8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 6, 1912. 
make a long, hard race and are usually badly 
punished, while'the hounds that know their busi¬ 
ness tree the bear quickly, and whi.e worrying 
him constantly manage to get in and out with¬ 
out being badly hurt. It is usually when the 
bear is shot that harm comes to the pack. If 
the quarry falls out of a tree, it takes several 
stout men with clubs or ropes to keep the dogs 
off him, and as the bear is rarely shot dead, he 
generally injures a dog or two unless there are 
men enough to keep the fighting brutes away 
from him. 
“Mitch” and his boys—for he likes best to 
hunt with his three boys and his son-in-law— 
had started out Linville Mountain early one April 
morning, thinking it was time for the hungry 
black bears to be coming out of their dens in 
the gorge of Linville River, and that they might 
start one. 
“Edgar, you go down the grub trail with old 
Bill and the pups,” commanded his father, “and 
drive down the gorge to the Babel Tower ridge, 
and Commodore and I’ll meet you there.” 
“All right, daddy. I’ll be there and maybe I’ll 
start one up past you.” And off he went, fear¬ 
lessly and alone into that wild and almost im¬ 
penetrable canon that has been the despair of 
so many ambitious hunters and fishermen. But 
he was older than his years, and trained as all 
these mountain boys are to take care of him¬ 
self under all circumstances. He faced an un¬ 
dertaking that would have disheartened any boy 
but one brought up among rocks and hi'.ls, and 
who knew work as a daily companion. The 
canon of the Linville River, usually called the 
gorge, is fifteen miles long from the main Lin¬ 
ville Falls to the foot of the mountains, where 
the river emerges between Linville and Shortoff 
Mountains, to the comparatively level country 
below. With many winds and loops, frequently 
interspersed with beautiful cascades and nar¬ 
row, impassable chasms, it falls more than 2000 
feet in these fifteen miles, and for six miles at 
the rate of 200 feet to the mile. On neither 
side is there a human habitation, nor is there 
any outlet the smallest pony could travel. It is 
one of the wildest places in eastern America, 
and one of the least known. Edgar was one of 
the few boys in the neighborhood who had 
learned to know the gorge so well that it had no 
longer any terrors for him. He had inherited 
his father’s love for the chase, and they knew 
this would be the last chance, for they are 
farmers before they are hunters, and the warm 
days that were bringing the bears out of their 
long sleep were urging the beginning of spring 
work. 
Hurrying on at a pace that would have left 
a less experienced climber far behind, Edgar 
climbed, crawled, twisted and slid down into the 
dark tangle of laurel, grown over eroded rocks, 
hiding yawning holes, and promising fatal falls 
to the unwary. But the mountain boy is care¬ 
ful and is rarely badly hurt. No trail he had 
or needed, the occasional bark of the dogs being 
his only guide, and the quick, sharp yelp from 
the old dog told him a fresh bear track had 
been found. The younger dogs took it up, and 
reported frequently. In a short time there came 
to the boy the familiar and unmistakable series 
of barks by which the hound te'ls his distant 
master that he has come up with, the bear, and 
that there is a fight. 
Edgar’s delight will be understood by every 
man who remembers when he achieved for the 
first time his greatest hunting ambition. He had 
secretly hoped that he might overtake a bear 
before it should reach his father and brother, 
but he had hardly dared to think it might come 
so. Now here was more than the wildest dream 
had pictured, for he felt sure he knew what the 
short “race” meant. It was the season for cubs, 
and this must be an old mother bear, cornered 
with her little ones and refusing to run, so the 
boy tore through the bushes, over rocks and 
fallen trees until he came to a point where he 
could get a glimpse of the fight, eighty or ninety 
feet below. He had guessed right. There was 
the old bear fighting the dogs off and keeping 
her babies behind her while she backed toward 
a stout hemlock tree. Edgar carried a cheap 
single-barreled shotgun and he could not see well 
enough through the brush to shoot at that point, 
so he waited, and was soon relieved and amused 
to see the old bear drive her babies up the tree. 
She cuffed them right and left and made them 
mind, though they did not want to leave her. 
Then she turned to the dogs. 
“Now,” thought Edgar, “is my chance.” He 
started, dropping his length and more over rocky 
ledges, letting himself down by roots and 
branches until he was directly over dogs and 
bear, but could not see them. A shelf of rock 
projected. Finally he found a place where he 
thought he could make it. Lowering himself as 
far as he could by roots and crevices, seizing 
the last root in one hand and his gun in the 
other, he let go, dropping ten feet to the next 
shelf and within twenty feet of the bear. But 
pain drove everything else out of the boy’s mind 
for the instant, for he had struck upon a rock 
and had sprained his ankle. Sharp as the pain 
was, it did not hold his attention long, for he 
“just had to have that bear.” 
