Wild Beasts and Their Ways, Reminiscences of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Volume 1

"He went on, sometimes here, sometimes there, and at last he changed his mind, and seeing that he couldn't get away from the horse across the open, he turned, and made for the 10 mile forest. It was as much as I could do to drive him, by shouting and cracking my whip whenever I headed him; if I had only once let him get out of sight, I should never have seen him again. The ground is full of stones, as you know, which bothered the horse in turning quickly; but we went on, sometimes full gallop straight away, at other times dancing round and round, until at last the old bear got regularly tuckered-out, and he was so done he could hardly move. There he was, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, standing, panting and blowing, and my horse wasn't much better, I can tell you. Well, I was drawn up as close to him as though I was going to strike him, and he was so completely done there wasn't any fight in him; my horse's flanks were heaving in such a way that I could hardly load the two chambers that I had fired. I was determined to have all my six shots ready before I began to fire, and it was just lucky that I did, for I'm blessed if I could kill him. There he stood, regularly exhausted-like, and he took shot after shot, and never seemed to notice, or to care for anything. At last I almost touched him, when I fired my sixth cartridge between his shoulders, and he dropped stone dead. That's all that happened, and I thought you wouldn't believe me if I came back without a proof; so I cut him open, and took out his liver to show you; and here it is."

Although this fine fellow thought nothing of his achievement, I considered it to be the most extraordinary feat of horsemanship that I had ever heard of, combined with wonderful determination. In the darkness of night, without a moon, to hunt single-handed, and to kill, a full-grown bear with a revolver, was in my experience an unprecedented triumph in shikar.

Early on the following morning I sent for the bear's skin. It proved to be a large silver-tipped, and a close examination exhibited the difficulties of the encounter during darkness.

Eight shots had been fired from the commencement, to the termination by the last fatal bullet; but, although Texas Bill was an excellent shot with his revolver, he had missed seven times, and the eighth was the only bullet that struck the bear. This had entered between the shoulders vertically, proving the correctness of his description, as he must have shot directly downwards. The bullet had passed through the centre of the heart, and had escaped near the brisket, having penetrated completely through this formidable animal.

Upon my return to England I immediately purchased a similar revolver of Messrs. Colt and Co.–the long frontier pistol, .450 bullet.

Although bears were scarce, we occasionally met them unexpectedly. As a rule, I took Jem Bourne and Texas Bill out shooting, the man Gaylord had to look after the twelve or thirteen animals, and little Henry, the German cook, was left in camp to assist my wife. Upon one of these rather dull days the camp was enlivened by the visit of three large bears. These creatures emerged from the neighbouring jungle, and commenced a search for food within 50 yards of the camp, only separated by a narrow streamlet of 10 feet in width. For about twenty minutes they were busily engaged in working up the ground like pigs, in search of roots or worms; in this manner they amused themselves harmlessly, until they suddenly observed that they were watched, after which they retreated to the forest.

My acquaintance Bob Stewart assured me that the bears had become so shy, that the only way to succeed was to "jump a bear." This term was explained as follows: you were to ride through forest, until you came across the fresh track of a bear; you were then to follow it up on foot, until you should arrive at the secluded spot where the bear slept during the daytime, in the recesses of the forest. It would of course jump out of its bed when disturbed, and this was termed "jumping a bear." Of course you incurred the chance of the animal's attack, when thus suddenly intruded upon at close quarters.

I agreed to start with Bob upon such an excursion; but I found that this kind of sport was more adapted for his light weight than my own, and that his moccasins were far superior to my boots, for running along the stems of fallen spruce trees at all kinds of angles, and for jumping from one prostrate trunk to another, in a squirrel-like fashion, more in harmony with a man of 9 stone than one of 15. We started together, Bob mounted upon his little mare, while I rode my best horse, "Buckskin," who was trained, like many of these useful animals, to stand alone, and graze, without moving away from his position for hours; should it be necessary to dismount, and leave him. The horses thus tutored are invaluable for shooting purposes, as it is frequently necessary to stalk an animal on foot; in which case, the bridle is simply arranged by drawing the reins over the head, and throwing them in his front, to fall upon the ground before his fore-feet. When thus managed, the horse will feed, but he will never move away from his position, and he will wait for hours for the return of his master.

