Forest and Stream 
Vol. LXXXIII. 
August 15, 1914 
No. 7 
•rTv^onian instr) 
'o. 
Pete and I on the Head of Bear Run 
\ AUbiO 1914 
Being the Further Doings of Pete Whose Career Began in Last Week’s Issue 
B V 
T HE two dark, muddy looking spots that you 
see among the grass are bear wallows that 
were there when the first settlers came 
in, and have been used by the bears every heated 
term for more seasons than any man knows of. 
I do not know a more lonely spot; and, with the 
exception of one old surveyor, I know of no one 
but myself who has ever left his footprint on 
the dark sod of that grassy little savannah, the 
reason being that it is so very difficult getting 
over the tangled border of low laurel which sur¬ 
rounds it on every side. I have tackled some ex¬ 
asperating laurel brakes in my time, but this is 
the worst one I ever floundered through. It is 
like traveling on a roadbed of hoopskirts and 
barbed fence wire, and it remains to-day almost 
the same as when I first saw it, some forty years 
ago. Thank heaven, there are a few green spots 
on this'green earth that it does not pay to “im¬ 
prove,” but they are remote. 
It was on the morning of our third day’s hunt 
in company that Pete and I found ourselves on 
the brink of the rocky ledge overhanging the 
broad laurel brake with its setting of miniature 
prairie. We were there, man and dog—because 
the party of the first part thought it a promising 
range for bear and was somewhat anxious to 
test his companion as a bear dog. And the other 
was there because he was tied to his new master 
with a hemp rope and couldn’t help himself. Sev¬ 
eral times during the morning he had winded 
deer and had signalled the same by sundry nudges 
and nips, but the party at the other end of the 
rope was obtuse and would not understand, being 
intent on looking for bear sign; but no bear sign 
was given him, and the slow-paced stalk of two 
hours ended at the brink of the cliff without 
event. Glancing over the basin below, the quick 
eye of the man caught on a duster of leaf heaps 
that seemed freshly made, and seeking a place of 
easy descent he proceeded to investigate. 
The heaps were five in number and larger than 
usually made by a mountain cat; also, the largest 
heap showed unmistakable signs of being newly 
worked. So the eager dog was given his liberty, 
which he used by roading rapidly into the laurel, 
while the man’s heart beat faster as he reflected 
that it might be a panther; and, taking a posi¬ 
tion that commanded laurel brake and savannah 
he waited a little nervously with rifle at the ready. 
For two or three minutes the silence was only 
broken by the rustling and hustling of the dog 
as he worked his way through the dense tangle, 
and then there was a bounce, a crash, and a huge 
*Posthumous manuscript (written about 1S80). 
cat flying across the clear space with a frantic 
dog at his tail. 
On reaching the laurel at the opposite side the 
cat made a stumble that lost him a jump or two, 
and the dog closed at once. It was a very brief 
round, but creditable to the parties most nearly 
concerned as regards gameness and the infliction 
of telling punishment. I think it took that feline 
terror less than ten seconds to fight himself clear 
and get away, leaving poor Pete a handsome ad¬ 
dition to his scars. He beat the dog across the 
laurel, and went bounding up a large yellow 
birch with the ease and grace of a squirrel, where 
he sat glaring fiercely and fearlessly at the dog, 
while I walked leisurely around the thicket in¬ 
stead of crossing it, that I might arrive on the 
ground in cool shooting condition. And the shot 
was not a good one after all. The bullet should 
have gone fairly through the head, instead of 
which it went through the neck just under the 
bone, cutting arteries and knocking the beast out 
of the tree, but leaving enough bite and kick in 
him to half kill poor Pete before I could safely 
end the fight by a shot. When stretched and 
cased properly, the skin measured 4 ft. from tip 
of nose to roots of the tail, and it was as large as 
I have ever handled myself, though I have seen 
larger ones. On the return to camp, Pete did 
not show his usual interest in hunting matters. 
He was badly cut and clawed about the breast 
and abdomen, and walked slowly along with 
hanging head while the blood oozed from his 
wounded muzzle. Evidently he though one such 
cat hunt a pretty fair day’s work for a dog-. 
It was time to break camp. Breadstuffs were 
reduced to a few dry crumbs; pork, butter and 
sugar were things of the past; there only re¬ 
mained a little tea and salt, with plenty of veni¬ 
son, the latter beginning to grow suspiciously 
slippery. A deer or two might easily have been 
added to the score, but to no purpose save use¬ 
less slaughter and a wanton waste of good veni¬ 
son, for no one could afford to double-trip it to* 
that lone region. And on the morrow by 1 P. M. 
Farmer B. was to report at the end of the road 
just where he had landed me the week before 
203 
