FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. II, 1905. 
39o 
The Biography of a Bear. — VIII. 
One of the spurs to our ambition was a legend which 
told of big trout, that were to be found somewhere at 
the source of one of the Cow creeks. Few things live 
longer in the memories of men than anecdotes or data 
concerning big fish or big deer. About any lake, river 
or shore where fishers go, there are legends of big 
fish. There is always an old resident or an old explorer 
to keep these legends forever burning like the temple 
fires of the Montezumas. In any region where there 
are or haye been deer there is some patriarch to tell 
about the big ones of former times — or perhaps of a big 
one of the present that haunts some inaccessible moun- 
tain! or difficult wilderness. Births, deaths, plagues, 
floods, fires and national calamities may be forgotten, 
but the annals of the big fish and the mighty buck live 
forever. 
The propensity of people to fatten on legendary diet 
can be traced throughout other perspectives, and it may 
be not altogether pernicious. While the rumor of a 
big deer or the whispers about the big fish will inspire 
the laziest and most conservative inhabitant, or migrant, 
to get up in the night and steal av/ay (as well as any- 
thing else he needs) for the purpose of acquiring the 
big one, his impulses are not always universally bene- 
ficent. Sometimes the legends are lies, without vestige 
of foundation. Some of them are such wholesome, 
fascinating, absolutely pure and and unadulterated lies 
that they stand out as singularly honest and genuine 
among the many bogus products of human genius or 
conception — they are irresistible. We believe in them 
and worship them even when they cost us money. 
There are lies about fish and game, and about a few 
other things — so profoundly insincere and deceptive that 
they elevate men to entrancing levels, and open to them 
infinite vistas of hope, promise and personal advantage. 
Some of the lies of remote ages, of inconceivable an- 
tiquity, have outlived all other artificial fabrics, and 
stand to-day to be gaped at and gorged by successive 
generations of men. It is no wonder we have trouble 
with aborigines, and that we find civilization and art 
somewdiat incompatible with orginal natural conditions. 
It is true that even savages and barbarians lie, and that 
they will bow down and reverence some of our exports; 
but their achievments are so crude and so primitive, 
and they use such bad judgment in their selections of 
foreign goods, they melt like butter in contact with 
the intense enlightenm.ent that is cooking the world. 
Fish stories will coax a man into the wilderness 
about as far as anything, and get him full of briars, 
splinters and other uncomfortable things— but as empty 
in other respects as anything he can tamper with. It 
may be that they are providential precautions devised 
by the Creator to relieve and disintegrate constipation. 
When Christopher Columbus discovered America — 
that is to say, when that gentleman did not discover 
America, and when he did not know what America was. 
when he reached it, he nevertheless exemplified the in- 
finity of possibility, and the wonders and bewilderments 
that may spring from fish stories and legendary 
theorems. As one result, however, the Old World was 
perceptibly relieved by an exodus with which the new 
one has been having a hot time ever since. When 
George Washington chopped the cherry tree with his 
hatchet * * * Although this topic is a good one, 
I feel that I am in a measure obliged to leave some of 
it here. I have been dragging it along, hoping that I 
might attach it to this history, but I am unable to use 
any more of it to advantage. I merely intended to illus- 
trate with it that men will go out into the woods and 
out upon the waters, and thereby put city money into 
circulation. At first I believed this to be a good thing, 
and it is, for those who do it. They get their blood 
into circulation, get full of health and energy, such as 
it is — but heaven help the rest of ns when they resume 
financial activities! I now heave this ballast out, like 
a sandbag from a balloon — if it falls upon any one s 
house it is a pity; but aerial navigation is not impeded. 
