Bear track

“ When a track is found, the bear is promptly ringed. That is, the track is not followed up, but a man on ski leaves it at right angles, and working in slightly all the time towards the direction in which the bear was travelling, finally hits the spoor again where he had left it. If he has not seen the spoor in the meanwhile, the bear is somewhere within that ring.
There is no immediate hurry for the next move. Bears only shift their quarters two or three times during the course of the winter, and if undisturbed they will doze for a considerable while when once they have settled down. ”

“ All animals' toes spread more or less when they run. A bear track is like Fig. 11, but a large bear often leaves other evidences of his presence than his footprints. He will frequently turn a big log over or tear one open in his search for ants. He will stand on his hind legs and gnaw a hole in a dead tree or tall stump, and a bee-tree will bear the marks of his climbing on its trunk. It is interesting to find a tree with the scars of bruin's feet, made prominent by small knobs where his claws have sunk into the bark. Each scar swells and stands out like one of his toes. ”

“ The tracks may sometimes be seen in the mud and wet moss of the northern swamps, also on the shores of the lakes and along the streams.
The bear has a shuffling mode of walking and turns its toes outward. It is fond of walking on logs and will do so frequently, where fallen timber is plentiful. The track of a large black bear will sometimes measure eight inches in length, and that of the grizzly bear will be much larger. ”

“ Murphy unclasped the chains that linked them together and they scampered up the precipitous ravine before us. As they passed, Tom pointed out bear tracks, the first we had seen.
In less than ten minutes the full-throated bay of the hounds told us that they had struck a hot track and routed the bear from his temporary den.
That was the signal for speed, and we began a desperate race up the side of the mountain. Nothing but perfect physical health can stand such a strain. One who is not in athletic training will either fail completely in the test or do his heart irreparable damage. ”

“ In these countries, when the track of a bear is observed in the snow, it is followed up by the person who has discovered it, with the intention of “ringing” the animal—that is, ascertaining as near as maybe, the locality in which it may have halted from its rambles, and lain down to rest. Of course, if the person thus trailing the bear be a hunter—or if it be a party of hunters actually engaged in the chase, they will keep on until they have found the bear in his den. ”

“ It looked like a herd of cattle had stamped the earth, only the tracks were bear tracks. Little ones no longer than a child's hand, and larger, up to huge tracks a foot long and almost as wide. Many were old, but some were fresh. This little spot smelled of bear so strongly that it reminded me of the bear pen in the Bronx Park Zoological Garden. I had been keen for sight of bear trails and scent of bear fur, but this was a little too much. I thought it was too much because the place was lonely and dark and absolutely silent. I went on down to the gully that ran down the middle of the canyon. ”

“ However this may be, the brown bears of Lapland certainly indulge in a period of slumber—during which they are difficult to find. Never issuing from their places of concealment, they make no track in the snow by which they might be followed. At such seasons it is only by accident, or by the aid of his dog, that the Lap hunter chances to discover the retreat of a bear; and, when one is thus discovered, various methods are adopted for securing the valuable skin and carcass of the animal. ”

“ Sometimes they lost the trail for a good while, when it was evident that the bear had taken up the grappling, when it got fast, and carried it; and father said she must be caught by her fore paws, as he knew by her track that she walked on her hind legs, sometimes half a mile—trap, grappling, and all. They followed her into the woods nearly two miles, Cæsar helping me over the windfalls, and sometimes taking me on his shoulder, till finally, at Millbrook, we lost her track altogether. In vain they searched the woods. There was no sign of bear or trap. ”

“ This singular fact in the history of the animal seems most inexplicable to me, unless she remain concealed in her brumal slumber until after she has been delivered of her cubs.
I was told by an old Delaware Indian that when the bear has been traveling against the wind and wishes to lie down, he always turns in an opposite direction, and goes some distance away from his first track before making his bed. If an enemy then comes upon his trail, his keen sense of smell will apprise him of the danger. ”

“ Bogs, brooks, swales, rocky little parks, stretches of timber full of windfalls, groves of aspens so thick we could scarcely squeeze through—all these obstacles soon allowed the hounds to get far away. We came out into a large park, right under the mountain slope, and here we sat our horses listening to the chase. That trail led around the basin and back near to us, up the thick green slope, where high up near a ledge we heard the pack jump this bear. ”

“ In sections where they are found in fair numbers, they form trails through passes in the mountains, along the bottoms of the cliffs, around points of the lakes, and in other places of like nature. These trails may be easily distinguished from the paths of other animals, by the marks on the trees. At intervals, all along the trail, the bear will stand on his hind feet, by the side of a tree, gnaw a circle around the tree, about five feet above the ground. I am told that this marking is done during the mating season. The trails are traveled more in the spring and summer than in the fall. ”

“ We arrived at the head of an incline leading down to R.C.'s stand. As luck would have it the place was ideal for a bear, but risky for a hunter. A bear could come four ways without being seen until he was close enough to kill a man. We hurried on. At the saddle there was a broad bear trail with several other trails leading into it. Suddenly R.C. halted me with a warning finger. "Listen!"
I heard a faint clear rifle shot. Then another, and a fainter yell. We stood there and counted eleven more shots. Then the bay of the hounds seemed to grow closer. We had little time to pick and choose stands. ”

“ But a railroad has now taken the place of that tortuous old packtrail, and you can whisk through these wild and woody mountains, and away on down through Oregon and up through Washington, Montana, Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and on to Chicago without even once getting out of your car, if you like. Yet such a persistent ride is not probable, for fish, pheasants, deer, elk, and bear still abound here in their ancient haunts, and the temptation to get out and fish or hunt is too great to be resisted. ”

