Black Bruin Part 9

From the first moment that the fuzzy little bear-cubs follow their huge mother from the den into the open world, their lessons of life begin.

These lessons are acquired partly through imitation and also through design upon the part of the wise old dam. Nearly all small creatures are imitative, so, as the old bear did only those things that were for her good, the cubs soon learned by imitation which of the wild creatures to be upon good terms with and which were to be let alone.

The cubs always stay with their mother for a year, usually denning up with her the first fall, and only being deserted when the new cubs come; so it will be seen that this early training and discipline is of the greatest importance. Knowledge that is not gained in this way is usually gained by hard knocks.

At last, being winded and tired with his long flight, Black Bruin crawled into a deep thicket and went to sleep. When he awoke, it was very early morning, just the time of day that he and Pedro had been in the habit of starting on the road.

No more road for him, but if Black Bruin could not get his breakfast at a farm-house, he must seek it elsewhere, for he was fairly ravenous this balmy summer morning.

He remembered his old grub and ant-hunting habit and was soon busy turning over flat stones and pulling to pieces old rotten logs, where there was usually good picking. But it took a great many of these little crawlers and creepers to satisfy a half-famished bear.

Finally, Black Bruin scented a chipmunk in a small pile of stones, and hastily began pulling the pile apart to get at the prize.

Poor Chippy, hearing his house tumbling about his head and seeing his retreat rapidly cut off, burrowed deeper and deeper in the stone-heap, but finally the monster was almost upon him. When one more stone had been lifted, he would be at the bear's mercy. So, with a frightened squeak, Chippy made a break for freedom, hoping to gain a stone wall that he knew was near by.

Thump, thump, thump, went the heavy paws all about him as he dodged hither and thither, uttering a quick succession of terrified squeaks.

At last one of the great paws fell fairly upon him and his life was crushed out, while Black Bruin had the keen satisfaction of feeling warm blood in his mouth.

This success put new enthusiasm into the hunter and he pulled stones and logs about for an hour or two in a lively manner.

He did not find any more chipmunks and was about to give up hunting for that morning and go in search of water, when a small black and white creature with a bushy tail attracted his attention. It was about the size of a cat but the body scent was not that of a cat.

Whatever it was, it was small and slow, and could be easily caught and killed. Whether or not it was good to eat could be determined later, so the hunter hurried after the small black and white creature that looked so harmless.

A few quick shuffles carried Black Bruin alongside the quarry and, within striking distance, his heavy paw went up, but at that moment the wood p.u.s.s.y arched his back and delivered his own best defense full in the bear's nose and eyes.

With a loud "ugh," and a grunt and squeal of pain, Black Bruin retreated into the nearest thicket.

It seemed as though liquid fire had been dashed in his eyes, and of all the obnoxious smells that ever disgusted his nostrils, this was the worst. His eyes smarted and burned, and the more he rubbed them the worse they became.

He was nearly blinded and so had to go groping and stumbling through the woods to the nearest brook, to which his wild instinct guided him in some miraculous manner. Here he plunged in his face up to his ears and was slightly relieved.

For an hour he repeated the operation over and over, plunging his head under and keeping it there as long as he could hold his breath.

At last the burning, smarting fluid was partly washed from both eyes and nostrils, and Black Bruin went upon his way a wiser and sorrier beast.

It was two or three days before the inflammation entirely left his eyes and his nostrils got back their old sure power of discriminating between the many scents of the forest.

He had learned his first lesson in the woods, which was that a well-behaved skunk when taking his morning walk, is not to be disturbed.

After this, whenever Black Bruin even scented a skunk, he kept at a discreet distance and contented himself with chipmunks and mice.

One morning he surprised a fox eating a rabbit which it had just caught in a briar-patch, and made such a sudden rush upon Reynard that he fled in hot haste, leaving the rabbit for the bear. In this way Black Bruin learned that rabbit was good to eat, even as palatable as squirrel, and after that he hunted rabbits whenever opportunity offered.

Sometimes he would find a gray rabbit's hole and with much labor dig the poor rabbit out. More frequently he would watch at the mouth of a rabbit-burrow, where he had seen a rabbit enter, until bunny reappeared, sticking his head out cautiously to reconnoitre, when one swift stroke of the heavy paw bagged the game.

It was one day after having watched for several hours at the mouth of a rabbit-burrow, that Black Bruin discovered a queer creature, three or four times the size of a rabbit, walking leisurely along through the woods, and went in hot pursuit.

By this time, the experience with the skunk had lost its old terror, and he was again the curious, keen hunter.

Whatever it was, the newcomer did not seem to be much afraid of him, and that was strange. Most of the wild creatures he knew fled at his first approach, and it was with difficulty that he got near them; but this queer animal ambled along as slowly as if he had not the slightest concern.

