jjr FOUNDED A.D. 1873 
Vol. LXXXVII 
AUGUST, 1917 
No. 8 
THE BEAR HUNT AT SAN PASCUAL 
BEFORE THE DAY OF THE HIGH POWER RIFLE, YOUR BORDER VAQUERO 
WOULD ROPE AND TIE A GRIZZLY AND DRAG HER HOME ALIVE 
J UEGO la copa de oro y gano” (1 
play the cup of gold and win), said 
Jose Guero, as we were all seated 
in the big sala of the old adobe house on 
the San Pascual ranch playing burro tis- 
nado. 
“That’s all right,” said the big Missou¬ 
rian, yawning noisily; “why don’t you fel¬ 
lows show us some of your celebrated bear 
hunting you talk so much about? I’ve been 
on this ranch a year and haven’t seen a 
bear lassoed yet, though there’s tracks 
around pretty near every day; blamed if 
I don’t begin to think it’s a California yarn 
about lassoing bears, anyhow.” 
“Well,” said Chato, “if anybody wants 
to lasso a bear, one nailed the old mare’s 
colt last night down by the oak corral, and 
from the number of tracks there must 
have been at least six of them; anyhow, 
there was an old one with some half- 
grown cubs. They made a close call on 
the old mare; but only tore a strip of 
meat off her side.” 
Don Jose Sotelo, a gray-haired man of 
sixty years, who had been major domo of 
the Chino ranch in its palmiest days, 
looked up from the corner where he was 
preparing hair from a horse’s mane to be 
made into a hair rope, and began to mani¬ 
fest an interest in matters going on around 
him. 
“Carrai! you can revenge the old mare if 
you want to. There’s nothing I’d like bet¬ 
ter.” 
Jose Navarro, the head vaquero, replied: 
“We’ll trade her for a bear—perhaps two; 
if we don’t, some of the Doctor’s fine colts 
will get a call one of these nights; besides 
the mare is old, and if we are lucky we 
can have a good time and a big bear fight 
on the Diez y Seis de Septembre.” 
Don Jose’s eyes shot a glance of con¬ 
tempt at the “if” in his son-in-law’s re¬ 
marks. The old man was said to have 
lassoed and tied a dozen bears at Chino 
without assistance. 
“Well,” said one of the boys, “let’s do it 
By HANCOCK M. JOHNSTON 
now, while Don Jose is here and we have 
a full moon to work by.” This was greet¬ 
ed by a yell of approval. 
After being urged by all present, partic¬ 
ularly the Yankees, Don Jose consented to 
lead the bear hunt. After a general dis¬ 
cussion of the subject it was decided, this 
being Sunday, that all could be gotten in 
readiness for the necktie party by Tuesday 
night. 
El Burrero viego (the old donkey herd) 
and El Cir, a young nephew of the owner, 
were delegated to invite Jose lenero (the 
wood cutter) a noted bear sharp, and also 
to have the bait prepared and make all 
arrangements. Don Jose and Navarro 
were detailed to select each man’s best 
broken and bitted horse and put it in con¬ 
dition for the work ahead. These horses 
are so skillfully trained that with only a 
twine string for reins, they can be stopped 
at full speed, whirled around or even 
thrown on theif side. 
Poking a good deal of fun at each other, 
the Californians and the skeptical Ameri- 
An enormous grizzly blocked our path 
cans went to bed in first-class humor, look¬ 
ing forward to any amount of fun and 
enjoyment in the next few days; the Amer¬ 
icans feeling that when the hunt was over, 
if there was no bear tied, they would have 
the laugh on the natives for all time. 
Next morning long before daylight all 
had breakfasted and scattered to carry out 
their respective duties connected with the 
big hunt. By daybreak the horse band was 
corralled, and as we rode away we saw 
Don Jose and Navarro selecting our 
horses. We three went to find the old 
mare, the others to search for the bear’s 
regular trail from the mountain. We roped 
the mare without difficulty and led her 
along the edge of the bajeo, meeting El Cir 
and his party as agreed near the oak cor¬ 
ral. They had found the trail along a 
wood road which filed down a very narrow 
canon into the Arroyo Seco, a general 
place of refuge for thieves and murderers 
in those early days. The trail was imme¬ 
diately above the corral de robles, so-called 
because it was built of oaken logs placed 
on end; it was used for conveniences when 
branding horses and cattle. 
After carefully examining the location, 
we brought the old mare up to the edge of 
the bajeo, which is a low, flat piece of 
land; this one was as smooth as a floor, 
a mile and more wide and about three 
miles long, running southeasterly across 
the San Pascual ranch, the site of the 
present City of Pasadena. Here we killed 
the mare, and dragging the paunch, made 
a circuit of about ten miles by way of the 
Canada de las flores and Precipice Canon, 
thence across the Plain of Flowers above 
Loma Colorado (now Monk’s Hill), down 
through the Rincon to the Arroyo Seco 
bank, from whence we followed the bank 
back to the mare’s body. This was done 
to enable the bear to follow the scent of 
the carcass. 
By the time we had finished it was 
late in the afternoon; we had long been 
thinking of bean stew and coffee, so we 
