Book: Hunting with the Bow and Arrow

S >> Saxton Pope >> Hunting with the Bow and Arrow




The half grown cubs had disappeared at the boom of the gun. We saw one
making off at a gallop, three hundred yards away. The glittering
snowbank before us was vacant.

The air seemed strangely still; the silence was oppressive. Our nervous
tension exploded in a wave of laughter and exclamations of wonderment.
Frost declared he had never seen such a spectacle in all his life; four
grizzly bears in deadly combat; the din of battle; the wild bellowing;
and two bowmen shooting arrow after arrow into this jumble of
struggling beasts.


[Illustration: OUR CAMP AT SQUAW LAKE, WYOMING]


[Illustration: THE RESULT OF OUR FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH A CHARGING
GRIZZLY BEAR]


[Illustration: BRINGING HOME THE TROPHIES]


The snow was trampled and soaked with blood as though there had been an
Indian massacre. We paced off the distance at which the charging female
had been stopped. It was exactly eight yards. A mighty handy shot!

We went down to view the remains. Young had three arrows in the old
bear, one deep in her neck, its point emerging back of the shoulder. He
shot that as she came at us. His first arrow struck anterior to her
shoulder, entered her chest, and cut her left lung from top to bottom.
His third arrow pierced her thorax, through and through, and lay on the
ground beside her with only its feathers in the wound.

My first arrow cut below the diaphragm, penetrated the stomach and
liver, severed the gall ducts and portal vein. My second arrow passed
completely through her abdomen and lay on the ground several yards
beyond her. It had cut the intestines in a dozen places and opened
large branches of the mesenteric artery.

The bullet from Frost's gun had entered at the right shoulder,
fractured the humerus, blown a hole an inch in diameter in the chest
wall, opened up a jagged hole in the trachea, and dissipated its energy
in the left lung. No wound of exit was found, the soft nose
copper-jacketed bullet apparently having gone to pieces after striking
the bone.

Anatomically speaking, it was an effective shot, knocked the bear down
and crippled her, but was not an immediately fatal wound. We had her
killed with arrows, but she did not know it. She undoubtedly would have
been right on us in another second. The outcome of this hypothetical
encounter I leave to those with vivid imaginations.

We hereby express our gratitude to Ned Frost.

Now one of us had to rush off and get the rest of the party. Judge
Hulbert and my brother were in another valley in quest of bear. So Ned
set off at a rapid tramp across the bogs, streams, and hills to find
them. Within an hour they returned together to view the wreckage.
Photographs were taken, the skinning and autopsy were performed. Then
we looked around for the wounded cub. Frost trailed him by almost
invisible blood stains and tracks, and found him less than a quarter of
a mile away, huddled up as if asleep on the hillside, my arrow nestled
to his breast. The broken shaft with its blade deep in the thorax had
completely severed the head of his humerus, cut two ribs, and killed
him by hemorrhage from the pulmonary arteries. Half-grown as he was, he
would have made an ugly antagonist for any man.

His mother, a fine mature lady of the old school, showed by her teeth
and other lineaments her age and respectability. In autumn she would
have weighed four or five hundred pounds. We weighed her in
installments with our spring scales; she registered three hundred and
five pounds. She was in poor condition and her pelt was not suitable
for museum purposes. But these features could not be determined readily
beforehand. The juvenile Ursus weighed one hundred and thirty-five
pounds. We measured them, gathered their bones for the museum,
shouldered their hides, and turned back to camp.

That night Ned Frost said, "Boys, when you proposed shooting grizzly
bears with the bow and arrow, I thought it a fine sporting proposition,
but I had my doubts about its success. Now I know that you can shoot
through and kill the biggest grizzly in Wyoming!"

Our instructions on leaving California were to secure a large male
_Ursus Horribilis Imperator_, a good representative female, and two or
three cubs. The female we had shot filled the requirements fairly well,
but the two-year-old cub was at the high school age and hardly cute
enough to be admired. Moreover, no sooner had we sent the news of our
first success to the Museum than we were informed that this size cub
was not wanted and that we must secure little ones.

