230 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
{March 25, 1905. 
Mike, 
, There were mountains ahead of us, huge and brown 
under the noonday sun; mountains powdered here and 
there with snow, reviving in our memories dreams of 
chocolate blanc mange well sugared, such as had pleased 
our pampered appetites even in those days of desserts 
and similar flesh-pots, and which now made our mouths 
water in soulful recollection. And those mountains had 
td be surmounted or circumvented, willy-nilly; the 
ground we had painfully traversed in these last few 
■ weeks held known dangers, while before us lay at least 
uncertainty ; traveling might be worse, but there was the 
chance of its being better, and neither of us felt like re- 
tracing our steps through that ingenious imitation (if it 
was not the real article) of Hades, the desert. 
That Mike, the mule, agreed with us, we had not a 
moment's doubt. He was a Missouri product, and you 
can't say much better of a rniile than that. You would 
have guessed it, anyway, by the cynical, "show-me" ex- 
pression of his eye, and his affection for a roll in a mud 
hole. 
We had grown in these last three months since we had 
owned him — or, to be more accurate, since he had owned 
us — to have a deep respect for him, for he was a mule 
of parts — -teeth and heels — and when we displeased him, 
which happened daily, we saw both, and sometimes a few 
stars. But that did not subtract from our dependence 
on his knowledge of the whereabouts of a waterhole, 
and when he decided to camp for the night we learned, 
after several attempts to change his mind, that his de- 
cision of character was to be revered. When Blondine, 
Carr's buckskin pony, departed this life some vague, 
mirage-tortured weeks back, Mike had literally taken 
the work of two upon his back, and with his usual cheer- 
ful cynicism, led us safely across the indefinite, sky- 
bound desert. 
To-day he wore an air of relaxation; he would loiter 
over green spears of gramma grass that had found life in 
a few drops of moisture filtered from those cool, glisten- 
ing snows, for by now we were well in the foothills. Or 
he would make friendly advances to Carr or me, ad- 
vances which we met with caution, for in addition tO' his 
other traits, Mike was a practical joker, his humorous 
moods sometimes resulting in misfortune to the object 
of his attentions. I have occasionally thought we may 
have misjudged Mike; perhaps he was one of those un- 
fortunates with affections which, like desert pears, grow 
prickly side out, but are sweet and wholesome within — 
though 1 always do say eating those cactus pears isn't 
woTth the trouble of rubbing off such a pesky lot of 
stickers. Anyway, with Mike, the rubbing off process 
held too many fears for us, so he went through life a 
mule misunderstood, perhaps. 
Carr and I noted these signs of a mind at ease with 
satisfaction, for always the rank and file reflect the mood 
of the officer commanding, and we permitted ourselves 
the luxury of an occasional rest on the shady side of a 
boulder. You can't be preoccupied on a desert; every 
step you take, every halt you make must be the result of 
calculation and experience, and though this caution be- 
comes habiual after a time, still it helps to account for 
the peculiarly jaded expression of men just in from 
such an expedition as we were now on. Every rock may 
shelter some venomous lizard or snake; a Gila monster 
may be taking an airing in the neighborhood, or, of less 
danger but considerable discomfort, each particle of vege- 
tation is at apparent war with the world and stands 
armed at every point ; you live in an atmosphere of every 
man for himself, which has something of the effect on 
the nerves of a flyer in Wall Street, where everyone's 
mottO' is sauve qui pent. 
So it was a relief to be out of the worst of it, for novir 
our progress carried us from the desert lands behind into 
the beginnings of a normal vegetation. A stream — small, 
.but promising better things nearer its source — trickled 
along, its way enlivened by bushes and low trees. Deeper 
we went into the heart of the hills, those towering moun- 
tains seeming to go up and up into the sky, and as the 
sun dipped behind them, Mike concluded it was time to 
camp, though two hours of the day still lay ahead of us. 
Knowing Ihe uselessness of disputing the point, we un- 
packed our stuff and prepared for the night, making 
camp by the stream among the cottonwoods. Chaparral 
lined the gulch which we had been following, for we kept 
the course of the stream to make traveling easier. 
Carr was preparing supper. I had attended to the 
needs of Mike, whom we allowed to wander at will, as 
we had found that if any losing was done it would be his 
losing us, not we him. He was deliberating over his 
meal as he always did ; we called it saying grace, for he 
put on an air of sanctified displeasure which reminded 
Carr of a pious old chap he had once known who always 
made disparaging remarks about the food, after thanking 
the Lord for it in an extended and minute blessing. 
We were comfortably settled to our supper, restfully 
w^atching the golden light climb the hill, drawing after it 
the amethyst shadows from gulch and canon, thankful 
that the fates had seen fit to release us from the clutch 
of the desert devils, and though this lacked much of 
being the promised land, still by comparison with that 
strip of outside country which lay bare and glaring to 
every throbbing ray of sun, it was a paradise to our 
jaded minds and bodies. 