We rode about four miles without seeing a living creature, except a badger. This animal squatted upon seeing the horses, and lay close to the ground like a hare in form, until we actually halted within 10 feet of its position. Bob immediately suggested that we should kill it, and secure its skin (his one idea appeared to be a longing to divest everything of its hide); but I would not halt, as the day was to be devoted to bears. We at length arrived at a portion of the forest where the young spruce had grown up from a space that had formerly been burnt; about 50 acres were densely covered with bright green foliage, forming a pleasing contrast to the sombre hue of the older forest. This was considered by my guide to be a likely retreat for bears; it was as thick as possible for trees to grow.

We accordingly dismounted, threw the reins over our horses' heads, and, taking the right direction of the wind, we entered the main forest, which was connected with the younger growth. It was easy to distinguish tracks, as the earth was covered with old half-rotten pine needles, which formed a soft surface, that would receive a deep impression. Nearly all the old trees were more or less barked by the horns of wapiti, showing that immense numbers must visit these woods at the season when the horns are nearly hard, and require rubbing, to clean them from the velvet. We had not strolled more than half a mile through the dark wood when Bob suddenly halted, and, like Robinson Crusoe, he appeared startled by the signs of a footstep deeply imprinted in the soil. It was uncommonly like a large and peculiarly broad human foot, but there was no doubt it was a most recent track of a bear, and the direction taken would lead towards the dense young spruce that we had already seen. We followed the track, until we at length arrived at the bright green thicket, in which we felt sure the bear must be lying down.

This was an exceedingly awkward place, and Bob assured me that if he were alone, he should decline to enter such a forest, as it was impossible to see a yard ahead, and a bear might spring upon you before you knew that it was near. As I had a double-barrelled powerful rifle, I of course went first, followed by Bob close behind. As noiselessly as possible, we pushed through the elastic branches, and very slowly followed the track, which was now more difficult to distinguish, owing to the close proximity of the young trees that overshadowed the surface of the ground.

In this manner we had advanced about a quarter of a mile, when a sudden rush was made exactly in my front, the young trees were roughly shaken, and I jumped forward immediately, to meet or to follow the animal, before I could determine what it really was. Something between a short roar and a grunt proclaimed it to be a bear, and I pushed on as fast as I could through the opposing branches; I could neither see nor hear anything.

Bob Stewart now joined me. "That's no good," he exclaimed, "you shouldn't run forward when you hear the rush of a bear, but jump on one side, as I did. Supposing that bear had come straight at you; why, he'd a been on the top of you before you could have got your rifle up. True, you've got a double-barrel, but that's not my way of shooting bears, although that's the way to JUMP A BEAR, which you've seen now, and you may jump a good many before you get a shot in this kind of stuff."

I could not induce Bob to take any further trouble in pursuit, as he assured me that it would be to no purpose: the bear when thus disturbed would go straight away, and might not halt for several miles.

This was a disappointment; we therefore sought our horses, which we found quietly grazing in the place that we expected. Remounting, we rode slowly through the great mass of spruce firs, which I had named the "10 mile forest."

There was very little underwood beyond a few young spruce here and there, and we could see from 80 to 100 yards in every direction. Presently we came across an enormous skull, which Bob immediately examined, and handed it to me, suggesting that I should preserve it as a specimen. He declared this to be the skull of a true grizzly; but some of the teeth were missing, and as I seldom collect anything that I have not myself shot or taken a part in shooting, I declined the head, although it was double the size of anything I had experienced.

The forest was peculiarly dark, and the earth was so soft from the decaying pine needles, that our horses made no noise, unless when occasionally their hoofs struck against the brittle branches of a fallen tree. We were thus riding, always keeping a bright look-out, when Bob (who was leading) suddenly sprang from his mare, and as quick as lightning fired at a black-tail buck, that was standing about 80 yards upon our right. His shot had no effect; the deer, which had not before observed us, started at the shot, and stood again, without moving more than three or four yards. Bob had reloaded his Sharp like magic, and he fired another shot, hitting it through the neck, as it was gazing directly towards us; it fell dead, without moving a foot.