So we set out to get some of this year's vintage in small bears.
Ordinarily, there is no difficulty in coming in contact with bears in
Yellowstone; in fact, it is more common to try to keep some of the
hotel variety from eating at the same table with you. But not a single
bear, black, brown, or silver-tipped, now called upon us. We traveled
all over that beautiful Park, from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Lake. We
hunted over every well-known bear district. Tower Falls, Specimen
Ridge, Buffalo Corrals, Mt. Washburn, Dunraven Pass (under twenty-five
feet of snow), Antelope Creek, Pelican Meadows, Cub Creek, Steamboat
Point, and kept the rangers busy on the lookout for bear. From eight to
fifteen hours a day we hunted. We walked over endless miles of
mountains, climbed over countless logs, plowed through snow and slush,
and raked the valleys with our field glasses.

But bears were as scarce as hen's teeth. We saw a few tracks but
nothing compared to those seen in other years.

We began to have a sneaking idea that the bear had all been killed off.
We knew they had been a pest to campers and were becoming a menace to
human life. We suspected the Park authorities of quiet extermination.
Several of the rangers admitted that a selective killing was carried
out yearly to rid the preserve of the more dangerous individuals.

Then the elk began to pour back into the Park; singly, in couples, and
in droves they returned, lean and scraggly. A few began to drop their
calves. Then we began to see bear signs. The grizzly follow the elk,
and after they come out of hibernation and get their fill of green
grass, they naturally take to elk calves. Occasionally they include the
mother in the menu.

We also began to follow the elk. We watched at bait. We sat up nights
and days at a time, seeing only a few unfavorable specimens and these
were as wild and as wary as deer. We found the mosquitoes more deadly
than the bear. We tracked big worthy old boys around in circles and had
various frustrated encounters with she-bears and cubs.

Upon one occasion we were tracking a prospective specimen through the
woods, proceeding with great caution, when evidently the beast heard
us. Suddenly, he turned on his tracks and came on a dead run for us. I
was in advance and instantly drew my bow, holding it for the right
moment to shoot. The bear came directly in our front, not more than
twenty yards away and being startled by the sight of us, threw his
locomotive mechanism into reverse and skidded towards us in a cloud of
snow and forest leaves. In the fraction of a second, I perceived that
he was afraid and not a proper specimen for our use. I held my arrow
and the bear with an indignant and disgusted look, made a precipitous
retreat. It was an unexpected surprise on both sides.

They say that the Indians avoided the Yellowstone region, thinking it a
land of evil spirits. In our wanderings, however, we picked up on
Steamboat Point a beautiful red chert arrow-head, undoubtedly shot by
an Indian at elk years before Columbus burst in upon these good people.
In Hayden Valley we found an obsidian spear head, another sign that the
Indian knew good hunting grounds.

But no Indian was ever so anxious to meet grizzly as we were. We hunted
continually, but found none that suited us; we had to have the best.
Frost assured us that we had made a mistake in ever trying to get
grizzlies in the Park--and that in the time we spent there we could
have secured all our required specimens in the game fields of Wyoming
or Montana.

A month passed; the bears were beginning to lose their winter coats;
our party began to disintegrate. My brother and the Judge were
compelled to return to Detroit. A week or so later Ned Frost and the
cook were scheduled to take out another party of hunters from Cody and
prepared to leave us. Young and I were determined to stick it out until
the last chance was exhausted. We just had to get those specimens.

Before Frost left us, however, he packed us up to the head of Cascade
Creek with our bows and arrows, bed rolls, a tarpaulin, and a couple of
boxes of provisions.

We had received word from a ranger that a big old grizzly had been seen
at Soda Butte and we prepared to go after him. At the last moment
before departure, a second word came that probably this same bear had
moved down to Tower Falls and was ranging between this point and the
Canyon, killing elk around Dunraven Pass.

Young and I scouted over this area and found diggings and his tracks.

A good-sized bear will have a nine-inch track. This monster's was
eleven inches long. We saw where he made his kills and used certain
fixed trails going up and down the canyons.

Frost gave us some parting advice and his blessing, consigned us to our
fate, and went home.

Left to ourselves, we two archers inspected our tackle and put
everything in prime condition. Our bows had stood the many wettings
well, but we oiled them again. New strings were put on and thoroughly
waxed. Our arrows were straightened, their feathers dried and preened
in the sun. The broad-heads were set on straight and sharpened to the
last degree, and so prepared we determined to do our utmost. We were
ready for the big fellow.

