Book: Hunting with the Bow and Arrow

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




We started to skin our quarry. It was a stupendous job, as he weighed
nearly one thousand pounds, and lay on the steep canyon side ready to
roll on and crush us. But with ropes we lashed him by the neck to a
tree and split him up the back, later box-skinning the legs according
to the method required by the museum.

By flashlight, acetylene lamp, candle light, fire light and moonlight,
we labored. We used up all our knives, and having neglected to bring
our whet-stones, sharpened our blades on the volcanic boulders, about
us. By assiduous industry for nine straight hours, we finished him
after a fashion. His skin was thick and like scar tissue. His meat was
all tendons and gristle. The hide was as tight as if glued on.

In the middle of the night we stopped long enough to broil some grizzly
cub steaks and brew a pot of tea; then we went at it again.

As we dismembered him we weighed the parts. The veins were absolutely
dry of blood, and without this substance, which represents a loss of
nearly 10 per cent of his weight, he was nine hundred and sixteen
pounds. There was hardly an inch of fat on his back. At the end of the
autumn this adipose layer would be nearly six inches thick. He would
then have weighed over fourteen hundred pounds. He stood nearly four
feet high at the shoulders, while his skull measured eighteen and a
half inches long; his entire body length was seven feet four inches.

As we cleaned his bones we hurled great slabs of muscle down the
canyon, knowing from experience that this would be a sign for all other
bears to leave the vicinity. Only the wolves and jays will eat grizzly
meat.

At last we finished him, as the sun rose over the mountain ridges and
gilded all the canyon with glory. We cleaned and salted the pelts,
packed them on our backs, and, dripping with salt brine and bear
grease, staggered to the nearest wagon trail. The hide of the big bear,
with unskinned paws and skull, weighed nearly one hundred and fifty
pounds.

We cached our trophies, tramped the weary miles back to camp, cleaned
up, packed and wandered to the nearest station, from which we ordered a
machine. When this arrived we gathered our belongings, turned our
various specimens over to a park ranger, to be given the final
treatments, and started on our homeward trip.

We were so exhausted from loss of sleep, exertion and excitement, that
we sank into a stupor that lasted almost the entire way home.

The California Academy of Sciences now has a handsome representative
group of _Ursus Horribilis Imperator_. We have the extremely
satisfactory feeling that we killed five of the finest grizzly bear in
Wyoming. The sport was fair and clean, and we did it all with the bow
and arrow.




XV


ALASKAN ADVENTURES


It seems as if Fate had chosen my hunting companion, Arthur Young, to
add to the honor and the legends of the bow. At any rate it fell to his
lot to make two trips to Alaska between the years 1922 and 1925.

He and his friend, Jack Robertson, were financed in a project to
collect moving-picture scenes of the Northland.

They were instructed to show the country in all its seasonal phases, to
depict the rivers, forests, glaciers and mountains, particularly to
record the summer beauties of Alaska. The animal life was to be
featured in full:--fish, birds, small game, caribou, mountain sheep,
moose and bear, all were to be captured on the celluloid film, and with
all this a certain amount of hunting with the bow was to be included
and the whole woven into a little story of adventure.

Equipped with cameras, camp outfit and archery tackle, they sailed for
Seward. From here they ventured into the wilderness as circumstances
directed. Sometimes they went by boat to Kadiac Island, sometimes to
the Kenai Peninsula, or they journeyed by dog sleds and packs inland.
They spent the better part of two years in this hard, exacting work,
often carrying as much as a hundred pounds on their backs for many
miles. Great credit must be given to Art's partner Jack Robertson, for
his energy, bravery and fortitude. His work with the camera will make
history, but for the time being we shall focus our attention on the man
with the bow. Only a small portion of Young's time was devoted to
hunting, the exigencies incidental to travel and gathering animal
pictures were such that archery was of secondary importance.

He hunted and shot ptarmigan, some on the wing; he added grouse and
rabbit meat to the scant larder of their "go light" outfit. He shot
graylings and salmon in the streams. He could easily have killed
caribou because they operated close to vast herds of these foolish
beasts. However, at the time it seemed that there was no hurry about
the matter; they had meat in camp, and pictures were of greater
interest just then. They expected to see plenty of these animals.
Strangely enough the herd suddenly left the country and no further
opportunity presented itself for shooting them. This was no great
disappointment because the sport was too easy. What did seem worth
while was the killing of the great Alaskan moose. These beasts are the
largest game animal on this continent, with the exception of the almost
extinct bison.

