Bruin: The Grand Bear Hunt

How absurd to suppose that a huge quadruped, whose daily food would be several pounds weight of animal or vegetable matter – a bear who can devour the carcass of a calf at a single meal – could possibly subsist for two months on the paw-milk which Monsieur Buffon has described!

How then can we account for his keeping alive? There need be no difficulty in doing so. It is quite possible that during this long sleep the digestive power or process is suspended, or only carried on at a rate infinitesimally small; that, moreover, life is sustained and the blood kept in action by means of the large amount of fat which the bear has collected previous to his going to bed. It is certain that, just at their annual bed time, bears are fatter than at any other season of the year. The ripening of the forest fruits, and the falling of various seeds of mast-worts, upon which, during the autumn, bears principally subsist, then supply them with abundance, and nothing hinders them to get fat and go to sleep upon it. They would have no object in keeping awake: were they to do so, in those countries where they practise hybernation, they would certainly starve, for, the ground being then frozen hard, they could not dig for roots, and under the deep covering of snow they might search in vain for their masts and berries. As to foraging on birds or other quadrupeds, bears are not fitted for that. They are not agile enough for such a purpose.

They will eat both when they can catch them; but they cannot always catch them; and if they had no other resource in the snowy season the bears would certainly starve. To provide them against this time of scarcity, nature has furnished them with the singular power of somnolence. Indeed, that this is the purpose is easily proved. It is proved by the simple fact that those bears belonging to warm latitudes, as the Bornean, Malayan, and even the black American of the Southern States, do not hybernate at all. There is no need for them to do so. Their unfrozen forests furnish them with food all the year round; and all the year round are they seen roaming about in search of it. Even in the Arctic lands the polar bear keeps afoot all the year; his diet not being vegetable, and therefore not snowed up in winter. The female of this species hides herself away; but that is done for another purpose, and not merely to save herself from starvation.

That the stock of fat, which the bear lays in before going to sleep, has something to do with subsisting him, is very evident from the fact that it is all gone by the time he awakes. Then or shortly afterwards, master Bruin finds himself as thin as a rail; and were he to look in a glass just then, he would scarce recognise himself, so very different is his long emaciated carcass from that huge plump round body, that two months before he could scarce squeeze through the entrance to his cave!

Another great change comes over him during his prolonged sleep. On going to bed, he is not only very fat, but also very lazy; so much so that the merest tyro of a hunter can then circumvent and slay him. Naturally a well-disposed animal – we are speaking only of the brown bear (ursus arctos) though the remark will hold good of several other species – he is at this period more than usually civil and soft-tempered. He has found a sufficiency of vegetable food which is more congenial to his taste than animal substances; and he will not molest living creature just then, if living creature will only let him alone. Aroused from his sleep, however, he shows a different disposition. He appears as if he had got up “wrong side foremost.” His head aches, his belly hungers, and he is disposed to believe that some one has stolen upon him while asleep, and robbed him of his suet. Under this impression he issues from his dark chamber in very ill humour indeed. This disposition clings to him for a length of time; and if at this period, during his morning rambles, he should encounter any one who does not get speedily out of his way, the party thus meeting him will find him a very awkward customer. It is then that he makes havoc among the flocks and herds of the Scandinavian shepherd – for he actually does commit such ravages – and even the hunter who meets him at this season will do well to “ware bear.”

And so does the hunter; and so did Alexis, and Ivan, and Pouchskin. All three of them were well enough acquainted with the habits of the bear – their own Russian bear – to know that they should act with caution in approaching him.

And in this wise they acted; for instead of rushing up to the mouth of the hole, and making a great riot, they stole forward in perfect silence, each holding his gun cocked, and ready to give Bruin a salute, the moment he should show his snout beyond the portals of his den.

Had they not tracked him to his cave, they would have acted quite differently. Had they found a bear’s den – within which they knew that the animal was indulging in his winter sleep – they would not have cared so much how they approached it. Then he would have required a good deal of stirring up to induce him to show himself, so that they could get a shot at him; but the track told them that this one had been up and abroad – perhaps for several days – and as the new snow, in all likelihood, had hindered him from picking up much to eat, he would be as “savage as a meat axe.”

Expecting him to spring out almost on the instant, the three took stand at some distance from the mouth of the cave; and, with arms in readiness, awaited his coming forth.

Chapter Ten.

Bruin at Home?

