t)EC. 1:3, 1903.3 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
468 
of the long and narrow bottoms. All three of the men 
were armed with Hawkins rifles, muzzleloaders, of 
course, but the most serviceable and accurate weapon 
of those days, carrying thirty balls to the pound. 
Clark wailed until his comrades had stationed them- 
selves on the hill, and then entered the timber, following 
the bear along a narrow game trail which penetrated a 
dense undergrowth of willows and tall rose bushes. The 
animal had been leisurely sauntering along the path, 
sniffing and pausing here and there to tentatively tear up 
a paw^ful or two of old leaves and earth, or to roll over 
a decaying log. The hunter soon sighted him, standing 
in the trail about twenty yards away, and hastily fired at 
him. The ball pierced the animal's lungs, too far back 
and too high to affect the heart, and the next moment, 
with a terrible roar, fhe great beast came bounding to- 
wards him. Clark raised his rifle and struck a furious 
blow at his assailant, but the bear dextrously caught it 
on his paw and sent it whirling to one side. Then, 
before the man could draw his knife, the animal struck 
him a mighty blow on top of the head, and he fell in the 
trail unconscious. 
After they heard the shot, and the bear's angry roar, 
Neubert and Carson waited and watched for several 
moments in silence, and then they saw the animal coine 
slowly out of the timber, blood dripping from his mouth 
and nostrils. He was quite close, and when he turned 
broadside to them, they fired simultaneously and had the 
satisfaction of seeing him drop in his tracks. One of 
their balls had broken his neck. They shouted for Clark. 
"Come on," they cried, "we've got him." 
There was no answer. 
Again and again they called, fruitlessly, and then they 
went in search of him. In a few morhents they found 
him where he had been stricken down; he was still un- 
conscious, his hair and head were covered with fast clot- 
t-ing blood; they felt of his pulse, and foimd that it still 
beat with some little force. 
Right there they built a fire and brought their bedding, 
and having made Clark as comfortable as possible, one 
of them went out and cut some meat and fat from the 
carcass of the bear. They broiled the steaks, and brewed 
some tea, and ate their evening meal. But still Clark 
never stirred. They washed his face with cold water 
again and again, but even that did not arouse him. The 
clotted mass of blood and hair on his head they did not 
touch, for they feared, and rightly, that the skull was 
broken, and they had no faith that their clumsy fingers 
could repair the damage. Midnight came and the full 
moon rose above the horizon. Even with the light it 
afforded there was danger in resmning their journey, for 
in many places the channel was in the dark shadows of 
timber and high cut banks, where the treacherous 
sawyers were thickly strewn. To run into one of them 
meant a stove in boat, or at least an upset. Yet they 
felt they must start and get their companion to Fort 
Union as soon as possible. They made a soft couch of 
their bedding on the bottom of the skiff, laid Clark 
upon it, and pulled out into the stream for their desti- 
nation, still two hundred and fifty miles to the east. 
On the next day, when only forty or fifty miles from 
the Fort, they met an exploring expedition, with which 
was a skilled surgeon. He examined Clark, who was 
still unconscious, and offered to return to Fort Union 
and do \\ha.t he could in the case, an offer which Neu- 
bert and Carson only too gladly accepted. What a re- 
m.arkable circumstance that was, that the only surgeon 
within a radius of a thousand miles or more, should 
appear at the very moment his services were so urgently 
needed. Arrived at the Fort, a careful examination re- 
vealed the fact that Clark's skull was badly _ fractured, 
a three-cornered piece being sunk in and pressing on the 
brain. The surgeon understood his business, however, 
and skilfully trephined the fracture, and the patient in a 
short time fully recovered from the injury. Clark's won- 
derfully strong constitution had helped him through 
what would have been certain death to the average man. 
In. 1872, Louis Meyer — known to all old time Mon- 
tanans as "Dutch Louis" — had a woodyard on the op- 
posite side of the river, and just below this point, which 
may be truthfully called Grizzly Bear Bottom. Louis had 
several men in his employ and was engaged in furnish- 
ing cordwood for the steamboats which plied up and 
down the river between St. Louis and Fort Benton. His 
shack and stables were at the upper end of a very large 
patch of cottonwoods some two miles in length, and 
more than half a mile in width. Here was a favorite 
resort for the game which frequented the woods, and 
even to-day one would have to travel_ far to find a place 
where white tail deer are more plentiful. It is an ideal 
shelter for these wary and fleet footed animals, in places 
quite open, and in other parts supporting almost im- 
penetrable thickets of willows and rose brush. 
