Bears I Have Met—and Others

eelfoot." He was first introduced to the public by a mining-camp editor named Townsend, who was nicknamed "Truthful James" in a spirit of playful irony. That

ast five feet high at the shoulder, weighed a ton or more and found no difficulty in carrying away a cow. He seemed to be impervious to bullets, and many hunters who took his trail never returned. A few who met

ing recourse of the country editor when the foreman was insistent for copy, and those who undertook to preserve the fame of his exploits in their files scrupulously respected the rights of his discoverer and never permitted any vain-glorious bear hunter to kill him. As one of the early guardians of this incomparable monster, I can bear witness that it was the unwritten law of the jour

ierra Valley and slaughtered two Italian woodchoppers in the most wanton and sensational manner. More than ten years later I met in Truckee an old settler who remembered the painful occurrence well, because the Italians were working for him at the time, and he told me the story to prove that Old Brin had once roamed that part of t

cure the pelt of Old Brin and undying glory. About a score of them, heavily armed and provisioned for a month, sallied forth from the Comstock to find and camp upon the trail of the

quest, Foster picked up his shot-gun, jocularly remarked that he guessed he would fetch in a bear, and limped away toward a brushy ridge. Presently the cook heard a shot, followed by yells of alarm, and peering from the tent he saw Foster coming down the slope on a gallop, followed by a monstrous bear. The cook seized a rifle, tried to

ngth on the turn into the home-stretch. "You're not running a lick on God's green earth. The bear's

ped in scornful tones: "You yapping coyote, do you think I'm selling thi

ing it the man gained a few yards and time enough to climb a stout sapling, growing upon the brink of a cleft in the country rock about a dozen feet wide and twice as deep. The tree was as thick as a man's leg at the base and very tall. Foster climbed well out of reach of the bear, and, perched in a crotch twenty feet above the ground, he felt safe. Old Brin sat down at the foot of the tree, and with head cocked sidewise thoughtfully eyed the man who had affron

: Prepared to

he napping skirt of Foster's duster seemed to be within reach, the over-eager bear made a grab for it, and released his grasp of the tree. The backward spring of the tough sapling ne

lthough he secured most of the skirt, he let go his hold and the tree sprang back like a bended bow. Foster let go his hold too in mid-arc and went sailing through the air and across the ravine, landing in a thicket with a jar tha

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at the bank, his views on ethical questions were considered superior to a bishop's, and all around he was conceded to be a better citizen and an honester man than Nevada had been able to send to the United States Senate. Therefore, as Joe Stewart was one of the party and did not deny that events happened as described by Col. Orndorff,

and he drove his arm backward violently against the canvas, encountering something solid and eliciting a loud and angry snort. Long Brown moved just in time to escape the sweep of a huge paw,

Long Brown move

ding pursuit. The lamps were broken in the fall, and the oil blazed up under the canvas. Col. Orndorff, Mr. Stewart, Bill Gibson, Doughnut Bill and the cook, Noisy Smith, climbed t

rifles, shot-guns and all but one revolver had been left in the tent, and presently they began to pop. Doughnut Bill, safe in a sycamore, hitched around to the lee side of the trunk and said: "Mr. Brown,

Col. Orndorff. "Shin up a tree

folding canvas and louder roars of pain and rage. The five-gallon oil can, probably punctured by Long Brown's bullets, furnished the climax to the volcanic display by blowing up and filling the air with burning canvas, blankets and hardware, and out of the fire and smoke rushed the blazing bear straight toward Long Brown and the creek. Even Long Brown's ner

isdom of our Pacific Coast statesmen and financiers in retaining metal as a circulating medium during the late lamentable unpleasantness. Had we succumbed to the vicious habit of using paper substitutes for money, we should now be weeping over the ashes of a departed j

the Greenbackers,"

a Jacksonian Democrat, I views with alarm the play the Gre

pered by Nevada, and Noisy Smith whispered his as

willing to divide it, but he allowed that if the bear had not butted

tlemanly, not to say rude, but as the holder of three aces before the draw I claim an interest in the pot. Of cours

full on

pered Noisy Smith.

forth five water-soaked cards, laid them dow

oved the melted jackpot over to Long Brown.

