William H. Wright

“ We were still miles from any settlement and had no idea that there was another human being in the same county. I was lying in the shade of a large tree with Ben, as his habit was, lying beside me with his head on my breast, to all appearance fast asleep. Suddenly he roused, stood up on his hind legs, and looked up the canyon. I also looked but, seeing nothing, pulled the bear down beside me again. For a while he was quiet, but soon stood up again and gazed uneasily up the creek. ”

“ Several times I have seen them suddenly rush with snorts of apprehension to the nearest tree, and had their actions explained a few minutes later by the silent appearance of a huge grizzly.
The grandest wild animal of the United States is the grizzly bear. But the most amusing, the most ludicrous, the most human and understandable of our wild animals, is our friend Ursus americanus (Pallas) . I have called him the Happy Hooligan of the woods, and I can think of no more descriptive phrase for him. He is neither evil-intentioned nor bad-natured. ”

“ One sometimes hears it claimed that a Black Bear can only climb a tree around which he can conveniently clasp his front legs, man-fashion. They can climb, and that with almost equal ease, any tree that will hold their weight; from a sapling so small that there is just room for them to sink one set of hind claws above the other in a straight line, to an old giant so big that they can only cling to its face, squirrel-fashion, and behind the trunk of which (also squirrel-fashion) they can hide, circling as you walk around it. ”

“ There are few things more interesting than to watch a bear with her cubs when she thinks herself alone. They are the gayest and most playful little balls of fur, and she will let them maul her and worry her and pretend to fight her. But a Black Bear does not, as the grizzly does, talk to her cubs all the time. A grizzly will walk along through the woods with two or three cubs carrying on what appears to be a connected conversation. ”

“ If he scares you, well and good. He’s gained his point. If he doesn’t scare you, well and good again. Nothing has been lost by the attempt. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he’ll sit and look at you exactly as though nothing had happened, and the inference is, “Well, I’ve made my suggestion. Now it’s your move.” It was thoroughly typical of the animal that the old bear that so scared Kerfoot when he was focussing his camera upon her should have simply sat down on her haunches and stared open-eyed at us when we rolled on the ground in laughter. ”

“ I am always sorry for wild animals in captivity, but I am, I think, less sorry for the Black Bear than for most others. For they act just about as bored to death in the woods as they do in the Zoo. I have seen one come along, rip a piece off an old stump, sniff for bugs, find none, stand undecided for a few minutes, and then walk up to a tree and draw itself upright against the trunk, stretching like a cat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are everlastingly poking and pulling at rotten logs, old stumps, loose stones, and decaying trees, looking for caterpillars, squash-bugs, grubs, centipedes, and larvæ. Their sense of smell is wonderfully acute and one can hear them sniffing and snuffing over the punky mass of an old tree trunk they have ripped open, searching with their noses for crawling goodies.
Like all bears they are extravagantly fond of ants, and they are not only experts in finding them, but know how to take advantage of the habits of the various kinds in order to catch them. ”

“ And there is still another variety of huge black ants that nest about the roots of trees and spend their time exploring the bark and branches. I have seen them sixty feet above ground busily pursuing their affairs. Of these, too, the Black Bear is fond, and one sees him snuffing and smelling around the cracks in old trees in hopes of locating a colony of them. I have seen where bears have scratched and gnawed at the edges of a narrow opening in the lower trunk of a decaying tree, in a vain endeavor to get into the open heart of it ”

“ From the moment that they enter the mouths of the larger rivers, every living creature, from man downward, begins to take toll of them. Those that pass the nets and salmon wheels of the canning factories, that elude the talons of the eagles and ospreys, that are missed by the paws of the bears and the cougars, the teeth of the otters and the mink, arrive at the head-waters of their selected stream in a pitiable condition of wounds and exhaustion. ”

“ But by the time one has seen thousands of Black Bear, let us say, in many parts of their range, in all stages of growth, at all seasons of the year, in undisturbed enjoyment of their liberty, and free to follow their own instincts of work and play, one is able, by putting two and two together, to piece out a pretty accurate knowledge of the species. ”

“ Even then the bear used not to give up hope immediately. After the first really angry snap from Jim, Ben would stand off a few feet and look apologetic. Then, if nothing more happened, he would approach the dog with a kind of experimental briskness; only, however, to turn a back somersault in his haste to get out of the reach of Jim’s teeth. A few minutes later, after Jim had lain down and was apparently asleep, Ben would steal up quietly and, very gently, with just the tip of his paw, would touch his old playfellow to find out if he really meant that the romp was off. ”

“ We used to amuse ourselves by trying to surprise him on our return to camp; but, come in as quietly as we might, and up the wind at that, we would always find him standing behind a tree, peering around its trunk with just one eye exposed, ready to climb in case the danger proved sufficient to warrant it. One day after we had crossed the divide of the Bitter Root range into Montana, where we had gone to replenish our food supply before starting on our return trip, we camped in a canyon through which flowed an excellent trout stream. ”

“ He did not care about meat and would eat his frying-pan food, or bread, in preference to deer or moose meat. Sometimes, when we killed a grizzly, we would bring in some of the meat and cook it for the dogs. This was the only meat that Ben would touch and very little of that. But although he occasionally consented to dine on bear meat, he showed unmistakable signs of temper whenever a new bear-skin was added to our growing pile of pelts. On these occasions, even before the hide was brought to camp, we would find him on our return in a towering rage. ”

“ When they first come out of the winter’s den they wander around for a day or so showing little or no inclination for food. Then they make their way down to where the snow is gone and the early vegetation has begun to sprout, and eat sparingly of the tender grass shoots. But their appetites are not long in returning. By the end of a week the old saying, “hungry as a bear,” is more than justified and they start in in earnest to make up for lost time. ”

“ The first thing a Black Bear mother does when any danger threatens is to send her cubs up a tree. She will then frequently try to induce the enemy to follow her and, when she has eluded him, will return for the cubs. In parts of the country where there are grizzlies, or where there are wolves, she will generally thus dispose of her children before herself going off to feed on berries or other provender. In all my experience I have never known cubs, when thus ordered into retirement by their mother, to come down from the selected tree until she called them. They will climb to the extreme top ”

“ You never watch Black Bear when they are quite at home and undisturbed without being made to feel that they are hard put to it to know what to do with themselves. A grizzly “knows his business” in every sense of the expression. When he starts out, he knows where he is going and goes there. When he starts a job, he finishes it and goes on to the next. I have followed one along and over the high ridges of the Rockies for two days on end when the light snow of early fall showed every step he took. I have tracked one from ground-squirrel burrow to marmot hole ”