The Black Bear

Part 1

Produced by Sonya Schermann, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE BLACK BEAR

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THE BLACK BEAR

WILLIAM H. WRIGHT

Author of “The Grizzly Bear”

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND J. B. KERFOOT

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK - - - - 1910

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COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

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Published April, 1910

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CONTENTS

PAGE THE STORY OF BEN 3

THE BLACK BEAR: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND HABITS 51

Classification of Bears 53

Description and Distribution 56

Characteristics and Habits 68

Food and Feeding 91

The Happy Hooligan 105

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Ben and the Author Frontispiece

Making friends 16

The next day we cut a hole in the sack 22 so that he could ride with his head out

Part 2

Ready for the start 30

Ben tries on his new chain and collar 36

A stop for a drink of water 44

Front foot of a black bear, front track 62 of a black bear; front foot of a grizzly bear, front track of a grizzly bear

Hind foot of a black bear, hind track of 64 a black bear; hind foot of a grizzly bear, hind track of a grizzly bear

A mother and two cubs 74

Taking a sun bath 88

She began to swing her head from side to 106 side

A black bear at home 114

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THE STORY OF BEN

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THE STORY OF BEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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