Edgar’s sudden arrival had inspired in the old 
beast a desire for flight, and off she started, leav¬ 
ing her cubs safely lodged in the tree. Edgar 
gave no thought to the fact that he was alone 
in a hole with a sprained ankle, shooting a little 
shotgun at a bear with cubs. Fortunately for 
him probably the wound inflicted was slight, so 
the old one escaped into the fastness -below. 
The:e were the three cubs clinging to branches 
twenty-five feet from the ground and looking 
down with comical solemnity. 
To climb the tree for them was too much for 
the lamed boy, and he had no way to carry the 
cubs if he caught them. The cubs he knew were 
worth much more alive than dead, so it would 
not do to shoot them. He knew the cubs would 
not come down till their mother came for them, 
and she would be occupied with the dogs for 
some hours. He took the precaution of tying 
his coat around the tree, for no bear or ’coon, 
his father had taught him, would come down 
past that dreaded man-smell for at least twenty- 
four hours. To overtake his father and brother 
would be impossible, for they were several miles 
out on the mountain, so he had to go back to 
the settlement for help to bag his game. 
It was a long and painful climb out of the 
gorge and along the trail to the home of his 
Uncle Adee. Excitement kept him up, however, 
and no time was lost getting back to the tree, 
to which the boy took his uncle as easily and 
directly as a dog finds its ,.way home, so true is 
the instinct of the woodsman for direction and 
location. The lonesome little cubs were still 
holding fast, waiting for permission to come 
down. Taking a stout sack—he called it a “poke” 
—Adee climbed the tree, and after scratching 
and scrambling, the cubs were at last stuffed, 
whimpering and fighting, into the sack and 
brought to,the ground, to be carried away into 
captivity, later to amuse summer hotel guests. 
Great was the joy and pride of father and 
brother in Edgar’s success on his first bear hunt. 
The cubs brought them a good price, though 
they nearly lost them after getting them home. 
Little Hobart Burleson, aged four, declared he 
would turn them loose because they kept calling: 
“Mamma, Mamma.” “I didn’t know bears could 
talk,” he said, “but they keep crying for their 
mamma just as plain.” There was no denying 
it ; their plaintive cries sounded very much like 
mamma. They were most amusing and frolic¬ 
some little rascals, always ready to stand up 
and eat out of hand. To avoid unnecessary 
quarrels, however, a separate dish was given to 
each one. They wou'd not eat from a common 
dish in peace. 
In the four years since this exciting event, 
Edgar has participated in many a bear hunt and 
got in his shot first on several bears, but none 
has given him the satisfaction that first one did. 
And what man will not agree with him that the 
first great trophy of the boy hunter is never 
equaled by any subsequent achievement? 
At the risk of dimming the luster of the boy’s 
courage a bit, I will say that no mountaineer 
who knows anything about black bears is afraid 
of them. He feels sure, from experience, that 
they will always run from a man. I have heard 
of but one exception, and that may have been 
because the bear was crazed by a shot and did 
not know where it was going. After a rifle shot 
at about 200 yards, this bear, a very large male, 
turned almost a right angle and made directly 
for the hunter who fired five shots from a heavy 
rifle into him and he stopped only about twenty 
feet from the man, a dead bear, but coming 
straight on, mouth open. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
In England it is said that a kingfisher now 
and then chokes to death in attempting to swal¬ 
low a bullhead; in fact, one such was photo¬ 
graphed from life, or rather death, for the Fish¬ 
ing Gazette not long ago. Over here we have 
no such luck. Our kingfishers may be immune 
from death by the bullhead route, or they may 
avoid him altogether. And there is no bag limit 
in their fishing. I remember one old fellow that 
did his fishing from a willow tree nearby one 
of my camps. He always perched on the same 
limb, and we saw him there several times daily. 
His activities lasted a long time, but were closed 
suddenly, as befits aerial and other pirates. He 
did not choke on a bullhead; his digestion was 
not equal to a lead pill. 
* * ❖ 
“In the course of four years,” says a thought¬ 
ful writer,” one pair of rabbits may be at the 
head of a family of 1,278,840.” Maybe, yes, but 
not in a region where dogs and cats hunt through¬ 
out the year, and hunters beat every possible hid¬ 
ing place for a month or six weeks in autumn. 
Grizzly King. 
