The Biography of a Grizzly Read online

  The Pine Squirrels seemed to resent his coming, and barked furiously.They were thinking about their pinon-nuts. They knew that this Bear wascoming to steal their provisions, and they followed him overhead toscold and abuse him, with such an outcry that an enemy might havefollowed him by their noise, which was exactly what they intended.

  There was no one following, but it made Wahb uneasy and nervous. So hekept on till he reached the timber line, where both food and foes werescarce, and here on the edge of the Mountain-sheep land at last he got achance to rest.

  IV.

  Wahb never was sweet-tempered like his baby sister, and the persecutionsby his numerous foes were making him more and more sour. Why could notthey let him alone in his misery? Why was every one against him? If onlyhe had his Mother back! If he could only have killed that Black-bearthat had driven him from his woods! It did not occur to him that someday he himself would be big. And that spiteful Bobcat, that tookadvantage of him; and the man that had tried to kill him. He did notforget any of them, and he hated them all.

  Wahb found his new range fairly good, because it was a good nut year. Helearned just what the Squirrels feared he would, for his nose directedhim to the little granaries where they had stored up great quantitiesof nuts for winter's use. It was hard on the Squirrels, but it was goodluck for Wahb, for the nuts were delicious food. And when the daysshortened and the nights began to be frosty, he had grown fat andwell-favored.

  He traveled over all parts of the canyon now, living mostly in the higherwoods, but coming down at times to forage almost as far as the river.One night as he wandered by the deep-water a peculiar smell reached hisnose. It was quite pleasant, so he followed it up to the water's edge.It seemed to come from a sunken log. As he reached over toward this,there was a sudden _clank_, and one of his paws was caught in a strong,steel Beaver-trap.

  Wahb yelled and jerked back with all his strength, and tore up the stakethat held the trap. He tried to shake it off, then ran away through thebushes trailing it. He tore at it with his teeth; but there it hung,quiet, cold, strong, and immovable. Every little while he tore at itwith his teeth and claws, or beat it against the ground. He buried it inthe earth, then climbed a low tree, hoping to leave it behind; but stillit clung, biting into his flesh. He made for his own woods, and sat downto try to puzzle it out. He did not know what it was, but his littlegreen-brown eyes glared with a mixture of pain, fright, and fury as hetried to understand his new enemy.

  He lay down under the bushes, and, intent on deliberately crushing thething, he held it down with one paw while he tightened his teeth on theother end, and bearing down as it slid away, the trap jaws opened andthe foot was free. It was mere chance, of course, that led him tosqueeze both springs at once. He did not understand it, but he did notforget it, and he got these not very clear ideas: 'There is a dreadfullittle enemy that hides by the water and waits for one. It has an oddsmell. It bites one's paws and is too hard for one to bite. But it canbe got off by hard squeezing.'

  For a week or more the little Grizzly had another sore paw, but it wasnot very bad if he did not do any climbing.

  ]

  It was now the season when the Elk were bugling on the mountains. Wahbheard them all night, and once or twice had to climb to get away fromone of the big-antlered Bulls. It was also the season when the trapperswere coming into the mountains, and the Wild Geese were honkingoverhead. There were several quite new smells in the woods, too. Wahbfollowed one of these up, and it led to a place where were some smalllogs piled together; then, mixed with the smell that had drawn him, wasone that he hated--he remembered it from the time when he had lost hisMother. He sniffed about carefully, for it was not very strong, andlearned that this hateful smell was on a log in front, and the sweetsmell that made his mouth water was under some brush behind. So he wentaround, pulled away the brush till he got the prize, a piece of meat,and as he grabbed it, the log in front went down with a heavy _chock_.It made Wahb jump; but he got away all right with the meat and some newideas, and with one old idea made stronger, and that was, 'When thathateful smell is around it always means trouble.'