Young had his first chance at moose while on the Kenai Peninsula. Here
the boys were camped and having finished his camera work Art took a day
off to hunt.

In the afternoon he discovered a large old bull lying down in a
burnt-over area, where approach by stealth was possible, so he began
his stalk with utmost caution, paying particular attention to scent and
sound. By crawling on his hands and knees he came within a hundred and
fifty yards, when his progress was stopped by a fallen tree. To go
around it, would expose him to vision; to climb over, would alarm the
animal by snapping twigs; so Young decided to dig under. He worked with
his hunting knife and hands for one hour to accomplish this operation.
When he had passed this obstacle he continued his crawling till he
reached a distance of sixty yards. At this stage Art called the old
bull with a birch bark horn, then the moose heard him and stood up. The
brush was so thick that he could not shoot immediately, but waited as
the old bull circled to catch his wind and answered the challenge. When
he presented a fair target at seventy yards or so, Art drove an arrow
at him. It struck deep in the flank, up to the feather ranging forward.
The bull was only startled a trifle and trotted off a hundred yards.
Here he stopped to look and listen. Young drew his bow again, and
overshooting his mark, his arrow struck one of the broad thick palms of
the antlers. The point pierced the two inches of bone and wedged tight,
making a sharp report as it hit. This started the animal off at a fast
trot. Young followed slowly at some distance and soon had the
satisfaction of seeing the moose waver in his course and lie down.
After a reasonable wait the hunter advanced to his quarry and found him
dead. The triumph of such an episode is more or less mixed with misery.
The pleasure undoubtedly would have been greater had some other lusty
bow man been with him, but as it was he had to feast his eyes alone,
moreover he had to make his way back to camp, which was some eight
miles off, and night rapidly coming on.


[Illustration: BULL MOOSE BAGGED ON THE KENAI PENINSULA]


This part of the story was just as thrilling to Art, because he must
stumble through the rough land of "little sticks" in the dark with the
constant apprehension of meeting some unwelcome Alaska brown bear,
which were thick there, and also the extremely unpleasant experience of
running into dead trees, tripping over fallen limbs and dropping into
gullies. He reached camp ultimately, I believe. Next day he returned
with his companion for meat, his antler trophy and the picture, which
we present.

This bull weighed approximately sixteen hundred pounds and had a spread
of sixty inches across its antlers.

Upon the second expedition a year later, Young bagged another moose.
Here the arrow penetrated both sides of the chest and caused almost
instant death, showing that size is not a hindrance to a quick exodus.

It is surprising even to us to see the extreme facility with which an
arrow can interrupt the essential physiological processes of life and
destroy it. We have come to the belief that no beast is too tough or
too large to be slain by an arrow. With especially constructed heads
sharpened to the utmost nicety, I have shot through a double thickness
of elephant hide, two inches of cardboard, a bag of shaving and gone
into an inch of wood. We feel sure that having penetrated the hide of a
pachyderm his ribs can easily be severed and the heart or pulmonary
cavity entered. Any considerable incision of either of these vital
areas must soon cause death. And this is a field experiment which we
propose to try in the near future.

There is a legitimate excuse for shooting animals such as moose, where
food is a problem and the bow bears an honorable part in the episode.
We feel moreover that by using the bow on this large game we are
playing ultimately for game preservation. For by shaming the "mighty
hunter" and his unfair methods in the use of powerful destructive
agents, we feel that we help to develop better sporting ethics.

It was partly on this account, and partly to answer the dare of those
who have said, "You may hunt the tame bears of California and Wyoming,
but you cannot fool with the big Kadiac bears of Alaska with your
little bow and arrow," that Young determined to go after these monsters
and see if they were as fierce and invulnerable as claimed. At the
present writing we who shoot the bow have slain more than a dozen bears
with our shafts, but the mighty Kadiac brown grizzly has laughed at us
from his frozen lair--as the literary nature fakir might say--we have
been told that all that is necessary if you wish to meet a brownie, is
to give him your address in Alaska and he will look you up. Also we
have been told that once insulted he will tear a house down to "get
even with you,"--so I shook Art's hand good-bye, when he started on
this Kadiac escapade, and told him to "give 'em hell."

