ranch-yard alone.
 
 THE 
 
 V 
 
 HBL<D IN THE 
 FOOTHILLS
 
 HE RE was little of pleas- 
 ant interest in the next 
 eighteen monthsof Jack's 
 career. His share of the 
 globe was a twenty-foot 
 circle around a pole in the yard. The 
 blue hills of the offing, the nearer pine 
 grove, and even the ranch-house itself 
 were fixed stars, far away and sending 
 merely faint suggestions of their splen- 
 dors to his not very bright eyes. Even 
 the horses and men were outside his 
 little sphere and related to him about
 
 w??vi 
 
 as much as comets are to the earth. 
 The very tricks that had made him 
 valued were being forgotten as Jack 
 grew up in chains. 
 
 At first a butter-firkin had made him 
 an ample den, but he rapidly passed 
 through the various stages butter- 
 firkin, nail-keg, flour-barrel, oil-barrel 
 and had now to be graded as a good 
 average hogshead Bear, though he was 
 fa* from filling that big round wooden 
 cavern that formed his latest den. 
 
 The ranch hotel lay just where the 
 foothills of the Sierras with theirgroves 
 of live oaks were sloping into the 
 golden plains of the Sacramento. Na- 
 ture had showered on it every wonder- 
 ful gift in her lap. A foreground rich 
 with flowers, luxuriant in fruit, shade 
 anc ^ sun r ^ r y pastures, rushing rivers, 
 an d murmuring rills, were here. Great 
 trees were variants of the view, and the 
 
 -* 
 
 <\\,-
 
 high Sierras to the east overtopped 
 the wondrous plumy forests of their 
 pines with blocks of sculptured blue. 
 Back of the house was a noble river 
 of water from the hills r fouled and 
 chained by sluice and dam, but still a 
 noble stream whose earliest parent rill 
 had gushed from grim old Tallac's 
 slope. 
 
 Things of beauty, life, and color were 
 on every side, and yet most sordid of 
 the human race were the folk about 
 the ranch hotel. To see them in this 
 setting might well raise doubt that any 
 "rise from Nature up to Nature'sGod." 
 No city slum has ever shown a more 
 ignoble crew, and Jack, if his mind 
 were capable of such things, must have 
 graded the two-legged ones lower in 
 proportion as he knew them better. 
 
 Cruelty was his lot, and hate was 
 his response.. Almost the only amus-
 
 ing trick he now did was helping him- 
 self to a drink of beer. He was very 
 fond of beer, and the loafers about the 
 tavern often gave him a bottle to see 
 how dexterously he would twist off the 
 wire and work out the cork. As soon 
 as it popped, he would turn it up be- 
 tween his paws and drink to the last 
 drop. 
 
 The monotony of his life was occa- 
 sionally varied with a dog fight. His 
 tormentors would bring their Bear 
 dogs "to try them on the cub/' It 
 seemed to be very pleasant sport to 
 men and dogs, till Jack learned how 
 to receive them. At first he used to 
 rush furiously at the nearest tormentor 
 until brought up with a jerk at the end 
 of his chain and completely exposed to 
 attack behind from another dog. A 
 month or two entirely changed his 
 method. He learned to sit against the
 
 m 
 
 hogshead and quietly watch the noisy 
 dogs around him, with much show of 
 inattention, making no move, no mat- 
 ter how near they were, until they 
 u bunched," that is, gathered in one 
 place. Then he charged. It was inevi- 
 table that the hind dogs would be the 
 last to jump, and so hindered the front 
 ones; thus Jack would "get" one or 
 more of them, and the game became 
 unpopular. 
 
 When about eighteen months old, 
 and half grown, an incident took place 
 which defied all explanation. Jack had 
 won the name of being dangerous, for 
 he had crippled one man with a blow 
 and nearly killed a tipsy fool who vol- 
 unteered to fight him. A harmless 
 butgood-for-nothingsheep-herderwho 
 loafed about the place got very drunk 
 one night and offended somef ire-eaters. 
 They decided that, as he had no gun,
 
 it would be the proper thing to club 
 him to their hearts' content instead of 
 shooting him full of holes, in the man- 
 ner usually prescribed by their code. 
 Faco Tampico made for the door and 
 staggered out into the darkness. His 
 pursuers were even more drunk, but, 
 bent on mischief, they gave chase, and 
 Faco dodged back of the house and 
 into the yard. The mountaineers had 
 just wit enough to keep out of reach of 
 the Grizzly as they searched about for 
 their victim, but they did not find him. 
 Then they got torches, and making 
 sure that he was not in the yard, were 
 satisfied that he had fallen into the 
 river behind the barn and doubtless was 
 drowned. A few rude jokes, and they 
 returned to the house. As they passed 
 the Grizzly's den their lanterns awoke 
 in his eyes a glint of fire. In the morn- 
 ing the cook, beginning his day, heard
 
 strange sounds in the yard. They came 
 from the Grizzly's den: " Hyar, you, 
 lay over dahr," in sleepy tones; then 
 a deep, querulous grunting. 
 
 The cook went as close as he dared 
 and peeped in. Said the same voice in 
 sleepy tones: "Who are ye crowding 
 caramba!" and a human elbow was 
 seen jerking and pounding ; and again 
 impatient growling in bear-like tones 
 was the response. 
 
 The sun came up and the astonished 
 loafers found it was the missing sheep- 
 herder that was in the Bear's den, 
 calmly sleeping off his debauch in the 
 very cave of death. The men tried to 
 get him out, but the Grizzly plainly 
 showed that they could do so only over 
 his dead body. He charged with vin- 
 dictive fury at any who ventured near, 
 and when they gave up the attempt he 
 lay down at the door of the den on guard.
 
 Glorious 
 
 * I 
 
 V 
 
 At length the sheep-herder came to 
 himself, rose up on his elbows, and 
 realizing that he was in the power of 
 the young Grizzly, he stepped gingerly 
 over his guardian's back and ran off 
 without even saying " Thank you." 
 
 The Fourth of July was at hand now, 
 and the owner of the tavern, growing 
 weary of the huge captive in the yard, 
 announced that he would celebrate In- 
 dependence Day with a grand fight be- 
 tween a "picked and fighting range bull 
 and a ferocious Californian Grizzly/' 
 The news was spread far and wide by 
 the "Grapevine Telegraph." The roof 
 of the stable was covered with seats at 
 fifty cents each. The hay-wagon was 
 half loaded and drawn alongside the 
 corral ; seats here gave a perfect view 
 and were sold at a dollar apiece. The 
 old corral was repaired, new posts put 
 in where needed, and the first thing in
 
 the morning a vicious old bull was 
 herded in and tormented till he was 
 "snuffy" and extremely dangerous. 
 
 Jack meanwhile had been roped, 
 "choked down," and nailed up in his 
 hogshead. His chain and collar were 
 permanently riveted together, so the 
 collar was taken off, as "it would be 
 easy to rope him, if need be, after the 
 bull was through with lnim" 
 
 The hogshead was rolled over to 
 the corral gate and all was ready. 
 
 The cowboys came from far and near 
 in their most gorgeous trappings, and 
 the California cowboy is the peacock of 
 his race. Their best girls were with 
 them, and farmers and ranchmen came 
 for fifty miles to enjoy the Bull-and- 
 Bear fight. Miners from the hills were 
 there, Mexican sheep-herders, store- 
 keepers from Placerville, strangers 
 from Sacramento; town and county,
 
 mountain and plain, were represented. 
 The hay-wagon went so well that 
 another was brought into market. 
 The barn roof was sold out. An omi- 
 nous crack of the timbers somewhat 
 shook the prices, but a couple of 
 strong uprights below restored the 
 market, and all "The Corners" was 
 ready and eager for the great fight. 
 Men who had been raised among 
 cattle were betting on the bull. 
 
 " I tell you, there ain't nothing on 
 earth kin face a big range bull that 
 hez good use of hisself." 
 
 But the hillmen were backing the 
 Bear. " Pooh, what 's a bull to a 
 Grizzly? I tell you, I seen a Grizzly 
 send a horse clean over the Hetch- 
 Hetchy with one clip of his left. Bull ! 
 I '11 bet he '11 never show up in the 
 second round." 
 H> jT\? So they wrangled and bet, while burly 
 
 Rs-V. 
 
 55*v
 
 women, trying to look fetching, gave 
 themselves a variety of airs, were 
 " scared at the whole thing, nervous 
 about the uproar, afraid it would be 
 shocking/' but really were as keenly 
 interested as the men. 
 
 All was ready, and the boss of u The 
 Corners" shouted: " Let her go, boys; 
 house is full an' time 's up!" 
 
 Faco Tampico had managed to tie a 
 bundle of chaparral thorn to the bull's 
 tail, so that the huge creature had 
 literally lashed himself into a frenzy. 
 
 Jack's hogshead meanwhile had 
 been rolled around till he was raging 
 with disgust, and Faco, at the word 
 of command, began to pry open the 
 door. The end of the barrel was close 
 to the fence, the door cleared away; 
 now there was nothing for Jack to do 
 but to go forth and claw the bull. to 
 pieces. But he did not go. The noise,
 
 the uproar, the strangeness of the 
 crowd affected him so that he decided 
 to stay where he was, and the bull- 
 backers raised a derisive cry. Their 
 champion came forward bellowing and 
 sniffing, pausing often to paw the dust. 
 He held his head very high and ap- 
 proached slowly until he came within 
 ten feet of the Grizzly's den ; then, giv- 
 ing a snort, he turned and ran to the 
 other end of the corral. Now it was 
 the Bear-backers' turn to shout. 
 
 But the crowd wanted a fight, and 
 Faco, forgetful of his debt to Grizzly 
 Jack, dropped a bundle of Fourth of 
 July crackers into the hogshead by 
 way of the bung. "Crack!" and Jack 
 jumped up. "Fizz crack c-r-r-r- 
 a-a-c-k, cr-k-crk-ck ! " and Jack in sur- 
 prise rushed from his den into the 
 arena. The bull was standing in a 
 magnificent attitude there in the mid-
 
 die, but when he saw the Bear spring 
 toward him, he gave two mighty snorts 
 and retreated as far as he could, amid 
 cheers and hisses. 
 
 Perhaps the two main characteris- 
 tics of the Grizzly are the quickness 
 with which he makes a plan and the 
 vigor with which he follows it up. Be- 
 fore the bull had reached the far side 
 of the corral Jack seemed to know the 
 wisest of courses. His pig-like eyes 
 swept the fence in a flash took in the 
 most climbable part, a place where a 
 cross-piece was nailed on in the mid- 
 dle. In three seconds he was there, in 
 two seconds he was over, and in one 
 second he dashed through the running, 
 scattering mob and was making for the 
 hills as fast as his strong and supple 
 legscouldcarryhim. Women screamed, 
 men yelled, and dogs barked; there 
 was a wild dash for the horses tied far
 
 from the scene of the fight, to spare 
 their nerves, but the Grizzly had three 
 hundred yards' start, five hundred yards 
 even, and before the gala mob gave out 
 a long and flying column of reckless, 
 riotous riders, the Grizzly had plunged 
 into the river, a flood no dog cared to 
 face, and had reached the chaparral 
 and the broken ground in line for the 
 piney hills. In an hour the ranch hotel, 
 with its galling chain, its cruelties, and 
 its brutal human beings, was a thing of 
 the past, shut out by the hills of his 
 youth, cut off by the river of his cub- 
 hood, the river grown from the rill born 
 in his birthplace away in Tallac's pines. 
 That Fourth of July was a glorious 
 Fourth it was Independence Day for 
 Grizzly Jack.
 
