Hunting Bears on Horseback 



35 



prefer to go over the rimrock, when the 

 dogs are after them, rather than tree. 



All our hunting was done in the na- 

 tional timber reserve just east of the 

 Yellowstone Park, in Big Horn County, 

 Wyoming. It is a high, rough, broken, 

 mountain country, and we were hunting 

 on the headwaters of the following 

 creeks flowing into the north fork of the 

 Shoshone River : Eagle, Kitty, Fish- 

 hawk, Sheep, East and West Black 

 Water, Wapiti or Elk Fork, Gun Barrel 

 or Gothic, Goff, and Clearwater — a coun- 

 try about twenty-five miles east and west 

 and thirty-five miles north and south, 

 which lies about fifty miles west of Cody, 

 from which point we outfitted. All the 

 game was killed south of the Shoshone 

 River. 



In as rough a country as this is, it 

 takes very good horse flesh to do . the 

 work, for the bear travels pretty fast, 

 there is plenty of down timber in the 

 valleys, and a great deal of hard climb- 

 ing. Mr Goff has a picked lot of horses, 

 bigger than the usual western pony, and 

 therefore up to their work, and all of his 

 horses will either pack or ride ; so that 

 we were able to have four fresh horses a 

 day and then not work a horse again for 

 three or four days, as he had twenty-two 

 horses in the outfit. I never could see 

 how a horse could be as sure-footed or 

 go in places these horses did, for in the 

 course of bear hunting we crossed every 

 divide from Eagle Creek to Elk Fork, 

 six in number, pretty well up toward 

 headwater and without a trail other than 

 game trails, and only one horse went 

 down on the trip, and that was in ford- 

 ing a deep stream. As an instance of 

 their hardihood, we jumped one bear at 

 ii a m., followed him on horseback until 

 5 p. m., a part of which time we lost the 

 dogs and spent a couple of hours before 

 we heard them again ; finally got in coun- 

 try we could not ride, tied up the horses, 

 who were, soaking wet, went on for an 

 hour on foot, and killed the bear at 6 

 p. m. By the time we had dressed him 

 it began to get dark, with the result that 

 we lost our horses, laid out all night on 



the top of a mountain, and in the morn- 

 ing, when we found the horses, none of 

 them were stiff or sore, although there 

 had been a hard frost in the night. 



The dogs of course deserve the chief 

 credit. Goff has a splendid pack, which 

 is thoroughly broken not to run deer, elk, 

 or sheep. The hounds of course do the 

 main work, from the time the bear track 

 is picked up until the bear is jumped, but 

 they are not keen to go in and fight, and 

 unless you have something that will do 

 this, and do it sufficiently vigorously to 

 retard progress, there is not much 

 chance of keeping up with them on 

 horseback and getting a shot at the bear. 

 This is where the fighting pack becomes 

 all important, and it is the most difficult 

 thing to get a dog properly adapted to 

 the work. He must be willing to run for 

 an hour or so with the hounds, with only 

 anticipation to help him along, until the 

 bear is jumped. Then he must have not 

 only pluck enough to go in and fight, but 

 intelligence enough to know the only 

 chance a dog has with a bear is to take 

 an occasional nip, and then get out of 

 the way ; and, further, he must have 

 sufficient size and bone to be able to keep 

 up with the hounds over a big, rough 

 country. 



We had almost everything in the 

 pack : Mongrel bull terriers, stag hounds 

 (a cross between a stag hound and a 

 bull terrier), an old English sheep dog 

 (a cross between a fox terrier and a 

 shepherd), who, by the way, was the 

 greatest hunter and gamest dog I ever 

 saw. He had had his thigh broken by 

 a grizzly six months before, and while 

 with us was bitten through the face, 

 but, with only three legs, he was always 

 at the head of the fighting pack. We 

 had some Irish terriers and six Aire- 

 dales. The bull terriers go in and take 

 hold and get killed. The stag hounds 

 won't stay long with the hounds unless 

 the bear is properly jumped. Only oc- 

 casionally will a mongrel develop the 

 proper qualities. The Irish terriers are 

 too small to properly run the country, 

 but the big, sturdy Airedales are just 