Gradually into our consciousness broke the fact that 
there was an occasional noise in the brush behind us, 
a sound increasing in volume and persistency till even 
Mike stopped munching and looked expectantly in the 
direction whence it came. Not suspecting anything more 
formidable than a stray coyote, we did not disturb our- 
selves till into the open tumbled the huge bulk of a bear, 
which projected itself toward us with a speed that sent 
us to our feet and toward a rock near-by, in too much 
of a hurry to pick up our guns, our one idea being to 
get out of the way of this unexpected guest. As we 
scrambled up the friendly rock which some thoughtful 
glacier had deposited there in ages past, the bear rolled 
at a sort of lope to where we had left the remnants of 
our meal, evidently with the idea of helping himself; but 
he had not reckoned on Mike — Mike the only really 
plucky one of the trio. 
At the institution of leaming where Mike had received 
his education bears evidently were not included in the 
curriculum, for he was plainly of a nonplussed and dis- 
gruntled mind. He stood and watched the visitor snuffing 
about till it seemed to occur to him that it was up 10 
him to add to his various other duties that of watch- 
dog. So he advanced with a rather tentative air, as one 
would say to an unexpected visitor, "Please give me your 
name and I vt^ill tell the boss you are here." At his ap- 
proach the bear, without retreating a step, slowly sat 
back on his haunches, and rearing his great bulk onto his 
hindlegs, waved a facetious forepaw in the face of the 
now paralyzed mule. Mike's whole frame stiffened; his 
fail stood straight out, his legs grew rigid, and his chin 
gradually projected itself in apparent voiceless amaze; 
till, of a sudden, his lips parted, jaw dropped and the 
most soul-rending hee-haw, hee-haw woke the echoes in 
the hills. The very essence of the creature seemed to be 
poured forth in torrents of sound, ever with a louder 
and more joyous lilt to the final "haw," while the bear 
stood, in his turn, petrified by this tumult of hideous 
noise. 
We clung to our precarious position on the rock, con- 
vulsed with helpless laughter, almost rolling off at each 
renewal of the cachinnations of mockery from Mike and 
the increasing amazement of the bear, who seemed to be 
striving to collect his wits to meet this change of front in 
his opponent. Slowly he dropped to all fours and began 
to shuffle backward, ever keeping a wary eye on the 
mule, who relaxed his attitude at the retreat of his erst- 
while presumptuous enemy. The bear must have had an 
instinctive understanding of the ways of a mule, for he 
refused to present to Mike that part of his anatomy best 
suited, to Mike's idea, for assault, but beat a crab-like 
and deliberate retreat toward the brush. With head low- 
ered and teeth still displayed, Mike paced after him, ever 
keeping just within stretch of the bear's nose. Finally, 
when the shelter of the brush was within two lengths of 
him, the bear turned in his tracks for a final rush to 
ssfety. At the same instant Mike showed one more in- 
stance of his many-sided genius. Whirling like a flash, 
his heels met the bear's flank with an impact that drew 
a howl from Bruin, who was pitched head first into the 
chaparral, and the last we saw of him he was frantically 
crashing his way through bush and brier, making all 
speed to his lair in the hills. 
Mike turned and regarded for a few moments the wav- 
ing bushes which marked the bear's retreat, and if he did 
not grin — well, then a mule never did. Shaking himself 
as if to be sure he was still intact, he strolled back to the 
fire and stood over the remains of his interrupted meal, 
evidently ruminating over his encounter. His old reserve 
gradually folded about him like a mantle, the youthful, 
joyous glimmer died from his eye, and he fell to eating 
once more, while Carr and I, assured that peace again 
reigned, slid from our perch and followed suit. 
B. M. Waddell. 
Grizzly Adams« 
BY ALLEN KELLY. 
Several books about bears have been written and pub- 
lished in the last ten years, and all of them together do 
not contain so many stories of what Theodore Roosevelt 
would call "bully bear fights" as are told in a volume 
entitled, "The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Moun- 
taineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter, of California," written 
by Theodore H. Hittell, and published in Boston in 1861. 
Probably most of the old boys who love bear stories 
have read the book; but the younger men only know 
that there was once such a man as "Grizzly Adams," and 
the boys of to-day never heard of him at all. 
It was a curious thing that the editor of Forest and 
Stream should ask me if I could write for him some- 
thing_ about Grizzly Adams. Curious because of the 
peculiar interest I had taken in the old hunter's history 
from childhood. I read the story of his adventures when 
I was a small boy, and a somewhat taciturn uncle — a 
Massachusetts farmer, and a cousin of James Capen 
Adams — had told me some things about the hunter's 
early career at a time when "Grizzly Adams" was my 
hero, and of course what he said stuck in my memory. 
