The record-union., 1891-04-12
THEY HAD TO HAVE IT.
No Meat In the Camp, But Grizzly
Net Very Far Away.
A Bear Hunt at Salmon Falls in the
Winter of '49-NTiners In
Very Tight Place.

"Your "reminiscences of thirty years
ago." remarked Il. P. Littlefield, an old
time Sacramento River captain, to a
SUNDAY UNION reporter the other day,
recall to pioneers many long-forgot-
ten incident of early days. I have been
thinking lately of one that occurred
within my own experience, and / assure
you it was a very critical moment for me
and those who shared my peril. Sit down
and [ will tell you about it.
1t was away back in the winter of '49,
that period SO full of eventful occurrences
in California. / was an honest, if not
successful miner. Myself and three COM
panions who had come around the Horn
with me had claim and miners cabin
near Salmon Falls, on the American
River. One day in December we were
passing away the time in and around our
tent by washing and mending our clothes,
cleaning our gold and repairing our
rocker and tools for mining the next day,
and all, no doubt, thinking of their homes
and loved ones far off in the East.
"Our work and meditations were sud
denly interrupted by the approach of two
strangers-young men, as we all were in
those days. They were very much ex-
CITED, the perspiration running down
their faces, eyes protruding, hair on end
and covered with dust. Indeed, they
looked more like aborigines than our
own kindred and race.
BEAR STAKED OUT.
"As soon as they were able to explain
the cause OF their alarm, they said they
had found BEARS den, about one mile
from camp, and wanted some of us to 90
with them and help capture the beast
Myself and partner volunteered to go,
but had we known as much then about
bear-hunting as we did q short time after
ward, we would have declined on the
ground that we hadn't lost any bears
All the large arms we had was one
double barreled shotgun, belonging to
our visitors. My partner had an old
dueling pistol, and l had small single
barreled one with knife on the top. We
first loaded our shotgun, that being our
most effective weapon. We put in plenty
of powder, and two bullets in each barrel.
You may think we were poorly equipped
to attack grizzly, but it was all we had,
so we started.
ON TO THE FRAY.
"After crossing several ravines and
over many small hills we came to the
bears den, and had a look at her as she
slept Soundly under the edge of a large
bOwlder about the size and shape of
small haystack. We selected one of our
friends with the gun to open hostiIities.
The mountain at this spot was very steep;
there was but one way to operate, and
only one way to jump so the bear could
not catch him, and that was down the
steep bank. We thought he could re-
cover and retreat to the top of the rock
before the bear could nab him, and so it
turned out.
SIN the meantime the rest of us had sta
toned ourselves on top of the rock. I,
with my pistol, was on time for once in
my life, and was up first-the leader of
the forlorn hope, for such it appeared to
be. The man with the gun crept up to
the beast and put the muzzle of his right
against her back and fired both barrels as
quick as he could and then jumped back
down the steep bank.
HosTILITIEs OPENED.
''The bear gave one terrible growl of
pain and rage, and down she went after
her would-be assassin, but she jumped
over him. As she did SO she hit him one
lick with her paw. She didn't get her
man, however, but got the most of his
pants. The mountain being so steep, and
the bear so fat and round, that before she
could recover herself she had gone down
about twenty feet, giving our hero time
to retreat to the rock, painting and nearly
painless.
He was not minute too soon. for Mrs
Bruin was not two feet behind him. Oh,
but she was monSterl She could reach
within a foot of US, and there we were,
four of us, huddled together on rock,
with only about six feet of space to stand
on. The gun being unloaded, we were at
disadvantage. However, we fired our
pistols at her, but being so excited don't
think we hit her, nor even the mountain.
FIGHTING FOR HER YOUNG.
AT this critical moment we heard a
whine, something like that of a kitten,
and the bear left US for her cub, as it
proved to be. That gave us time to load
up again and fire. The fight was kept up
for at least an hour. When we would
shoot she would retreat, and then when
her cub would cry she would return to
the fray, only to receive another charge of
lead.
''At last, at about the tenth shot, she re-
treated about fifty feet, stood upon her
hind legs, gave one long and pIaintive
growl, as much as if to say, Spare nv
cub y then fell over and rolled down the
bank at least fifty yards, stone dead.
We got the cub. 1t was about the size
and color of a Maltese cat. It was very
young, and its eyes were not open. have
always regretted that we killed the
mother. we got help from camp, and in
dressing her, found she had sixteen
bullet-wounds in her body. We took her
to the camp, and found she weighed 600
pounds.
THERE WAS GRUB IN CAMP.
"We divided the carcass equally with
our friends, who took theirs to their own
camp, farther down the river. We traded
some of ours for other food, and had fine
living on fresh meat for some time; and /
assure You we relished it, as it had been
long time since we had any. Game was
plentiful, but we had nothing with which
to shoot it. l kept the skin of the bear
until spring, when we left. Each of our
party had two bottles of the oil, which we
buried under tree.
Although this happened forty-one
years ago, it seems as but yesterday.
have never visited our camp at Salmon
Falls since.'
PROBABLY IN CHICAGO.