He did not look or smell like anything that Black Bruin had ever observed before. The odd thing about him was that he was covered with small sharp points sticking out in every direction, which gave him a very bristling appearance.

As the bear came up, he merely squatted upon the ground and drew himself into a rotund shape. What a strange creature! Black Bruin reached his nose closer to get a better whiff of the body scent, and if possible to discover what the animal was.

Quick as a flash the porcupine's tail struck upward and three of the longest, sharpest quills in this queer body were firmly planted in the hunter's nose.

With a growl of pain and rage the bear dealt this strange enemy a crus.h.i.+ng blow. The porcupine's back was broken, but the conqueror carried off four more quills in his paw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BLACK BRUIN DEALT THE PORCUPINE A CRUs.h.i.+NG BLOW]

It was not much like a conqueror that he went, for he limped off on three legs, and sitting down in a thicket, pulled the quills from his paw as well as he could; but two were broken off and finally worked through the foot, coming out a day or two later on the upper side.

The paw was so sore that he could not travel on it, and the afflicted bear either went upon three legs, or kept quiet.

Two of the quills in his lower jaw he got rid of, but one stayed with him for several days, and finally made its appearance in his cheek, coming out near the ear.

The experience was a sorry one, and although several days afterward Black Bruin saw the dead body of the porcupine lying where he had crushed it, he would not go near it. This creature, like the skunk, had a peculiar way of fighting which the bear could not understand, so he would give the next porcupine that he met the entire road if he wanted it.

Black Bruin's relations with man had been most peculiar up to the time of his killing his cruel master and escape into the wild, and they did not tend to make him wise in regard to this creature, which all normal wild animals shun as their greatest danger.

He had been brought up in close companions.h.i.+p with men; had slept and ate with them for the first three or four years of his life. He had wrestled with the men cubs and had found in it nothing but sheer delight. Children and their caresses had been his one pleasure during the strenuous year with Pedro.

Now, suddenly all this relations.h.i.+p toward man was changed. Black Bruin had gone from the pale of civilization into that of savagery. He was now a wild beast, feared by men, although without much cause.

Little by little this new relations.h.i.+p between himself and the man beast was borne in upon Black Bruin. At first, he shunned men and their way, fearing that some man might capture him and again claim him for the road. The wild, free life made him glad. To be here to-day and there to-morrow was to his liking, and he did not intend to live again upon a chain.

But that Black Bruin's long companions.h.i.+p with men was a disadvantage to him in his new life was only too apparent, for it led him into indiscretions, which a normal bear would never have committed.

In his natural state the bear is a very wary animal, always upon the watch, even when he is feeding; always and forever testing the wind with both ear and nostril. But with the half-domesticated dancing-bear it was different. In his own mind he had nothing to fear from men. He had walked through their villages and along their country roads and seen them by thousands and tens of thousands. They had never harmed him, and he had no reason to think they ever would.

One September morning he was digging roots along the edge of the woods.

He had found something quite to his liking and was much absorbed, when suddenly a fresh puff of wind blew the strong body scent of a man full into his nostrils. He looked this way and that but could see no man.

Then a twig snapped in the cover near at hand, and a squirrel hunter stepped into view, not fifty feet away. The hunter was probably much more astonished than was Black Bruin. The great s.h.a.ggy brute was so close to him that he looked like a veritable monster.

With the hunter's instinct, that acts almost before the mind has time to think, the gun went to his shoulder and both barrels were discharged in such quick succession as to call for merely one echo.

The hunter was of course not in search of bears, so the two charges of number four shot did not have a mortal effect upon the quarry, but at such close range they penetrated quite deeply into his flesh and stung him with an excruciating pain. With a loud "Hoof," and an agonized grunt of pain, the bear fled precipitately in one direction, and the hunter, thinking that he had jeopardized his life by his rashness in attacking a bear with squirrel shot, fled in another.

The man did not stop running until he reached the nearest farmhouse, where he excitedly gasped out his adventure to wide-eyed listeners, while Black Bruin fled as far as he could into the deep woods, to nurse his many wounds.

There was little, however, that he could do. The wounds were not dangerous, but they burned and smarted as though a whole swarm of bees had penetrated his thick coat and found the skin beneath.

He spent the better part of the day lying in a cooling stream, waiting for the burning and smarting to cease.

He had now added one more to the list of his sad experiences in the wild. The man-scent was dangerous and henceforth he must flee at the slightest suspicion of the proximity of man. The rank sulphurous smell of gunpowder, too, and the roar, like thunder, that echoed away through the cavernous woods, were things that he would remember.