 VI 
 
 THE <B^OKEN <DAM
 
 VI 
 
 WOUNDED deer usu- 
 ally works downhill, a 
 hunted Grizzly climbs. 
 Jack knew nothing of the 
 country, but he did know 
 that he wanted to get away from that 
 mob, so he sought the roughest 
 ground, and climbed and climbed. 
 
 He had been alone for hours, trav- 
 eling up and on. The plain was lost 
 to view. He was among the granite 
 rocks, the pine trees, and the berries 
 now, and he gathered in food from the
 
 low bushes with dexterous paws and 
 tongue as he traveled, but stopped not 
 at all until among the tumbled rock, 
 where the sun heat of the afternoon 
 seemed to command rather than invite 
 him to rest. 
 
 The night was black when he awoke, 
 but Bears are not afraid of the dark 
 they rather fear the day and he swung 
 along, led, as before, by the impulse to 
 get up above the danger; and thus at 
 last he reached the highest range, the 
 region .of his native Tallac. 
 
 He had but little of the usual train- 
 ing of a young Bear, but he had a few 
 instincts, his birthright, that stood him 
 well in all the main issues, and his nose 
 was an excellent guide. Thus he man- 
 aged to live, and wild-life experiences 
 coming fast gave his mind the chance 
 to grow. 
 
 Jack's memory for faces and facts
 
 was not at all good, but his memory 
 for smells was imperishable. He had 
 forgotten Bonamy's cur, but the smell 
 of Bonamy's cur would instantly have 
 thrilled him with the old feelings. He 
 had forgotten the cross ram, but the 
 smell of "Old Woolly Whiskers" would 
 have inspired him at once with anger 
 and hate; and one evening when the 
 wind came richly laden with ram smell 
 it was like a bygone life returned. He 
 had been living on roots and berries 
 for weeks and now began to experience 
 that hankering for flesh that comes on 
 every candid vegetarian with danger- 
 ous force from time to time. The 
 ram smell seemed an answer to it. 
 So down he went by night (no sensible 
 Bear travels by day), and the smell 
 brought him from the pines on the hill- 
 side to an open rocky dale. 
 
 Long before he got there a curious
 
 light shone up. He knew what that 
 was; he had seen the two-legged ones 
 make it near the ranch of evil smells 
 and memories, so feared it not. He 
 swung along from ledge to ledge in 
 silence and in haste, for the smell of 
 sheep grew stronger at every stride, 
 and when he reached a place above 
 the fire he blinked his eyes to find the 
 sheep. The smell was strong now; it 
 was rank, but no sheep to be seen. 
 Instead he saw in the valley a stretch 
 of gray water that seemed to reflect the 
 stars, and yet they neither twinkled 
 nor rippled; there was a murmuring 
 sound from the sheet, but it seemed 
 not at all like that of the lakes around. 
 The stars were clustered chiefly 
 near the fire, and were less like stars 
 than spots of the phosphorescent wood 
 that are scattered on the ground when 
 one knocks a rotten stump about to
 
 lick up its swarms of wood-ants. So 
 Jack came closer, and at last so close 
 that even his dull eyes could see. The 
 great gray lake was a flock of sheep 
 and the phosphorescent specks were 
 their eyes. Close by the fire was a log 
 or a low rough bank that turned out 
 to be the shepherd and his dog. Both 
 were objectionable features, but the 
 sheep extended far from them. Jack 
 knew that his business was with the 
 flock. 
 
 He came very close to the edge and 
 found them surrounded by a low hedge 
 of chaparral; but what little things 
 they were compared with that great 
 and terrible ram that he dimly re- 
 membered ! The blood-thirst came on 
 him. He swept the low hedge aside, 
 charged into the mass of sheep that 
 surged away from him with rushing 
 sounds of feet and murmuring groans,
 
 struck down one, seized it, and turn- 
 ing away, he scrambled back up the 
 mountains. 
 
 The sheep-herder leaped to his 
 feet, fired his gun, and the dog came 
 running over the solid mass of sheep, 
 barking loudly. But Jack was gone. 
 The sheep-herder contented himself 
 with making two or three fires, shoot- 
 ing off his gun, and telling his beads. 
 
 That was Jack's first mutton, but 
 it was not the last. Thenceforth when 
 he wanted a sheep and it became a 
 regular need he knew he had merely 
 to walk along the ridge till his nose 
 said, "Turn, and go so/' for smelling 
 is believing in Bear life.
 
 VII 
 
 THE FRESHET
 
 fl 
 
 VII 
 
 EDRO TAMPICO and 
 his brother Facowerenot 
 in the sheep business for 
 any maudlin sentiment. 
 They did not march 
 ahead of their beloveds waving a 
 crook as wand of office or appealing 
 to the esthetic sides of their ideal fol- 
 lowers with a tabret and pipe. Far 
 from leading the flock with a symbol, 
 they drove them with an armful of ever- 
 ready rocks and clubs. They were not 
 shepherds ; they were sheep-herders.
 
 They did not view their charges as 
 loved and loving followers, but as four- 
 legged cash ; each sheep was worth a 
 dollar bill. They were cared for only 
 as a man cares for his money, and 
 counted after each alarm or day of 
 travel. It is not easy for any one to 
 count three thousand sheep, and for 
 a Mexican sheep-herder it is an im- 
 possibility. But he has a simple de- 
 vice which answers the purpose. In 
 an ordinary flock about one sheep in 
 a hundred is a black one. If a portion 
 of the flock has gone astray, there is 
 likely to be a black one in it. So by 
 counting his thirty black sheep each 
 day Tampico kept rough count of his 
 entire flock. 
 
 Grizzly Jack had killed but one 
 sheep that first night. On his next 
 visit he killed two, and on the next 
 but one, yet that last one happened to
 
 be black, and when Tampico found 
 but twenty-nine of its kind remaining 
 he safely reasoned that he was losing 
 sheep according to the index a hun- 
 dred were gone. 
 
 u If the land is unhealthy move out n 
 is ancient wisdom. Tampico filled his 
 pocket with stones, and reviling his 
 charges in all their walks in life and 
 history, he drove them from the coun- 
 try that was evidently the range of 
 a sheep-eater. At night he found a 
 walled-in canon, a natural corral, and 
 the woolly scattering swarm, condensed 
 into a solid fleece, went pouring into 
 the gap, urged intelligently by the dog 
 and idiotically by the man. At one side 
 of the entrance Tampico made his fire. 
 Some thirty feet away was a sheer wall 
 of rock. 
 
 Ten miles may be a long day's 
 travel for a wretched wool-plant, but
 
 it is little more than two hours for a 
 Grizzly. It is farther than eyesight, 
 but it is well within nosesight, and 
 Jack, feeling mutton-hungry, had not 
 the least difficulty in following his 
 prey. His supper was a little later than 
 usual, but his appetite was the better 
 for that. There was no alarm in camp, 
 so Tampico had fallen asleep. A 
 growl from the dog awakenedhim. He 
 started up to behold the most appal- 
 ling creature that he had ever seen or 
 imagined, a monster Bear standing on 
 his hind legs, and thirty feet high at 
 least. The dog fled in terror, but was 
 valor itself compared with Pedro. He 
 was so frightened that he could not 
 express the prayer that was in his 
 breast: " Blessed saints, let him have 
 every sin-blackened sheep in the band, 
 but spare your poor worshiper/' and 
 he hid his head; so never learned that
 
 THE THIRTY-FOOT BEAR
 
 he saw, not a thirty-foot Bear thirty 
 feet away, but a seven-foot Bear not 
 far from the fire and casting a black 
 thirty-foot shadow on the smooth rock 
 behind. And, helpless with fear, poor 
 Pedro groveled in the dust. 
 
 When he looked up the giant Bear 
 was gone. There was a rushing of 
 the sheep. A small body of them scur- 
 ried out of the canon into the night, 
 and after them went an ordinary-sized 
 Bear, undoubtedly a cub of the mon- 
 ster. 
 
 Pedro had been neglecting his 
 prayers for some months back, but he 
 afterward assured his father confessor 
 that on this night he caught up on all 
 arrears and had a goodly surplus be- 
 fore morning. At sunrise he left his 
 dog in charge of the flock and set out 
 to seek the runaways, knowing, first, 
 that there was little danger in the day-
 
 time, second, that some would escape. 
 The missing ones were a considerable 
 number, raised to the second power 
 indeed, for two more black ones were 
 gone. Strange to tell, they had not 
 scattered, and Pedro trailed them a 
 mile or more in the wilderness till he 
 reached another very small box canon. 
 Here he found the missing flock 
 perched in various places on boulders 
 and rocky pinnacles as high up as 
 they could get. He was delighted and 
 worked for half a minute on his bank 
 surplus of prayers, but was sadly upset 
 to find that nothing would induce the 
 sheep to come down from the rocks 
 or leave that canon. One or two that 
 he manceuvered as far as the outlet 
 sprang back in fear from something on 
 the ground, which, on examination, he 
 found yes, he swears to this to be 
 the deep-worn, fresh-worn pathway of
 
 a Grizzly from one wall across to the 
 other. All the sheep were now back 
 again beyond his reach. Pedro began 
 to fear for himself, so hastily returned 
 to the main flock. He was worse off 
 than ever now. The other Grizzly 
 was a Bear of ordinary size and ate a 
 sheep each night, but the new one, 
 into whose range he had entered, was 
 a monster, a Bear mountain, requiring 
 forty or fifty sheep to a meal. The 
 sooner he was out of this the better. 
 It was now late, too late, and the 
 sheep were too tired to travel, so Pedro 
 made unusual preparations for the 
 night : two big fires at the entrance to 
 the canon, and a platform fifteen feet 
 up in a tree for his own bed. The dog 
 could look out for himself.
 
 VIII 
 
 IN THE CANON
 
 K
 
 VIII 
 
 EDRO knew that the big 
 Bear was coming ; for the 
 fifty sheep in the little 
 canon were not more than 
 an appetizer for such a 
 creature. Heloaded hisguncarefullyas 
 a matter of habit and went up-stairs to 
 bed. Whatever defects his dormitory 
 had the ventilation was good, and 
 Pedro was soon a-shiver. He looked 
 down in envy at his dog curled up by 
 the fire ; then he prayed that the saints 
 might intervene and direct the steps of
 
 the Bear toward the flock of some 
 neighbor, and carefully specified the 
 neighbor to avoid mistakes. He tried 
 to pray himself to sleep. It had never 
 failed in church when he was at the 
 Mission, so why now? But for once 
 it did not succeed. The fearsome hour 
 of midnight passed, then the gray dawn, 
 the hour of dull despair, was near. 
 Tampico felt it, and a long groan vi- 
 brated through his chattering teeth. 
 His dog leaped up, barked savagely, 
 the sheep began to stir, then went 
 backing into the gloom ; there was a 
 rushing of stampeding sheep and a 
 huge, dark form loomed up. Tampico 
 grasped his gun and would have fired, 
 when it dawned on him with sicken- 
 ing horror that the Bear was thirty feet 
 high, his platform was only fifteen, just 
 a convenient height for the monster. 
 None but a madman would invite the
 
 Bear to eat by shooting at him now. 
 So Pedro flattened himself face down- 
 ward on the platform, and, with his 
 mouth to a crack, he poured forth 
 prayers to his representative in the 
 sky, regretting his unconventional at- 
 titude and profoundly hoping that it 
 would be overlooked as unavoidable, 
 and that somehow the petitions would 
 get the right direction after leaving the 
 under side of the platform. 
 
 In the morning he had proof that 
 his prayers had been favorably re- 
 ceived. There was a Bear-track, in- 
 deed, but the number of black sheep 
 was unchanged, so Pedro filled his 
 pocket with stones and began his usual 
 torrent of remarks as he drove the 
 flock. 
 
