Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-24

1.-THE proper weapon to hunt bear with Is
Ratchet" The speaker. an ex-army off,
GER was one of little group Of men who
In a cozy corner Of downtown hotel, were
discussing President Roosevelt's bear hunt
ing excursion. 81 mean by that" he con-
tinued. 1.-The Ratchet Is the main reliance of
the real, sure nufr bear hunter-the man
who tackles bruin singie-handed and alone
and who never declines such combat
<"When I was out on the plains in the '70s
there were lots of these typical professional
hunters left. Buffalo then aDounded in
enormous herds from Montana to northern
Kansas. Elk, deer, antelope, foxes, wolves
and coyotes were as plentiful as prairie
chicken. All these came grist to the pro-
fes5ional hunters mill. The first considsra-
ton was, of course, the pelt the carcass
was only secondary. In this the American
hunter differed from the Indian, because the
latter was as careful to save every pound
of flesh of his quarry as the great packing
houses Of today are in their slaughter Of
cattle An experienced plainSman could al
ways tell an American hunters work from
that of an Indian in looking over the re-
mains of a buffalo found newly slaughtered
on the prairie.
'But to return to our muttons or rather
our bears, as the Frenchman says The
grizzly bear is dear lover of fresh meat.
In this he differs from the black bear, after
which the President went hunting, or the
cinnamon or brown bear Of the northwest.
The latter two species will not eat flesh so
long as they can obtain anything else But
Mr. Grizzly is carnivorous by choice. He
will SLOUGH along after professional buff
falo OR deer hunter and glut himself on the
remains which the nimrod leaves. Unlike
his relatives. the black and cinnamon BEARS
Mr.. Grizzly will stand up and fight on al
most any occasion. He is not gutter in
any sense
Black Bear Not Game.
at requires strategy to get a fight out Of
black or cinnamon bear, but all your
| hunter needs to do is to locate grizzly If
he is looking for trouble. What will happen
afterward all depends on how much pluck
the hunter has and how much he knows
about the business of hunting grizzlies.
"Of course, it is one thing to chase little
black bear down with a pack of hounds and
| then shoot him from some convenient cover
when he has been about tagged out. But 1
| would like to see pack of hounds tackle
grizzly. What would be left of the hounds
after the preliminary encounter would not
| be sufficient to establish kennel of the
| most modest pretenstonS 3And as for gun
| shot wounds, brother grizzly regards the
| average rife shot with about the same in
difference as a target on a rifle range
| Even If hunter should be lucky enough
ordinary sized rifle hulletg the chances are
| that grizzly would go right on doing bust
ness for the next half or three-quarters OF
an hour. And what grizzly bear can do
| at close quarters In thirty minutes would
fill newspaper columns II related in detail
Indeed. a rifle is almost a useless weapon
for a on foot against grizzly bear,
unless there are trees HANDY ard the hunter
is a good climber; for Mr.. Grizzly, like the
| elephant and the brick, cannot climb tree.
81 was up at what is now Giendive, Mont,
| in the spring of 1884, with a detachment OF
| the 9Th Infantry keeping the CheyeHnes
from swooping down on the men who were
building the Yellowstone division of the
Northern Pacific railroad-that is the dtyi-
sion between Bismarck. on the Missouri
| river. to Glendive. on the Yellowstone. The
road runs through the Bad Lands, an ex-
tremely rough, broken country, and at that
time Astounding in game of all sorts, as well
as hostile Indians. Across the Yellowstone
from where our camp was pitched there
was scarcely day when one could not see
herds OF buffalo, strung out in long, black
lines against the horizon. coming and going
to water There were not so many ON the
south side Of the river. but occasionally
small band would wander almost into our
camp.
Signal Man Sees Grizzly.
But to get back to the bear subject once
more. One day the signal service man who
had established a station the military
telegraph line on the north side of the yell
lowstone came staggering into camp. He
had rowed across the river at heart
breaking stroke. and announced that there
was grizzly bear humping around on the
other side of the river. He had nothing
but a Springfield carbine. he said. and his
shack was not a very well-built affair. SO
he would be greatly obliged IL a few we'll
armed. determined men who gloried in the
chase would go back with him and finish
up Mr.. Bruin There was no trouble to
ind
ment would have been almost willing to
swim the Yellowstone in order to get
chance at the expected sport. But capt.
HargouS, who was in command. knew
few things about grizzlies, and knew that
the average soldier would simply be in
the way in a bout with one of the big an
| imals So the captain selected three or
four Of his old men who were noted for
their skill as hunters, and, with one or two
of the officers, put out in boats Tor the
other side. $500
when they landed they found an old
chap named Kenna sitting on the shore
| with his rifle across his knees and smoking
his pipe very unconcernediy. Now this man
Kenna was most unique character; He
was from somewhere In. New England, ana
had drifted out west in the early frontier
days. and had become professional hun
ter. He always reminded me OF some OF j.
Fennimore Cooper's characters. HIS YER
nacular was a combination of terse, odd.
epigrammatic Yankee sayings mixed with
the slang of the plains, with an occasional
sentence OF sioux thrown IN. anu All nav
ed with liberal amount of profanity. He
was a dead shot. He had a Sharps rifle OF
As calber that carried a cartridge with 100
grains of powder. He told me he had often
| lain down on the ground to leeWard OF
herd of buffaloes. SO far away that they
| would not notice the report of his rifle,
| and knock down twenty rpr thirty animals
stampede 1 know Of his selling LOO buff
| falo pelts to a Missouri river steamboat
captain as the result of one falls hunt
His outfit consisted Of two Red River
| hunting knife. fEyingupan and coffee
| pot The burro carried his grub stake and
| housekeeping outfit, together with his am
| munition. He said ia burro could always
| be trusted with ones snesf precious belong
| ings. The burro meyer stsmpedes or strays
| off. For one thing, he Is too lazy and too
much of a philosopher. TO engage In any