The fish story that impelled us, in effect was that 
there is a mountain meadow somewhere at the head of 
one of the Crow creeks, which is really a lake overgrown 
with rushes or tules, and that one might chop a hole 
in the sod anywhere, let down a hook baited with 
grasshoppers and haul in all the trout he wanted, as 
long as he could stand work. People who told us of 
it said they had seen fish up there somewhere that 
were large, very large— huge; in fact, they were given 
proportion in rather monotonous accord with the abili- 
ties of our several informants. None of them knew 
the exact location of that meadow, or if they did, they 
reserved that part of their knowledge for home con- 
sumption or a rising market. We proposed to go there, 
wherever it was, and lift a few of those fish from their 
obscure residence. The meadow was said to be some 
miles from the road and surrounded by heavy timber, 
with mountains upon three sides of it — one of the 
mountains we believed to be Magee’s Peak (I will offer 
my readers a peek at Magee himself, after awhile), 
about the next highest mountain to Mt. Lassen, in that 
region. Learning of McMullen’s ranch, situated to the 
southwest of the peak, and that there was a meadow 
there, we decided to follow the road— such as it was — 
that branches in that direction. 
Accordingly, after unreefing our harness and regear- 
ing it in several ways, so that it would encompass our 
horses and the hay they had collected by this time, we 
attached them to the wagon and started for McMullen’s. 
We could not help but remark that our horses were 
now considerably wider than the road and our wagon. 
Enochs wanted to hitch them on tandem, but our wagon 
was only equipped for doubletrees. When we came to 
narrow places between banks or trees some of us had 
to go forward and either dig out the road some,, bend 
the trees back or cinch in the horses. Once or twice 
we stuck — the horses looked like they were skewered, 
with trees for pins, and we had to chop them out. 
Jack was usually first to get into the wagon when we 
broke camp, and he took his favorite position, standing 
on the wagon bottom, with his hands on the seat. In 
this posture he could see forward between Dick and 
Enochs, while nothing obscured his view at either side. 
He was greatly interested with new scenery, and if he 
had been adorned with goggles and a few other ac- 
coutrements, he would have looked as wise, sedate and 
perhaps almost as intelligent as the average tourist. 
Fie seemed by this time to accept the whole routine of 
camping and traveling by wagon as commonplace and 
now and then tiresome. Sometimes he looked to be 
as much bored as the tourist from Punktown who sees 
something else for the first time. But this would only 
be when he was getting very hungry. 
The road to McMullen’s was through forest all the 
way, and part of the way over some of it — such as 
fallen trees and all sorts of shrubbery and smaller 
timber. Where there were no logs to separate us from 
the alleged road, we had trouble in crossing gullies and 
canons, while nature had also contributed fragmentary 
slices off the mountains here and there to test our forti- 
tude and, as it seemed, our vocabulary. 
We eventually reached a pole fence and some log 
huts that we conceded to be McMullen’s ranch, but it 
was little more than a camp or temporary rounding-up 
place for cattle. The meadow was not much, being 
like the Indian’s description of the telegraph wire, 
all long and not any wide. In truth it was little more 
than an alley in the forest caused by standing water 
in the winter seasons. The huts were empty and showed 
no evidence of recent occupation except by chipmunks 
and squirrels. The timber was full of chipmunks and 
squirrels, all the way from the size of a peanut up to 
that of a woodchuck. The forest about us had been 
little disturbed, and we were welcome to all we wanted 
of it, and before daybreak next morning we expected 
to need the most of it for fuel to keep us from freezing; 
but as it had to be chopped up some for that purpose, 
we left a great deal of it where it was. As for one or 
two of us it was about as easy to freeze as to cut and 
carry logs. We were not lazy — not at all lazy; but 
energy is somewhat like a college education, it is not 
adapted to practical matters exclusively. 
We tethered our horses as best we could, and spread 
out blankets in one of the huts. - About midnight we got 
so cold in the hut, which had no fire-place, that we all 
moved outside, built a fire near a large log and tried 
to keep warm by rolling in our blankets between the 
fire and the log. We put on fuel and extended the 
fire parallel with the log, and we nearly broiled our- 
selves on one side; but this was not wholly satisfying. 