After a long time he came back to San Francisco, and this is the story
he told me--and Art has no guile in his system but is as straight as a
bowstring.

"We made a false start in going after our bears. We took a boat from
Seward and sailed to Seldie, then to Kenai Peninsula. Here we hunted
for two solid weeks and found practically no signs of brownies.

"I decided at the end of this period to waste no more time, but to pull
out of the country and sail back to Seward. We had but a short time to
complete our picture before the last boat left the Arctic waters, but
hearing of good bear signs on Kadiac Island we hit out for this place
and landed in Uganik Bay. Here in the Long Arm, we found a country with
many streams flowing down from the mountains which constitute this
Island, and much small timber in combination with open grassy glades. A
type of country that is particularly suited for photographic work and
bow hunting.

"After several days' exploring we discovered that the bears were
catching salmon in the streams and we were successful in photographing
as many as seven grizzlies at once. We took pictures of the bears
wading in the water looking for fish. Usually the bear slaps the salmon
out of the stream, then goes up on the bank and eats it. The "humpies"
were so plentiful here, however, that they were tossed out on the bank,
but not eaten, the bear preferring to capture one while in the water
then wade about on his hind legs while he held the fish in his arms and
devoured it.

"We got all this and many comic antics of young bears climbing trees
and playing about by using a telephoto lens. After the camera man was
satisfied I proposed that we 'pull off' a 'stunt' with the bow.

"By good fortune we saw four bears coming down the mountain side to
fish. They were making their way slowly through an open valley. The
camera was stationed at a commanding point and I ran up a dry wash
thickly grown with willow and alder to head off the bears. I was able
to get within a hundred yards by use of the willow cover, then the
brush became too thin to hide me, so I walked boldly out into the open
to meet the bears. I practically invited them to charge since they were
reputed to be so easily insulted. At first they paid little attention
to me, then the two in advance sat up on their haunches in astonishment
and curiosity. I approached to a distance of fifty yards, then the
largest brownie began champing his jaws and growling; then he 'pinned
back his ears' preparing to come at me. Just as he was about to lunge
forward I shot him in the chest. The arrow went deep and stuck out a
foot beyond his shoulder. He dropped on all fours and before he could
make up his mind what hit him, I shot him again in the flank. This
turned him and feeling himself badly wounded he wheeled about and ran.
While this was going on an old female also stood in a menacing
attitude, but as the wounded bear galloped past her, she came to the
ground and ran diagonally from us. All of them followed suit, and as
they swept out of the field of vision the wounded bear weakened and
fell less than a hundred yards from the camera.

"True to his standards the camera man continued to grind out the film
to the very last, so the whole picture is complete. You will see it
some day for yourself and it will answer all doubts about the
invulnerable status of the Kadiac bears."

Young himself was not particularly elated over this conquest. He knew
long ago that the Kadiac bear was no more formidable than the grizzlies
we had slain and he only undertook this adventure for show purposes.
Moreover though he used his heavy osage orange bow and usual
broad-heads, he declares that he believes he can kill the largest bear
in Alaska with a fifty pound weapon and proportionately adjusted
arrows. Both Young and I are convinced of the necessity of very sharp
broad-heads, and trust more to a keen blade and a quick flight than to
power.


[Illustration: THE GREAT KADIAK BEAR BROUGHT LOW]


During his Alaskan travels Art preferred his Osage bows to the yew.
They stood being dragged over rocks and falling down mountain sides
better than the softer yew wood. His three bows were under five feet
six inches in length, short for convenience and each pulled over
eighty-five pounds. The country in which he worked was so rocky that it
was most disastrous on arrows, and every shot that missed meant a
shattered shaft.

Possibly his roughest trip was one taken to picture mountain goats.
Here a funny incident occurred. Jack and Art were stalking a herd of
these wary creatures with the camera when suddenly around a point of
rock the whole band of goats appeared. Art was ahead and had only just
time enough to duck down on his hands and knees and hide his face close
to the ground. He stayed so still that the entire flock passed close by
him almost touching his body, while the camera man did his work from a
concealed ledge higher up. Though Young counts it little to his credit,
he shot one of these male goats, which was poised on so precipitous a
point that it fell over and over down the mountain side and was lost as
a trophy and as camp meat. Humiliating as such an episode may be, it
serves, however, to add a coup to the archer's count. And there we let
the matter rest.