 "Hyah, Capitan you huajalote," 
 as the dog paused to drink. " Bring 
 back those ill-descended sons of per-
 
 dition," and a stone gave force to the 
 order, which the dog promptly obeyed. 
 Hovering about the great host of 
 grumbling hoofy locusts, he kept them 
 together and on the move, while Pedro 
 played the part of a big, noisy, and 
 troublesome second. 
 
 As they journeyed through the open 
 country the sheep-herder's eye fell on 
 a human figure, a man sitting on a 
 rock above them to the left. Pedro 
 gazed inquiringly; the man saluted 
 and beckoned. This meant u friend " ; 
 had he motioned him to pass on it might 
 have meant, u Keep away or I shoot." 
 Pedro walked toward him a little way 
 and sat down. The man came forward. 
 It was Lan Kellyan, the hunter. 
 
 Each was glad of a chance to "talk 
 with a human" and to get the news. 
 The latest concerning the price of 
 wool, the Bull-and-Bear fiasco, and,
 
 above all, the monster Bear that had 
 killed Tampico's sheep, afforded topics 
 of talk. " Ah, a Bear devill de hell- 
 brute a Gringo Bear pardon, my 
 amigo, I mean a very terroar." 
 
 As the sheep-herder enlarged on the 
 marvelous cunning of the Bear that 
 had a private sheep corral of his own, 
 and the size of the monster, forty or 
 fifty feet high now for such Bears 
 are of rapid and continuous growth 
 Kellyan's eye twinkled and he said: 
 
 " Say, Pedro, I believe you once 
 lived pretty nigh the Hassayampa, 
 did n't you?" 
 
 This does not mean that that is a 
 country of great Bears, but was an 
 allusion to the popular belief that any 
 one who tastes a single drop of the 
 Hassayampa River can never after- 
 ward tell the truth. Some scientists 
 who have looked into the matter aver
 
 that this wonderful property is common 
 to the Rio Grande as well as the Has- 
 sayampa, and, indeed, all the rivers of 
 Mexico, as well as their branches, and 
 the springs, wells, ponds, lakes, and 
 irrigation ditches. However that may 
 be, the Hassayampa is the best-known 
 stream of this remarkable peculiarity. 
 The higher one goes, the greater its 
 potency, and Pedro was from the head- 
 waters. But he protested by all the 
 saints that his story was true. He 
 pulled out a little bottle of garnets, got 
 by glancing over the rubbish laid about 
 their hills by the desert ants ; he thrust 
 it back into his wallet and produced 
 another bottle with a small quantity of 
 gold-dust, also gathered at the rare 
 times when he was not sleepy, and the 
 sheep did not need driving, watering, 
 stoning, or reviling. 
 
 " Here, I bet dat it ees so." 
 
 Gold is a loud talker.
 
 Kellyan paused. " I can't coveryour 
 bet, Pedro, but I '11 kill your Bear for 
 what 's in the bottle." 
 
 " I takeyou/' said the sheep-herder, 
 "eef you breeng back dose sheep dat 
 are now starving up on de rocks of de 
 canon of Baxstaire's." 
 
 The Mexican's eyes twinkled as the 
 white man closed on the offer. The 
 gold in the bottle, ten or fifteen dollars, 
 was a trifle, and yet enough to send 
 the hunter on the quest enough to 
 lure him into the enterprise, and that 
 was all that was needed. Pedro knew 
 his man: get him going and profit 
 would count for nothing; having put 
 his hand to the plow Lan Kellyan 
 would finish the furrow at any cost; 
 he was incapable of turning back. And 
 again he took up the trail of Grizzly 
 Jack, his one-time "pard," now grown 
 beyond his ken. 
 
 The hunter went straight to Bax-
 
 ter's canon and found the sheep high- 
 perched upon the rocks. By the en- 
 trance he found the remains of two 
 of them recently devoured, and about 
 them the tracks of a medium-sized 
 Bear. He saw nothing of the path- 
 way the dead-line made by the 
 Grizzly to keep the sheep prisoners 
 till he should need them. But the 
 sheep were standing in stupid terror 
 on various high places, apparently will- 
 ing to starve rather than come down. 
 Lan dragged one down ; at once it 
 climbed up again. He now realized 
 the situation, so made a small pen of 
 chaparral outside the canon, and drag- 
 ging the dull creatures down one at a 
 time, he carried them except one- 
 out of the prison of death and into the 
 pen. Next he made a hasty fence 
 across the canon's mouth, and turn- 
 ing the sheep out of the pen, he drove
 
 them by slow stages toward the rest 
 of the flock. 
 
 Only six or seven miles across coun- 
 try, but it was late night when Lan 
 arrived. 
 
 Tampico gladly turned over half of 
 the promised dust. That night they 
 camped together, and, of course, no 
 Bear appeared. 
 
 In the morning Lan went back to 
 the canon and found, as expected, that 
 the Bear had returned and killed the 
 remaining sheep. 
 
 The hunter piled the rest of the 
 carcasses in an open place, lightly 
 sprinkled the Grizzly's trail with some 
 very dry brush, then making a plat- 
 form some fifteen feet from the ground 
 in a tree, he rolled up in his blanket 
 there and slept. 
 
 An old Bear will rarely visit a place 
 three nights in succession ; a cunning
 
 Bear will avoid a trail that has been 
 changed overnight; a skilful Bear 
 goes in absolute silence. But Jack 
 was neither old, cunning, nor skilful. 
 He came for the fourth time to the 
 canon of the sheep. He followed his 
 old trail straight to the delicious mut- 
 ton bones. He found the human trail, 
 but there was something about it that 
 rather attracted him. He strode along 
 on the dry boughs. "Crack ! "went one ; 
 "crack-crack ! M wentanother;andKell- 
 yan arose on the platform and strained 
 his eyes in the gloom till a dark form 
 moved into the opening by the bones 
 of the sheep. The hunter's rifle 
 cracked, the Bear snorted, wheeled 
 into the bushes, and, crashing away, 
 was gone.
 
 IX 
 
 AN<D
 
 IX 
 
 HAT was Jack's baptism 
 of fire, for the rifle had 
 cut a deep flesh-wound 
 in his back. Snorting 
 with pain and rage, he 
 tore through the bushes and traveled 
 on for an hour or more, then lay down 
 and tried to lick the wound, but it was 
 beyond reach. He could only rub it 
 against a log. He continued his jour- 
 ney back toward Tallac, and there, in 
 a cave that was formed of tumbled 
 rocks, he lay down to rest. He was
 
 still rolling about in pain when the 
 sun was high and a strange smell of 
 fire came searching through the cave; 
 it increased, and volumes of blinding 
 smoke were about him. It grew so 
 choking that he was forced to move, 
 but it followed him till he could bear 
 it no longer, and he dashed out of 
 another of the ways that led into the 
 cavern. As he went he caught a dis- 
 tant glimpse of a man throwing wood 
 on the fire by the in-way, and the whiff 
 that the wind brought him said : " This 
 is the man that was last night watch- 
 ing the sheep." Strange as it may 
 seem, the woods were clear of smoke 
 except for a trifling belt that floated 
 in the trees, and Jack went striding 
 away in peace. He passed over the 
 ridge, and finding berries, ate the first 
 meal he had known since killing his 
 last sheep. He had wandered on,
 
 gathering fruit and digging roots, for 
 an hour or two, when the smoke grew 
 blacker, the smell of fire stronger. He 
 worked away from it, but in no haste. 
 The birds, deer, and wood hares 
 were now seen scurrying past him. 
 There was a roaring in the air. It 
 grew louder, was coming nearer, and 
 Jack turned to stride after the wood 
 things that fled. 
 
 The whole forest was ablaze; the 
 wind was rising, and the flames, gain- 
 ing and spreading, were flying now like 
 wild horses. Jack had no place in his 
 brain for such a thing; but his in- 
 stinct warned him to shun that com- 
 ingroaring that sent above dark clouds 
 and flying fire-flakes, and messengers 
 of heat below, so he fled before it, as 
 the forest host was doing. Fast as he 
 went, and few animals can outrun a 
 Grizzly in rough country, the hot hur-
 
 ricane was gaining on him. His sense 
 of danger had grown almost to terror, 
 terror of a kind that he had never 
 known before, for here there was no- 
 thing he could fight; nothing that he 
 could resist. The flames were all 
 around him now; birds without num- < 
 her, hares, and deer had gone down 
 before the red horror. He was plung- 
 ing wildly on through chaparral and 
 manzanita thickets that held all feebler 
 things until the fury seized them ; his 
 hair was scorching, his wound was 
 forgotten, and he thought only of es- 
 cape when the brush ahead opened, 
 and the Grizzly, smoke-blinded, half 
 roasted, plunged down a bank and into 
 a small clear pool. The fur on his back 
 said "hiss," for it was sizzling-hot. 
 Down below he went, gulping the cool 
 drink, wallowing in safety and unheat. 
 Down below the surface he crouched
 
 as lorn* as his lungs would bear the 
 strain, then slowly and cautiously he 
 raised his head. The sky above was 
 one great sheet of flame. Sticks aflame 
 and flying embers came in hissing 
 showers on the water. The air was 
 hot, but breathable at times, and he 
 filled his lungs till he had difficulty in 
 keeping his body down below. Other 
 creatures there were in the pool, some 
 burnt, some dead, some small and in 
 the margin, some bigger in the deeper 
 places, and one of them was close be- 
 side him. Oh, he knew that smell ; fire 
 all Sierra's woods ablaze could 
 not disguise the hunter who had shot 
 at him from the platform, and, though 
 he did not know this, the hunter really 
 who had followed him all day, and who 
 had tried to smoke him out of his den 
 and thereby set the woods ablaze. 
 Here they were, face to face, in the
 
 deepest end of the little pool; they 
 were only ten feet apart and could not 
 get more than twenty feet apart. The 
 flames grew unbearable. The Bear 
 and man each took a hasty breath and 
 bobbed below the surface, each won- 
 dering, according to his intelligence, 
 what the other would do. In half a 
 minute both came up again, each re- 
 lieved to find the other no nearer. Each 
 tried to keep his nose and one eye 
 above the water. But the fire was rag- 
 ing hot; they had to dip under and 
 stay as long as possible. 
 
 The roaring of the flame was like 
 a hurricane. A huge pine tree came 
 crashing down across the pool; it 
 barely missed the man. The splash of 
 water quenched the blazes for the 
 most part, but it gave off such a heat 
 that he had to move a little nearer 
 to the Bear, Another fell at an angle, 
 
 'K 

 
 killing a coyote, and crossing the first 
 tree. They blazed fiercely at their 
 junction, and the Bear edged from it 
 a little nearer the man. Now they were 
 within touching distance. His useless 
 gun was lying in shallow water near 
 shore, but the man had his knife 
 ready, ready for self-defense. 1 1 was not 
 needed; the fiery power had pro- 
 claimed a peace. Bobbing up and dodg- 
 ing under, keeping a nose in the air 
 and an eye on his foe, each spent an 
 hour or more. The red hurricane 
 passed on. The smoke was bad in 
 the woods, but no longer intolerable, 
 and as the Bear straightened up in 
 the pool to move away into shallower 
 water and off into the woods, the man 
 got a glimpse of red blood streaming 
 from the shaggy back and dyeing the 
 pool. The blood on the trail had not 
 escaped him. He knew that this was
 
 the Bear of Baxter's canon, this was 
 the Gringo Bear, but he did not know 
 that this was also his old-time Grizzly 
 Jack. He scrambled out of the pond, 
 on the other side from that taken by 
 the Grizzly, and, hunter and hunted, 
 they went their diverse ways.
 