“ The tracks were small, too, apparently those of a cub. This was my first hear experience. I had yet to learn that bear are as harmless as deer or mountain sheep; they attend strictly to their own business, and they never come near man except through accident. At that time, though, I was willing to give all bears the benefit of the doubt—and the right of way.
While further exploring the ridge above the camp I came upon an old abandoned tunnel with its dump concealed among the trees below timberline. The entrance to the tunnel had been timbered to prevent its caving. ”

“ The second day we climbed over things and finally ended in a small hanging park named Alpine Meadows, at an elevation of eight thousand five hundred feet. There we rested-over a day, camped under a single pine-tree, with the quick-growing mountain grasses thick about us, a semicircle of mountains on three sides, and the plunge into the cañon on the other. As we needed meat, we spent part of the day in finding a deer. The rest of the time we watched idly for bear.
Bears are great travelers. They will often go twenty miles overnight, apparently for the sheer delight of being on the move. ”

“ We followed this bear trail, evidently one used for years. It made climbing easy for us. Trust a big, heavy, old grizzly to pick out the best traveling over rough country! This fellow, I concluded, had the eye of a surveyor. His trail led gradually toward a wonderful crag-crowned ridge that rolled and heaved down from the rim. It had a dip or saddle in the middle, and rose from that to the lofty mesa, and then on the lower side, rose to a bare, round point of gray rock, a landmark, a dome-shaped tower where the gods of that wild region might have kept their vigil. ”

“ I remembered how he would yelp just to hear himself and run any kind of a trail—how he would be the first to quit and come back. And if any one fired a gun near him he would run like a scared deer.
To be fair to Kaiser Bill the other pups were not much better. Trailer and Big Foot were young still, and about all they could do was to run and howl.
If, however, they got off right on a bear trail, and no other trail crossed it they would stick, and in fact lead the pack till' the bear got away. Once Big Foot came whimpering into camp with porcupine quills in his nose. ”

“ A man is apt to get his own measure in places like these. Of course the bear, if there be one, will run—but which way? In the wildest glen, filled with rough dens and suspicions of bears of the largest size, I found grateful traces of at least the former presence of men, men in bulk, so to speak. Here, in the forest tangle, wreathed with mountain moosewood blooms, was a good-sized cook-stove. There was no suspicion of a road, and I could only guess that it had wandered from a lumber camp and lost the trail, as I had. ”

“ Presently he took note of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one that had been so long deserted, and with a little creeping of the skin, which was not in any sense fear but rather an acknowledgment of mystery, [175] he realized that it was other than human feet which were keeping the lonely path in use. What kind were they, he wondered,—the great, noiseless pads of bear, or lynx, or panther, the hard hoofs of moose or deer, or the airy, swift feet of hare and mink and marten? ”

“ Thence I went on cautiously, taking my bearings from one great tree on the ridge that lifted its bulk against the sky; slower and slower, till, just this side a great windfall, a twig cracked sharply under my foot. It was answered instantly by a grunt and a jump beyond the windfall—and then the crashing rush of a bear up [29] the hill, carrying something that caught and swished loudly on the bushes as it passed, till the sounds vanished in a faint rustle far away, and the woods were still again. ”

“ We scrutinized every suspicious-looking object with the field-glasses in the hope of descrying a bear. Working our way down over the snow, occasionally sliding “hunker” fashion or dropping into a hole between the rocks, greeting with a quiet “damn” an alder switch in the eye or a devil’s club jagger in the hand, we finally reached the valley.
Along the shore of the stream I observed the beaten paths that the bear had worn to a depth of twenty inches at places, evidently where they had been travelling up and down [Pg 99] the stream fishing for many years. ”

“ On all sides you can see rotten logs torn open by the bears in their search for ants and honey, and the deep trail leading up to the log and away from it again; but the old bear himself is probably miles away by the time you come upon the scene, covering the ground in that rolling, tumbling gait of his that carries him along at incredible speed. ”

“ At this instant that surge of impulse which, when it does come, shatters routine and habit to bits, seized the bear. Without premeditation, he dealt the trainer a cuff that knocked him clean over a wagon-pole and broke his arm. Before any of the other attendants could realize what had happened, the bear was beyond the circle of wagons, and half-way across the buckwheat-fields. In ten minutes more he was in the spicy glooms of the spruce-woods.
His years of association with men had given the bear a great confidence in their resources. ”

“ I ran down the road to the bear, took down some bars of the fence, and then, untying him, I led him over a field to a patch of woodland. Orso shuffled along humbly as if it did not make any difference to him where he went, and when I reached the woods I entered it by an old cart-road, and soon struck off to one side among some heavy underbrush. Finding a spot where it would be impossible for the beast to be seen from the road, I fastened him securely to a tree. ”

“ All the time naturally I kept a keen lookout for a bear. Every stone and tree trunk resembled a bear. I decided if I met a grizzly that I would not annoy him on that slope. I would say: "Nice bear, I won't hurt you!" Still the situation had some kind of charm. But to claim I was not frightened would not be strictly truthful. I slid over the trail of that bear into the trail of another one, and under the last big spruce on that part of the slope I found a hollow nest of pine needles and leaves, and if that bed was not still warm then my imagination lent considerable to the moment. ”

“ They find the retreat in various ways: sometimes by their dogs scraping to get into it, and sometimes by observing the white hoar that hangs over a little hole which the warmth of the bear’s breath has kept open in the snow.
The hunters, having ascertained the exact position of the animal’s body, either dig from above, and spear the old she in her bed; or they make a tunnel in a horizontal direction, and, getting a noose around the head or one of the paws of the bear, drag her forth in that way. ”