Bears I Have Met - and Others | Page 3

abandoned the attempt, kept perfectly still and watched the bear with half-closed eyes. The Grizzly realized that the meat was beyond his reach, and with a sighing grunt came down to all fours, stepping upon and crushing flat a tin cup filled with water within a foot of the man's head. The bear inquisitively turned the crushed cup over, smelt of it, sniffed at Snedden's ear and slouched slowly away into the darkness as noiselessly as a phantom, and only one man in the camp knew he had been there except by the sign of his footprints and the flattened cup.
Many hunters have told me of similar experiences, and never have I heard of one instance of unprovoked attack upon a sleeping person by a bear, or for that matter by any other of the large carnivorae of this country. Only one authentic instance of a bear feeding on human flesh have I known, and that was under unusual circumstances.
Two things will be noted by the reader of these accounts of California bear fights: First, that the Grizzly's point of attack is usually the face or head, and second, that, except in the case of she-bears protecting or avenging their cubs, the Grizzly ceased his attack when satisfied that his enemy was no longer capable of continuing the fight, and showed no disposition to wantonly mangle an apparently dead man. Since the forty she-bears came out of the wilderness and ate up a drove of small boys for guying a holy man, who was unduly sensitive about his personal dignity, the female of the ursine species, however, has been notorious for ill-temper and vindictive pertinacity, and she maintains that reputation to this day.
In the summer of 1850, G. W. Applegate and his brother John were mining at Horse Shoe Bar on the American River. The nearest base of supplies at that time was Georgetown, eighteen miles distant by trail. One evening in early summer, having run short of provisions, George and his brother started to walk to that camp to make purchases. Darkness soon overtook them and while descending into Canyon Creek they heard a bear snort at some distance behind. In a few moments they heard it again, louder than before, and John rather anxiously remarked that he thought the bear was following them. George thought not, but in a few seconds after crossing the stream and beginning the ascent upon the other side, both distinctly heard him come--splash, splash, splash--through the water directly upon their trail.
It was as dark as Erebus, and they were without weapons larger than pocket knives--a serious position with an angry Grizzly dogging their steps. Their first thought was to climb a tree, but knowing they were not far from the cabin of a man named Work, they took to their heels and did their best running to reach that haven of refuge ahead of their formidable follower. They reached the cabin, rushed in, slammed and fastened the door behind them, and with breathless intervals gasped out their tale. Work kept a bar for the sale of whiskey, and he and his son, a stout young man, with two or three miners, were sitting on rude seats around a whiskey barrel playing cards when the two frightened men rushed in.
The cabin was built by planting posts firmly in the ground at a distance of some three feet apart, and in the form of a parallelogram, then nailing shakes upon these posts and on the roof. The sides were held together by cross beams, connecting the tops of the opposite posts. There was one rude window, made by cutting a hole in the side of the wall about four feet from the ground and covering this with greased paper, glass being an unattainable luxury. Notwithstanding the belief that there was not a man in those days but wore a red shirt and a big revolver, there was not a firearm in the place.
In a few seconds the bear was heard angrily sniffing at the door, and an instant later his powerful paw came tearing through the frail shakes and he poked his head and neck through the opening and gravely surveyed the terrified party. Every man sprang upon the bar and thence to the cross beam with the alacrity given only by terror. After sniffing a moment and calmly gazing around the room and up at the frightened men, the bear quietly withdrew his head and retired.
After an interval of quiet, the men ventured down and were eagerly discussing the event, when the bear again made its presence known by rearing up and thrusting its head through the paper of the window. Upon this occasion some of the men stood their ground, and young Work, seizing an iron-pointed Jacob's staff, ran full tilt at the