The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-01-12
HOW I KILLED A BEAR.

HOW KILLED A BEAR.
So many conflicting accounts have ap-
peared about my casual encounter with an
Adirondack bear last summer, that in justice
to the public, to myself and to the bear, it is
necessary to make plain statement of the
facts. Besides, it Is so seldom / have occa-
sion to kill bear that the celebration of the
exploit may be excused.
The encounter was unprecedented on botk
sides. was not hunting for the bear and /
have no reason to suppose that that the bear
was looking for me. The fact is that the we
were both out blackberrying, the usual way.
There is, among the Adirondacks visitors
always great deal of conversation about
bears, general expression of the wish to see
one in the woods and much speculation as to
how person would act if he or she should
chance to meet one. But bears are scarce
and timid, and appear only to favored few.
1t was warm day in August, just the sort
of day when an adventure of any kind
seemed impossible. But it occurred to the
housekeepers at our cottage-there were four
mountain backi of the house TO pick black
berries. 1t was rather series of small clear
ings, running up into forest, much over
grown With bushes and briars, and not un.
romantic. Cows pastured there, penetrating
through the leafy passages from one opening
to another,an browsing among the bushes.
was kindly furnished with six quart pail,
and told not to be gone long.
Not from any predatory instinct, but to
save appearances, I took a gun. 1t adds to
the manly aspect of person with tin pail If
he also carries gun. 1t was possible that
might start up partridge; though how was
to hit him if he started up instead of standing
still puzzled me. Many people use shot
gun for cartridges. prefer rife; it makes
clean Job OF death, and does not premature
ly stuff the bird with globules of lead. The
rife was Sharpe's, carrying ball cartridge,
ten to ponnd; an excellent weapon, belong
ing to friend of niue who had intended for
a good many years to kill deer with it. He
could hit tree with it if the wind did not
blow and the atmosphere was just right and
the tree was not too far off, nearly every
time, of course the tree must have some size.
Needless to say that I was at that time no
sportsman. Years ago killed robin under
most humiliating circumstances. The bird
was in low cherry tree; loaded a big shot
gun pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested
the gun on the fence, with the muzzle more
than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes
and pulled the TRIGGER. When got up to
see what had happened, the robin was scat
tered about under the tree in more than a
thousand pieces, no one Of which was big
enough to enable a,,naturalist to decide from
1t to what species it belonged. This dis
gusted me with the life of sportsman. ]
mention the incident to show that although
went blackberrying armed, there was not
much inequality between me and the bear.
In this blackberry patch bear had been
seen. The summer before, our colered cook,
accompanied by a little girl of the vicinage
was picking berries there one day when the
bear came out OF the woods and walked to-
than Tho rirI fooH 70 hor hoolo md
escaped. Aunt Chloe was paralyzed with
terror. Instead of attempting to run, she sat
down on the ground where she was standing
and began to weep and scream, giving her.
self up for lost The bear was bewildered by
this conduct. He approached and looked at
her; he walked around and surveyed her.
Probably he had never seen colored person
before, and did not know whether she would
agree with him. At any rate, after watching
her a few moments he turned about and went
into incest. This is an authentic instance
instance of the delicate forbearance of bear
and is much more remarkable than the
the forbearance towards the African
slave of the well known lion, because the
bear had no thorn in his foot.
When / had climbed the hill, set my rifle
against tree and began picking berries,
lured on from bush to bush by the black
CLEAN of fruit that always promises more in
the distance than it realizes when you reach
1t; penetrating farther and farther through
leaf shaded cow-paths fiecked with sunlight,
into clearing after clearing. could hear on
all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of
sticks and the stamping OF cattle that were
taking refuge in the thicket from the flies.
Occasionally as / broke through covert
encountered meek COW who stared at me
stupidity for second and then shambled off
into the brush; became accustomed to this
dumb society and picked on in silence, attrib-
uting all the wood noises to the cattle, think
ing nothing Of my real bear. In point of fact,
I was thinking of nice romantic bear, and
as picked was composing a story about
generous she bear who had lost her cub and
who seized a small girl In this very wood, car
ried her tenderly off to her cave and brought
her up on bears milk and honey, When the
girl got big enough to run away, moved by
her inherited instincts she escaped and came
into the valley to her fathers house this
part of the story was to be worked out, so
that the child would know her father by some
family resemblance and have some language
in which to address him) and told him where
the bear lived. The father took his gun, and
guided by the unfeeling daughter went into
the woods and shot the bear, who never
made any resistance, and only when dying
turned reproachful eyes upon her murderer.
The moral of tn tale was to be kindness to
animals.
I.was in. the midst of the tale when hap
pened to look some rods away to the other
edge of the clearing, and there was beari
He was standing on his hind legs and doing
just what was doing-picking blackberries.
with the other he clawed the berries into his
mouth, green ones and all. To say that I
was astonished is inside the mark. Isudden-
ly discovered that didn't want to see bear
after all. At about the same moment the
bear saw me, stopped eating berries and re-
garded me with glad surprise. It is all very
well to imagine what you would do under
such circumstances. Probably you wouldn't
do it; didn't. The bear dropped down on
his fore feet, and came slowly towards me.
Climbing tree was of no use with so good
climber In the rear; If started to run had
no doubt the bear would give chase, and al
though bear cannot run downhill as fast as
he can uphill, yet felt that he could get
over this rough, bush-tangled ground faster
than could.
The bear was approaching. 1t suddenly
occurred to me how could divert his mind
until could fall back upon my military base.
My pail was nearly full of excellent berries
much better than the bear could pick himself.
1 put the pail on the ground and slowly
booked away from it, keeping my eye, as
beast tanners do, on the bear. The ruse sue
ceeded.
The bear came up to the berries and
stopped; not accustomed to eat out of pail,
he tipped it over and nosed about the fruit,
''gorming" (if there is such word) it down,
mixed with leayes and dirt, like pig. The
bear is worse feeder than the pig. When
ever he disturbs maple-sugar camp in the
spring, he always upsets the buckets of syrup
and tramples round in the sticky sweets,
wasting more than he eats. The bears man.
ners are thoroughly disagreeable.
AS soon as my enemy's head was down.
started and ran. Somewhat out of breath and
shaky, l reached my faithful rifle. 1t was not
moment too soon. heard the bear crash
ing through the brush after me. Enraged at
my duplicity, he was now coming on with
blood in his eye. felt that the, time of one
of us was probably short. The rapidity of
thought at such moments of peril is well
known. thought an octave volume had it
illustrated and published, sold fifty thousand
copies, and went to Europe on the proceeds,
while that bear was Looping across the clearing.
As was cooking my gun made hasty and
unsatisfactory review of my whole life. not
ed that even in such compulsory review it is
almost impossible to think of any good thing
you have done. The sins come out uncom-
monty strong. / recollected a newspaper
subscription had delayed paying, years and