  As the weather grew colder, Wahb became very sleepy; he slept all daywhen it was frosty. He had not any fixed place to sleep in; he knew anumber of dry ledges for sunny weather, and one or two sheltered nooksfor stormy days. He had a very comfortable nest under a root, and oneday, as it began to blow and snow, he crawled into this and curled upto sleep. The storm howled without. The snow fell deeper and deeper. Itdraped the pine-trees till they bowed, then shook themselves clear tobe draped anew. It drifted over the mountains and poured down thefunnel-like ravines, blowing off the peaks and ridges, and filling upthe hollows level with their rims. It piled up over Wahb's den, shuttingout the cold of the winter, shutting out itself: and Wahb slept andslept.

  V.

  He slept all winter without waking, for such is the way of Bears, andyet when spring came and aroused him, he knew that he had been asleep along time. He was not much changed--he had grown in height, and yet wasbut little thinner. He was now very hungry, and forcing his way throughthe deep drift that still lay over his den, he set out to look for food.There were no pinon-nuts to get, and no berries or ants; but Wahb's noseled him away up the canyon to the body of a winter-killed Elk, where hehad a fine feast, and then buried the rest for future use.

  Day after day he came back till he had finished it. Food was very scarcefor a couple of months, and after the Elk was eaten, Wahb lost all thefat he had when he awoke. One day he climbed over the Divide into theWarhouse Valley. It was warm and sunny there, vegetation was welladvanced, and he found good forage. He wandered down toward the thicktimber, and soon smelled the smell of another Grizzly. This grewstronger and led him to a single tree by a Bear-trail. Wahb reared upon his hind feet to smell this tree. It was strong of Bear, and wasplastered with mud and Grizzly hair far higher, than he could reach;and Wahb knew that it must have been a very large Bear that had rubbedhimself there. He felt uneasy. He used to long to meet one of his ownkind, yet now that there was a chance of it he was filled with dread.

  No one had shown him anything but hatred in his lonely, unprotectedlife, and he could not tell what this older Bear might do. As he stoodin doubt, he caught sight of the old Grizzly himself slouching along ahillside, stopping from time to time to dig up the quamash-roots andwild turnips.

  He was a monster. Wahb instinctively distrusted him, and sneakedaway through the woods and up a rocky bluff where he could watch.

  Then the big fellow came on Wahb's track and rumbled a deep growl ofanger; he followed the trail to the tree, and rearing up, he tore thebark with his claws, far above where Wahb had reached. Then he stroderapidly along Wahb's trail. But the cub had seen enough. He fled backover the Divide into the Meteetsee Canon, and realized in his dim,bearish way that he was at peace there because the Bear-forage was sopoor.

  As the summer came on, his coat was shed. His skin got very itchy, andhe found pleasure in rolling in the mud and scraping his back againstsome convenient tree. He never climbed now: his claws were too long, andhis arms, though growing big and strong, were losing that suppleness ofwrist that makes cub Grizzlies and all Blackbears great climbers. He nowdropped naturally into the Bear habit of seeing how high he could reachwith his nose on the rubbing-post, whenever he was near one.

  He may not have noticed it, yet each time he came to a post, after aweek or two away, he could reach higher, for Wahb was growing fast andcoming into his strength.

  Sometimes he was at one end of the country that he felt was his, andsometimes at another, but he had frequent use for the rubbing-tree,and thus it was that his range was mapped out by posts with his own markon them.

  One day late in summer he sighted a stranger on his land, a glossyBlackbear, and he felt furious against the interloper. As the Blackbearcame nearer Wahb noticed the tan-red face, the white spot on his breast,and then the bit out of his ear, and last of all the wind brought awhiff. There could be no further dou
bt; it was the very smell: this wasthe black coward that had chased him down the Piney long ago. But how hehad shrunken! Before, he had looked like a giant; now Wahb felt he couldcrush him with one paw. Revenge is sweet, Wahb felt, though he did notexactly say it, and he went for that red-nosed Bear. But the Black onewent up a small tree like a Squirrel. Wahb tried to follow as the otheronce followed him, but somehow he could not. He did not seem to knowhow to take hold now, and after a while he gave it up and went away,although the Blackbear brought him back more than once by coughingin derision. Later on that day, when the Grizzly passed again, thered-nosed one had gone.