But what is of greater interest is his outwitting a Rocky Mountain Big
Horn. This animal is considered the greatest game trophy in America. It
is an extremely alert sheep, all eyes and wisdom. If you expose
yourself but a second, though you be a mile away from the ram, probably
you will be seen. And though the sheep may not move while you look at
him, he is gone when you have completed your toilsome climb and peer
over the last ledge of rock preparatory to shooting. Ned Frost used to
say that when he hunted Big Horns he paid no attention to hearing or
smell, but he was so careful about sight, that when he raised his head
cautiously over a ridge to observe the sheep, he always lifted a stone
and peered underneath it, or picked up a bunch of grass and gazed
through it.

Most hunters are content to stalk this game within three or four
hundred yards, then aim at it with telescopic sights. It is the last
word in good hunting.

Stewart Edward White, the author and big game hunter, has said that the
following experience is one of the finest demonstrations of stalking
and understanding of animal psychology he knows.

Up near the head of Wood River, Young and his party came on a number of
Big Horn Sheep and first devoted several days to film work. Then Young
decided to try for a trophy with the bow. After hunting all morning he
discovered with his glasses a ram a long way off.

The country was open and had no cover. The ram was resting on a ledge
of rock elevated above the level of the valley. Even at a distance of
half a mile it was evident to Art that the ram had seen him, so Young
studied the sheep and the country carefully before deciding what plan
to pursue.

From the lay of the land it was plain that no concealment was possible
and no detour or ambush could be employed. The glasses showed that the
ram was a fairly old specimen and had a very sophisticated look. In
fact, to Art he looked conceited and had an expression that said:
"There is a man, but I am a pretty wise old sheep; I know all about
men; that fellow hasn't seen me yet and when he does, there is plenty
of open country back of me; my best plan is to lie still and let this
tenderfoot pass." So he went on ruminating and blinking at the sun.

Taking this mental attitude into consideration, Young decided that the
best method of outwitting this particular sheep was to take him at his
own valuation and proceed as a tenderfoot down the valley. So he walked
unconcernedly along at an oblique angle to the sheep and never once
taking a direct look at him. He went gaily along whistling, kicking
pebbles and swinging his bow. When he had reached a distance of two or
three hundred yards the old sheep lifted up his head to see what was
going on. Young paid no attention to him, though he observed him out of
the corner of his eyes. So the wise old boy settled back content with
his diagnosis.

Art walked along as innocently as ever. When he was a hundred and fifty
yards off, the ram raised his head again and took a longer observation.
He seemed to be changing his mind. Young said to himself, "He will take
one more look, then he will go. Now is the time to act." So nocking an
arrow on the string he ran at full speed directly at the sheep, and
when half way he saw the tip of his horns rise above the ledge and knew
it was time to stop. He came to his shooting pose and waited, the arrow
half drawn. Sure enough! Out walked the old fellow to the very edge of
the parapet and gazed over. Off flew the arrow and in the twilight it
was lost to vision, but he heard it strike and saw the ram wheel in
flight. As it disappeared over the ridge Art followed at a run;
reaching the top he peered cautiously about and saw the sheep at no
great distance standing still with its legs spread wide apart. He knew
by the posture that it was done for. So he went back to the valley and
because of the distance from camp and the oncoming darkness he made a
fire and "Siwashed it" or camped out in the open all night without
blankets. In the morning he went after his trophy and found it near the
spot last seen. It was a fine specimen. The arrow had pierced it from
front to rear completely through and was lost; a center shot at eighty
yards; a most remarkable bit of archery and hunting stratagem. This
head now decorates the dining room of the Young home in San Francisco.
Unfortunately the moose antlers were cached near a river in Alaska and
an unprecedented flood carried them out to sea.

While speaking of Alaskan rivers there recurs to my mind a most
remarkable incident related by Young. In one picture required for their
film it was necessary to show a canoe in the course of construction,
the subsequent use of this vessel and an upset in the turbulent waters
of the river. To represent his bow in its canvas case, and still to
spare that weapon a wetting, Young went down the river bank to pick out
a stick about the same size to put in his bow case. Taking the first
piece that came to hand he started to place it in the case, when struck
by its smoothness he looked at it and found he had a weatherbeaten old
Indian bow in his hand. It seemed like a sign, a good omen,--for we
playfully indulge in omens in these romantic adventures with the bow.