In our reconnaissance we found that he was a real killer. His trail was
marked by many bloody episodes. It seemed quite probable that he was
the bear that two years before burst in upon a party of surveyors in
the mountains and kept them treed all night. It is not unlikely that he
was the same bear that caused the death of Jack Walsh. He seemed too
expert in planning murder. We saw by his tracks how he lay in ambush
watching a herd of elk, how he sneaked up on a mother elk and her
recently born calf on the outskirts of the band, and with a great leap
threw himself upon the two and killed them.

In several places we saw the skins of these little wapiti licked clean
and empty of bodily structure. No other male grizzly was permitted to
enter his domain. He was, in fact, the monarch of the mountain, the
great bear of Dunraven Pass.

We pitched our little tent in a secluded wood some three miles from the
lake at the head of Cascade Creek, and began to lay our plan of attack.
We were by this time inured to fatigue and disappointment. Weariness
and loss of sleep had produced a dogged determination that knew no
relaxation. And yet we were cheerful. Young has that fine quality so
essential to a hunting companion, imperturbable good nature, never
complaining, no matter how heavy the load, how long the trail, how late
or how early the hour, how cold, how hot, how little, or how poor the
food.

We were there to win and nothing else mattered. If it rained and we
must wait, we took out our musical instruments, built up the fire and
soothed our troubled souls with harmony. This is better than tobacco or
whiskey for the purpose. In fact, Young is so abstemious that even tea
or coffee seem a bit intemperate to him, and are only to be used under
great physical strain; and as for profanity, why, I had to do all the
swearing for the two of us.

We were trained down to rawhide and sinew, keyed to alertness and ready
for any emergency.

Often in our wanderings at night we ran unexpectedly upon wild beasts
in the dark. Some of these were bears. Our pocket flashlights were used
as defensive weapons. A snort, a crashing retreat through the brush
told us that our visitant had departed in haste, unable to stand the
glaring light of modern science.

We soon found that our big fellow was a night rover also, and visited
his various kills under the cloak of darkness. In one particularly
steep and rugged canyon, he crossed a little creek at a set place. Up
on the side of this canyon he mounted to the plateau above by one of
three possible trails. At the top within forty yards of one of these
was a small promontory of rock upon which we decided to form a blind
and await his coming. We fashioned a shelter of young jack pines,
constructed like a miniature corral, less than three by six feet in
area, but very natural in appearance. Between us and the trail was a
quantity of down timber which we hoped would act as an impediment to an
onrushing bear. And the perpendicular face of our outcropping elevated
us some twelve or thirteen feet above the steep hillside. A small tree
stood near our position and offered a possibility in case of attack.
But we had long ago decided that no man can clamber up a tree in time
to escape a grizzly charging at a distance less than fifty yards. We
could be approached from the rear, but altogether it was an ideal
ambush.

The wind blew steadily up the canyon all night long and carried our
scent away from the trail. Above us on the plateau was a recently
killed elk which acted as a perpetual invitation to bears and other
prowlers of the night.

So we started watching in this blind, coming soon after dusk and
remaining until sunrise. The nights were cold, the ground pitiless, and
the moon, nearly at its full, crept low through a maze of mist.

Dressed in our warmest clothing and permitting ourselves one blanket
and a small piece of canvas, we huddled together in a cramped posture
and kept vigil through the long hours. Neither of us smoked anyway, and
of course, this was absolutely taboo; we hardly whispered, and even
shifted our positions with utmost caution. Before us lay our bows ready
strung, and arrows, both in the quiver belted upright to the screen and
standing free close at hand.

The first evening we saw an old she-bear and her two-year-old cubs come
up the path. They passed us with that soft shuffling gait so uncanny to
hear in the dark. We were delighted that they showed no sign of having
detected us. But they were not suited to our purpose and we let them
go. The female was homely, fretful and nervous. The cubs were yellow
and ungainly. We looked for better things.

Bears have personality, as obvious as humans. Some are lazy, some
alert, surly, or timid. Nearly all the females we saw showed that
irritability and irascible disposition that go with the cares of
maternity. This family was decidedly commonplace.

They disappeared in the gloom, and we waited and waited for the big
fellow that some time must appear.

But morning came first; we stole from our blind, chilled and stiffened,
and wandered back to camp to breakfast and sleep. The former was a
fairly successful event, but the latter was made almost impossible by
the swarms of mosquitoes that beset us. A smudge fire and canvas head-
coverings gave us only a partial immunity. By sundown we were on our
way again to the blind, but another cold dreary night passed without
adventure.

