University of Virginia Library

A GRIZZLY BEAR HUNT.

The every-day sports of the wild woods include
many feats of daring that never find a pen of record.
Constantly, in the haunts of the savage, are enacting
scenes of thrilling interest, the very details of which
would make the denizen of enlightened life
turn away with instinctive dread. Every Indian
tribe has its heroes, celebrated respectively for their
courage in different ways exhibited. Some for their
acuteness in pursuing the enemy on the war-path,
and others for the destruction they have accomplished
among the wild beasts of the forest. A great
hunter among the Indians is a marked personage.
It is a title that distinguishes its possessor among
his people as a prince; while the exploits in which
he has been engaged hang about his person as
brilliantly as the decorations of so many orders.
The country in which the Osage finds a home possesses
abundantly the grizzly bear, an animal formidable
beyond any other inhabitant of the North American
forests: an animal seemingly insensible to pain, uncertain
in its habits, and by its mighty strength able
to overcome any living obstacle that comes within
its reach, as an enemy. The Indian warrior, of any
tribe, among the haunts of the grizzly bear, finds no
necklace so honourable to be worn as the claws of
this gigantic animal, if he fall by his own prowess;

and if he can add an eagle's plume to his scalp-lock,
plucked from a bird shot while on the wing, he is
honourable indeed. The Indian's “smoke,” like
the fire-side of the white man, is often the place
where groups of people assemble to relate whatever
may most pleasantly while away the hours of a long
evening, or destroy the monotony of a dull and idle
day. On such occasions, the old “brave” will
sometimes relax from his natural gravity, and grow
loquacious over his chequered life. But no recital
commands such undivided attention as the adventures
with the grizzly bear; and the death of an
enemy on the war-path hardly vies with it in
interest.

We have listened to these soul-stirring adventures
over the urn, or while lounging on the sofa; and the
recital of the risks run, the hardships endured, have
made us think them almost impossible, when compared
with the conventional self-indulgence of enlightened
life. But they were the tales of a truthful
man: a hunter, who had strayed away from the
scenes once necessary for his life, and who loved,
like the worn-out soldier, to “fight his battles over,”
in which he was once engaged. It may be, and is
the province of the sportsman to exaggerate; but
the “hunter,” surrounded by the magnificence and
sublimity of an American forest, earning his bread
by the hardy adventures of the chase, meets with
too much reality to find room for colouring—too
much of the sublime and terrible in the scenes with
which he is associated to be boastful of himself.
Apart from the favourable effects of civilization, he

is also separated from its contaminations; and boasting
and exaggeration are “settlements,” weaknesses,
and not the products of the wild woods.

The hunter, whether Indian or white, presents
one of the most extraordinary exhibitions of the
singular capacity of the human senses to be improved
by cultivation. The unfortunate deaf, dumb, and
blind girl, in one of our public institutions,[1] selects
her food, her clothing, and her friends, by the touch
alone—so delicate has it become from the mind's
being directed to that sense alone. The forest
hunter uses the sight most extraordinarily well,
and experience at last renders it so keen, that the
slightest touch of passing object on the leaves, trees,
or earth, seems to leave deep and visible impressions,
that to the common eye are unseen as the
path of the bird through the air. This knowledge
governs the chase and the war-path; this knowledge
is what, when excelled in, makes the master-spirit
among the rude inhabitants of the woods: and that
man is the greatest chief, who follows the coldest
trail, and leaves none behind by his own footsteps.
The hunter in pursuit of the grizzly bear is governed
by this instinct of sight. It directs him with more
certainty than the hound is directed by his nose.
The impressions of the bear's footsteps upon the
leaves, its marks on the trees, its resting-places, are
all known long before the bear is really seen; and
the hunter, while thus following “the trail,” calculates
the very sex, weight, and age with certainty.

Thus it is that he will neglect or choose a trail: one
because it is poor, and another because it is small,
another because it is with cubs, another because it
is fat, identifying the very trail as the bear itself;
and herein, perhaps, lies the distinction between the
sportsman, and the huntsman. The hunter follows
his object by his own knowledge and instinct, while
the sportsman employs the instinct of domesticated
animals to assist in his pursuits.

The different methods to destroy the grizzly bear,
by those who hunt them, are as numerous as the
bears that are killed. They are not animals which
permit of a system in hunting them; and it is for
this reason they are so dangerous and difficult to
destroy. The experience of one hunt may cost a
limb or a life in the next one, if used as a criterion;
and fatal, indeed, is the mistake, if it comes to grappling
with an animal whose gigantic strength enables
him to lift a horse in his huge arms, and bear it
away as a prize. There is one terrible exception
to this rule; one habit of the animal may be certainly
calculated on, but a daring heart only can
take advantage of it.

The grizzly bears, like the tiger and lion, have their
caves in which they live; but they use them principally
as a safe lodging-place when the cold of
winter renders them torpid and disposed to sleep.
To these caves they retire late in the fall, and they
seldom venture out until the warmth of spring.
Sometimes two occupy one cave, but this is not
often the case, as the unsociability of the animal is
proverbial, they preferring to be solitary and alone.

