The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-11-18
N. Y. SUM-
The Sheriff's Bear Story.
An Adventure in Pike County With
Bruin of Remarkable Vitality.

"They say Ed Quick knocked over another
day." said the county clerk, as he joined the
boys in the Crissman house.
"Oh, of course he didl" exclaimed the sher-
if "He's algays knocking bears over, to
hear him tell it. l was making a small calcu-
lation once on the number OF bears Ed Quick
must have killed, according to his'igures, and
II ciphered right he's killed more bears than
there's been in the whole Blooming Grove
woods since Noah turned his museum out OF
the ark"
"Well, I don't believe that there's man in
the three States has killed more bears than Ed
has. He was counting them up to me only
last week, and they foot up niue hundred and
eighty-three. He tells about some hard tussles
he's had with many tough old bear" said
the county clerk.
eyes; but his stories are laundering sight
tougher than the bears ever were," said the
sheriff. "But speaking OF tough bears, you
ought to have seen the one that Joe Atkinson
and me had the little circus with on the head
waters OF Bright Brook, about ten years ago.
The toughest bear Ed Quick says he ever
hihON Wao q NoJ-OA0 loiAD AOhS- VI ehnt
bear.
"Joe and me was numbering over on tract
of land that belonged to some fellow over in
Monroe county. Jakes Kilenhaus had got all
the bark off the tract, aud we were finishing
up the lumber We'd seen signs OF bear, and
an old bark peeler told us there was big one
that kept in a swamp down the creek WAYS.
Every hunter that had been in the woods for
six months, he said, had put ball in the bear,
and the cuss had carried off half dozen traps
and got rid of them in some way. Que Satur-
day Joe and me made up our minds to take
day off and try and capture this tough old aui-
NAL. We came on to the bear in less than an
hour after we started out. He came tearing
out of the swamp as il some one was urging
him with three-tine pitchfork, and made for
the top of little ridge about hundred feet
away. Joe let him have his rifle barrel and
then his buckshot. But the bear kept right
on. / got both my barrels in ON him, but the
old fellow never paid any attention to us till he
got TO the top Of the ridge. Ahe ridge wasn't
more than twenty feet high, and it ran up to
quite a narrow top. When the bear got up
there he stopped, turned his face toward US.
raised up on his launches, and opened bis
mouth blamed near foot wide. He was in
plain, open sight, only hundred feet away,
and we just thought we had him foul
did you shoot him?" asked Billy Watson,
as the sheriff paused to get his share of the re-
freshments the county clerk had ordered.
"Shoot him!' said the sheriff; "shoot him?
Well, think it might be called shooting un-
less my memory is very short. Why, that bear
never stirred from his tracks, and Joe and mo
peDpered away at him for more than quarter
of an hour and we hit him every time. All
he'd do was to give himself whack with first
one paw and then the other wherever a ball or
charge of buckshot got in on him. That was
all our firing seemed to disturb him, and finally
Joe said to me:
''See herel Do you know what that old cuss
is going to do? Well, he's just waiting until
our ammunition gives out, and then he'll give
us the grand bounce out o. these woods
By this time only had one bullet left, aud
Joe only had three. We had plenty OF pow
der, so we concluded not to use any more on
the bear by shooting, as there didn't seem TO
De any use in it.. Joe began to skirmsh round
a little. On the other side of the ridge he dis
covered ground hogs hole, which run into
the top of the ridge directly under where the
bear was sitting. Joe had been in the army,
you know, and he saw that this ground hogs
hole was Just a bdlly chance to spring mine
on our live old target. So he takes all the
powder the both of us had-about three pounds
I guess-and poured 1t in a leather pouch he
had, and made as snug bomb as we could
wish for Then, while kept the bears atten-
zion by pretending to be crawling up the side
Of the hill as If meant to tackle him. Joe
crept up on the other side and rammed the
leather cartridge into the hole and tamped her
solid He laid q train of powder down the bill
a ways, hollered to me to run and fired her.
In about two seconds the top OF that hill and
the bear were sailing towards ths clouds The
bear went up ten feet above the top OF big
chestnut tree there was on the ridge, turned
yer couple Of times, and tumbled back into
the tree.
Nov, of course, all bears amt as tough as
this bear was but when the stones and dirt
and saplings got through falling, there we saw
old bruin perched on big branch OF the chest
EfFsT-x
gazing down on US with actually smile on
his face, as if he rather enjoyed the novelty of
the little experience he had Just passed
through. That was all the change there
seemed to be in the old cuss's appearance.
Joe looked at the bear and I looked at Joe.
Then we both looked at the bear, and then at
the hole in the ground. Neither OF us said
word for ten minutes. Then l said: Let's go
home, Joe. There's thunder shower coming
up, anyway, and we don't want to be out in it,
There was a heavy shower coming, but Joe
said he wasn't going to quit until he got that
bear. So back he started to camp after an axe.
STAYED to watch the bear. The thunder and
lightning was something fearful. In about an
hour down she came, bear and all In the fall
the tree fell plumb across the bears back and
broke it, but before Joe could get at him with
the axe he twisted from under the tree and
away he crawled down towards the swamp.
We would have lost that bear as sure as guns.
but Just then came one of the hardest thunder
claps ever heard, and not more than second
afterward lightning struck not ten feet away.
1t struck that bear square in the head. Aud
sir, may be you won't believe it, but it's
TACT, the old cuss's head was so hard that the
lightning bounced off it like a rubber ball. and
caromed on big oak tree off TO the right,
tearing it into million pieces. The bear was
stunned BY the lightning, and before it came
to Joe got in his work with the axe and finished
him. We dragged the carcass into camp. II
weighed Alta pounds, and we sold it for 10
cents a pound TO a boarding house keeper from
Pocono. Three days after he came back and
demanded so cents. He had taken eight
pounds of lead out of different parts of that
bear and of course we deducted 1t from the
bill.
fed. Quick had ever hooked on to that
haar said the shariff che Wouldn'L be telling