In those times, and even as late as the early eighties, 
the "woodhawks" never went to their work unarmed, for 
skulking war parties of Indians from various tribes were 
abroad. Many a nameless grave in many a bottom along 
the upper Missouri, holds the remains of some forgotten 
wood chopper; shot down by ball or arrow, while at his 
work. 
One Sunday morning the men rose late. Louis had 
prepared breakfast. There was a bountiful supply of 
plain food, baked beans, sour dough bread, coffee, and 
stewed dried apples, but no meat. "Some bob cats, or 
maype a mount'in lions," said Louis, "hass schwiped our 
meats what wass hangin' oud sides. Prewer"— to one of 
the men— "j'ou are the pest shod, so you will dake your 
gun and go kill somedings." 
Brewer finished his breakfast, smoked a pipe or two, 
and then picking up his rifle started down into the tim- 
ber. It was in the latter part of November, and there 
was some snow on the ground. The timber was fairly 
alive with white tail deer, and there were always more 
or less elk to be found in it. But the morning passed 
without a shot being heard by the men at the shack, 
By mid afternoon they became uneasy. Something, they 
were sure, had happened to the hunter. He had had time 
to kill a dozen deer, and should have been back long be- 
fore noon. About four o'clock they set out to look for 
him, following his trail, which was plainly to be seen in 
the new fallen snow. About a mile from the shack 
they found him, or rather his body, lying in a narrow 
game trail walled in by a dense growth of underbrush. 
He was frightfully mangled and torn, his face bitten be- 
yond recognizance, the ribs on his left side torn out, 
exposing his heart. The tracks of a grizzly around about 
revealed the story. The animal had been lying in wait 
beside the trail for something to come along that could 
furnish it a meal. And it had pounced upon Brewer so 
suddenly that he had not been able to fire a shot. The 
gun lay near him, a cartridge still in the chamber. 
There are still some grizzlies to be found on the upper 
Missouri, a few at Grand Island, an occasional one about 
the mouth of the Musselshell, but more in the vicinity of 
Round Butte than anywhere else. There is one old 
fellow especially in this latter locality, which the most 
successful of bear hunters would be proud to add to his 
string of trophies. His tracks, carefully measured in the 
damp earth along the river shore are: hind feet, i2'/2 
inches long, 7 inches wide; width of front feet, Sl4 
inches. And he must be of great weight, for in places 
where he has sunk all of a foot in crossing a muddy 
bar, men have left but a slight impression of their foot- 
steps. This bear confines himself to certain well known 
localities, and seems to make the complete round of them 
about once in two weeks. From the heads of Hell, and 
Snow, or Paradise creeks, which lie side by side, a nar- 
row ridge dividing them, he comes down into the lower 
end of the Snow creek bottom, travels up the two mile 
stretch of timber, and crosses the Missouri about eight 
hundred yards east of the mouth of Snow creek. Thence 
he works through the piece of timber where Dutch Louis 
once lived, and then out to the north among the pine- 
clad coulies and hills for eight or ten miles, swinging 
back to recross the Missouri in the same place and work 
his way up Snow creek. 
Mr. John Darnell has a ranch just above the Grizzly 
Bear Bottom ; Mr. James Hall a place at the mouth of 
Snow creek. Neither of these gentlemen care for shoot- 
ing, 3'et they have spent no little time in trying to find 
this bear, for the old fellow seems to consider their herds 
as his own. Last spring they found the remains of a 
cow, a calf, two two year old steers, and two colts 
w'hich he bad killed ; and more of their live stock is 
missing. But so far as known, no man has ever set eyes 
on this cunning animal. He, as well as most of his 
kin, seems to have learned in late years that man is 
something to be feared. He travels about only at night, 
in the daytime concealing himself in some dense thicket. 
Following his trail with the utmost caution, the hunter 
finally hears a "woof-woof-woof," and a tremendous 
cracking and breaking of dry twigs and limbs ahead 
where the tops of the willows are madly shaking, and 
then he comes to the place where the game had lain ; 
by that time the bear is far aw^ay, seeking another retired 
place for his interrupted siesta. 