On our way to camp in the dim light of early dawn, a land fog hung low
in the valley. As we came up a rough path there suddenly appeared out
of the obscurity three little bear cubs, not thirty-five yards away.
They winded us, squeaked and stood on their hind legs, peering in our
direction. We dropped like stones in our tracks, scarcely breathing,
figuratively frozen to the ground, for instantly the fiercest-looking
grizzly we ever saw bounded over the cubs and straddled them between
her forelegs. Nothing could stop her if she came on. A little brush
intervened and she could not locate us plainly for we could see her
eyes wander in search of us; but her trembling muscles, the vicious
champing of her jaws, and the guttural growls, all spoke of immediate
attack. We were petrified. She wavered in her intent, turned, cuffed
her cubs down the hill, snorted and finally departed with her family.

We heaved a deep sigh of relief. But she was wonderful, she was the
most beautiful bear we had ever seen; large, well proportioned, with
dark brown hair having just a touch of silver. She was a patrician, the
aristocrat of the species. We marked her well.

Next day, just at sunset, we got our first view of the great bear of
Dunraven Pass. He was coming down a distant canyon trail. He looked
like a giant in the twilight. With long swinging strides he threw
himself impetuously down the mountainside. Great power was in every
movement. He was magnificent! He seemed as large as a horse, and had
that grand supple strength given to no other predatory animal

Though we were used to bears, a strange misgiving came over me. We
proposed to slay this monster with the bow and arrow. It seemed
preposterous!

In the blind another long cold night passed. The moon drifted slowly
across the heavens and sank in a haze of clouds at daybreak. Just at
the hush of dawn, the homely female and her tow-headed progeny came
shuffling by. We were desperate for specimens, and one of these would
match that which we already had. I drew up my bow and let fly a broad-
head at one of the cubs. It struck him in the ribs. Precipitately, the
whole band took flight. My quarry fell against an obstructing log and
died. His mother stopped, came back several times, gazed at him
pensively, then disappeared. We got out, carried him to a distant spot
and skinned him. He weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. My arrow had
shaved a piece off his heart. Death was instantaneous.

We packed home the hind quarters and made a fine grizzly stew. Before
this we had found that the old bears were tough and rancid, but the
little ones were as sweet and tender as suckling pigs. This stew was
particularly good, well seasoned with canned tomatoes and the last of
our potatoes and onions. Sad to relate the better part of this savory
pot next day was eaten by a wandering vagabond of the _Ursus_ family.
Not content with our stew, he devoured all our sugar, bacon, and other
foodstuffs not in cans, and wound up his debauch by wiping his feet on
our beds and generally messing up the camp. Probably he was a regular
camp thief.

That night, early in the watch, we heard the worthy old boy come down
the canyon, hot in pursuit of a large brown bear. As he ran, the great
animal made quite a noise. His claws clattered on the rocks, and the
ground seemed to shake beneath us. We shifted our bows ready for
action, and felt the keen edge of our arrows. Way off in the forest we
heard him tree the cowardly intruder with such growls and ripping of
bark that one would imagine he was about to tear the tree down.

After a long time he desisted and, grunting and wheezing, came slowly
up the canyon. With the night glasses we could see him. He seemed to be
considerably heated with his exercise and scratched himself against a
young fir tree. As he stood on his hind legs with his back to the trunk
and rubbed himself to and fro, the tree swayed like a reed; and as he
lifted his nose I observed that it just touched one of the lower
branches. In the morning, after he had gone and we were on our way to
camp, we passed this very fir and stretching up on my tip toes, I could
just touch the limb with my fingers. Having been a pole vaulter in my
youth, I knew by experience that this measurement was over seven feet
six inches. He was a real he-bear! We wanted him more than ever.

The following day it rained--in fact, it rained nearly every day near
the end of our stay; but this was a drenching that stopped at sunset,
leaving all the world sweet and fragrant. The moon came out full and
beautiful, everything seemed propitious.

We went to the blind about an hour before midnight, feeling that surely
this evening the big fellow would come. After two hours of frigidity
and immobility, we heard the velvet footfalls of bear coming up the
canyon. There came our patrician and her royal family. The little
fellows pattered up the trail before their mother. They came within
range. I signalled Young and we shot together at the cubs. We struck.
There was a squeak, a roar, a jumble of shadowy figures and the entire
flock of bears came tumbling in our direction.

