Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-10-13
THREE BEARS IN ONE DAY.
A Great Roundup Of Furry Thieves in Han.
cock County.

me greatest bear roundup ever seen
| in Hancock county has just come to a
| successful end on the side of Black $
Mountain, three miles from Dedham vii
| lage. Beehives have been missed from
the orchards and stands near farm
houses for nearly month, but every
body who ought to know said they had
been taken by the Bangor hunters who
had come out for coons, and failing IN
their desire had gone home with honey.
Nobody thought of bears until the open
season began and the boys started out to
see who would get the first deer. The
second day of his hunt for deer, Sandy
down Blacks Mountain and met a big
bear face to face in woods road He
fired heavy charge of buckshot at the
animal and then regretted it when the
three mile run to Dedham village, and
Sandy covered the distance inside OF
twenty minutes, leaving the bear far be-
hind in Tom Dodge's cornfield.
An hour later twenty men and boys
armed. with guns. axes and hard cider
were forming Gordon around Black
Mountain and closing in toward the sum-
nit where the bear was supposed to be
hiding. When the party was within half
mile of the top the men halted and sent
out Sandy Gray to scare up the bear and
force him over the dead line. AS he had
received instructions to fire his rifle and
make all the noise he could, the party
paid no heed to the report of a gun which
was heard on the mountain side. They
just threw back the hammers of their
rifles and waited for the bear to come
out. While the Dedham people We're
watching and listening for bear Sandy
had shot a yearling cub, bent down a
in a leafy thicket where nobody could
find it. Having done this he hid away
among some spruces and waited for the
party to go by. In this way he thought
himself.
Meantime the waiting hunters, having
grown impatient at Sandy's delay. sent
Arthur Ellis out on d scouting expedition.
giving him full power to shoot and kill
anything he might see. Ellis walked up
over the crest of the mountain and fired
his gun three times to tell the men where
he was. Then he walked down the oppo-
site side and nearly fell over bear that
was eating beechnuts in a thicket. He
shot the bear and sent the body aloft on
springy sapling just as Sandy had done.
After this he walked down to the waiting
bear on the mountain; he had hunted it
all over and was going home. On his way
to- the village he overlook Sandy Gray.
who was skulking away on a similar err
rand, and they had good laugh over the
way they had fooled the rest of the par
~. They were getting down close to the
top of Holden Hill when Sandy and Ar
thur, who were out stalking bears in adj
joining fields, heard a great noise coming
from the direction of Blacks Mountain
Above them along the hillside road they
cOuIu see women TuSl out anu carry
children into the houses as if an army
of invaders was coming. Doors were
slammed to. and curtains hauled down
as far up the road as the two young men
could see. Meanwhile the men yelled and
shot off guns as cheerfully as If it were
the morning of July 4. and cattle and
horses out at pasture tied double-bow
knots in their tails and went out of sight
in clouds of dust.
When the excitement was at it's height
three rifles went off so near together that
they seemed to make a continuous report,
Then everybody yelled and pack of tim
id dogs rushed forward barking furously.
When Arthur and Sandy reached the cen.
tre of excitement they saw a 40O-pound
bear lying dead by the roadside and
about fifty men, women and children and
nearly as many dogs standing by and
making all the noise they could.
The two runaway hunters came in for
q lot of chaff from those who had stayed
on to the end. When they had stood the
talk as long as human nature allowed,
that they could so on the side Of Blacks
Mountain and get a bear inside OF TWO
hours. OF course these bets were ac-
copied as fast as offered, and then Sandy
and Arthur said they would make it $40
for two bears. These bets were taken
greedily, and the disgraced hunters start
cd out on an apparently hopeless quest.
II the evening when everybody came TO
the store to tell what he knew about bear
hunting there were three bears hanging
up in the ice room and everybody was
smoking cigars and eating candy at the
expense OF the losers. Three barrels of
hard cider We're drank up before mid
night. and the following morning every
body who was able got a gun and went to
Blacks Mountain after bears. Though
the woods have swarmed with hunters
for three days no more bears nave been
found -R1npOr News.