This much the writer has been able to glean of the 
affairs of bears and men near the Round Butte during 
the past one hundred years. I would that we could 
know all that has transpired there since 1804. The 
stories of hunters and hunted, of the strifes of red men 
and white, would make interesting reading. 
Montana. 
"Bad Men." 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In describing the execution and writing the history 
of Tom Horn, who was hanged at Laramie, Wyoming, 
last week, all the newspapers headed the articles as, 
"A Bad Man." 
In Texas Tom Horn wouldn't be considered as a bad 
man. He was an assassin. Every man he killed was 
shot from ambush or in a fight of several where the 
firing was promiscuous rather than concentrated. 
Under fire in promiscuous firing does not betoken that 
nerve or courage to win the title of "bad man," as 
that term is applied where it originated, in Texas. He 
was hanged for killing a boy thirteen years old. These 
are not the "spurs" of a bad man, as we Texans know 
them. 
I lived in Texas, and I have seen and personally 
knew some of her "bad men" — men who earned this 
title from acts of courage in personal encounters, 
where to fight was a virtue, to fall a misfortune. The 
encomiums on the fallen, for his bravery, were as many 
as for the victor. 
Dr. George A. Ferris, who lived in Richmond, Texas, 
once said that the grand juries of other States made 
Texas. Meaning that under indictment they went to 
Texas to escape trial. 
Dr. Ferris was a distinguished physician and one of 
the most courteous gentlemen of the old school. He 
loved a "thoroughbred" and knew more about a race 
horse than anyone I ever knew. A thoroughbred to 
him was a horse of endurance and bottom. 
There were at that time (twenty years ago) few mile 
tracks in Texas. In every county there was a fast 
quarter horse, and there was rivalry between the coun- 
ties as to which had the fastest. 
In a quarter race lightness of the jockeys didn't count. 
Everything was in the start with two evenly matched 
horses. To get the advantage a great deal of bicker- 
ing would ensue, and it generally ended in a fight with 
one or more wounded or killed. 
Dr. Ferris had a contempt for a quarter race — ^which 
depended upon the start and not in the ending. He 
said there were two things needed on a quarter race 
track — a six-shooter and a surgeon — and he was right. 
Ben Thompson, of Austin, Texas, killed seventeen 
men, and every one went down with his eyes to the 
front and a pistol in his hand. In Texas parlance, he 
gave them a fair shake, Thompson boasted that he 
never killed a "gentleman" in his life.^ Thompson's 
killing was done with a pistol on the street, and over 
half the men he killed was caused from an insult thirty 
or forty minutes prior to the shooting. There was 
nothing of the ruffian about Thompson. He was al- 
ways the best dressed man in town; in fact, inclined to 
be "dudish." I never saw him without his hands en- 
cased in kid gloves. There was no pistol or belt visible 
on him. His pistol was carried in front inside his 
trousers about where the right strap of the suspender 
button connects with the trousers, and the handle was 
underneath his vest. At twenty yards with a ball from 
his pistol he could drive a ten-penny nail into a plank 
as good as a carpenter with a hamper. 
In a moment of danger he never tried to get where 
the other fellow wouldn't hit him, but his impulse was 
to shoot, without one thought for himself; and shoot 
he did, and straight to the mark. He died with his 
boots on, and a dozen bullets, from as many pistols, in 
his bodj% without ever knowing who killed him. Ben 
Thompson, at one time, was marshal of Austin, Texas. 
His presence alone did more to deter lawlessness than 
forty policemen or rangers. 
I saw the fight in Houston, Texas, between Mat 
Woodlief (another bad man) and Alexander Erickson. 
Erickson was marshal, aind as the cowboys say, would 
fight a circular saw cutting both ways, after it had 
started. 
Without particularizing, they met on the street and 
commenced shooting. Both men fell wounded. On the 
ground they emptied at each other every ball in their 
pistols and then crawled toward one another, still snap- 
ping the empty pistol, unconscious of the fact that their 
pistols were empty. Woodlief didn't know what fear 
was, This absence of fear cost him his life. 
Alexander Erickson was the bravest man I ever saw. 
He was a small man. He arrested criminals and des- 
peradoes without even a pocket knife in his hand. The 
consciousness of some one hurting him was entirely 
foreign to his nature. As an officer he carried a pis- 
tol, not as an intimidator, but as an "executioner." 