While we were freezing one side, and cooking the other, 
even the delights of comparison and variety were in- 
sufficient to gratify us excessively. About the time we 
had begun to wrangle as to who should sleep next to 
Jack, there was commotion among the horses, and I 
got up and took the lantern to investigate. The horses 
were pitching wildly about, being either frightened or 
suffering from the cold. My saddle-horse, Billy, a 
clean-limbed gray, with good blood and plenty of fire 
and speed in his veins, had broken loose and was now 
tearing away through the forest in the direction whenPe 
we had come. I feared he would go through to Shasta 
without a stop, as he had done upon a former occasion, 
but I followed in his wake for about a mile with the aid 
of the lantern. The forest was black as ink. Apart 
from the little halo of light from the lantern, I could 
see nothing, and I was on the point^ of abandoning the 
pursuit, when I heard brush cracking at a distance, then, 
sounds growing louder and coming nearer until with 
lunges and snorts here caqie Billy back again. What- 
ever had sent him away something else had certainly 
frightened him back again, and he now stood snorting and 
trembling at the sight of the lantern. It was some tirne 
before I could get near enough to him to catch hfs 
halter .and lead him back to the camp. We had to 
take the horses all into an old shed that we were afraid 
might collapse before we got them quieted. 
When we got back to the fire and our blankets we 
found it impossible to keep warm, as we had but light 
blankets, and we had reached the place too late to fix 
properly for the night. Besides, we had not anticipated 
freezing to death when we left tlie Sacramento Valley 
shimmering like a furnace. We were glad enough to 
get out with the first signs of dawn, reconstruct our 
fire and prepare hot coffee and breakfast. Jack for the 
first time failed to show up for breakfast and remained 
out upon an excursion of his own until late in the morn- 
ing. After our breakfast we explored the little meadow 
without finding signs of sufficient water to contain fish. 
We next got our rifles and hunted around an isolated 
peak, where we saw plenty of timber grouse and found 
considerable deer sign, but we saw no deer. In return- 
ing to camp. I did find two deer on the way, but it 
was one of the saddest things I ever saw in the woods — . 
an old doe lying shot through, while her fawn, evidently 
but a few days old, lay at her side curled up as jf it 
had died there in the little glade waiting for its silent 
mother to awaken. Both of them had been dead for 
some days, and I was at a loss to account for so young 
a fawn at that season of the year. 
We decided to go back to the main road and then 
take another branch road which led to the north 6f, 
Magee’s Peak. We got all ready to move before Jaclf^; 
returned, and we had begun to fear he was not cornipg, 
back. Here he had a splendid opportunity to take, t(?, 
his natural element, where he could soon find , gpm- , 
panions of his own family. Sometimes I half hoped . th^t . 
he would do it, for I could not conceive of an un- 
troubled future for him in his contact with humanity. 
Enochs insisted that he was a gone bear, but I believe 
we would all have waited for the chance of his return 
until our provisions gave out. As it was he came 
lumbering in and insisted upon breakfast without delay. 
After getting his ration he was prompt to clamber 
aboard and abide further developments. 
After regaining the main road, we followed it foi 
some miles without finding the turn out we wanted to 
take. We passed out of the main forest and got into 
the “tamaracks,” after which this road was called. The 
tamaracks are a wilderness comprising millions of tele- 
graph poles — slim, symmetrical stems that need only 
barking and the trimming off of a few twigs to finish 
them for wires and insulators. The sun began to get 
to us again, the hot dust and the drowsy weariness that 
made us moody. Jack had subsided to his nest in the 
wagon bed, and as he was unusually quiet, I looked in 
to see the cause for it. 
I saw that he was sitting but half erect and ready, as 
it would seem, to collapse altogether. His face wore a 
look of utter despondency and despair. He dropped all 
over and finally began to retch violently. We at once 
stopped the wagon and helped him out to the ground 
at the roadside, where he continued to droop and then 
to choke. We jumped to the conclusion that he was 
poisoned. We thought of mustard as an emetic, and 
of whisky as a bracer, but before we could get them 
Jack began to go into active upheavel without assist- 
ance. He began to yield up everything he had taken 
unto himself — just as people pay tribute to the ocean 
from the decks of boats, the smaller the boat the more 
generous the contribution. 