It was reading the adventures of Adams and the 
descriptions of California given in his book that first 
fired my boyish soul with desire, to see that land, and 
eventually made a Californian of me. I doubt that the 
lure of California is so strong on any native son of the 
Golden West as it has been, and is yet, on me. From 
the moment when I first looked from the western slope 
of the Sierra Nevada down across the green foothills 
and upon the broad valley ablaze with the golden orange 
poppy, I was a Californian. When I close my eyes, shut- 
ting out the bricks and mortar and skyscrapers of Bed- 
lam, there come before them visions of mountain and 
forest, of canon and of plain, of foothill and ravine bathed 
in purple haze; I hear the slumber song of the wind 
through the pines ; I smell the faint aroma of manzanita 
blossoms, the resinous breath of the forest, the sweet 
perfume of the laurel, and the old lure is strong upon 
me — the lure of California, the land of heart's desire. 
Strong as was the general impression made upon me 
by the book, of course the details passed from memory 
long ago. I came to know in California the man who 
wrote it, Theodore Hittell, and the artist who illustrated 
it, Charles Nahl. A few of the incidents remained clear, 
and I could recall distinctly at least two of the pictures; 
perhaps Nahl showed me the oi"iginals. When I got hold 
of the book again, however, the oddness of the coinci- 
dence that I should be asked to write of Grizzly Adams 
became more striking, for I found that in the course of 
my wanderings in California I had followed, unknow- 
ingly, Adams's trail, hunted bears where he had killed 
them, camped where he camped, even built a bear trap in 
the same canon of the Tejon in which he once built a 
trap. Reading his story was like going back over the old 
trails, sitting by the old camp-fires. The headwaters of 
the Merced, the Stanislaus, the Tuolumne, Kern River, 
Tejon Pass, the long trail to Oregon and Washington — ■ 
all familiar ground. Even the trip from above Sonora 
through the Sierra to Yosemite, where there was no 
trail, which Adams made in 1853 I had made on horse- 
back more than thirty years later, looking for grizzlies, 
but not finding so many as he found. 
Having circled about and cut the main trail at last, I 
will stick to it from this on, craving pardon for not hit- 
ting it sooner. 
The adventures of James Capen Adams, although told 
in the first person, were written by another, for Adams 
was illiterate and could barely write his name, and the 
writer was more concerned with literary style than with 
facts with the bark on. The result, regretably, is a 
stilted narrative, larded with moralizing reflections, class- 
ical and historical allusions, pious preachings and pedan- 
try, all foreign to the character of a rugged mountaineer, 
and therefore false in tone and unconvincing. The author 
evidently was influenced by "Robinson Crusoe," and he 
had to give Adams an Indian man Friday, and make him 
deliver solemn harangues to the poor devil, for the good 
of his soul and the improvement of his mind, between 
shots at raging grizzlies. Therefore we get little or noth- 
ing of old Grizzly Adams in the telling of his adven- 
tures, more's the pity. 
Adams v^^as born in Massachusetts in 1807, and grew 
up as a somewhat "shiftless" country boy. He learned 
the trade of shoemaking, but did not stick to^ his last 
very well, and those who knew him in his youth said he 
did not like to work. At the age when country boys 
go to school, he went fishing and shooting. He failed to 
acquire the rudiments of what is commonly held to be 
education, but undoubtedly he learned in the fields and 
woods much that was more useful to him in the vocation 
that he finally adopted. 
According to his cousin's account, not his literary 
biographer's, young Adams got into trouble over some 
missing lumber, and found it advisable to leave his native 
village and join a traveling show. He became a trainer 
of animals, having the peculiar gift of control over them, 
and he spent some time in trapping animals for the show 
in the New England forests. A tiger finally did him up, 
and he went out of the show business. 
In 1849 Adams went overland to California with the 
gold hunters. He had various luck in mining, trading 
and ranching until 1852, when he went broke altogether, 
became discouraged and took to the woods. He located 
his camp in a valley on a branch of the Merced, about 
50 miles northwest of Yosemite, and supported himself 
by killing game for a year. Adams frequently saw griz- 
zlies, but during the first winter he was careful to keep 
out of their way, and they showed no inclination to 
molest him. He says : "Not by any means that the griz- 
zly feared me; but he did not invite the combat, and I 
did not venture it." 
In 1853 Adams's brother William visited his mountain 
camp and proposed a business partnership, he to advance 
the capital and James Capen to collect wild animals for 
menageries. The contract was made, and in May Adams 
set out for Oregon, accompanied by one white assistant 
and two Indians. The party traveled along the western 
foot of the_ Sierra to Oregon, through the Klamath region 
and the wilderness between the Cascade range and Blue 
Mountains, turned the great bend of the Columbia, 
crossed the Snake River and established headquarters 
camp in eastern Washington. 
Here Adams had his first bear fight. He discovered 
the den of a grizzly dam and two cubs, waylaid and shot 
the old bear, and attempted to lasso the young ones. He 
chased the cubs for a long time, and they finally turned 
upon him and put him up a tree. They were only about 
a year old, but had formidable teeth and claws, and 
he had to pound their paws to keep them from trying to 
climb after him. In the course of half an hour the cubs 
went away to their dead dam, and Adams returned to 
camp. A few days later he succeeded, with the assist- 
ance of several mounted Indians, in roping and capturing 