At that very moment the big grizzly appeared on the scene. There were
five bears in sight. Turning her head from side to side, trying to find
her enemy, the she-bear came towards us. I whispered to Young, "Shoot
the big fellow." At the same time, I drew an arrow to the head, and
drove it at the oncoming female. It struck her full in the chest. She
reared; threw herself sidewise, bellowed with rage, staggered and fell
to the ground. She rose again, weakened, stumbled forward, and with
great gasps she died. In less than half a minute it was all over. The
little ones ran up the hill past us, one later returned and sat up at
its mother's head, then disappeared in the dark forever.

While all this transpired, the monster grizzly was romping back and
forth in the shaded forest not more than sixty-five yards away. With
deep booming growls like distant thunder, he voiced his anger and
intent to kill. As he flitted between the shadows of the trees, the
moonlight glinted on his massive body; he was enormous.

Young discharged three arrows at him. I shot two. We should have
landed, he was so large. But he galloped off and I saw my last arrow at
the point blank range of seventy-five yards, fall between his legs. He
was gone. We thought we had missed the beast and grief descended heavy
upon us. The thought of all the weary days and nights of hunting and
waiting, and now to have lost him, was very painful.

After our palpitating hearts were quiet and the world seemed peaceful,
we got out of our blind and skinned the female by flashlight. She was a
magnificent specimen, just right in color and size for the Museum, not
fat, but weighing a trifle over five hundred pounds. My arrow had
severed a rib and buried its head in her heart. We measured her and
saved her skull and long bones for the taxidermist.

At daybreak we searched for the cubs and found one dead under a log
with an arrow through his brain. The others had disappeared.

We had no idea that we hit the great bear, but just to gather up our
shafts, we went over the ground where he had been.

One of Young's arrows was missing!

That gave us a thrill; perhaps we had hit him after all! We went
further in the direction he had gone; there was a trace of blood.

We trailed him. We knew it was dangerous business. Through clumps of
jack pines we cautiously followed, peering under every pile of brush
and fallen tree. Deep into the forest we tracked him, where his bloody
smear was left upon fallen logs. Soon we found where he had rested.
Then we discovered the fore part of Young's arrow. It had gone through
him. There was a pool of blood. Then we found the feathered butt which
he had drawn out with his teeth.

Four times he wallowed down in the mud or soft earth to rest and cool
his wound. Then beneath a great fir he had made a bed in the soft loam
and left it. Past this we could not track him. We hunted high and low,
but no trace of him could we find. Apparently he had ceased bleeding
and his footprints were not recorded on the stony ground about. We made
wide circles, hoping to pick up his trail. We searched up and down the
creek. We cross-cut every forest path and runway, but no vestige
remained.



[Illustration: LOOKING FOR GRIZZLIES ON CUB CREEK]


[Illustration: THE TREE THAT NED FROST CLIMBED TO ESCAPE DEATH]


[Illustration: MY FEMALE GRIZZLY AND THE ARROW THAT KILLED HER]


[Illustration: ARTHUR YOUNG SLAYS THE MONARCH OF THE MOUNTAINS]


He was gone. We even looked up in the tree and down in the ground where
he had wallowed. For five hours we searched in vain, and at last, worn
with disappointment and fatigue, we lay down and slept on the very spot
where he last stopped.

Near sundown we awoke, ate a little food, and started all over again to
find the great bear. We retraced our steps and followed the fading
evidence till it brought us again to the pit beneath the fir tree. He
must be near. It was absolutely impossible for any animal to have lost
so much blood and travel more than a few hundred yards past this spot.
We had explored the creek bottom and the cliffs above from below, and
we now determined to traverse every foot of the rim of the canyon from
above. As we climbed over the face of the rock we saw a clot of dried
blood. We let ourselves down the sheer descent, came upon a narrow
little ledge, and there below us lay the huge monster on his back,
against a boulder, cold and stiff, as dead as Cesar. Our hearts nearly
burst with happiness.

There lay the largest grizzly bear in Wyoming, dead at our feet. His
rugged coat was matted with blood. Well back in his chest the arrow
wound showed clear. I measured him; twenty-six inches of bear had been
pierced through and through. One arrow killed him. He was tremendous.
His great wide head; his worn, glistening teeth; his massive arms; his
vast, ponderous feet and long curved claws; all were there. He was a
wonderful beast. It seemed incredible. I thumped Young on the shoulder:
"My, that was a marvelous shot!"

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