We rode up to the buck; it was in beautiful condition, but the horns were in velvet, and were useless. I now watched with admiration the wonderful dexterity with which Bob, as a professional skin-hunter, divested this buck of its hide. It appeared to me that I could hardly take off my own clothes (if I were to commence with my greatcoat) quicker than he ripped off the skin from this beautiful beast. With very little delay, the hide was neatly folded up, and secured to the Mexican saddle by the long leathern thongs, which form portions of that excellent invention.

Bob remounted his mare, with the skin strapped behind the cantle, like a military valise; and we continued on our way. "That was a quick shot, Bob."—"Yes, 2 1/2 dollars, or 2 dollars at least I'll get for that skin; you see there's no game that pays us like the black-tail, and I never let one go if I can help it; they're easy to shoot, easy to skin, easy to dry, and easy to sell at a good price, and more than that, they're handy to pack upon a mule."

That little incident having passed, we again relapsed into silence, and rode slowly forward, with a wide-awake look-out on every side.

We had ridden about a mile, when the fresh tracks of bears that had crossed our route caused a sudden halt, and we immediately dismounted to examine them. They were of average size, and there could be no doubt, from the short stride of each pace, that they were retiring leisurely, after a night's ramble, to the beds in which they usually laid up. We led our horses to a small glade of good grass that was not far distant, and left them in the usual manner.

We now commenced tracking, which was simple enough, as the heavy footprints were distinct, and the bears had been travelling tolerably straight towards home. At length, after nearly a mile of this easy work, we arrived at a portion of the forest where some hurricane must in former years have levelled several hundred acres. The trees were lying about in confused heaps, piled in many places one upon the other, in the greatest confusion. None of them were absolutely rotten, but the branches were exceedingly brittle, and, if broken, they snapped like a pistol shot, making a noiseless advance most difficult. Through this chaos of fallen timber the young spruce had grown with extreme vigour, and I never experienced greater difficulty in making my way than in this tangled and obdurate mass of long trunks of gnarled trees, and branches lying at every angle, intergrown with the green boughs of younger spruce.

Bob Stewart wore moccasins, and being exceedingly light and active, he ran up each sloping treestem for 40 or 50 feet, then dropped nimbly to another fallen trunk below, bobbed under a mass of heavy timber, like masts in a shipbuilder's yard, supported as they had chanced to fall, and then dived underneath all sorts of obstructions. He was followed admiringly, but slowly, by myself, not provided with moccasins, but in high riding boots. If I had been a squirrel, I might perhaps have beaten Bob, but after several hundred yards of this horrible entanglement, which might have been peopled by all the bears in Wyoming, we arrived at a small grassy swamp in the bottom of a hollow, just beneath a great mass of perpendicular rock, about 70 or 80 feet in height. In the centre of this hollow was a pool of water, about 8 feet by 6. This had been disturbed so recently by some large animal, that the mud was still curling in dusky rings, showing that the bath had only just been vacated. We halted, and examined this attentively. The edges of the little pool were wet with the drip from the bear's shaggy coat, as it had left the water.

Bob whispered to me, "Look sharp, there are bears here, more than one I think, and if they've heard us, they'll be somewhere alongside this rock I reckon, or maybe up above." We crept along, and beneath the fallen timber; but it was so dark, owing to the great number of young spruce which had pushed their way upwards, that a dozen bear might have moved without our seeing one.

We now arrived at a small open space, about 20 feet square; this was a delightful change from the darkness and obstructions: The ground in this spot was a deep mass of pine needles, and in this soft material there were three or four round depressions, quite smooth, and about 18 inches deep; these were the beds of bears, where in undisturbed solitude they were in the habit of sleeping after their nocturnal rambles.