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d him. But a later breed of journalistic historians, having no reverence for the traditions of the craft and no regard for the truth, sprang up, and the slaughter of the club-footed Grizzl

it to San Francisco for exhibition at a fair. He had degenerated to a mangy, yellow beast of about 500 pounds weight, with a coat like a wornout

k all over a wide-spreading mountain. The herders spent the best part of a week in gathering the lost sheep, but after the most thorough search of which they were capable, some fifty odd were still missing. When

kely places unknown to the herders, and he was about to give up the search when his mind pulled out of a dusty pigeon-hole of memory a faded picture of a queer nook in the mountain, into which he had stumbled many years before in chase of a wounded deer. More for the sake of seeing if he could find the place

ines, was a break in one of the side walls leading to an enclosed cienega, an emerald gem set deep in the mountain, as though a few acres of ground

ath across it from wall to wall, and a glance told him that the path had been beaten by a bear pacing to and fro. Looking closely

sign into this natural trap, and the wily old bear had mounted guard at the entrance and paced his beat until the sheep were thoroughly cured of any tendency to wander down toward the lower end of the meadow. When he wanted mutton, he caught a fat sheep, carried it to his sentry beat and killed and ate it there, leaving the remains as a warning

out the aid of dogs and herders would result only in an endless surging to and fro in the basin. Besides it was almost dusk, the bear might come home to supper at any moment and a revolver was of

tree in such a position that the muzzle could be reached only from in front and in line with the barrel. In the breech of the barrel were ten drams of quick rifle powder, and upon the powder rested a brass 12-gauge shot shell, which had been filled with

ent to sleep. In the morning, with two herders and their collies, he went back to the cienega. There was not much left of the musket, but in

brush. Half a mile from the cienega the dogs stopped before a thicket, bristled their backs and growled impatient remonstrance to the superintendent's efforts to shove them into the brush with his foot. In response

ad thoroughly "shelled the woods" without eliciting a sound or a movement. The silence gave the dogs courage and slowly they pushed into the thicket with many haltings and backward starts, and presently their barking changed in tone and told the man that they had found something of which they were not afraid. Th

s none other than Old Clubfoot, and it is not worth while to di

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next recrudescence was in Old Tuolumne, where he forgot former experiences with steel traps and set his foot into the jaws of one placed in his way by vindictive cattlemen. Attached to the chain of t

etchy Valley, a replica of Yosemite on half scale, and he was too old a hand at the game to follow the trail in. One experience with a bear in the brush is enough to teach the greatest fool in the world, if he survives, that wild animals do not lie down to rest withou

ried to hold Joe back, but Joe had killed black bears and knew nothing of Grizzlies, and he had a contemptuous opinion of the courage of bears and a corres

o the thicket. "If you're afraid," he said, "you stay there

. Joe Screech, you are the damnedest fool in Tuolumne.

watch my smoke," and J

reech, towering far above him and swinging the trap from his paw. Joe Screech had time for but one glance of terror, and as he jumped the bear swung trap, chain and clog in the air and reached for him with a mighty blow. It was the fifty-p

e Bear Swung Trap

of the stroke, aided by the momentum of the circling clog, threw him from his balance. Probably a bullet in the back

sand feet below, where the talus began to slope from the sheer cliff, dust was still floating, and sto

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pudent enough to carry their imposture to the extent of placing step-ladders against his sign-board trees and recording their alleged height a yard or two above his mark. That made him tired. Moreover the gout in his bad foot troubled him more and more, and he ceased to get much s

pirooting around the hills with a gun, making much noise and scaring the wits out of coyotes and jack rabbits. Old Clubfoot realized that his eyes were dimmin

the cattle-men in that section were victims of strange hallucinations and harborers of nefarious suspicions. Although Clubfoot was credited with large numbers of dead steers found

h and saw a thrilling account of his own death at the hands of the redoubtable Jerky Johnson. He had just tipped over a hive and was about to fill up with luscious white sage honey when

d his nose against them. The gout in his maimed foot throbbed horribly, and all the loose bullets in his system seemed to have assembled in his chest and taken the p

ock, softly entered the room and sniffed anxiously of the rows of jars and bottles upon a shelf. His eyes were dim and he could not read the labels, but his nose was still keen and he knew he should find what he was seeking. He found it. Taking down a two-gallon jar, Clubfoot tu

oke the two-gallon jar upon the sharp edge and spilled the contents upon the sponge. Taking one last look at the stars and the dis

rm jar, and between the claws of the bear's maimed foot was a crumpled Sunday supplement of a yellow journal, containing an account of the slaying of Old Brin, the Club-footed Grizzly, by Jerky Johnson. Bei