Part 10

I tried not to teach Johnny or Jenny any trick, but encouraged them to develop any original stunt or individuality of their own. One day Jenny was attracted by a big green fly that alighted on Johnny. She struck at it; the fly relighted and she struck again. With a little effort I succeeded in getting the bears to shoo flies off each other, and sometimes they were both busy at the same time. It made a comical show, especially when one was lazily lying down and the other was shooing with eagerness and solemnity.

Another activity I encouraged was the bear's habit of holding the other around the neck with one fore paw and rubbing or scratching the back of the bear's head with his other paw. In a short time both bears, while facing each other, would go through the performance at the same time.

Like other children Johnny and Jenny were fond of water and spent much time rolling and wading in the brook by their shed. This was a play they enjoyed. I showed interest in having them roll and splash in the liveliest manner possible.

Johnny seemed unusually interested in what I was doing one day and imitated in succession a number of my performances. I had dropped a penny on the floor, and then, stooping over, touched it with the end of one finger and moved it rapidly about. He rose on his hind feet, held up one claw, then, stooping, put this upon the penny and moved it rapidly about. Blowing the yolk out of an egg, I held up the empty shell before him, and then proceeded to move it rapidly about on the floor with the point of one finger. After licking the shell Johnny imitated my every act without crushing the shell.

While Jenny was asleep on the grass, I placed a large umbrella over her. When she opened her eyes, she at once commenced a quiet though frightened study of the strange thing. She closed one eye, turned her head to one side, and looked up into it; then, turning her head, closed the other eye for a look. A sudden puff of wind gave life to the umbrella and this in turn to Jenny. She made a desperate dash to escape the mysterious monster. The wind whirled the umbrella before her and she landed in it. Wrecking the umbrella, she fled in terror, bellowing with every jump. It took more than an hour to explain matters and assure Jenny that I had not been playing any tricks.

Scotch, my short-nosed collie, was with me when Johnny and Jenny were growing up. Johnny and Scotch were fond of each other, and though each was a little jealous of the master's attention to the other, they got along admirably. Ofttimes they wrestled, and sometimes in their rough and tumble they played pretty roughly. As a climax often Scotch would aim for a neck-hold on Johnny and hammer him on the tip of his sensitive nose with one fore paw, while Johnny if possible would seize Scotch's tail in his mouth and shut down on it with his needle-like teeth.

One of the most interesting pranks which they played on each other was over a bone. Scotch was enjoying this, when he discovered Johnny watching him eagerly. Plainly Johnny wanted that bone. After a little while Scotch leaped to his feet, looked off in the direction beyond Johnny and barked, as though some object of interest was coming from that direction. Then, picking up the bone, he walked away. As he passed in front of Johnny he dropped the bone and gave a bark. Going on a short distance, he barked once or twice more and lay down watching this pretended object in the distance. Johnny was more interested in the bone, but Scotch had dropped this a foot or two beyond his reach, chained as he was. For some time Johnny stood with his nose pointing at the bone, apparently thinking deeply as to how he might reach it. At last, stretching his chain to the utmost he reached out with his right arm. But he could not touch it. Although realizing that he probably could not reach it with the left arm, nevertheless he tried.

All this time Scotch was watching Johnny out of the corner of his eye and plainly enjoyed his failures. Johnny stood looking at the bone; Scotch continued looking at Johnny. Suddenly Johnny had an idea. He wheeled about, reached back with his hind foot and knocked the bone forward where he could pick it up with fore paws. Scotch, astonished, leaped to his feet and walked off without a bark or once looking back.

When Johnny and Jenny were small they often reminded me of a little boy and a little girl. Ofttimes they would follow me into my cabin. If I sat down they would come close, stand on hind legs, put fore paws on my knees, and look up at me. They would play with my watch-string, peep into my pockets, notice my pencil, or look at the buttons on my coat. Sometimes they would make a round of the room, scrutinize an unusual knot in a log, or stop to look for several seconds at the books in the shelves or the last magazine-cover. Then again, like children, they would walk round the room, tap with their fore paws here and there, and hurry on as children do. More than once they climbed up into my lap, twitched my ears, touched my nose, played with my hair, and finally fell off to sleep, one on each arm.

One day, while I was carrying Johnny in my arms, it occurred to me that he would enjoy a big rocking-chair. I placed him in a chair with one fore paw on each arm. He sat up like a little old man. As I started the chair rocking, he showed his suspicion and alarm by excitedly peering over, first at one rocker and then the other. Presently he calmed down and seemed to enjoy the movement. By and by he caught the swing and rocked himself. Suddenly the little old man and the rocker went over backward. Seeing his angry look as he struck the floor, I leaped upon the centre table. Getting on his feet, he struck a blow that barely missed me and then made lively bites at my ankles. He blamed me for the law of falling bodies. After a few seconds he was as playful as ever, remembering that I had never played any tricks on him, and realizing that I was not to blame for what had happened.

These little bears grew rapidly. At the age of seven months Johnny weighed approximately sixty pounds, and Jenny forty-six.

Numerous visitors and the increasing size of the cubs at last compelled me to chain them. The little bears were almost always on the move, either pacing back and forth or circling. Their long chains often got tangled with sticks, grass, or bushes. Sometimes the cubs showed impatience, but usually they carefully examined the chain, then, taking it in their fore paws, stepped this way and that and generally made the very move needed to extricate or unwind it. While doing this they appeared almost comical because of their serious and concentrated attention.

