Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-09-14
Long Suffering Bruin.

In the fall of 1879 Jacob Ehrout. a
kunter and trapper, set trap for a
bear near large swamp among the
logging camps of this county, and a
few miles from Gregg's settlement.
Bears were unusually plenty in the
woods that year, and one of immense
size had been seen several times in the
neighborhood of the swamp, but it had
eluded all efforts of hunters to capture
it. The trap mentioned was set for the
special purpose Of ensnaring this bear.
In setting bear,tap triangular pen
is constructed out of small logs or sap
lings. In this Enclosure the trap, which
is ponderOus steel affair, with sharp
toothed Jaws, is set. From it a chain
extends to the outside of the pen, and
: fastened to heavy piece of timber.
The trap is placed SO that if bear en-
tiers to secure the meat or honey which
Is placed in the pen to attract him he
can not avoid stepping on the pan of
the trap, the jaws of which instantly
spring shut, sinking their teeth deep
in the flesh of the bears paw. The
bears efforts to escape with the trap is
prevented by the timber to which II Is
chained, which becomes interlocked in
the trunks of trees and hold Bruin can
tive. 1t happens once in a great while
that the bear succeeds in dragging the
trap and timber for miles, but they so
retard his progress that the trapper
finds no difficulty in coming up with
him and ending his misery with a rifle
ball. 1t is not an infrequent occurrence
for bear TO obtain its freedom by tear
ing off the imprisoned paw and leaving
1t IN the trap, and many old hunters
affirm that bears have been known to
deliberately gnaw off an imprisoned
paw and make their escape. This is
what the trapper Ehrout claims the
bear did which he set the tran for re-
ferred to above, for when he visited the
pen next morning he found the trap
on the outside, and fast between its
teeth the largest bear-paw he had ever
seen. 1t was one of the fore-paws.
The bear could be tracked by the blood
from its lacerated leg for mile, where
1t entered the swamp, which was so
dense thatno man could enter. Dogs
were sent in, and from the fact that
some of them never came out, while
others returned with torn flesh, it was
surmised that the bear had been over
taken by them, but could not be over
come. Nothing more was seen or heard
of the brute, and it was the opinion that
it had probably received injuries from
which it died.
Early in the present season a party of
Philadelphia gentlemen were trout-fsh-
ing in the vicinity of the settlement, and
one day they reported having seen a
very large bear cross the creek not far
from their camp, and that when it
climbed out of the stream on the other
side it limped as if it had been injured.
A hunt was organized. but, although it
lasted three days, the bear was not
found Two smaller ones were killed
near the head-waters of the creek, one
of which killed the dog of a hunter
named Haynes. and forced the hunter
himself to hand-to-hand fight before
it received its death wound. About
three weeks ago sheep, a pig and a
calf belonging to residents of the settle
ment disappeared from the Enclosure.
and few days afterward some children
returning from school saw large bear