July, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
331 
Tom Murphy with two of his best bear dogs 
all shot the bow when they were kids: 
“Why an arrow wouldn’t stick in a bear, 
much less hurt him. It would only tease 
him,” they said. 
We showed them our big, strong yew 
bows, pulling seventy-five pounds, and 
the dangerous looking arrows, with steel 
heads nearly two inches long and over 
an inch wide and sharp as a butcher 
knife. They tried the bows but they 
couldn’t pull up an arrow half way. 
Then Tom sat out an old dried bear hide 
on the corral fence. I shot a broad head 
through the thick skin of the neck and 
a paw which dangled behind. Then we 
shot some blunt arrows through an inch 
pine board, and they got another view 
point on archery. But still they shook 
their heads. 
Well, anyway, Tom said he would take 
his old 32 W. S. along just to protect 
the dogs. It was bad weather, and we 
made four unsuccessful hunts without 
getting sight of fur. Tom said he had 
never gone out so many times in his 
life without bringing home a bear. He 
thought the bows were a hoo-doo. 
On the fifth trip, out about fifteen 
miles from the ranch, in Panther Can- 
yon, we struck a fresh track. In just 
about half an hour after we loosed the 
dogs we had a bear treed. It looked as 
big as a horse ’way up there on the 
limb of a tall fir tree. We had run up 
a mountain side through hazel brush 
and were pretty well winded, but we 
helped Tom catch the dogs and tie them 
up, because he would not have one of 
his dogs hurt for three hundred dollars, 
and you can’t tell what a bear will do 
when he is wounded. 
W E had plenty of time, so Young 
and I stationed ourselves some 
thirty yards or so from the tree 
on the hill side and prepared to shoot. 
The bear was about seventy-five feet up 
in the air, so that our distance from 
; him was about forty yards. 
We drew up our bows together and 
let drive. Both arrows struck her full 
in the chest, and went completely 
1 through, feathers and all. That made 
( me feel good ! Quick as a wink, the 
old beast wheeled about and began 
scrambling down the tree. Tom yelled 
I for us to run up and shoot her again. 
As this was our first bear, we were a 
' little diffident about getting too close to 
her, and we lost a little time looking at 
^ the funny way she came down the tree, 
but we got to the base at the same time 
j she did. We let her have a couple more 
I arrows as she landed, but she did not 
I stop to argue. As the Germans say, “She 
I made an orderly retreat,” at the rate of 
I about forty miles per hour, down the 
I canyon. 
Tom was disgusted. “You missed 
i her,” he said. “Why didn’t you run up 
1 and soak her in the heart, the way I told 
I you?” 
I We swore we had her. “Give her 
' time and she will die,” we said. He 
wasn’t going to loose the hounds on a 
I wounded bear, but he turned Shep, a 
I wary old cattle dog, after her. He 
would keep out of her way. 
Soon we heard Shep baying her. Tom 
was incredulous, but he turned the 
hounds loose. We followed hesitatingly. 
A quarter of a mile down the gulch, 
over fallen timber, through brush, with 
quivers rattling and bows catching in 
everything, we ran like deer or devils. 
Sure enough, the dogs had her up a tree 
again. She sat astraddle on a limb of 
another Douglas fir, not twenty feet 
from the ground. She was badly 
wounded and could not climb higher. 
Young and I drove two more arrows in 
her and she dropped to the ground. The 
dogs heeled her and old Shep went fly- 
ing past, hanging on to one ham as he 
ran. 
But she didn’t travel far. Up a 
nearby oak, not over eight inches in 
diameter, she scrambled like an acrobat 
and swung out on a limb in full view. 
She didn’t seem to know we existed. Her 
mind was entirely taken up with dogs. 
Y oung and I got within twenty 
yards of her and shot arrow 
after arrow through her body. 
They did not stick in and dangle. They 
went clear through. She was in a bad 
way, gasping for air and slipping 
farther out on the bending limb of the 
oak. At last Young drove an arrow over 
her eye and she tumbled out of the tree, 
crashed to the ground and rolled over 
and over down the canyon. 
The dogs were at her throat as she 
fell, and by the time we got down to the 
stream where she lay, she was dead as 
a door nail. 
Young and I shook hands. Tom opened 
her up. She had died of collapse of the 
lungs and pulmonary hemorrhage. Seven 
arrows had gone through her chest, 
some cutting one or two ribs in their 
course. Only one arrow remained in 
her, and the broken end of this was 
lodged six inches in her head. 
We concluded that we had really killed 
her with the first two shots — if we had 
only waited. We had kept on shooting 
because we didn’t know when to stop. 
Tom gave the dogs the liver and lights, 
and started off for the horses. 
She was a three-year-old bear and 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 382) 
The bowmen, Arthur Young and Saxton Pope with the victim of their prowess 