It was astonishing to see how liberally Jack gave all 
he had with him. He gave up everything, and it was so 
formidable in its proportions that he was a little fright- 
ened at his own generosity and backed away from it 
with a good deal of solicitude. About that time I 
began to feel as though I suspected something, and I 
got into the wagon, opened our duffle box and inspected 
the supply of tobacco. The smoking tobacco was all 
right, but when I asked Dick about the chewing tobacco 
it figured out one plug short. These plugs weighed 
about a pound each, and were a combination of vege- 
tation and nicotine with more or less molasses in them 
to flavor them. I think they were Lorillard’s best. It 
would not appear that a single pound plug of this to- 
bacco could develop into the formidable mass that Jack 
so freely relinquished, but we determined that as nothing 
else could swell that way, it was, it must have been, the 
plug. Jack felt ill for an hour or more, and then we 
had to feed him something all over again before he 
seemed repaid for the heroic liberality he had dis- 
played. 
Jack was not entitled to very much credit in this 
matter, for he had taken the tobacco from our box of 
supplies in an. arbitrary and tricky spirit. Yet even 
here we do not have to scan as far as the horizon to 
find a parallel for his generosity. Some of our most 
conspicuous public benefactors, who yield up unex- 
pectedly, do so after having accumulated substances in 
about the same way. No creature, not even the ostrich, 
the goat, the whale- — not even the ocean or a man- 
can swallow everything and retain it eternally. But 
men will keep on trying it, I expect. However this 
may be, -thereafter we kept our jewelry out of Jack’s 
reach, together with the tobacco. Even if he did give 
it up after he was tired of it, we objected to the process. 
After Jack had recovered his self-respect and assur- 
ance to some extent, we again went forward, and after 
going through the tamaracks for two or three miles, we 
came to an open, swampy flat, a mile or two wide and 
perhapk three or more miles long. It had all the ap- 
pearance of being a dry lake, or a big meadow, from 
which the water had receded at some time. The tama- 
racks were growing around it and gradually encroach- 
ing upon the open ground. Ahead of us we saw two 
or three log houses, or rather these were pole houses, 
being constructed of timber too small to make logs. 
I then realized, from what I had been told of the road, 
that we had passed the branch road we had intended to 
take, and that this place was “Old Kentuck’s” ranch. 
- Old Kentuck was one of the origirial settlers of this 
region,- and he had been identified with the Tamarack 
Road as long as any one could remember. In bygone 
years he had been an industrious man, and he had done 
a great deal of very hard work upon the road, and 
upon this dry lake which he called his ranch, and from 
which he collected more or less wild hay which he 
disposed of to travelers. At the time of which I write 
it appeared that Kentuck exchanged most of his hay 
for whisky, and under its influence he developed into 
a sort of narrow-gauge desperado and a local terror. 
We had been told of his goings on with unsophisticated 
travelers, to whom he would give false information 
about the road, intimidate into stopping at his place, 
and then supply them with hay for which he would de- 
mand all he thought they had. When he was drinking 
he was considered an ugly customer. The place was 
many miles from any other habitation, and Kentuck was 
often in position to practice his imperial methods. 
As we approached his emporium, we had agreed upon 
certain matters, and I did not think iventuck was going 
to have much fun at our expense. We were in no 
mood to be joshed or imposed upon, for we had missed 
our -road and come some miles out of our way, while 
we' we're tired and, as usual, very hungry. 
As we reached his long, low shack two dogs jumped 
into the road with a great show of ferocity, mixed with 
joy at seein-g us. While they pranced about the wagon 
Kentuck himself appeared, evidently with a good deal 
{Concluded on page 393.) 
