THE REFERENDUM 



285 



BEAR LORE AND ADVENTURE. 



Editor Recreation : 



With reference to W. Y. Cressy's question 

 of "What is a Cinnamon?" in the July num- 

 ber, I have always taken him to be a cross 

 between the grizzly and black bear. The 

 books only give us four bears on this conti- 

 nent, and the cinnamon is not one of them, 

 but if there is any black bear about him, it is 

 not in his temper. The black bear cannot be 

 made to put up a light ; the cinnamon is about 

 as ready to fight as is the grizzly. I have 

 hunted the black bear all over the West. I 

 killed my first one when a boy in what was 

 then Minnesota Territory, and my last one in 

 what is now Oklahoma, but never knew one 

 of them to offer to light me. 



I have hunted the little cinnamon in Texas, 

 and, after having hit him, have had him to 

 charge square at me. I never met but one 

 grizzly and cannot claim to have met him. 

 1 did not want to meet him, anyhow. He was 

 coming down the mountain while I was go- 

 ing up it, and seeing him before he saw me, 

 I got behind a big pine tree and gave him the 

 whole trail to himself. 



He must have seen me, he could hardly 

 help it, for he passed within fifty yards of 

 me, but he paid no attention to me. 



I should not have let him go, but I only 

 had a Spencer carbine, and an old powder 

 and ball Colt's pistol, and thought, from 

 what I had heard of these grizzlies that I 

 would need a Gattling gun to attack one of 

 their bulk. Had this happened a few years 

 later, after we had got the new Colt's breech- 

 loading pistol,— I always made out to have 

 two of them, — I probably should have let 

 loose on him with the carbine, then used my 

 pistols when he charged me. I have an idea 

 that these grizzlies are not now half so ready 

 to fight ; they have learned caution since the 

 advent of the magazine gun. 



Another bear that we do not often hear 

 about is the big silver tip of Arizona. I have 

 hunted and killed him, and he is only a griz- 

 zly modified by the climate. The last silver 

 tip that I ever "met up with" I followed on 

 foot into a canon, and shot. When I first 

 found him, he was being hunted by an old 

 frontiersman and miner named Roberts. We 

 took the bear's trail, both of us mounted, and 

 ran the bear into a small canon ; here both of 

 us shot at him, and one of us at least hit him. 

 This proved to be a box canon, one with no 

 outlet at the upper end of it, and off to the 

 right of it near its head a smaller canon took 

 off from it. Here the bear also took off, 

 going up the small canon, and now Roberts 

 called a halt. He did not want to go in these 

 mountains, he said. I dismounted and gave 

 him my horse to hold, telling him that I 

 should follow the bear myself. ' I was a 

 ''blanked fool," he told me, "This was not a 



black bear I was fooling with now; this one 

 had come to bay now, he had been looking 

 for it to do that long since, and now if 1 fol 

 lowed him he would charge me and eat me 

 up." 



"Not while I have this rifle, he won't eat 

 more than half of me," I told him. Then I 

 began to force my way into this small canon. 

 It only ran in about fifty yards, then a steep 

 ascent led up out of it to the ravine. The 

 bear was half way up this place when I over- 

 took him. and firing, again I hit him ; then he 

 turned at last and came for me, but another 

 shot finished him. He did not look half so 

 formidable when dead as he did when alive. 



Roberts estimated his weight at 600 pounds. 

 He wanted his hide and I let him have it ; he 

 needed it more than I did. We found when 

 cutting him up that five of our balls had hit 

 him, three of mine and two of Roberts'. He 

 had a .44 Winchester, I had a .45 Marvin. 

 John A. Brooks, Erie, Pa. 



STOP THE SALE. 



Editor Recreation : 

 ^ Your July issue was particularly impres- 

 sive to me, for I found in so many articles 

 and sketches a spirit of game protection, that 

 makes me feel that the country is waking up 

 at last, and that the present protection of 

 game really means something actual, instead 

 of the farce that it has been for so many 

 years. , 



Personally, I have had my share of the 

 shooting and fishing that was due me, but my 

 last few years shall be spent in looking to 

 the interests of coming generations. 



I note that of late many magazines are tak- 

 ing up the buffalo, and some of them are in- 

 dulging in the hope that they may again be 

 seen- in the great West. This is folly. Gather 

 all the few remaining ones together, and, try 

 as we may, the buffalo will never be any- 

 thing but a relic — a sad one — of wanton 

 butchery. 



Captain Dixon knows probably that the 

 buffalo is a slow breeder, and he certainly 

 knows that unless a guard is put over every 

 buffalo some butcher will get it. His article 

 is a good one, but he does not state one fact, 

 i.e., that more buffaloes were killed for their 

 hides alone (which brought one dollar each) 

 than for any other purpose, or for all pur- 

 poses together. I remember when the coun- 

 try fairly swarmed with hide hunters. 



Years ago there used to be a fable — and it 

 was used every time some writer had the 

 nerve to write of game protection — that the 

 Indians killed- the buffalo wantonly. This is 

 a great mistake. They killed, but they killed 

 for their own consumption. In primitive 

 days they ran them into gorges and let them 

 kill themselves, so to speak. Not all Indians 