I was of opinion that we had disturbed our game, as several times we had accidentally broken a dead branch, with a loud report, when clambering through the abominable route. However, we crept forward round the base of the rock, and arrived in the darkest and thickest place that we had hitherto experienced.

At this moment we heard a sharp report, as a dead branch snapped immediately in our front. For an instant I saw a large black shadow apparently walking along the trunk of a fallen pine. I could not see the sight of my rifle in the deep gloom, but I fired, and was answered by a short growl and a momentary crash among the branches.

We ran forward with difficulty, but no bear was to be seen. We searched everywhere, but in vain. I came to the conclusion that the game was hardly worth the candle.

Through several hours we worked hard, but did not find another bear; and it was past five o'clock when we arrived at our camp, after a long day's work, in which we had certainly "jumped" two bears, but had not succeeded in bagging one.

Texas Bill came to hold my horse upon our arrival; he was looking rather shy, and ill-at-ease. "What's the matter, Bill? anything gone wrong?" I asked.

"Well," he replied, "I hope you won't blame me, as I don't think it right, but you know where you killed a wapiti a couple of days ago, and we found the next morning that the bears had been and buried it; and you said we'd better leave the place quiet for a day, and then you'd go early in the morning, and perhaps find the bears upon the spot? Well, after you were gone with Bob this morning, Jem Bourne proposed that we should go and have a look at the place, and sure enough when we got there we found a great big bear fast asleep, lying on the top of the buried wapiti, and her two half-grown cubs asleep with her. So Jem had your Martini-Henry with him, and he killed the mother stone dead, through the shoulder. Up gets one of the young ones, and hits his brother (or sister) such a whack in the eye with his paw that it just made me laugh, and then he cuffs him again over the head, just as though it was his fault that the mother was knocked over. Jem had reloaded, so he put a bullet through this young fellow; and then putting in another cartridge, he floored the third, and they were all dead in less than a minute. It's a fine rifle is that Martini-Henry, but I think you'll be displeased, as we had no business to go nigh the place; it ain't my fault, and I wouldn't have done it myself, you may be sure."

This was a glorious triumph for the jealous Jem Bourne, who was highly offended at my having adopted the advice, and sought the assistance of Bob Stewart, to "jump a bear." We had returned as failures, and he had killed three bears with my rifle, within my sanctuary, which I had specially arranged for a visit upon the following day. He declared "that nobody should stop him from killing bears, as his right was just as good as mine." This poaching upon my preserves was rather too much for my patience, therefore without any discussion or angry words I gave him a note to carry 42 miles' distance on the following morning to a friend of mine at the second ranche. "What horse shall I ride ?" asked the fellow sullenly. "The white mule," I replied. "When am I to come back ?"—"Not till I send for you," was the answer; and Jem Bourne ceased to be a member of our party.

This was an excellent example, as many of these people are exceedingly independent, and although he received high wages (120 dollars monthly, in addition to his food, and a horse to ride), he considered that he was quite the equal of his employer. Although my other men received only half these wages, they were more useful, and after this dismissal we were far more comfortable.

It was a strange study of the Far West in these outlandish and utterly uninhabited districts. When looking down from the summit of the mountains, facing north, we were positively certain that for more than 100 miles in a direct line there was not a human habitation, and the nearest point of embryo civilisation was the Government Park on the Yellowstone river, at least 150 miles distant. In our rear we were 80 miles from the abandoned station of Powder River, with only two ranches in the interval. It may be readily imagined that the laws of civilised communities were difficult to administer in such a wilderness.

The nearest railway station was "Rock Creek," about 240 miles, upon the Union Pacific, from whence we had originally started; that point is about 7000 feet above the sea-level. A curious contrivance, slung upon leather straps instead of springs, represents a coach, which, drawn by four horses, plies to Fort Fetterman, 90 miles distant. During this prairie journey the horses are only changed twice.

There are no dwellings to be seen throughout the undulating mass of wild grass; this possesses extraordinary properties for fattening cattle, and wild animals; but after a weary drive along a track worn by wheels and other traffic, and occasionally well defined by empty tins that had contained preserved provisions, a small speck is seen upon the horizon, which is declared to be the station for spare horses.

