HADN'T LOST ANY BEAR 



BOYD C. PACKER.. 



A few years since, one of my most inti- 

 mate friends, whose name is Dave, and who 

 is quite a sportsman, accompanied me on 

 one of my trips to the far West to have a 

 hunt for some of the big game of the 

 Rockies, of which he had read and heard 

 much. At that time I was in the cattle 

 business, owner of the — P. — outfit, and had 

 an excellent range in Western Colorado, 

 where we could always get game. My 

 friend had never met anything more dan- 

 gerous than a deer or a cottontail. In or- 

 der to make it interesting to him and show 

 him a good time, that he would re- 

 member, I decided to do some trapping, 

 knowing that a big grizzly in a trap 

 would fill the bill for a tenderfoot who 

 had never seen one and would make it 

 as interesting as he would want it. After 

 consulting with the boys we concluded to 

 go to the North fork of the Gunnison, 

 about 75 miles from Delta, to a place 

 known as Pilot Knob, the highest and 

 grandest peak in all that section. The scen- 

 ery around Old Pilot was magnificent, with 

 large and beautiful parks, and the whole 

 country seemed to be alive with game. 

 Two of my punchers, Henry and Luke, 

 went along to do the cooking and wrangle 

 the horses. Henry was also an experi- 

 enced trapper. We arrived at Pilot Knob 

 the afternoon of the third day from Delta, 

 after having traveled over some bad roads; 

 in fact, no roads at all, only a trail, but we 

 could see that a wagon had been over it.. 

 We pitched our tent at the foot of Old 

 Pilot in a beautiful grassy park close to 

 a spring of pure, cold water. Long be- 

 fore we reached our destination we saw 

 plenty of bear signs, and next day found 

 the woods were full of 'em. We also found 

 what had brought them there ; the carcasses 

 of 3 elk that had been killed some time be- 

 fore, on which they were feeding. It looked 

 as if all the bears for many miles had come 

 in there to feed and were staying. Foot- 

 prints of all sizes could be seen, and some 

 of them very large. Being already baited, 

 we put our traps out at once, and the first 

 night caught a big cinnamon in one and got 

 the toes of a black in the other. The cin- 

 namon did not put up so fierce a fight as I 

 anticipated, after seeing how big he was. In 

 fact we had no trouble killing him. He only 

 took his drag about 50 yards. We thought 

 this was good enough for the first night, 

 and that we were going to have lots of 

 fun, but the next night both traps were 

 sprung and nothing was in them. They 

 were sprung by a trapper who had come in 

 and pitched his tents a few rods from ours. 

 Next day we found the traps sprung again, 

 also found the trail of a man wearing gum 



boots, such as our neighbor wore, and were 

 sure then that he had sprung them. We 

 were not long in making it so uncomfort- 

 able for him that he was glad to get away 

 with a whole hide or without a hole 

 in his. He offered to sell his trap, 

 and we thought it was only a bluff, 

 but bought it. Probably he thought we 

 were a lot of punchers and not able to buy 

 it. After hunting a few days, only killing 

 2 elk and a few deer, only one of which we 

 got, as the bears took all we killed except 

 those taken to camp at once, Dave shot a 

 bull elk. It went into a thicket of scrub 

 oak, badly wounded, and as bear tracks 

 were numerous on the trail it went in 

 on, he did not follow, but came to camp and 

 told us what he had done. Henry and I 

 started out and found his elk, dead, and at 

 the same time killed the black bear whose 

 toes we got in one of the traps, and packed 

 it in. That night a large dog that had fol- 

 lowed us was driven into the tent by a bear 

 and created quite a commotion. Next day 

 Henry and I agreed to bring in the elk 

 Dave had killed, but we only got the head, 

 as the bears had torn the carcass to pieces 

 during the night. Dave and Luke started 

 off in another direction. We took an extra 

 pack horse with us, thinking we would get 

 another bear in the traps, but were mis- 

 taken as they worked on the fresh elk, 

 where there was no trap. I told Henry on 

 going out that I wanted Dave to go to the 

 traps thereafter, and. resolved to take him, 

 as it was positively necessary, in order to 

 properly entertain him, to show him a 

 mad grizzly, which we were almost 

 sure to get. One who has never seen 

 a big grizzly under these conditions 

 does not know how active they can 

 be, or how interesting they can make it 

 for the trapper. As I promised Dave a 

 pleasant time, and that he should not get 

 homesick, I felt it my duty to work in a lit- 

 tle excitement, and think he anticipated it, 

 for when we got back to camp a note was 

 pinned to the tent saying that he was sick 

 and had gone below. Luke went with him, 

 taking one pack horse. Nothing was ap- 

 parently wrong in the morning, when we 

 left them. Of course I had to follow, and it 

 broke up what promised to be one of the 

 grandest trapping expeditions I was ever 

 on. I shall always regret it, but as he was 

 my guest, I had to look after him. Be- 

 fore we could break camp Henry and I had 

 to go back and get the traps, which made 

 us late in getting started. We expected to 

 find them 6 miles below at a cow camp, 

 where we had left our wagon. We thought 

 it was the altitude that was too much for 

 Dave, but when we got to the cow camp we 



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