  As the summer waned, the upper forage-grounds began to give out, andWahb ventured down to the Lower Meteetsee one night to explore. Therewas a pleasant odor on the breeze, and following it up, Wahb came to thecarcass of a Steer. A good distance away from it were some tiny Coyotes,mere dwarfs compared with those he remembered. Right by the carcass wasanother that jumped about in the moonlight in a foolish way. For somestrange reason it seemed unable to get away. Wahb's old hatred brokeout. He rushed up. In a flash the Coyote bit him several times before,with one blow of that great paw, Wahb smashed him into a limp, furryrag; then broke in all his ribs with a crunch or two of his jaws. Oh,but it was good to feel the hot, bloody juices oozing between his teeth!

  The Coyote was caught in a trap. Wahb hated the smell of the iron, so hewent to the other side of the carcass, where it was not so strong,and had eaten but little before _clank_, and his foot was caught in aWolf-trap that he had not seen.

  But he remembered that he had once before been caught and had escaped bysqueezing the trap. He set a hind foot on each spring and pressed tillthe trap opened and released his paw. About the carcass was the smellthat he knew stood for man, so he left it and wandered down-stream; butmore and more often he got whiffs of that horrible odor, so he turnedand went back to his quiet pinon benches. Wahb's third summer hadbrought him the stature of a large-sized Bear, though not nearly thebulk and power that in time were his. He was very light-colored now, andthis was why Spahwat, a Shoshone Indian who more than once hunted him,called him the Whitebear, or Wahb.

  Spahwat was a good hunter, and as soon as he saw the rubbing-tree on theUpper Meteetsee he knew that he was on the range of a big Grizzly. Hebushwhacked the whole valley, and spent many days before he found achance to shoot; then Wahb got a stinging flesh-wound in the shoulder.He growled horribly, but it had seemed to take the fight out of him; hescrambled up the valley and over the lower hills till he reached a quiethaunt, where he lay down.

  His knowledge of healing was wholly instinctive. He licked the wound andall around it, and sought to be quiet. The licking removed the dirt, andby massage reduced the inflammation, and it plastered the hair down as asort of dressing over the wound to keep out the air, dirt, and microbes.There could be no better treatment.

  But the Indian was on his trail. Before long the smell warned Wahb thata foe was coming, so he quietly climbed farther up the mountain toanother resting-place. But again he sensed the Indian's approach, andmade off. Several times this happened, and at length there was a secondshot and another galling wound. Wahb was furious now. There was nothingthat really frightened him but that horrible odor of man, iron, andguns, that he remembered from the day when he lost his Mother; but nowall fear of these left him. He heaved painfully up the mountain again,and along under a six-foot ledge, then up and back to the top of thebank, where he lay flat. On came the Indian, armed with knife and gun;deftly, swiftly keeping on the trail; floating joyfully over each bloodyprint that meant such anguish to the hunted Bear. Straight up the slideof broken rock he came, where Wahb, ferocious with pain, was waitingon the ledge. On sneaked the dogged hunter; his eye still scanned thebloody slots or swept the woods ahead, but never was raised to glanceabove the ledge. And Wahb, as he saw this shape of Death relentless onhis track, and smelled the hated smell, poised his bulk at heavy costupon his quivering, mangled arm, there held until the proper instantcame, then to his sound arm's matchless native force he added all theweight of desperate hate as down he struck one fearful, crushing blow.The Indian sank without a cry, and then dropped out of sight. Wahb rose,and sought again a quiet nook where he might nurse his wounds. Thus helearned that one must fight for peace; for he never saw that Indianagain, and he had time to rest and recover.

  PART II

  I.

  The years went on as before, except that each winter Wahb slept lesssoundly, and each spring he came out earlier and was a bigger Grizzly,with fewer enemies that dared to face him. When his sixth year came hewas a very big, strong, sullen Bear, with neither friendship nor love inhis life since that evil day on the Lower Piney.

  No one ever heard of Wahb's mate. No one believes that he ever had one.The love-season of Bears came and went year after year, but left himalone in his prime as he had been in his youth. It is not good fora Bear to be alone; it is bad for him in every way. His habitualmoroseness grew with his strength, and any one chancing to meet him nowwould have called him a dangerous Grizzly.

