The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1906-09-22

hIHl nN season has furnished more
RM-@ than usually good bear
NE&X hunting 70: ambitious
New England nimrods. So
lar from being gradually exterminated
as was predicted Of our New England
bears as long ago as 1860 - the tribe
of bruin has gone on steadily increas-
ing for more than forty years past.
Our mountain Businesses are once
more getting to be uncomfortably over
populated by these predatory animals,
and reports fro Maine, New Hamp-
shire and Vermont say that farmers
stock is suffering not little from their
incursions.
The ordinary hunter, and especially
the city sportsman. seems to make very
little impression upon bruins shaggy
hide. 1t is only the veteran local bear
hunter. the specialist of thirty or forty
years experience. vino can successfully
cope with the caution, endurance and
sagl :ious hu.nor Ct the New England
bear.
For that The bea: is humor st of
no me.,n quality every hunter knows.
Anal it is chiefly because of this grim
~ humorous trait in his makeup that
he curvives ami fo,irishes on the very
borders of our Wanted twentieth cen
fury civilization. Hruin enjoys joke
on the sportsman better than does any
other animal that roams the woods. In
his solemn, savage fashion he injects
into the wilderness game of hide-and-
seek an amount of fun that is aston
ishing. Natul. has equipped him with
many of the attributes of a clown. to
begin with. His gravely vaggish face,
awkward 3D.. shamo,in~- gait. twink
ling, shifty eyes. and general appear
ance of innocent incapacity, makes a
capitally effective foil for his real keen
ness of brain and aiert.'ess of body.
After all. bruins tactics are simple
enough and that is what makes him
such j consLmmate humorist. He re-
lies chiefly, it would seem> on his phe-
nomenal ability to inspire buck fever;
and th a:e is no creature of the woods,
unless it be moose, that seems to
equal Linn in the exercise of this kind
of hypnotic power.
They are having the laugh in South
crn Vermont now on 4 Be stOn sports
man who went up there in the late
fall. before. the bears had denned up,
and took part in a bear hunt on a cer-
tain mountain Wnere an enormous bear
was known to have his Headquarters.
Bruin was at ,-ome. and the hunters
drove him directly to the spot where
our sportsman was waitin,:, with a
hamme"less double gun loaded with
ball cartridges. The bear came with
in fifteen feet, and the sportsman
pulled both triggers until he was dir
". but never woke from his hypnotic
dream and discovered that the safety
catch OF his gun was not pushed up
until bruin had passed out of sight
with grin on his face. and delicious
new joke 10 report to his fellows at the
next sheep-stealing meet.
Another man-in New Hampshire,
this time. a native nimrod-wa: SC af-
fected with genuine fear on meeting
bruin in an old tOte-rucd tnat he
turned to run, lost his balance, and
rolled down a steep bank into a good
less precipitately, took possession Of
the mans gun, and kept him in the
water until he was nearly frozen. Fan
~ how keenly that bear must have
enjoyed lis unprecedented joke: A
moose would have hustled the man
out Of the brook, or tom up tie ground
in savage fury, but it took born hu-
morist like a bear, to sit down and
appreciate the situation to the full.
But there is - joke which the aver
age bear enjoys quite so well as get
ting hunter perched up tree and
keeping HIM there until he is nearer
dead than alive. There is curious
fatuousness, too. about this proceeding
on the hunters part which must i'm.
mensely tickle the bear. The hunter
never stops to think that bears can
climb, too. But most bears seem to
think more OF the joke than they do
for the man, so they let him dangle
and squirm and yell, either until help
comes or they get tired of the farce
and go off in search Of some. fresh
amusement Very likely the bear
chews up the hunters gunstock tefore
he goes, thus leaving him suitable
memento OF humorous encounter that
might easily have had tragic ending
Boston Transcript. :.
WHEN THE DUNES WALK.