 X 
 
 THE
 
 X 
 
 LL the west slopes of 
 Tallac were swept by 
 the fire, and Kellyan 
 moved to a new hut on 
 the east side, where still 
 were green patches ; so did the grouse 
 and the rabbit and the coyote, and 
 so didGrizzlyJack. His wound healed 
 quickly, but his memory of the rifle 
 smell continued; it was a dangerous 
 smell, a new and horrible kind of smoke 
 one he was destined to know too 
 well ; one, indeed, he was soon to meet
 
 again. Jack was wandering down the 
 side of Tallac, following a sweet odor 
 that called up memories of former joys 
 the smell of honey, though he did 
 not know it. A flock of grouse got 
 leisurely out of his way and flew to a 
 low tree, when he caught a whiff of 
 man smell, then heard a crack like 
 thatwhich had stung him in the sheep- 
 corral, and down fell one of the grouse 
 close beside him. He stepped forward 
 to sniff just as a man also stepped for- 
 ward from the opposite bushes. They 
 were within ten feet of each other, and 
 they recognized each other, for the 
 hunter saw that it was a singed Bear 
 with a wounded side, and the Bear 
 smelt the rifle-smoke and the leather 
 clothes. Quick as a Grizzly that is, 
 quicker than a flash the Bear reared. 
 The man sprang backward, tripped 
 and fell, and the Grizzly was upon
 
 him. Face to earth the hunter lay like 
 dead, but, ere he struck, Jack caught 
 a scent that made him pause. He 
 smelt his victim, and the smell was 
 the rolling back of curtains or the con- 
 juring up of a past. The days in the 
 hunter's shanty were forgotten, but 
 the feelings of those days were ready 
 to take command at the bidding of 
 the nose. His nose drank deep of 
 a draft that quelled all rage. The 
 Grizzly's humor changed. He turned 
 and left the hunter quite unharmed. 
 
 Oh, blind one with the gun! All 
 he could find in explanation was: 
 "You kin never tell what a Grizzly 
 will do, but it ? s good play to lay low 
 when he has you cornered." It never 
 came into his mind to credit the shaggy 
 brute with an impulse born of good, 
 and when he told the sheep-herder of 
 his adventure in the pool, of his hit-
 
 ting high on the body and of losing 
 the trail in the forest fire "down by 
 the shack, when he turned up sudden 
 and had me I thought my last day was 
 come. Why he did n r t swat me, I don't 
 know. But I tell you this, Pedro: the 
 B'ar what killed your sheep on the 
 upper pasture and in the sheep canon 
 isthesame. No two B'ars has hind feet 
 alike when you get a clear-cut track, 
 and this holds out even right along." 
 
 "What about the fifty-foot B'ar I 
 saw wit' mine own eyes, caramba?" 
 
 "That must have been the night 
 you were working a kill-care with your 
 sheep-herder's delight. But don't 
 worry; I '11 get him yet." 
 
 So Kellyan set out on a long hunt, 
 and put in practice every trick he 
 knew for the circumventing of a Bear. 
 Lou Bonamy was invited to join with 
 him, for his yellow cur was a trailer.
 
 They packed four horses with stuff 
 and led them over the ridge to the 
 east side of Tallac, and down away 
 from Jack's Peak, that Kellyan had 
 named in honor of his Bear cub, to- 
 ward Fallen Leaf Lake. The hunter 
 believed that here he would meet not 
 only the Gringo Bear that he was 
 after, but would also stand a chance 
 of finding others, for the place had 
 escaped the fire. 
 
 They quickly camped, setting up 
 their canvas sheet for shade more than 
 against rain, and, after picketing their 
 horses in a meadow, went out to hunt. 
 By circling around Leaf Lake they 
 got a good idea of the wild popula- 
 tion : plenty of deer, some Black Bear, 
 and one or two Cinnamon and Grizzly, 
 and one track along the shore that 
 Kellyan pointed to, briefly saying: 
 " That's him."
 
 "Ye mean old Pedro's Gringo? " 
 "Yep. That's the fifty-foot Grizzly. 
 I suppose he stands maybe seven foot 
 high in daylight, but,'course,B'ars pulls 
 out lorn* at night/' 
 
 So the yellow cur was put on the 
 track, and led away with funny little 
 yelps, while the two hunters came 
 stumbling along behind him as fast as 
 they could, calling, at times, to the dog 
 not to go so fast, and thus making a 
 good deal of noise, which Gringo Jack 
 heard a mile away as he ambled along 
 the mountain-side above them. He 
 was following his nose to many good 
 and eatable things, and therefore going 
 up-wind. This noise behind was so 
 peculiar that he wanted to smell it, 
 and to do that he swung along back 
 over the clamor, then descended to 
 the down-wind side, and thus he came 
 on the trail of the hunters and their dog.
 
 His nose informed him at once. 
 Here was the hunter he once felt 
 kindly toward and two other smells of 
 far-back both hateful ; all three were 
 now the smell-marks of foes, and a 
 rumbling "woof" was the expressive 
 sound that came from his throat. 
 
 That dog-smell in particular roused 
 him, though it is very sure he had for- 
 gotten all about the dog, and Gringo's 
 feet went swiftly and silently, yes, with 
 marvelous silence, along the tracks of 
 the enemy. 
 
 On rough, rocky ground a dog is 
 scarcely quicker than a Bear, and since 
 the dog was constantly held back by 
 the hunters the Bear had no difficulty 
 in overtaking them. Only a hundred 
 yards or so behind he continued, partly 
 in curiosity, pursuing the dog that was 
 pursuing him, till a shift of the wind 
 brought the dog a smell-call from the
 
 Bear behind. He wheeled ofcouioe 
 you never follow trail smell when you 
 can find body smell and came gallop- 
 ing back with a different yapping and 
 a bristling in his mane. 
 
 " Don't understand that/' whispered 
 Bonamy. 
 
 " It's B'ar, all right/' was the an- 
 swer; and the dog, bounding high, 
 went straight toward the foe. 
 
 Jack heard him coming, smelt him 
 coming, and at length saw him coming; 
 but it was the smell that roused him 
 the full scent of the bully of his youth. 
 The anger of those days came on him, 
 and cunning enough to make him lurk 
 in ambush: he backed to one side of 
 the trail where it passed under a root, 
 and, as the little yellow tyrant came, 
 Jack hit him once, hit him as he had 
 done some years before, but now with 
 the power of a grown Grizzly. No
 
 yelp escaped the dog, no second blow 
 was needed. The hunters searched 
 in silence for half an hour before they 
 found the place and learned the tale 
 from many silent tongues. 
 
 " I '11 get even with him," muttered 
 Bonamy, for he loved that contempt- 
 ible little yap-cur. 
 
 " That's Pedro's Gringo, all right. 
 He's sure cunning to run his own back 
 track. But we '11 fix him yet," and 
 they vowed to kill that Bear or "get 
 done up" themselves. 
 
 Without a dog, they must make a new 
 plan of hunting. They picked out two 
 or three good places for pen-traps, 
 where trees stood in pairs to make 
 the pillars of the den. Then Kellyan 
 returned to camp for the ax while 
 Bonamy prepared the ground. 
 
 As Kellyan came near their open 
 camping-place, he stopped from habit
 
 and peeped ahead for a minute. He 
 was about to go down when a move- 
 ment caught his eye. There, on his 
 haunches, sat a Grizzly, looking down 
 
 I on the camp. The singed brown of 
 / / ^ his head and neck, and the white spot 
 
 \ , on each side of his back, left no doubt 
 f . f ^J^ that Kellyan and Pedro's Gringo were 
 again face to face. It was a long shot, 
 but the rifle went up, and as he was 
 \ about to fire, the Bear suddenly bent 
 
 / kis head down, and lifting his hind 
 paw, began to lick at a little cut. This 
 brought the head and chest nearly in 
 line with Kellyan a sure shot; so 
 sure that he fired hastily. He missed 
 the head and the shoulder, but, strange 
 to say, he hit the Bear in the mouth 
 and in the hind toe, carrying away one 
 of his teeth and the side of one toe. 
 The Grizzly sprang up with a snort, 
 and came tearing down the hill toward
 
 the hunter. Kellyan climbed a tree and 
 got ready, but the camp lay just be- 
 tween them, and the Bear charged on 
 that instead. One sweep of his paw 
 and the canvas tent was down and torn. 
 Whack ! and tins went flying this way. 
 Whisk! and flour-sacks went that. 
 Rip! and the flour went off like 
 smoke. Slap crack ! and a boxful of 
 odds and ends was scattered into the 
 fire. Whack! and a bagful of cartridges 
 was tumbled after it. Whang! and the 
 water-pail was crushed. Pat-pat-pat! 
 and all the cups were in useless bits. 
 Kellyan, safe up the tree, got no fair 
 view to shoot could only wait till the 
 storm-center cleared a little. The Bear 
 chanced on a bottle of something with 
 a cork loosely in it. He seized it 
 adroitly in his paws, twisted out the 
 cork, and held the bottle up to his mouth 
 with a comical dexterity that told of
 
 if/ 
 
 previous experience. But, whatever it 
 was, it did not please the invader; he 
 spat and spilled it out, and f lung the bot- 
 tle down as Kellyan gazed, astonished. 
 A remarkable " crack ! crack ! crack ! rr 
 from the fire was heard now, and the 
 cartridges began to go off in ones, twos, 
 fours, and numbers unknown. Gringo 
 whirled about; he had smashed every- 
 thing in view. He did not like that 
 Fourth of July sound, so, springing to a 
 bank, he went bumping and heaving 
 down to the meadow and had just stam- 
 peded the horses when, for the first 
 time, Gringo exposed himself to the 
 hunter's aim. His flank was grazed 
 by another leaden stinger, and Gringo, 
 wheeling, went off into the woods. 
 
 The hunters were badly defeated. 
 It was fully a week before they had 
 repaired all the damage done by their 
 shaggy visitor and were once more at
 
 
 Fallen Leaf Lake with a new store of 
 ammunition and provisions, their tent 
 repaired, and their camp outfit com- 
 plete. They said little about their vow 
 to kill that Bear. Both took for granted 
 that it was a fight to the finish. They 
 never said, " // we get him," but, 
 "When we get him."
 
 
 XI 
 THE F0<7?>
 
 XI 
 
 RINGO, savage, but still 
 discreet, scaled the long 
 mountain-side when he 
 left the ruined camp, and 
 afar on the southern 
 slope he sought a quiet bed in a 
 manzanita thicket, there to lie down 
 and nurse his wounds and ease his 
 head so sorely aching with the jar of 
 his shattered tooth. There he lay for 
 a day and a night, sometimes in great 
 pain, and at no time inclined to stir. 
 But, driven forth by hunger on the
 
 second day, he quit his couch and, 
 making for the nearest ridge, he fol- 
 lowed that and searched the wind with 
 his nose. The smell of a mountain 
 hunter reached him. Not knowing just 
 what to do he sat down and did nothing. 
 The smell grew stronger, he heard 
 sounds of trampling; closer they came, 
 then the brush parted and a man 
 on horseback appeared. The horse 
 snorted and tried to wheel, but the 
 ridge was narrow and one false step 
 might have been serious. The cow- 
 boy held his horse in hand and, al- 
 though he had a gun, he made no at- 
 tempt to shoot at the surly animal 
 blinking at him and barring his path. 
 He was an old mountaineer, and he 
 now used a trick that had long been 
 practised by the Indians, from whom, 
 indeed, he learned it. He began " mak- 
 ing medicine with his voice."
 
 "See here now, B'ar," he called 
 aloud, " I ain't doing nothing to you. 
 I ain't got no grudge ag'in' you, an f 
 you ain't got no right to a grudge ag'in' 
 me." 
 