Well might the motto on his pistol have been: Do 
not draw me without reason, nor shield me without 
honor — and he didn't. 
Within my time in Texas (and I am not an old man, 
either) two stage coaches containing about twenty- 
three passengers were stopped, and all the valuables of 
the passengers taken by one man. The robber made 
them all stand in a row and "hand over." The route 
was only traveled by one coach, but on account of the 
large number of passengers an additional coach was 
put on that day. The robber stopped the first coach 
and made the passengers get out. When the passen- 
gers in the first coach were lined up, the second coach 
made its appearance. He made them get out and then 
told them he didn't expect two coaches. That was 
nerve. A Jew insisted on retaining enough of his 
money to get his dinner. The robber took all and then 
gave him back fifty cents, and the Jew got into an 
argument with him as to the amount being sufficient 
to get a meal. That was cheek. The robber went off 
with all the money of the twenty-three passengers, and 
yet there were many brave men in that caravan, but 
discretion was the better part of valor. The robber 
had two pistols out and ready. A shot from one of 
the twenty-three would have caused the robber to 
shoot and several would have been killed. That's the 
way they looked at it. A Thompson, Erickson or 
Woodlief would not have hesitated. Discretion was the 
last thing either of them would have thought of. It 
never w^ould have occurred to them that somebody was 
going to be hurt. 
A fight occurred in Richmond, Texas, between two 
political factions. Tom Smith, deputy sheriff, with ten 
men shooting at him, stood beside the sheriff and fired 
every ball in his gun, then he stepped over and pulled 
from under the sheriff, who had been killed, his gun, 
and emptied the remaining shells. He didn't get be- 
Kitid anything, and he was so composed that when his 
chief fell, although he (Smith) had been shooting, he 
had kept a record and knew there were several remain- 
ing^ shells in the sheriff's gun, and thus he picked it up 
soon as his was emptied. That was a brave man. 
Tom Horn wasn't a brave man. If he had been he 
would be living to-day. He was hanged for killing a 
thirteen-year-old boy. 
That's not the courage that brought forth the name 
of "bad man" in Texas. It's made of sterner stuff. 
Tom Gilchrist. 
Ransacker Commentaries. 
Shasta Mountains, California, Nov. 22. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: After some days of gloomy weather 
consisting chiefly of wind and rain, making wet woods, 
dripping pines and roaring streams my environment, the 
su.n is out for a while this morning. 
I feel so genial upon these accounts, and after ju.SL 
going over the Forest and Stream of 14th inst., that I 
cannot refrain from complimenting you upon that par- 
ticular issue. It is as fat, sleek, graceful, in make up as 
some of the trim bucks I have sometimes subscribed for 
in these mountains. 
The discussions that often inevitably come up are not 
least among the good things furnished in these columns. 
But well may he exclaim, "Ay de mi, Albania!" who 
swerves too far from direct, intelligent expression of any- 
thing of moment concerning the things within its realm! 
I had rather be a dog and bay the moon than such a 
sportsman. 
That is a most trim little essay of J. P. T.'s upon the 
subject of tipping. His sentiments are well worthy of 
note in the practical and morally correct tablets of all 
gentlemen. The custom of tipping, as well as the vice of 
receiving these precarious bribes, is neither commendable 
nor honorable. It is a custom more honored in the 
breach than in the observance. It is peculiarly un-Ameri- 
can in origin, but it has become a vice of such universal 
influence as to threaten all civil institutions. Let us all, 
as worthy sportsmen, smash that target at every snap- 
shot we get. 
Hurrah for the Red Gods, blackened timber and smoky 
Indian, etc., with the raw, jim-dangled saw-log at the 
end ! 
The question, Can Fish Count? over the observations 
of Basil Field, is not to be answered offhand, if at all. 
In my domain, all last summer I was interested in watch- 
ing a trout whenever I crossed a ioot-bridge over a little 
stream near my door. A trout of about ten inches in 
length had his home in a shallow ripple just below the 
bridge, almost under it. There is a flat stone in the 
water, about a foot in diameter that has a shell of quartz 
rock upon it, making it look as white as paper under the 
few inches of clear water. Over this stone the fish might 
nearly always be seen if I approached carefully. He made 
i( his lair, or home, for at least four months, and I do 
not believe I ever saw him twenty feet from it either up 
or down strecim. 