One morning Johnny climbed to the top of the pole fence to which he was chained. With happy, playful activity he galloped atop the pole to the end of the chain; then, like an engine, he reversed his direction without turning and went hippety-hop back again. This was a favorite exercise of Johnny's, a game which I had encouraged; but this morning while having a beautiful time he tumbled off backward. The chain caught in a knot and Johnny found himself hung. Grizzly bears resent being hung by the neck. Johnny quickly kicked himself out of his collar. Finding himself free, and thinking himself abused, I suppose, he ran away. After three days this runaway boy concluded to come home. I saw him come out of the woods into an opening on the mountain-side. Even at a distance I could see that he no longer possessed the big round stomach that he took away. I went to meet him. He was interested in the food question, and long before he reached me he was dancing about with outstretched arms.

In the midst of this performance it occurred to him that if he wanted anything to eat he must hurry to me. So he checked his first impulse and started to carry his second into instant effect. These incomplete proceedings interrupted and tripped each other three or four times and mixed themselves together. Apparently an entangled mental process followed my appearance. Though he tumbled about in comic confusion while trying to do two things at once, it was evident through it all that his central idea was to get something to eat.

One September we went camping out in Wild Basin, Johnny and Jenny racing along as happy as two boys. Sometimes they were ahead of me, sometimes behind; occasionally they stopped to wrestle and box. At night they lay close to me beside the camp-fire. Often I used one of them for a pillow, and more than once I awoke to find that they were using me for one.

As we were climbing along the top of a moraine, a black bear and her two cubs came within perhaps thirty feet of us. They saw or scented us. The cubs and their mother bristled up and ran off terribly frightened, while Johnny and Jenny only a short distance in front of me, walked on, both ludicrously pretending that they had not seen the black bears. Surely they were touched with aristocracy!

The man in charge of my place neither understood nor sympathized with wide-awake and aggressive young grizzlies, and once, when I was away, he teased Johnny. The inevitable crash came and the man went to the hospital. On another occasion he set a pan of sour milk on the ground before Jenny. Bears learn to like sour milk, but Jenny had not learned and she sourly sniffed at it. The man roared, "Drink it," and kicked her in the ribs. Again we had to send for the ambulance.

At last it appeared best to send Johnny and Jenny to the Denver Zoo. Two years went by before I allowed myself the pleasure of visiting them. A number of other bears were with them in a large pen when I leaped in, calling "Hello, Johnny!" as I did so. Johnny jumped up fully awake, stood erect, extended both arms, and gave a few joyful grunts in the way of greeting. Back among the other bears stood Jenny on tiptoe, eagerly looking on.

Trailing without a Gun

I had gone into Wild Basin, hoping to see and to trail a grizzly. It was early November and the sun shone brightly on four inches of newly fallen snow; trailing conditions were excellent. If possible I wanted to get close to a bear and watch his ways for a day or two.

Just as I climbed above the last trees on the eastern slope of the Continental Divide, I saw a grizzly ambling along the other side of a narrow cañon, boldly outlined against the sky-line. I was so near that with my field-glasses I recognized him as "Old Timberline," a bear with two right front toes missing. He was a silver-tip,--a nearly white old bear. For three days I followed Old Timberline through his home territory and camped on his trail at night. I had with me hatchet, kodak, field-glasses, and a package of food, but no gun.

The grizzly had disappeared by the time I crossed the cañon, but a clear line of tracks led westward. I followed them over the Divide and down into the woods on the other side. In a scattered tree-growth the tracks turned abruptly to the right, then led back eastward, close to the first line of tracks, as though Old Timberline had turned to meet any one who might be following him.

The most impressive thing I had early learned in trailing and studying the grizzly was that a wounded bear if trailed and harassed will sometimes conceal himself and lie in an ambush in wait for his pursuer. I never took a chance of walking into such danger. Whenever the trail passed a log, bowlder, or bushes that might conceal a bear, I turned aside and scouted the ambush for a side view before advancing further.

Old Timberline's tracks showed that he had now and then risen on hind feet, listened, and turned to look back. He acted as though he knew I was following him, but this he had not yet discovered. All grizzlies are scouts of the first order; they are ever on guard. When at rest their senses do continuous sentinel duty, and when traveling they act exactly as though they believed some man was in pursuit.

Following along the trail and wondering what turn the grizzly would make next, I found where he had climbed upon a ledge in the edge of an opening, and had evidently stood for some seconds, looking and listening. From the ledge he had faced about and continued his course westward, heading for a spur on the summit of the Divide.

We were in what is now the southern end of the Rocky Mountain National Park. The big bear and myself were on one of the high sky-lines of the earth. We traversed a territory ten thousand to twelve thousand feet above sea-level, much of it above the limits of tree growth. There were long stretches of moorland, an occasional peak towering above us, and ridges long and short thrusting east and west, and cañons of varying width and depth were to be seen below us from the summit heights.

Crossing this spur of the Divide, the grizzly entered the woods. Here he spent so much time rolling logs about and tearing them open for grubs and ants that I nearly caught up with him. I watched him through the scattered trees from a rocky ledge until he moved on. This after a few minutes he did. As he came to an opening in the woods, I wondered whether he would go round it to the right or to the left. To my astonishment, without the least hesitation he sauntered across the opening, his head held low and swinging easily from side to side. But the instant he was screened by trees beyond, rising up, with fore paws resting against a tree, he peered cautiously out to see if he was being followed. When the next opening in the woods was reached, he went discreetly round it. You never know what a grizzly's next move will be nor how to anticipate his actions.

Old Timberline started down into a cañon as though to descend a gully diagonally to the bottom. I hastily made a short cut and was ready to take his picture when he should come out at the lower end. But he never came. After waiting some time, I back-tracked and found he had gone only a few hundred feet down the gully, then returned to the top of the cañon and followed along the rim for a mile. He had then descended directly to the bottom of the cañon and gone straight up to the top on the other side.