A La California. Albert S. Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ and commenced his nightly vigil. About two o'clock in the morning he heard the snorting of a grizzly, and on looking up, he beheld, about eight feet off, two glaring eyes in the head of a large-sized bear. It was quite dark and foggy. The young man leveled his gun, took aim, and as he saw the bear raise his head, he fired, and the ball entered the animal's neck, breaking it, the slug ranging along the back and lodging under the skin. The

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      A CHANGE OF BASE.

      ​ ​bear was so close that the powder singed the hair on its breast. The grizzly had grasped in its teeth an oak bush, and in one leap fell dead at the feet of its captor.

      Young Teel, having been successful, retired to his camp contented. At daybreak he left his couch and went to the place where he had killed the animal, and to his surprise found he had killed a grizzly of the size of an ox, weighing fully eight hundred pounds. He was in luck.

      About the same time an experienced hunter in Southern California met with a terrible adventure, with more serious results. The affair is related by the Los Angeles Star, of February 19th, 1871: "John Searles, well known in this section of the State as an expert miner, left Soledad Cañon a few days ago, with a couple of friends, on a hunting expedition into the mountains north and east of La Liebre Rancho, which abound in deer and bear. Wednesday evening, the party encamped at the foot of a large cañon, and, leaving his friends, Mr. Searles took his rifle, a Spencer, and went up the cañon hunting; about a mile from camp, he killed and dressed a grizzly. Judging from the fresh sign that bear was plenty, he went on up the canon, looking for a good place for a hunting camp. Half a mile from where he left his horse, in very thick brush, he came suddenly upon a large grizzly, breaking down the chemisal, in a thicket. After waiting in the trail a few minutes, with his gun ready, the bear emerged from the bush and made a rush at him. A ball from the Spencer knocked it down; but, almost ​immediately rising, the bear—one of the largest kind—closed with him. The Spencer missing fire three times, a terrible hand-to-hand combat ensued, the man fighting for life with his fists, and the bear fighting for death with teeth and claws. The unequal conflict was not prolonged. The bear, weakened by loss of blood which poured from the rifle-ball wound, left the man for dead, and crawling into the brush, bled to death. After the bear left, Mr. Searles, who had feigned death, arose and examined his wounds. A bite from the bear had broken his lower jaw in several places, one of his arms were broken, and terrible wounds in the breast and side were bleeding fast. In this condition he crawled to his horse, mounted and rode to camp. He was brought to this city last night, by his friends, and best surgical aid summoned to his assistance, although it is feared that his injuries are fatal."

      "If you play with the bear, you must take bear's play," is a common saying, but its full force and significance can only be appreciated by one who has had a tussle with a California grizzly.

      The Stockton Republican of March 14th, 1871—the very day on which both the last related affairs occurred—gave the following account of a grizzly fight which occurred in the Valley of the San Joaquin a few days previously: "W. D. Fowler and George Day were out hunting in the hills near Oristemba Creek, on the west side of San Joaquin River, in Stanislaus county, and came upon a large female grizzly bear, which they commenced firing at. The bear retreated slowly, and finally went to her lair ​in some underbrush. The men kept up a steady fire at her at long range, the bear fighting desperately, tearing the brush and breaking limbs, but refusing to leave her position. After awhile, they noticed her carry off, one at a time, two small cubs and hide them in the bush. Finding their range too lone to be effective, the hunters undertook to reach a position nearer the bear by going around a hill, and just when they were ascending the knoll to get a sight of her, she suddenly came over the brow and dashed at them in the most ferocious manner When discovered, she was so near them that escape was impossible, and the men stood their ground. On she came, tearing up the bushes and biting the shrubs. When within ten feet of Fowler he fired, and the shot broke her neck. She fell, and a shot from Day's rifle passed through her heart. It was a narrow escape. The hunters captured the two cubs the mother had hid in the brush, and another, which still remained in the nest. The two cubs hidden in the brush were colored precisely alike, while the one remaining in the nest was somewhat darker, from which the hunters concluded that the old bear they killed had only secreted her own young, and that the one remaining in the nest belonged to another bear and another family."

      In the spring of 1869, a grizzly of the largest size "ranched" in the San Andreas Valley, near the new reservoir of the Spring Valley Water Company,—from which San Francisco is supplied,—within fifteen miles of the Golden City, for several weeks. Nobody about there had lost any bears, and nobody ​went after him, so he fattened on the luxuriant clover and wild oats until the range began to give out, and then leisurely departed for the mountains. No one asked him to come, and nobody cared to delay his departure.

      The grizzly is susceptible of domestication, but his moods are varied even then. A few years ago, while a museum was being moved from one part of San Francisco to another, old Samson—who chawed up "Grizzly Adams" once upon a time and rendered him beautiful for life—got out of his cage and took possession of the lower part of the city. A crowd of excited men and boys were soon at his heels, endeavoring to corral him, but for a long time without success. At length, tired of picking up damaged fruit from the gutters, upsetting ash-barrels and swill-barrels, and frightening all the women and children on the street out of their seven senses, he took refuge in a livery stable, where he was speedily surrounded and cornered. A number of men formed a hollow square around him with pitchforks, and an Irishman with a rope formed into a noose crawled up within reach of the beleaguered animal, and would have lassoed him, but for the fact that he was afraid to attempt it. "Why don't you slip it over his nose so that he can't bite?" shouted a bystander to him. "Well, you see I would, but thin I ain't acquainted with him jist!" was the hesitating reply. "Oh, never mind being acquainted with him; don't stand on ceremony with a bear. Just take off your hat and introduce yourself!" was the jeering rejoinder; and a roar of laughter from the entire ​crowd testified to their keen appreciation of the joke. In January, 1870, I saw that same bear in the Plaza de Toros, in the city of Vera Cruz, Mexico, dig a hole large enough to hold an elephant, take a bull which had been set to fight him in his paws as if he were an infant, carry him to the pit, hurl him into it head foremost, slap him on the side with his tremendous paws until his breath was half knocked out of his body, and then hold him down with one paw while he deliberately buried him alive by raking the earth down upon him with the other. Samson had not a tooth to bite with at that time, they having been in the course of years and many fights worn down to the gums; but his strength was that of an elephant, and his claws, eight inches in length, curved like a rainbow and sharp as a knife would enable him to tear open anything made of flesh and blood as you or I would tear open a banana.

      I am satisfied that an average grizzly could at any time whip the strongest African lion in a fair stand-up fight, while a full-grown bull is no more to him than a rat is to the largest house-cat.

      The grizzly is becoming scarce in some parts of the State, but he is still found in great numbers in the Coast Range Mountains, from San Diego to Del Norte.

      The Mexican or native Californian vaqueros in Santa Barbara and neighboring counties, riding out three or four together on their fleet, well-trained caballos, will without fear attack a grizzly, lasso him from different directions, and not only conquer him, ​but actually so tie him up and entangle him as to eventually tire him out, and bring him into the town an unresisting prisoner.

      But it is not every man who can do that little trick. The natives relate with pardonable exultation the story of a Yankee who came to California in early days, and soon acquired the trick of throwing the lasso with considerable dexterity. Hearing others talk of lassoing the grizzly, he started out full of confidence, to show them that he could do what any other man could do in that line. He soon СКАЧАТЬ