  He had lived in the Meteetsee Valley since first he betook himselfthere, and his character had been shaped by many little adventures withtraps and his wild rivals of the mountains. But there was none of thelatter that he now feared, and he knew enough to avoid the first, forthat penetrating odor of man and iron was a never-failing warning,especially after an experience which befell him in his sixth year.

  His ever-reliable nose told him that there was a dead Elk down among thetimber.

  He went up the wind, and there, sure enough, was the great deliciouscarcass, already torn open at the very best place. True, there was thatterrible man-and-iron taint, but it was so slight and the feast sotempting that after circling around and inspecting the carcass from hiseight feet of stature, as he stood erect, he went cautiously forward,and at once was caught by his left paw in an enormous Bear-trap.He roared with pain and slashed about in a fury. But this was noBeaver-trap; it was a big forty-pound Bear-catcher, and he was surelycaught.

  Wahb fairly foamed with rage, and madly grit his teeth upon the trap.Then he remembered his former experiences. He placed the trap betweenhis hind legs, with a hind paw on each spring, and pressed down with allhis weight. But it was not enough. He dragged off the trap and its clog,and went clanking up the mountain. Again and again he tried to free hisfoot, but in vain, till he came where a great trunk crossed the trail afew feet from the ground. By chance, or happy thought, he reared againunder this and made a new attempt. With a hind foot on each spring andhis mighty shoulders underneath the tree, he bore down with his titanicstrength: the great steel springs gave way, the jaws relaxed, and hetore out his foot. So Wahb was free again, though he left behind a greattoe which had been nearly severed by the first snap of the steel.

  Again Wahb had a painful wound to nurse, and as he was a left-handedBear,--that is, when he wished to turn a rock over he stood on the rightpaw and turned with the left,--one result of this disablement was to robhim for a time of all those dainty foods that are found under rocks orlogs. The wound healed at last, but he never forgot that experience,and thenceforth the pungent smell of man and iron, even without the gunsmell, never failed to enrage him.

  Many experiences had taught him that it is better to run if he onlysmelled the hunter or heard him far away, but to fight desperately ifthe man was close at hand. And the cow-boys soon came to know that theUpper Meteetsee was the range of a Bear that was better let alone.

  II.

  One day after a long absence Wahb came into the lower part of hisrange, and saw to his surprise one of the wooden dens that men make forthemselves. As he came around to get the wind, he sensed the taint thatnever failed to infuriate him now, and a moment later he heard a loud_bang_ and felt a stinging shock in his left hind leg, the old stiffleg. He wheeled about, in time to see a man running toward the new-madeshanty. Had the shot been in his shoulder Wahb would have been helpless,but it was not.

  Mighty arms that could toss pine logs
like broomsticks, paws that withone tap could crush the biggest Bull upon the range, claws that couldtear huge slabs of rock from the mountain-side--what was even the deadlyrifle to them!

  When the man's partner came home that night he found him on the reddenedshanty floor. The bloody trail from outside and a shaky, scribbled noteon the back of a paper novel told the tale.

  It was Wahb done it. I seen him by the spring and wounded him. I triedto git on the shanty, but he ketched me. My God, how I suffer! JACK. Itwas all fair. The man had invaded the Bear's country, had tried to takethe Bear's life, and had lost his own. But Jack's partner swore he wouldkill that Bear.

  He took up the trail and followed it up the canyon, and there bushwhackedand hunted day after day. He put out baits and traps, and at length oneday he heard a _crash, clatter, thump_, and a huge rock bounded down abank into a wood, scaring out a couple of deer that floated away likethistle-down. Miller thought at first that it was a land-slide; but hesoon knew that it was Wahb that had rolled the boulder over merely forthe sake of two or three ants beneath it.

  The wind had not betrayed him, so on peering through the bush Millersaw the great Bear as he fed, favoring his left hind leg and growlingsullenly to himself at a fresh twinge of pain. Miller steadied himself,and thought, "Here goes a finisher or a dead miss." He gave a sharpwhistle, the Bear stopped every move, and, as he stood with ears acock,the man fired at his head.

  But at that moment the great shaggy head moved, only an infuriatingscratch was given, the smoke betrayed the man's place, and the Grizzlymade savage, three-legged haste to catch his foe.