 "Gro-o-o-h," said Gringo, deep and 
 low. 
 
 " Now, I don't want no scrap with 
 you, though I have my scrap-iron right 
 handy, an' what I want you to do is 
 just step aside an' let me pass that 
 narrer trail an' go about my business." 
 
 " Grow - woo -oo- wow," grumbled 
 Gringo. 
 
 " I 'm honest about it, pard. You 
 let me alone, and I '11 let you alone; 
 all I want is right of way for five 
 minutes." 
 
 u Grow-grow-wow-oo-umph," was 
 the answer. 
 
 u Ye see, thar 's no way round an' 
 on'y one way through, an' you happen
 
 to be settin' in it. I got to take it, for 
 I can't turn back. Come, now, is it a 
 bargain hands off and no scrap?" 
 
 It is very sure that Gringo could 
 see in this nothing but a human mak- 
 ing queer, unmenacing, monotonous 
 sounds, so giving a final "Gr-u-ph," 
 the Bear blinked his eyes, rose to his 
 feet and strode down the bank, and 
 the cowboy forced his unwilling horse 
 to and past the place. 
 
 " Wall, wall/' he chuckled, " I never 
 knowed it to fail. Thar 's whar most 
 B'ars is alike." 
 
 If Gringo had been able to think 
 clearly, he might have said: "This 
 surely is a new kind of man."
 
 XII 
 
 SWI^L AN<D POOL 
 GROWING FLOO<D 
 
 1
 
 XII 
 
 RINGO wandered on 
 with nose alert, passing 
 countless odors of ber- 
 ries, roots, grouse, deer, 
 till a new and pleasing 
 smell came with especial force. 
 
 It was not sheep, or game, or a dead 
 thing. It was a smell of living meat. 
 He followed the guide to a little mea- 
 dow, and there he found it. There 
 were five of them, red, or red and 
 white great things as big as himself ; 
 but he had no fear of them. The
 
 hunter instinct came on him, and the 
 hunter's audacity and love of achieve- 
 ment. He sneaked toward them up- 
 wind in order that he might still smell 
 them, and it also kept them from smell- 
 ing him. He reached the edge of the 
 wood. Here he must stop or be seen. 
 There was a watering-place close by. 
 He silently drank, then lay down in a 
 thicket where he could watch. An 
 hour passed thus. The sun went down 
 and the cattle arose to graze. One of 
 them, a small one, wandered nearer, 
 then, acting suddenly with purpose, 
 walked to the water-hole. Gringo 
 watched his chance, and as she floun- 
 dered in the mud and stooped he reared 
 and struck with all his force. Square 
 at her skull he aimed, and the blow 
 went straight. But Gringo knew, no- 
 thing of horns. Theyoung, sharp horn, 
 upcurling, hit his foot and was broken
 
 off ; the blow lost half its power. The 
 beef went down, but Gringo had to 
 follow up the blow, then raged and tore 
 in anger for his wounded paw. The 
 other cattle fled from the scene. The 
 Grizzly took the heifer in his jaws, 
 then climbed the hill to his lair, and 
 with this store of food he again lay 
 down to nurse his wounds. Though 
 painful, they were not serious, and 
 within a week or so Grizzly Jack was 
 as well as ever and roaming the woods 
 about Fallen Leaf Lake and farther 
 south and east, for he was extending 
 his range as he grew the king was 
 coming to his kingdom. In time he 
 met others of his kind and matched 
 his strength with theirs. Sometimes 
 he won and sometimes lost, but he 
 kept on growing as the months went 
 by, growing and learning and adding 
 to his power. 

 
 Kellyan had kept track of him and 
 knew at least the main facts of his 
 life, because he had one or two marks 
 that always served to distinguish him. 
 A study of the tracks had told of the 
 round wound in the front foot and the 
 wound in the hind foot. But there was 
 another: the hunter had picked up 
 the splinters of bone at the camp where 
 he had fired at the Bear, and, after 
 long doubt, he guessed that he had 
 broken a tusk. He hesitated to tell 
 the story of hitting a tooth and hind 
 toe at the same shot till, later, he had 
 clearer proof of its truth. 
 
 No two animals are alike. Kinds 
 which herd have more sameness than 
 those that do not, and the Grizzly, 
 being a solitary kind, shows great in- 
 dividuality. Most Grizzlies mark their 
 length on the trees by rubbing their 
 backs, and some will turn on the tree
 
 and claw it with their fore paws ; others 
 hug the tree with fore paws and rake it 
 with their hind claws. Gringo's pecu- 
 liarity of marking was to rub first, then 
 turn and tear the trunk with his teeth. 
 
 It was on examining one of the Bear 
 trees one day that Kellyan discovered 
 the facts. He had been tracking the 
 Bear all morning, had a fine set of 
 tracks in the dusty trail, and thus 
 learned that the rifle-wound was a toe- 
 shot in the hind foot, but his fore foot 
 of the same side had a large round 
 wound, the one really made by the 
 cow's horn. When he came to the 
 Bear tree where Gringo had carved 
 his initials, the marks were clearly 
 made by the Bear's teeth, and one of 
 the upper tusks was broken off, so the 
 evidence of identity was complete. 
 
 " It 's the same old B'ar," said Lan 
 to his pard.
 
 They failed to get sight of him in 
 all this time, so the partners set to 
 work at a series of Bear-traps. These 
 are made of heavy logs and have a 
 sliding door of hewn planks. The bait 
 is on a trigger at the far end; a tug 
 on this lets the door drop. It was a 
 week's hard work to make four of 
 these traps. They did not set them at 
 once, for no Bear will go near a thing 
 so suspiciously new-looking. Some 
 Bears will not approach one till it is 
 weather-beaten and gray. But they re- 
 moved all chips and covered the newly 
 cut wood with mud, then rubbed the 
 inside with stale meat, and hung a lump 
 of ancient venison on the trigger of 
 each trap. 
 
 They did not go around for three 
 days, knowing that the human smell 
 must first be dissipated, and then they 
 found but one trap sprung the door
 
 down. Bonamy became greatly ex- 
 cited, for they had crossed the Griz- 
 zly's track close by. But Kellyan had 
 been studying the dust and suddenly 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 " Look at that," he pointed to a 
 thing like a Bear-track, but scarcely 
 two inches long. " There's the B'ar 
 we'll find in that; that's a bushy- 
 tailed B'ar," and Bonamy joined in 
 the laugh when he realized that the 
 victim in the big trap was nothing but 
 a little skunk. 
 
 " Next time we '11 set the bait higher 
 and not set the trigger so fine." 
 
 They rubbed their boots with stale 
 meat when they went the rounds, 
 then left the traps for a week. 
 
 There are Bears that eat little but 
 roots and berries ; there are Bears that 
 love best the great black salmon they 
 can hook out of the pools when the
 
 long tl run Tt is on ; and there are Bears 
 that have a special fondness for flesh. 
 These are rare ; they are apt to develop 
 unusual ferocity and meet an early 
 death. Gringo was one of them, and he 
 grew like the brawny, meat-fed gladi- 
 ators of old bigger, stronger, and 
 fiercer than his fruit- and root-fed kin. 
 In contrast with this was his love of 
 honey. The hunter on his trail learned 
 that he never failed to dig out any 
 bees' nest he could find, or, finding 
 none, he would eat the little honey- 
 flowers that hung like sleigh-bells on 
 the heather. Kellyan was quick to 
 mark the signs. " Say, Bonamy, we f ve 
 got to find some honey." 
 
 It is not easy to find a bee tree 
 without honey to fill your bee-guides; 
 so Bonamy rode down the mountain 
 to the nearest camp, the Tampico 
 sheep camp, and got not honey but
 
 some sugar, of which they made syrup. 
 They caught bees at three or four 
 different places, tagged them with cot- 
 ton, filled them with syrup and let 
 them fly, watching till the cotton tufts 
 were lost to view, and by going on the 
 lines till they met they found the hive. 
 A piece of gunny-sack filled with comb 
 Was put on each trigger, and that night, 
 as Gringo strode with that long, untir- 
 ing swing that eats up miles like steam- 
 wheels, his sentinel nose reported the 
 delicious smell, the one that above the 
 rest meant joy. So Gringo Jack fol- 
 lowed fast and far, for the place was a 
 mile away, and reaching the curious 
 log cavern, he halted and sniffed. 
 There were hunters' smells; yes, but, 
 above all, that smell of joy. He walked 
 around to be sure, and knew it was 
 inside; then cautiously he entered. 
 Some wood-mice scurried by. He
 
 sniffed the bait, licked it, mumbled it, 
 slobbered it, reveled in it, tugged to 
 increase the flow, when "bang! " went 
 the great door behind and Jack was 
 caught. He backed up with a rush, 
 bumped into the door, and had a sense, 
 at least, of peril. He turned over with 
 an effort and attacked the door, but 
 it was strong. He examined the pen; 
 went all around the logs where their 
 rounded sides seemed easiest to tear 
 at with his teeth. But they yielded 
 nothing. He tried them all; he tore 
 at the roof, the floor; but all were 
 heavy, hard logs, spiked and pinned 
 as one. 
 
 The sun came up as he raged, and 
 shone through the little cracks of the 
 door, and so he turned all his power 
 on that. The door was flat, gave little 
 hold, but he battered with his paws 
 and tore with his teeth till plank after
 
 plank gave way. With a final crash he 
 drove the wreck before him and Jack 
 was free again. 
 
 The men read the story as though 
 in print; yes, better, for bits of plank 
 can tell no lies, and the track to the 
 pen and from the pen was the track of 
 a big Bear with a cut on the hind foot 
 and a curious round peg-like scar on 
 the front paw, while the logs inside, 
 where little torn, gave proof of a broken 
 tooth. 
 
 "We had him that time, but he 
 knew too much for us. Never mind, 
 we'll see." 
 
 So they kept on and caught him 
 again, for honey he could not resist. 
 But the wreckage of the trap was all 
 they found in the morning. 
 
 Pedro's brother knewa man who had 
 trapped Bears, and the sheep-herder 
 remembered that it is necessary to
 
 have the door quite light-tight rather 
 than very strong, so they battened all 
 with tar-paper outside. But Gringo 
 was learning "pen-traps." He did 
 not break the door that he did not see 
 through, but he put one paw under and 
 heaved it up when he had finished 
 the bait. Thus he baffled them and 
 sported with the traps, till Kellyan 
 made the door drop into a deep groove 
 so that the Bear could put no claw 
 beneath it. But it was cold weather 
 now. There was deepening snow on the 
 Sierras. The Bear sign disappeared. 
 The hunters knew that Gringo was 
 sleeping his winter's sleep.
 
 X 
 
 XIII 
 
 THE (DEEPENING CHANNEL

 
 XIII 
 
 iPRIL was bidding high 
 Sierra snows go back 
 to Mother Sea. The 
 California woodwales 
 screamed in clamorous 
 joy. They thought it was about a few 
 acorns left in storage in the Live Oak 
 bark, but it really was joy of being alive. 
 This outcry was to them what music 
 is to the thrush, what joy-bells are 
 to us a great noise to tell how glad 
 they were. The deer were bounding, 
 grouse were booming, rills were rush-
 
 ing all things were full of noisy glad- 
 ness. 
 
 Kellyan and Bonamy were back on 
 the Grizzly quest. " Time he was out 
 again, and good trailing to get him, with 
 lots of snow in the hollows." They 
 had come prepared for a long hunt. 
 Honey for bait, great steel traps with 
 crocodilian jaws, and guns there were 
 in the outfit. The pen-trap, the better 
 for the aging, was repaired and re- 
 baited, and several Black Bears were 
 taken. But Gringo, if about, had 
 learned to shun it. 
 