The entrance to the cave, if cave it was, was an aperture of no great dimensions – about large enough to admit the body of a full-grown bear, and no bigger. It appeared to be a hole or burrow, rather than a cave, and ran under a great pine-tree, among whose roots, no doubt, was the den of the bear. The tree itself grew up out of the sloping bank; and its great rhizomes stretched over a large space, many of them appearing above the surface soil. In front of the aperture was a little ledge, where the snow was hacked by the bear’s paws, but below this ledge the bank trended steeply down – its slope terminating in the bed of deeper snow already described.

As stated, the three hunters had taken their stand, but not all together. Directly in front of the cave was Pouchskin, and below it, of course, on account of the sloping bank. He was some six paces from the aperture. On the right side Ivan had been placed, while Alexis had passed on, and now stood upon the left. The three formed a sort of isosceles triangle, of which Pouchskin was the apex, and the line of the bank the base. A perpendicular dropped from the muzzle of Pouchskin’s gun would have entered the aperture of the cave. Of course Pouchskin’s was the post of danger; but that was to be expected.

They stood a good while in silence. No signs of Bruin – neither by sight nor hearing.

It was then resolved that some stir should be made – a noise of any kind, that might bring the beast forth. They coughed and talked loudly, but all to no purpose. They shouted at length with like fruitless result – Bruin would not stir!

That he was inside none of them doubted. How could they? The tracks going to the cave, and none coming from it, set that question at rest. Certainly he was in his den? but whether asleep or not, it was evident he took no heed of their shouting.

Some other means must be adopted to get him out. He must be stirred up with a pole! This was the plan that suggested itself, and the one determined upon.

Pouchskin started off to procure a pole. The others kept guard – still holding their guns in readiness, lest the bear might make a rush in Pouchskin’s absence. But Bruin had no such intention; nor was his presence betrayed by sight or sound, until Pouchskin came back. He had cut a pole with his axe, and had taken the precaution to select a long one. A young sapling it was, that when cleared of its branches appeared as long as a hop-pole. Pouchskin knew the advantage of its length. He had no particular wish to come to close quarters with the bear.

Creeping back pretty nearly into his old place, he inserted the end of the sapling into the aperture – then rattled it against the sides, and waited a bit. No response from Bruin! Once more the pole was pushed in, this time a little further, and again accompanied with similar noisy demonstrations. Bruin neither moves nor makes sound!

“He must be asleep! Try a little further, Pouchskin!”

This suggestion came from the impatient Ivan.

Encouraged by the words of his young master, Pouchskin approached, nearer to the aperture, and buried half of the pole inside. He then turned the stick and poked it all about, but could touch nothing that felt like a bear. Growing more confident, he crept yet nearer, and pushed the pole up till he could touch the bottom of the cave – once more feeling with its point in all directions, against the further end, along the sides, upwards and downwards, and everywhere. Still he touched nothing soft – nothing that felt as the shaggy hide of a bear should do – nothing, in fact, but hard rocks, against which the stick could be heard rattling wherever he pushed it!

This was very mysterious. Pouchskin was an old bear-hunter. He had poked his pole into many a burrow of Bruin, and he knew well enough when he had touched bottom. He could tell moreover that the cave he was now exploring was all in one piece – a single-roomed house. Had there been any second or inner chamber he would have found the aperture that led to it; but there appeared to be none.

To make sure of this, he now approached quite near to the entrance, and continued to guage the cavity with his stick. Alexis and Ivan also drew near – one on each side of him – and the exploration continued.

In a short while, however, Pouchskin became nearly satisfied that there was no bear in the den! He had groped with his stick all round and round it, and had come in contact with nothing softer than a rock or a root of the tree. As a last resource he lay down on the ground to listen – placing his ear close to the mouth of the cave; and, cautioning his young masters to keep silent, in this position he remained for some seconds of time.

Perhaps it was fortunate for them, if not for him, that they attended to his caution. Their silence enabled them to hear what Pouchskin could not – placed as he now was – and that was a sound that caused the young bear-hunters to start back and look upwards, instead of into the cave.

As they did so, a sight met their eyes that drew from both a simultaneous cry, while both at the same instant retreated several paces from the spot, elevating their guns as they went backward.

Slowly moving down the trunk of the great pine-tree appeared an animal of enormous size. Had they not been expecting something of the kind neither could have told that this moving object was an animal: since at first sight neither a head nor limbs could be distinguished – only an immense shapeless mass of brown shaggy hair.