[Illustration: ARTHUR YOUNG OUTWITS THE ALASKA BIGHORN]


Studying this implement later I found it apparently to be a birch Urock
bow, some five feet long, having nocks and a place for the usual
perpendicular piece of wood bound on at the handle to check the string.
It would have pulled about sixty pounds, good enough for caribou
hunting.

And so in brief are the adventures of Art Young in Alaska.

But who can speak of the adventures in the heart of our archer? Here is
no common hunter, no insensate slayer of animals. Here we have the poet
afoot,--the archaic adventurer in modern game fields; the champion of
fair play and clean sport; all that is strong and manly.

I take off my hat to Arthur Young.




A CHAPTER OF ENCOURAGEMENT

BY

STEWART EDWARD WHITE


No one can read Dr. Pope's book without an appreciation of the romance
and charm of the long bow and the broad-head arrow. And no one can
doubt that the little group of which he writes has proved that the
thing can be done. Its members have brought to bag quantities of small
game, unnumbered deer, mountain goat, big horn sheep, moose, caribou,
thirteen black bears, six grizzlies, and one monster Kadiak bear. That
point it proved beyond doubt. But, each will ask; how about it for me?
These men are experts. It all looks very fascinating; but what chance
have I?

That, I believe, is the first reaction of the average man after he has
savored the real literary charm of this book and begins to consider the
practical side of the question. It was my own reaction. Fortunately, I
live within commuting distance of Dr. Pope, so I have been able to
resolve my doubts--slowly. My purpose is here to summarize what I found
out.

In the first place, the utter beginner has in his hands a weapon that
is adequate and humane. A bad rifle shot or a bad shotgun shot can and
does "slobber" his game by hitting it in the wrong places or with the
outer fringe of his pattern. But if an arrow can be landed anywhere in
the body it is certain and prompt death. This is not only true of the
chest cavity, but of the belly; and every rifleman knows that a bullet
in the latter is ineffective and cruel, and a beast so wounded is
capable of long distances before it dies. The arrow's deadliness
depends not on its shocking power, which of course is low, but upon
internal hemorrhage and the very peculiar fact that the admission of
air in quantity into any part of the body cavity collapses the lungs.
Furthermore, again unlike the bullet, the broad arrow seems to be as
effective at the limit of its longest flight as at the nearer ranges.
So the amateur bowman, suitably armed, may lay this much of comfort to
his soul: if by the grace of Robin Hood and the little capricious gods
of luck he does manage to stray a shaft into a beast, it is going to do
the trick for him. And of course if he keeps on shooting arrows in the
general direction of game, the doctrine of chances will land him sooner
or later!

In the meantime--and here is the second point--he is going to have an
enormous amount of enjoyment from his "close misses." With firearms a
miss is a miss, and catastrophic. You have failed, and that is all
there is to it; and you have no earthly means of knowing whether your
miss was by the scant quarter inch that fairly ruffled the beast's
crest, or by the disgraceful yards of buck ague or the jerking
forefinger or the blinking dodging eye. But the beautiful clean flight
of the arrow can be followed. And when it passes between the neck and
the bend of wing of wild goose; or it buries its head in the damp earth
only just below the body line of the unstartled deer, the bowman
experiences quite as keen a thrill of satisfaction as follows a good
center with gun or rifle,--even though the game is as scathless as
though he had missed it by miles. In this type of hunting a miss is
emphatically _not_ as good as a mile! And the chances are he can try
again, and yet again, provided nothing else has occurred to affright
his quarry. To most animals the flight of an arrow is little more than
the winging past of some strange swift bird.

Thus the joy is not primarily in the size of the bag, nor even in the
certainty of the bag, but in the woodcraft and the outguessing, and the
world of little things one must notice to get near enough for his shot,
and the birds and the breezes and the small matters along the way;
which is as it should be: and the satisfaction is not wholly centered
in merely a shot well placed and a trophy quickly come by. Indeed, the
latter is become almost an incidental; a very welcome and inspiriting
incidental; a wonderful culmination; but a culmination that is
necessary only occasionally as a guerdon of emprise rather than an
invariably indispensability, lacking which the whole expedition must be
classed as a failure.

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