A knowledge of the forests, and an occasional trailing
for bear inform the hunter of these caves, and
the only habit of the grizzly bear that can with certainty
be taken advantage of, is that of his being in
his cave alive, if at a proper season. And the hunter
has the terrible liberty of entering his cave singlehanded,
and there destroying him. Of this only
method of hunting the grizzly bear we would attempt
a description.

The thought of entering a cave, inhabited by one
of the most powerful beasts of prey, is calculated to
try the strength of the best nerves; and when it is
considered that the least trepidation, the slightest
mistake, may cause, and probably will result in the
instant death of the hunter, it certainly exhibits the
highest demonstration of physical courage to pursue
such a method of hunting. Yet there are many persons
in the forests of North America who engage in
such perilous adventures with no other object in
view than the “sport” or hearty meal. The hunter's
preparations to “beard the lion in his den” commence
with examining the mouth of the cave he is
about to enter. Upon the signs there exhibited he
decides whether the bear is alone; for if there are
two, the cave is never entered. The size of the
bear is also thus known, and the time since he was
last in search of food. The way this knowledge is
obtained, from indications so slight, or unseen to an
ordinary eye, is one of the greatest mysteries of the
woods. Placing ourselves at the mouth of the cave
containing a grizzly bear, to our untutored senses
there would be nothing to distinguish it from one

that was empty; but if some Diana of the forest
would touch our eyes, and give us the instinct of
sight possessed by the hunter, we would argue thus:
“From all the marks about the mouth of the cave,
the occupant has not been out for a great length of
time, for the grass and the earth have not been lately
disturbed. The bear is in the cave, for the last tracks
made are with the toe-marks towards the cave.
There is but one bear, because the tracks are regular
and of the same size. He is a large bear; the length
of the step and the size of the paw indicate this; and
he is a fat one, because his hind feet do not step in
the impressions made by the fore ones, as is always
the case with a lean bear.” Such are the signs and
arguments that present themselves to the hunter; and
mysterious as they seem, when not understood, when
explained they strike the imagination at once as being
founded on the unerring simplicity and the certainty
of nature. It may be asked, how is it that
the grizzly bear is so formidable to numbers when
met in the forest, and when in a cave can be
assailed successfully by a single man? In answer to
this, we must recollect that the bear is only attacked
in his cave when he is in total darkness, and suffering
from surprise and the torpidity of the season. These
three things are in this method of hunting taken
advantage of; and but for these advantages, no quickness
of eye, no steadiness of nerve or forest experience,
would protect for an instant the intruder
to the cave of the grizzly bear. The hunter, having
satisfied himself about the cave, prepares a candle,
which he makes out of the wax taken from the comb
of wild bees, softened by the grease of the bear.
This candle has a large wick, and emits a brilliant
flame. Nothing else is needed but the rifle. The
knife and the belt are useless; for if a struggle should
ensue that would make it available, the foe is too
powerful to mind its thrusts before the hand using it
would be dead. Bearing the candle before him,
with the rifle in a convenient position, the hunter
fearlessly enters the cave. He is soon surrounded by
darkness, and is totally unconscious where his enemy
will reveal himself. Having fixed the candle in the
ground in firm position, with an apparatus provided
he lights it, and its brilliant flame soon penetrates
into the recesses of the cavern—its size of course
rendering the illumination more or less complete.
The hunter now places himself on his belly, having
the candle between the back part of the cave where
the bear is, and himself; in this position, with the
muzzle of the rifle protruding out in front of him, he
patiently waits for his victim. A short time only
elapses before Bruin is aroused by the light. The
noise made by his starting from sleep attracts the
hunter, and he soon distinguishes the black mass,
moving, stretching, and yawning like a person
awaked from a deep sleep. The hunter moves not,
but prepares his rifle; the bear, finally roused, turns
his head toward the candle, and, with slow and
waddling steps, approaches it.

Now is the time that tries the nerves of the hunter.
Too late to retreat, his life hangs upon his certain
aim and the goodness of his powder. The slightest
variation in the bullet, or a flashing pan, and he is

a doomed man. So tenacious of life is the common
black bear, that it is frequently wounded in its most
vital parts, and will still escape, or give terrible battle.
But the grizzly bear seems to possess an infinitely
greater tenacity of life. His skin, covered by matted
hair, and the huge bones of his body, protect the
heart, as if incased in a wall; while the brain is
buried in a skull, compared to which adamant is
not harder. A bullet, striking the bear's forehead,
would flatten, if it struck squarely on the solid bone,
as if fired against a rock; and dangerous indeed
would it be to take the chance of reaching the
animal's heart. With these fearful odds against the
hunter, the bear approaches the candle, growing
every moment more sensible of some uncommon intrusion.
He reaches the blaze, and either raises his
paw to strike it, or lifts his nose to scent it, either
of which will extinguish it, and leave the hunter
and the bear in total darkness. This dreadful moment
is taken advantage of. The loud report of
the rifle fills the cave with stunning noise, and as
the light disappears, the ball, if successfully fired,
penetrates the eye of the huge animal—the only
place where it would find a passage to the brain;
and this not only gives the wound, but instantly
paralyzes, that no temporary resistance may be made.
On such chances the American hunter perils his life,
and often thoughtlessly courts the danger.