 He was about, and the men soon 
 learned that. His winter sleep was 
 over. They found the peg-print in the 
 snow, but with it, or just ahead, was 
 another, the tracks of a smaller Bear. 
 
 "See that/' and Kellyan pointed to 
 the smaller mark. "This is mating- 
 time; this is Gringo's honeymoon/'
 
 and he followed the trail for a while, 
 not expecting to find them, but simply 
 to know their movements. He followed 
 several times and for miles, and the 
 trail told him many things. Here was 
 the track of a third Bear joining. Here 
 were marks of a combat, and a rival 
 driven away was written there, and 
 then the pair went on. Down from 
 the rugged hills it took him once to 
 where a love-feast had been set by the 
 bigger Bear; for the carcass of a steer 
 lay half devoured, and the telltale 
 ground said much of the struggle that 
 foreran the feast. As though to show 
 his power, the Bear had seized the 
 steer by the nose and held him for a 
 while so said the trampled earth for 
 rods struggling, bellowing, no doubt, 
 music for my lady's ears, till Gringo 
 judged it time to strike him down with 
 paws of steel.
 
 Once only the hunters saw the pair 
 a momentary glimpse of a Bear so 
 huge they half believed Tampico's tale, 
 and a Bear of lesser size in fur that 
 rolled and rippled in the sun with 
 brown and silver lights. 
 
 "Oh, ain't that just the beautiful- 
 est thing that ever walked ! " and both 
 the hunters gazed as she strode from 
 view in the chaparral. It was only a 
 neck of the thicket; they both must 
 reappear in a minute at the other side, 
 and the men prepared to fire; but for 
 some incomprehensible reason the two 
 did not appear again. They never quit 
 the cover, and had wandered far away 
 before the hunters knew it, and were 
 seen of them no more. 
 
 But Faco Tampico saw them. He 
 was visiting his brother with the sheep, 
 and hunting in the foot-hills to the east- 
 ward, in hopes of getting a deer, his
 
 small black eyes fell on a pair of Bears, 
 still love-bound, roaming in the woods. 
 They were far below him. He was safe, 
 and he sent a ball that laid the she- 
 Bear low; her back was broken. She 
 fell with a cry of pain and vainly tried 
 to rise. Then Gringo rushed around, 
 sniffed the wind for the foe, and Faco 
 fired again. The sound and the smoke- 
 puff told Gringo where the man lay 
 hid. He raged up the cliff, but Faco 
 climbed a tree, and Gringo went back 
 to his mate. Faco fired again ; Gringo 
 made still another effort to reach him, /'/ ] \ 
 
 but could not find him now, so re- 
 
 / 
 
 r 
 /}. 
 
 , r \ 
 
 turned to his "Silver-brown." .' \\ 
 
 Whether it was chance or choice 
 can never be known, but when Faco 
 fired once more, Gringo Jack was be- \y ; 
 tween, and the ball struck him. It was ^^^ 
 the last in Face's pouch, and the 
 Grizzly, charging as before, found not
 
 a trace of the foe. He was gone had 
 swung across a place no Bear could 
 cross and soon was a mile away. The 
 big Bear limped back to his mate, but 
 she no longer responded to his touch. 
 He watched about for a time, but no 
 one came. The silvery hide was never 
 touched by man, and when the sem- 
 blance of his mate was gone, Gringo 
 quit the place. 
 
 The world was full of hunters, traps, 
 and guns. He turned toward the lower 
 hills where the sheep grazed, where 
 once he had raided Pedro's flocks, 
 limping along, for now he had another 
 flesh-wound. He found the scent of 
 the foe that killed his " Silver-brown," 
 and would have followed, but it ceased 
 at a place where a horse-track joined. 
 Yet he found it again that night, mixed 
 with the sheep smell so familiar once. 
 He followed this, sore and savage. It
 
 led him to a settler's flimsy shack, the 
 house of Tampico's parents, and as 
 the big Bear reached it two human 
 beings scrambled out of the rear door. 
 
 u My husband/' shrieked the wo- 
 man, " pray! Let us pray to the saints 
 for help! " 
 
 " Where is my pistol?" cried the 
 husband. 
 
 11 Trust in the saints/' said the 
 frightened woman. 
 
 "Yes, if I had a cannon, or if this 
 was a cat; but with only a pepper-box 
 pistol to meet a Bear mountain it is 
 better to trust to a tree/' and oldTam- 
 pico scrambled up a pine. 
 
 The Grizzly looked into the shack, 
 then passed to the pig-pen, killed the 
 largest there, for this was a new kind 
 of meat, and carrying it off, he made 
 his evening meal. 
 
 He came again and again to that
 
 Vv*\ 
 
 pig-pen. He found his food there till 
 his wound was healed. Once he met 
 with a spring-gun, but it was set too 
 high. Six feet up, the sheep-folk 
 judged, would be just about right for 
 such a Bear; the charge went over his 
 head, and so he passed unharmed a 
 clear proof that he was a devil. He 
 was learning this: the human smell 
 in any form is a smell of danger. He 
 quit the little valley of the shack, wan- 
 dering downward toward the plains. 
 He passed a house one night, and 
 walking up, he discovered a hollow 
 thing with a delicious smell. It was a 
 ten-gallon keg that had been used for 
 sugar, some of which was still in the 
 bottom, and thrusting in his huge head, 
 the keg-rim, bristling with nails, stuck 
 to him. He raged about, clawing at it 
 wildly and roaring in it until a charge 
 of shot from the upper windows stirred
 
 him to such effort that the keg was 
 smashed to bits and his blinders re- 
 moved. 
 
 Thus the idea was slowly borne in 
 on him: going near a man-den is sureto 
 bring trouble. Thenceforth he sought 
 his prey in the woods or on the plains. 
 He one day found the man scent that 
 enraged him the day he lost his " Silver- 
 brown." He took the trail, and pass- 
 ing in silence incredible for such a 
 bulk, he threaded chaparral and man- 
 zanita on and down through tule-beds 
 till the level plain was reached. The 
 scent led on, was fresher now. Far out 
 were white specks moving things. 
 They meant nothing to Gringo, for 
 he had never smelt wild geese, had 
 scarcely seen them, but the trail he 
 was hunting went on. He swiftly fol- 
 lowed till the tule ahead rustled gently, 
 and the scent was body scent A pon-
 
 derous rush, a single blow and the 
 goose-hunt was ended ere well begun, 
 and Face's sheep became the brother's 
 heritage.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE CATARACT
 
 XIV 
 
 UST as fads will for a 
 time sway human life, so 
 crazes may run through 
 all animals of a given 
 kind. This was the year 
 when a beef-eating craze seemed to 
 possess every able-bodied Grizzly of 
 the Sierras. They had long been 
 known as a root-eating, berry-picking, 
 inoffensive race when let alone, but 
 now they seemed to descend on the 
 cattle-range in a body and make their 
 diet wholly of flesh.
 
 One cattle outfit after another was 
 attacked, and the whole country seemed 
 divided up among Bears of incred- 
 ible size, cunning, and destructiveness. 
 The cattlemen offered bounties good 
 bounties, growing bounties, very large 
 bounties at last but still the Bears 
 kept on. Very few were killed, and it 
 became a kind of rude jest to call each 
 section of the range, not by the cattle 
 brand, but by the Grizzly that was 
 quartered on its stock. 
 
 Wonderful tales were told of these 
 various Bears of the new breed. The 
 swiftest was Reelfoot, the Placerville 
 cattle-killer that could charge from a 
 thicket thirty yards away and certainly 
 catch a steer before it could turn and 
 run, and that could even catch ponies 
 in the open when they were poor. 
 The most cunning of all was Brin, 
 the Mokelumne Grizzly that killed by
 
 preference blooded stock, would pick 
 
 out a Merino ram or a white-faced 
 
 Hereford from among fifty grades; 
 
 that killed a new beef every night; 
 
 that never again returned to it, or gave *j+* 
 
 the chance for traps or poisoning. +**\? ^ 
 
 The Pegtrack Grizzly of Feather V; *-- + 
 River was rarely seen by any. He 
 was enveloped in mysterious terror. 
 He moved and killed by night. Pigs 
 were his favorite food, and he had also 
 killed a number of men. 
 
 But Pedro's Grizzly was the most 
 marvelous. " Hassayampa," as the 
 sheep-herder was dubbed, came one 
 night to Kellyan's hut. 
 
 "I tell you he's still dere. He 
 has keel me a t'ousand sheep. You 
 telled me you keel heem ; you haff not. 
 He is beegare as dat tree. He eat 
 only sheep much sheep. I tell you 
 he ees Gringo devil he ees devil
 
 Bear. I haff three cows, two fat, one 
 theen. He catch and keel de fat; de 
 lean run off. He roll een dust make 
 great dust. Cow come for see what 
 make dust; he catch her an T keel. 
 My fader got bees. De devil Bear 
 chaw pine; I know he by hees broke 
 toof. He gum hees face and nose 
 wit* pine gum so bees no sting, then 
 eat all bees. He devil all time. He 
 get much rotten manzanita and eat 
 till drunk locoed then go crazy 
 and keel sheep just for fun. He get 
 beeg bull by nose and drag like rat 
 for fun. He keel cow, sheep, and 
 keel Faco, too, for fun. He devil. 
 You promise me you keel heem ; you 
 nevaire keel." 
 
 This is a condensation of Pedro's 
 excited account. 
 
 And there was yet one more the 
 big Bear that owned the range from
 
 '/J 
 
 the Stanislaus to the Merced, the 
 " Monarch of the Range" he had 
 been styled. He was believed yes, 
 known to be the biggest Bear alive, 
 a creature of supernatural intelligence. 
 He killed cows for food, and scat- 
 tered sheep or conquered bulls for 
 pleasure. It was even said that the 
 appearance of an unusually big bull 
 anywhere was a guaranty that Mon- 
 arch would be there for the joy of com- 
 bat with a worthy foe. A destroyer of 
 cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses, and 
 yet a creature known only by his track. 
 He was never seen, and his nightly 
 raids seemed planned with consum- 
 mate skill to avoid all kinds of snares. 
 The cattlemen clubbed together and 
 offered an enormous bounty for every 
 Grizzly killed in the range. Bear- 
 trappers came and caught some Bears, 
 Brown and Cinnamon, but the cattle-
 
 killing went on. They set out better 
 traps of massive steel and iron bars, 
 and at length they caught a killer, the 
 Mokelumne Grizzly; yes, and read in 
 the dust how he had come at last and 
 made the fateful step; but steel will 
 break and iron will bend. The great 
 Bear-trail was there to tell the tale: 
 for a while he had raged and chafed 
 at the hard black reptile biting into 
 his paw; then, seeking a boulder, he 
 had released the paw by smashing the 
 trap to pieces on it. Thenceforth each 
 year he grew more cunning, huge, and 
 destructive. 
 
 Kellyan and Bonamy came down 
 from the mountains now, tempted by 
 the offered rewards. They saw the 
 huge tracks; they learned that cattle 
 were not killed in all places at once. 
 They studied and hunted. They got 
 at length in the dust the full impres-
 
 sions of the feet of the various mon- 
 sters in regions wide apart, and they 
 saw that all the cattle were killed in 
 the same way their muzzles torn, 
 their necks broken ; and last, the marks 
 on the trees where the Bears had 
 reared and rubbed, then scored them 
 with a broken tusk, the same all 
 through the wide range; and Kellyan 
 told them with calm certainty: " Pe- 
 dro's Gringo, Old Pegtrack,the Placer- 
 ville Grizzly, and the Monarch of the 
 Range are one and the same 'Bear. 11 
 
 The little man from the mountains 
 and the big man from the hills set about 
 the task of hunting him down with an 
 intensity of purpose which, like the 
 river that is dammed, grew more fierce 
 from being balked. 
 