The instant after a huge hairy limb was protruded below, and then another both terminating in broad ungulated paws, that in succession griped the rough bark of the tree, causing it to rattle and scale off.

Singular as its shape was there was no mistaking the animal that was making this retrograde movement. It was Bruin himself, descending the tree buttocks downward!

Chapter Eleven.

Hand to Hand

Alexis and Ivan, as they started back, simultaneously screamed out a shout of warning to Pouchskin. Both, almost at the same instant, raised their guns, and fired into the buttocks of the bear.

Pouchskin had heard their cries, but not the preliminary “sniff” which the animal had uttered: he had been too eager in listening inside of the cave, to hear aught that was passing without. He heard their warning cry however, and the reports of their guns; but not in time to get out of the way. Just as the shots were fired, he had half risen from his recumbent attitude; but the bear at that moment dropped down from the tree, and coming “co-thump” on the back of the old guardsman, once more flattened him out upon his face!

Perhaps it would have been as well for Pouchskin, if he had quietly remained in that attitude: for the bear had already turned from him, and showed signs of an intention to retreat; but Pouchskin, deeming that he was in the worst position he could well be in, scrambled suddenly to his feet, and made a “grab” at his gun.

This show of fight on the part of his antagonist – and the belief, perhaps, that it was Pouchskin that had so rudely tickled his posteriors – roused the fury of the bear; and instead of exposing his hind quarters to a second assault, he charged mouth open upon the ex-guardsman. By this time, the latter had recovered his gun, and promptly brought the piece to his shoulder; but, alas! the gun snapped! The lock had been wetted in the snow-trap. It was a flint lock, and the priming had got damped.

The failure only increased the fury of the animal; and a charge of swan-shot, which Ivan at the same instant fired from his second barrel, still further irritated him.

Pouchskin drew his long-bladed knife. It was the only weapon he could lay his hand upon, for the axe, which might have served him better, had been left above on the bank, where he had lopped the sapling.

He drew his knife, therefore, and prepared to defend himself in a hand to paw struggle.

He might still have retreated, though not with a certainty of safety – for in the hurry of the moment the bear had got on the bank above him: and had he turned his back, the fierce quadruped might have overtaken, and knocked him down at his will. Pouchskin thought it better to face the bear, and receive his onslaught at arm’s length.

There was but one way in which he could have retreated, and that was backward down the slope. He might make ground in that direction; and it occurred to him to do so, in order to get footing on a more level surface.

The bear having paused a moment to bite the place where the rifle bullet had stung him, gave Pouchskin time to gain some ground backwards; but only a few paces – since the whole affair did not occupy a tenth of the time taken in describing it.

Just as Pouchskin had reached the bottom of the slope, his angry assailant, with a terrific growl, rushed forth from the smoke, and galloped directly towards him. When about three feet distant from the hunter, Bruin reared upon his hind legs, in the attitude of a prize-fighter!

Pouchskin was seen to lunge forward with his right arm – the one which carried his knife; and, the moment after, both man and beast appeared closed together, “in grips.”

In this fashion they went waltzing over the snow, the spray of which rose in a cloud around them; and for a while they were seen only as one dark upright form, in confused and violent motion!

Ivan was uttering cries of fear – fear for the safety of his dearly-loved Pouchskin; while Alexis, more cool, was rapidly reloading his rifle, – knowing that the surest means of saving the life of their faithful attendant, was to encompass the death of the bear.

It was a moment of real peril for Pouchskin. The bear was one of the largest and fiercest he had ever encountered; and, perhaps, had he examined the brute more minutely before the conflict commenced, he would have thought twice before facing him. But the smoke from the guns was still over and around the spot, hanging upon the damp air. Up to the time when Pouchskin resolved to make stand, he had not yet had a clear view of his shaggy antagonist. When at length he perceived the formidable proportions of the animal, it was too late to retreat; and the struggle began as described.

In brief time Alexis – who at loading was quick as a tirailleur – had recharged his piece, and was now hastening up to the rescue.

Without going quite close he dared not fire: for in the way that man and bear were dancing about, there would be as much danger of killing the one as the other.

All at once, however, they appeared to separate. Pouchskin had torn himself out of the bear’s clutches, and, evidently disinclined to a renewal of the embrace, was retreating backward, over the snow, still hotly pursued by the animal.