Upon arrival at this cheerless abode we entered a small log-house, containing two rooms and a kitchen; but the cooking was conducted in the public room, an apartment about 13 feet square, with a useful kind of stove in one corner. The man who represented the establishment had of course observed the coach in the far distance, therefore he was not startled by the arrival of our party, which consisted of the Hon. Charles Ellis, Lady Baker, and myself. He had already begun to fry bacon in a huge frying-pan upon the little stove, and he had opened some large tins of preserved vegetables, in addition to another containing some kind of animal hardly to be distinguished. He had been successful that morning, having killed an antelope; therefore we had quite an entertainment in this log-hut, so far away from the great world.

The table was spread with a very dirty cloth, and our small party was immediately augmented by the arrival of the coachman (our driver), the man who looked after the horses, an outside passenger of questionable respectability, and our host, who had just cooked the bacon. It was an unexceptional fashion throughout the country to reduce all clothing to a minimum. Coats were unknown during the summer months (this was the middle of August); waistcoats were despised; and the costume of the period consisted of a flannel shirt, and a pair of trousers sustained by a belt in lieu of braces. Attached to this belt was the omnipresent six-shooter in its holster. I was the only person who possessed, or at all events exhibited, a coat; and I felt that peculiar and unhappy sensation of being over-dressed, which I feared might be mistaken for pride by our unsophisticated companions.

We were not a cheery party; on the contrary, everybody appeared to be so determined not to say the wrong thing, that they remained silent; the dullness of the meal was only broken at long intervals by such carefully expressed sentiments as "I'll trouble you to pass the salt, if you please," or "Will you kindly hand the bacon ?"

There was no vulgarity in this, and we were afterwards informed that these rough people, who, as a rule, season their conversation with the pepper of profanity, are painfully sensitive to the presence of a lady, before whom they are upon their P's and Q's of propriety; and, should an improper expression escape their lips in an unguarded moment, they would be in a state of deep depression from the keenest remorse, which might perhaps cause a sense of unhappiness for at least five minutes. They most sensibly refrained altogether from conversation in a lady's presence, to avoid the possibility of a "slip of the tongue."

If they could have left their perfume behind, together with the profanity, our table would have been sweeter; but the flannel shirts were seldom washed, to prevent shrinking, just as their owners seldom spoke, to avoid swearing; an overpowering smell of horses was emitted by the driver, and of stables by the ostler, while the proprietor exhaled the mixed but indescribable odours combined from his various duties, such as cooking, cleaning up, sleeping in his clothes, and never washing them.

The meal over, we again started. This stage was interesting, as we left the treeless expanse of prairie, and drove over highland through picturesque forests of spruce firs among rocks and canyons. About 20 miles of this scenery was passed; then we descended a long slope, and once more emerged upon the dreary, treeless prospect.

At the end of 35 miles another speck was seen, which eventually turned out to be a station similar to that at which we had halted in the morning. There were two pretty-looking and clean girls here; they had come to assist their brother, who "ran" the house. It was curious to observe the little evidences of civilisation which the presence of these girls had introduced. At first sight, among a rude community, I should have had strong misgivings concerning the security of young girls without a mother; but, on the contrary, I was assured that no man would ever presume to insult a respectable woman, and the girls were safer here than they would be at New York. It was a doughtful anomaly in a society which otherwise was exceedingly brutal, that a good woman possessed a civilising power which gained the respect of her rough surroundings, and, by an unpretentious charm, softened both speech and morals.

It was to be regretted that this benign influence could not have been extended to the vermin. When the lamp was extinguished, the bed was alive. I always marvelled at the phrase, "he took up his bed and walked," but if the bugs had been unanimous, they could have walked off with the bed without a miracle. Sleeping was impossible. I relighted the paraffin lamp, a retreat was evidently sounded, and the enemy retired. Presently an explosion took place—the lamp had gone wrong, and burst, fortunately without setting the place on fire. An advance was sounded, and the enemy came on, determined upon victory.