 All manner of traps had failed for 
 him. Steel traps he could smash, no 
 log trap was strong enough to hold
 
 \ 
 
 this furry elephant ; he would not come 
 to a bait; he never fed twice from the 
 same kill. 
 
 Two reckless boys once trailed him 
 to a rocky glen. The horses would 
 not enter; the boys went in afoot, and 
 were never seen again. The Mexi- 
 cans held him in superstitious terror, 
 believing that he could not be killed; 
 and he passed another year in the 
 cattle-land, known and feared now as 
 the " Monarch of the Range, " killing 
 in the open by night, and retiring by 
 day to his fastness in the near hills, 
 where horsemen could not follow. 
 
 Bonamy had been called away; but 
 all that summer, and winter, too, for 
 the Grizzly no longer " denned up," 
 Kellyan rode and rode, each time too 
 late or too soon to meet the Monarch. 
 He was almost giving up, not in despair, 
 but for lack of means, when a message
 
 came from a rich man, a city journalist, 
 offering to multiply the reward by ten 
 if, instead of killing the Monarch, he 
 would bring him in alive. 
 
 Kellyan sent for his old partner, and 
 when word came that the previous 
 night three cows were killed in the 
 familiar way near the Bell-Dash pas- 
 ture, they spared neither horse nor 
 man to reach the spot. A ten-hour 
 ride by night meant worn-out horses, 
 but the men were iron, and new horses 
 with scarcely a minute's delay were 
 brought them. Here were the newly 
 killed beeves, there the mighty foot- 
 prints with the scars that spelled his 
 name. No hound could have tracked 
 him better than Kellyan did. Five 
 miles away from the foot of the hills 
 was an impenetrable thicket of cha- 
 parral. The great tracks went in, did 
 not come out, so Bonamy sat sentinel
 
 while Kellyan rode back with the 
 news. " Saddle up the best we got!" 
 was the order. Rifles were taken down 
 and cartridge-belts being swung when 
 Kellyan called a halt. 
 
 "Say, boys, we've got him safe 
 enough. He won't try to leave the 
 chaparral till night. If we shoot him 
 we get the cattlemen's bounty; if we 
 take him alive an' it 's easy in the 
 open we get the newspaper bounty, 
 ten times as big. Let 's leave all guns 
 behind; lariats are enough." 
 
 "Why not have the guns along to 
 be handy?" 
 
 " 'Cause I know the crowd too well ; 
 they could n't resist the chance to let 
 him have it; so no guns at all. It 's 
 ten to one on the riata." 
 
 Nevertheless three of them brought 
 their heavy revolvers. Seven gallant ri- 
 ders on seven fine horses, they rode out
 
 that day to meet the Monarch of the 
 Range. He was still in the thicket, 
 for it was yet morning. They threw 
 stones in and shouted to drive him out, 
 without effect, till the noon breeze of 
 the plains arose the down-current 
 of air from the hills. Then they fired 
 the grass in several places, and it sent 
 a rolling sheet of flame and smoke into 
 the thicket. There was a crackling 
 louder than the fire, a smashing of 
 brush, and from the farther side out 
 hurled the Monarch Bear, the Gringo, 
 Grizzly Jack. Horsemen were all 
 about him now, armed not with guns 
 but with the rawhide snakes whose 
 loops in air spell bonds or death. 
 The men were calm, but the horses 
 were snorting and plunging in fear. 
 This way and that the Grizzly looked 
 up at the horsemen a little bit; 
 scarcely up at the horses; then turn-
 
 ing without haste, he strode toward 
 the friendly hills, 
 
 "Look out, now, Bill! Manuel! It's 
 up to you." 
 
 Oh, noble horses, nervy men! oh, 
 grand old Grizzly, how I see you 
 now! Cattle-keepers and cattle-killer 
 face to face! 
 
 Three riders of the range that 
 horse had never thrown were sailing, 
 swooping, like falcons; their lariats 
 swung, sang sang higher and 
 Monarch, much perplexed, but scarce- 
 ly angered yet, rose to his hind legs, 
 then from his towering height looked 
 down on horse and man. If, as they 
 say, the vanquished prowess goes 
 into the victor, then surely in that 
 mighty chest, those arms like necks 
 of bulls, was the power of the thou- 
 sand cattle he had downed in fight. 
 
 "Caramba! what a Bear! Pedro 
 was not so far astray."
 
 fa 
 
 "Sing sing sing!" the lariats 
 flew. " Swish pat ! " one, two, three, 
 they fell. These were not men to miss. 
 Three ropes, three horses, leaping 
 away to bear on the great beast's neck. 
 But swifter than thought the supple 
 paws went up. The ropes were slipped, 
 and the spurred cow-ponies, ready for 
 the shock, went, shockless, bounding' 
 loose ropes trailing afar. 
 
 "Hi Hal! Ho Lan! Head 
 him!" as the Grizzly, liking not the 
 unequal fight, made for the hills. But 
 a deft Mexican in silver gear sent his 
 hide riata whistling, then haunched 
 his horse as the certain coil sank in 
 the Grizzly's hock, and checked the 
 Monarch with a heavy jar. Uttering 
 one great snort of rage, he turned; his 
 huge jaws crossed the rope, back 
 nearly to his ears it went, and he 
 ground it as a dog might grind a twig, 
 so the straining pony bounded free.
 
 Round and round him now the riders 
 swooped, waiting their chance. More 
 than once his neck was caught, but he 
 slipped the noose as though it were 
 all play. Again he was caught by a 
 foot and wrenched, almost thrown, by 
 the weight of two strong steeds, and 
 now he foamed in rage. Memories of 
 olden days, or more likely the habit of 
 olden days, came on him days when 
 he learned to strike the yelping pack 
 that dodged his blows. He was far 
 from the burnt thicket, but a single 
 bush was near, and setting his broad 
 back to that, he waited for the circling 
 foe. Nearer and nearer they urged 
 the frightened steeds, and Monarch 
 watched -waited, as of old, for the 
 dogs, till they were almost touching 
 each other, then he sprang like an 
 avalanche of rock. What can elude a 
 Grizzly's dash? The earth shivered
 
 as he launched himself, and trembled 
 when he struck. Three men, three 
 horses, in each other's way. The dust 
 was thick ; they only knew he struck 
 struck struck! The horses never 
 rose. 
 
 " Santa Maria ! " came a cry of death, 
 and hovering riders dashed to draw 
 the Bear away. Three horses dead, 
 one man dead, one nearly so, and only 
 one escaped. 
 
 " Crack! crack! crack!" went the 
 pistols now as the Bear went rocking 
 his huge form in rapid charge for the 
 friendly hills; and the four riders, 
 urged by Kellyan, followed fast. They 
 passed him, wheeled, faced him. The 
 pistols had wounded him in many 
 places. 
 
 " Don't shoot don't shoot, but tire 
 him out," the hunter urged. 
 
 " Tire him out? Look at Carlos and
 
 Manuel back there. How many minutes 
 will it be before the rest are down 
 with them?" So the infuriating pistols 
 popped till all their shots were gone, 
 and Monarch foamed with slobbering 
 jaws of rage. 
 
 "Keep on! keep cool," cried Kell- 
 yan. 
 
 His lariat flew as the cattle-killing 
 paw was lifted for an instant. The 
 lasso bound his wrist. "Sing! Sing!" 
 went two, and caught him by the neck. 
 A bull with his great club-foot in a 
 noose is surely caught, but the Grizzly 
 raised his supple, hand-like, tapering 
 paw and gave one jerk that freed it. 
 Now the two on his neck were tight; 
 he could not slip them. The horses 
 at the ends they were dragging, 
 choking him; men were shouting, hov- 
 ering, watching for a new chance, 
 when Monarch, firmly planting both
 
 paws, braced, bent those mighty shoul- 
 ders, and, spite of shortening breath, 
 leaned back on those two ropes as 
 Samson did on pillars of the house 
 of Baal, and straining horses with 
 their riders were dragged forward 
 more and more, long grooves being 
 plowed behind; dragging them, he 
 backed faster and faster still. His 
 eyes were starting, his tongue loll- 
 ing out. 
 
 "Keep on! hold tight!" was the 
 cry, till the ropers swung together, the 
 better to resist; and Monarch, big and 
 strong with frenzied hate, seeing now 
 his turn, sprang forward like a shot. 
 The horses leaped and escaped 
 almost ; the last was one small inch too 
 slow. The awful paw with jags of 
 steel just grazed his flank. How slight 
 it sounds! But what it really means 
 is better not writ down.
 
 The riders had slipped their ropes in 
 fear, and the Monarch, rumbling, snort- 
 ing, bounding, trailed them to the hills, 
 there to bite them off in peace, while 
 the remnant of the gallant crew went, 
 sadly muttering, back. 
 
 Bitter words went round. Kellyan 
 was cursed. 
 
 "His fault. Why didn't we have the 
 guns?" 
 
 "We were all in it," was the an- 
 swer, and more hard words, till Kell- 
 yan flushed, forgot his calm, and drew 
 a pistol hitherto concealed, and the 
 other "took it back."
 
 RUMBLING AND SNORTING, HE MADE FOR THE FRIENDLY HILLS '
 
 XV 
 THE FOAMING FLOOD
 
 XV 
 
 HAT is next, Lan?" said 
 Lou, as they sat dispir- 
 ited by the fire that night. 
 Kellyan was silent for 
 a time, then said slowly 
 and earnestly, with a gleam in his 
 eye: " Lou, that r s the greatest Bear 
 alive. When I seen him set up there 
 like a butte and swat horses like they 
 was flies, I jest loved him. He 's the 
 greatest thing God has turned loose in 
 these yer hills. Before to-day, I sure 
 wanted to get him; now, Lou, I 'm
 
 * 'HV T/>7 
 -NW ** 1) ' 
 p>* '! >f'' s 
 
 *'*)?!' VJ / 
 
 a-going to get him, an' get him alive, 
 if it takes all my natural days. I think 
 I kin do it alone, but I know I kin do 
 it with you," and deep in Kellyan's 
 eyes there glowed a little spark of 
 something not yet rightly named. 
 
 They were camped in the hills, 
 being no longer welcome at the ranch ; 
 the ranchers thought their price too 
 high. Some even decided that the 
 Monarch, being a terror to sheep, was 
 not an undesirable neighbor. The cattle 
 bounty was withdrawn, but the news- 
 paper bounty was not. 
 
 " I want you to bring in that Bear," 
 was the brief but pregnant message 
 from the rich newsman when he heard 
 of the fight with the riders. 
 
 u How are you going about it, Lan?" 
 
 Every bridge has its rotten plank, 
 every fence its flimsy rail, every great 
 one his weakness, and Kellyan, as
 
 he pondered, knew how mad it was 
 to meet this one of brawn with mere 
 brute force. 
 
 "Steel traps are no good ; he smashes 
 them. Lariats won't do, and he knows 
 all about log traps. But I have a 
 scheme. First, we must follow him up 
 and learn his range. I reckon that f ll 
 take three months." 
 
 So the two kept on. They took up 
 that Bear-trail next day; they found 
 the lariats chewed off. They followed 
 day after day. They learned what they 
 could from rancher and sheep-herder, 
 and much more was told them than 
 they could believe. 
 
 Three months, Lan said, but it took 
 six months to carry out his plan ; mean- 
 while Monarch killed and killed. 
 
 In each section of his range they 
 made one or two cage- or pen-traps of 
 bolted logs. At the back end of each
 
 they put a small grating of heavy steel 
 bars. The door was carefully made and 
 fitted into grooves. It was of double 
 plank, with tar-paper between to make 
 it surely light-tight. It was sheeted 
 with iron on the inside, and when it 
 dropped it went into an iron-bound 
 groove in the floor. 
 
