The Opelousas courier., 1890-04-12
FHE CALIFORNIA GRIZZLY
nHARAoTERIsTICs OBJ A FAST DIS
APPEARING BRUTE. :
Jyeu-Behayed ifLet Alone, but a Ter
rible Antagonist When Annoyed
Trimmed Out by Strychnine.

Trimmed Out by Strychnine.
The California grizzly is a most inter
ssting animal, says q correspondent of
The New York Post. AS Bret Harte used
tosay, he has but one ungentlemanly habit,
That of scalping with his fore paw, and
this he caught from the wicked red man.
otherwise, unless aggressively assaulted,
he is the pink of good behavior. He
will walk off the trail and give you the
right of way, he will gather salmon
berries on the same patch, or dig roots
on the hillside while you are sketching
or writing not many yards away. If it
were otherwise-if the grizzly had the
temper of the royal tiger-thousands of
the pioneers of California would have
persisted at his claws, for a full grown
grizzly when aroused is a terrible antag-
onist.
When Americans came to California
grizzlies were very numerous. General
Bidwell saw scores of them in the Napa
Valley. General Vallejo saw them feed
ing like sheep in the Santa Rosa. In the
acorn season they were to be found in
droves under the oaks. The Spaniards
learned to lasso and kill them. The
Americans found great sport in shooting
them from horseback. When the Mis-
~sourian stockmen came they poisoned
thousands of grizzlies, and the work is
still going on so steadily that the great
Pacific Coast bear is already scarce, and
certain to become very rare in a few
more years. At present the finest skins
that come to San Francisco are from the
high Sierras and from Alaska.
Forty-fve years ago there were griz-
lilies in the Santa Clara Valley, and in
the foothills within twenty miles of San
Francisco. They were in the live-oak
forests of Encinal and the Contra Costa,
where Berkeley, Oakland and Alameda
now stand. They were occasionally
brought into the old mission of San Jose
and turned into rings to fight Spanish
bulls. But they lived for the most part
In contented obscurity. When the pio-
neers came, few of them understood the
nature of the animal, and ST the early
stories that linger in the valley have ele-
ments of surprise that the later bear
stories lack.
Old Captain valpev, a Nova sootian
sailor, sold his sloop at an early day and
bought a foothill ranch. There was q
deep gulch on the tract, full of oak,
madrone and chapparal. Pretty o o he
discovered that a large grizzly lived
there. The old Captain went down to
the village for advice. "He will kill
your steers" said old Kester, who
owned a stock ranch. "Buy a bottle Of
strychnine, and the first time you miss a
steer go out and poison the carcass"
Captain Valpey bought the strychnine.
The next day he climbed up the hill,
byer the gulch, with an old spy-glass
Ind looked down. He saw a great
brown body moving along the trail, and
soon the bear passed within fifty feet of
the nck where he sat. The Captain
was delighted at his appearance. The
next day at the village he declared:
ssBoys, nobody shall shoot or poison
That grizzly of mine. He walks like an
Did salt, and he's as big as a horse! ]
amt too poor to let him have a fve-dollar
Spanish steer whenever he wants it,
Under these circumstances the Valpey
grizzly became famous and throve for
several months. But one morning the
bid Captain wa up on "Maintop Knob"
with his spy-glass. He saw his drove of
rattle was in the wooded pasture below,
huddled up in a bend Of the creek. Be-
lore them, marching back and forth,
occasionally rearing up and growing,
was the great grizzly. He was selecting
bis dinner, much to the amusement of
The Captain. Suddenly the bear charged
into the band and struck down with one
blow the only blooded steer the Captain
owned. The rest of the cattle escaped
wild with terror. The grizzly, made his
meal and went off. The Captain swore
AWHILE, then he got his strychnine bottle,
and, late in the afternoon, cautiously de-
scended the slope to where the body of
bis hundred dollar steer lay with broken
neck. He poured the strychni1e over
The carcass, saying wrathfully: Wasn't
Spanish beef good enough for you, ye
old native Californian" So he poisoned
bis bear after all.
There was a family Of pioneers who,
lived in the hills of Alameda County, not
far from Valpey's. The elder, Zachariah
Cheney, took his son Joe and a young
nan named Allen and went out to kill a
grizzly.
They all knew very well where to find
him, Ia q wild and broken canyon, or
about the rocks at its head, where oak
trees grew. They had come across his
racks many times, and had seen him
gFubbing CANVASS roots on the hillside
when they were hunting up cattle. So
shey thought very little of the danger.
Each of them had a gun and a revolver.
Suddenly they met the bear at the head
bf the wooded gulch, who, seeing their
Warlike preparations Immediately charged
them, and freed all three in less than a
minute. There was so little time for
choice of q tree that the elder Cheney
and young Allen got into scrab-oaks hard
IN larger than respectable ounce trees.
IN less time than it takes to tell it the
bear had Cheney on the ground. scalped
hin with n blow, crushed his arm
and shoulder-blade with another,
hnd left him. The bear instant
b turned his attention to young
Allen seized him by the boot leg, and
jerked him from the tree so violently
khae the poor fellow rolled thirty feet
down the guIch and under some willows,
where be lay in silence. The third man
was beyond reach, SO the grizzly, master