 They left these traps open and un- 
 set till they were grayed with age and 
 smelt no more of man. Then the two 
 hunters prepared for the final play. 
 They baited all without setting them 
 baited them with honey, the lure 
 that Monarch never had refused and 
 when at length they found the honey 
 baits were gone, they came where he 
 now was taking toll and laid the long- 
 planned snare. Every trap was set, 
 and baited as before with a mass of 
 honey but honey now mixed with a 
 potent sleeping draft.
 
 XVI 
 
 L/JN<DLOCKE<D
 
 XVI 
 
 |HAT night the great 
 Bear left his lair, one of 
 his many lairs, and, cured 
 of all his wounds, rejoic- 
 ing in the fullness of his 
 mighty strength, he strode toward the 
 plains. His nose, ever alert, reported 
 sheep, a deer, a grouse; men 
 more sheep, some cows, and some 
 calves; a bull a fighting bull and 
 Monarch wheeled in big, rude, Bear- 
 ish joy at the coming battle brunt; 
 but as he hugely hulked from hill to
 
 x 
 
 hill a different message came, so soft 
 and low, so different from the smell 
 of beefish brutes, one might well won- 
 der he could sense it, but like a tiny 
 ringing bell when thunder booms it 
 came, and Monarch wheeled at once. 
 Oh, it cast a potent spell ! It stood for 
 something very near to ecstasy with 
 him, and down the hill and through 
 the pines he went, on and on faster 
 y e t f abandoned to its sorcery. Here 
 to its home he traced it, a long, low 
 cavern. He had seen such many times 
 before, had been held in them more 
 than once, but had learned to spurn 
 them. For weeks he had been robbing 
 \\them of their treasures, and its odor, 
 like a calling voice, was still his guide. 
 Into the cavern he passed and it reeked 
 with the smell of joy. There was the 
 luscious mass, and Monarch, with all 
 caution lulled now, licked and licked,
 
 - 
 1 
 
 then seized to tear the has* for more, 
 when down went the door with a low 
 "bang!" The Monarch started, but 
 all was still and there was no smell of 
 danger. He had forced such doors be- 
 fore. His palate craved the honey still, 
 and he licked and licked, greedily at 
 first, then calmly, then slowly, then 
 drowsily then at last stopped. His 
 eyes were closing, and he sank slowly 
 down on the earth and slept a heavy 
 sleep. 
 
 Calm, but white-faced, were they 
 the men when in the dawn they came. 
 There were the huge scarred tracks 
 in-leading; there was the door down; 
 there dimly they could see a mass of 
 fur that filled the pen, that heaved in 
 deepest sleep. 
 
 Strong ropes, strong chains and 
 bands of steel were at hand, with 
 chloroform, lest he should revive too
 
 c 
 
 ift 
 
 soon. Through holes in the roof with 
 infinite toil they chained him, bound 
 him his paws to his neck, his neck 
 and breast and hind legs to a bolted 
 beam. Then raising the door, they 
 draped him out, not with horses 
 none would go near but with a wind- 
 lass to a tree; and fearing the sleep of 
 death, they let him now revive. 
 
 Chained and double chained, fren- 
 zied, foaming, and impotent, what 
 words can tell the state of the fallen 
 Monarch? They put him on a sled, 
 and six horses with a long chain 
 drew it by stages to the plain, to the 
 railway. They fed him enough to save 
 his life. A great steam-derrick lifted 
 Bear and beam and chain on to a flat- 
 car, a tarpaulin was spread above his 
 helpless form ; the engine puffed, pulled 
 out; and the Grizzly King was gone 
 from his ancient hills.
 
 rv 
 
 So they brought him to the great 
 
 city, the Monarch born, in chains. 
 They put him in a cage not merely 
 strong enough for a lion, but thrice 
 as strong, and once a rope gave way 
 as the huge one strained his bonds. 
 "He is loose/' went the cry, and an 
 army of onlookers and keepers fled; 
 only the small man with the calm eye 
 and the big man of the hills were 
 stanch, so the Monarch was still 
 held. 
 
 Free in the cage, he swung round, 
 looked this way and that, then heaved 
 his powers against the triple angling 
 steel and wrenched the cage so not 
 a part of it was square. In time he 
 clearly would break out. They dragged 
 the prisoner to another that an ele- 
 phant could not break down, but it 
 stood on the ground, and in an hour 
 the great beast had a cavern into the
 
 earth and was sinking out of sight, till a 
 stream of water sent after him filled 
 the hole and forced him again to view. 
 They moved him to a new cage made 
 for him since he came a hard rock 
 floor, great bars of nearly two-inch steel 
 that reached up nine feet and then 
 projected in for five. The Monarch 
 wheeled once around, then, rearing, 
 raised his ponderous bulk, wrenched 
 those bars, unbreakable, and bent and 
 turned them in their sockets with one 
 heave till the five-foot spears were 
 pointed out, and then sprang to climb. 
 Nothing but spikes and blazing brands 
 in a dozen ruthless hands could hold 
 him back. The keepers watched him 
 night and day till a stronger cage was 
 made, impregnable with a steel above 
 and rocks below. 
 
 The Untamed One passed swiftly 
 around, tried every bar, examined
 
 /v 
 
 every corner, sought for a crack in 
 the rocky floor, and found at last the 
 place where was a six-inch timber 
 beam the only piece of wood in its 
 frame. It was sheathed in iron, but 
 exposed for an inch its whole length. 
 One claw could reach the wood, and 
 here he lay on his side and raked 
 raked all day till a great pile of shav- 
 ings was lying by it and the beam 
 sawn in two; but the cross-bolts re- 
 mained, and when Monarch put his 
 vast shoulder to the place it yielded 
 not a whit. That was his last hope; 
 now it was gone; and the huge Bear 
 sank down in the cage with his nose 
 in his paws and sobbed long, heavy 
 sobs, animal sounds indeed, but tell- 
 ing just as truly as in man of the 
 broken spirit the hope and the life 
 gone out. The keepers came with food 
 at the appointed time, but the Bear
 
 moved not. They set it down, but in 
 the morning it was still untouched. 
 The Bear was lying as before, his 
 ponderous form in the pose he had 
 first taken. The sobbing was re- 
 placed by a low moan at intervals. 
 
 Two days went by. The food, un- 
 touched, was corrupting in the sun. 
 The third day, and Monarch still lay 
 on his breast, his huge muzzle under 
 hishugerpaw. His eyes were hidden; 
 only a slight heaving of his broad chest 
 was now seen. 
 
 "He is dying/' said one keeper. 
 " He can't live overnight." 
 
 "Send for Kellyan," said an- 
 other. 
 
 So Kellyan came, slight and thin. 
 There was the beast that he had 
 chained, pining, dying. He had sobbed 
 his life out in his last hope's death, 
 a thrill of pity came over the
 
 hunter, for men of grit and power love 
 grit and power. He put his arm 
 through the cage bars and stroked 
 him, but Monarch made no sign. His 
 body was cold. At length a little moan 
 was sign of life, and Kellyan said, 
 " Here, let me go in to him. 1 ' 
 
 "You are mad," said the keepers, 
 and they would not open the cage. 
 But Kellyan persisted till they put in 
 a cross-grating in front of the Bear. 
 Then, with this between, he ap- 
 proached. His hand was on the shaggy 
 head, but Monarch lay as before. The 
 hunter stroked his victim and spoke 
 to him. His hand went to the big 
 round ears, small above the head. 
 They were rough to his touch. He 
 looked again, then started. What! 
 is it true? Yes, the stranger's tale was 
 true, for both ears were pierced with 
 a round hole one torn large : and
 
 Kellyan knew that once again he had 
 met his little Jack. 
 
 " Why, Jacky, I did n't know it was 
 you. I never would have done it if I 
 had known it was you. Jacky, old 
 pard, don't you know me?" 
 
 But Jack stirred not, and Kellyan 
 got up quickly. Back to the hotel he 
 flew; there he put on his hunter's 
 suit, smoky and smelling of pine gum 
 and grease, and returned with a mass 
 of honeycomb to reenter the cage. 
 
 " Jacky, Jacky!" he cried, "honey, 
 honey!" and he held the tempting 
 comb before him. But Monarch lay 
 as one dead now. 
 
 "Jacky, Jacky! don't you know 
 me?" He dropped the honey and laid 
 his hands on the great muzzle. 
 
 The voice was forgotten. The old- 
 JIJJLp' ti me invitation, "Honey, Jacky 
 \\ honey," had lost its power, but the
 
 smell of the honey, the coat, the hands 
 that he had fondled, had together a 
 hidden potency. 
 
 There is a time when the dying 
 of our race forget their life, but 
 clearly remember the scenes of child- 
 hood; these only are real and return 
 with master power. And why not with 
 a Bear? The power of scent was there 
 to call them back again, and Jacky, 
 the Grizzly Monarch, raised his head 
 a little just a little; the eyes were 
 nearly closed, but the big brown nose 
 was jerked up feebly two or three 
 times the sign of interest that Jacky 
 used to give in days of old. Now it 
 was Kellyan that broke down even as 
 the Bear had done. 
 
 " I did n't know it was you, Jacky, 
 or I never would have done it. Oh, 
 Jacky, forgive me!" He rose and 
 fled from the cage.
 
 The keepers were there. They 
 scarcely understood the scene, but 
 one of them, acting on the hint, pushed 
 the honeycomb nearer and cried, 
 " Honey, Jacky honey!" 
 
 Filled by despair, he had lain down 
 to die, but here was a new-born hope, 
 not clear, not exact as words might 
 put it, but his conqueror had shown 
 himself a friend; this seemed a new 
 hope, and the keeper, taking up the 
 old call, " Honey, Jacky honey!" 
 pushed the comb till it touched his 
 muzzle. The smell was wafted to his 
 sense, its message reached his brain; 
 hope honored, it must wake response. 
 The great tongue licked the comb, 
 appetite revived, and thus in new- 
 born Hope began the chapter of his 
 gloom. 
 
 Skilful keepers were there with 
 plans to meet the Monarch's every
 
 want. Delicate foods were offered and 
 every shift was tried to tempt him back 
 to strength and prison life. 
 
 He ate and lived. 
 
 And still he lives, but pacing pac- 
 ing pacing you may see him, 
 scanning not the crowds, but some- 
 thing beyond the crowds, breaking 
 down at times into petulant rages, but 
 recovering anon his ponderous dig- 
 nity, looking waiting watching 
 held ever by that Hope, that unknown 
 Hope, that came. Kellyan has been 
 to him since, but Monarch knows him 
 not. Over his head, beyond him, was 
 the great Bear's gaze, far away toward 
 Tallac or far away on the sea, we 
 knowing not which or why, but pac- 
 ing pacing pacing held like the 
 storied Wandering One to a life of 
 ceaseless journey a journey aimless, 
 endless, and sad.
 
 The wound-spots long ago have left 
 his shaggy coat, but the earmarks still 
 are there, the ponderous strength, the 
 elephantine dignity. His eyes are dull, 
 never were bright, but they seem 
 not vacant, and most often fixed on the 
 Golden Gate where the river seeks 
 the sea. 
 
 The river, born in high Sierra's 
 flank, that lived and rolled and grew, 
 through mountain pines, overleaping 
 man-made barriers, then to reach 
 with growing power the plains and 
 bring its mighty flood at last to the 
 Bay of Bays, a prisoner there to lie, 
 the prisoner of the Golden Gate, seek- 
 ing forever Freedom's Blue, seeking 
 and raging raging and seeking 
 back and forth, forever in vain.

 
 
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