Our National Parks — Ch 6, Part 2

Sheep-owners and their shepherds have killed a great many bears, mostly by poison and traps of various sorts.

Bears are fond of mutton, and levy heavy toll on every flock driven into the mountains.

They usually come to the corral at night, climb in, kill a sheep with a stroke of the paw, carry it off a little distance, eat about half of it, and return the next night for the other half; and so on all summer, or until they are themselves killed.

It is not, however, by direct killing, but by suffocation through crowding against the corral wall in fright, that the greatest losses are incurred.

From ten to fifteen sheep are found dead, smothered in the corral, after every attack; or the walls are broken, and the flock is scattered far and wide.

A flock may escape the attention of these marauders for a week or two in the spring; but after their first taste of the fine mountain-fed meat the visits are persistently kept up, in spite of all precautions.

Once I spent a night with two Portuguese shepherds, who were greatly troubled with bears, from two to four or five visiting them almost every night.

Their camp was near the middle of the Park, and the wicked bears, they said, were getting worse and worse.

Not waiting now until dark, they came out of the brush in broad daylight, and boldly carried off as many sheep as they liked.

One evening, before sundown, a bear, followed by two cubs, came for an early supper, as the flock was being slowly driven toward the camp.

Joe, the elder of the shepherds, warned by many exciting experiences, promptly climbed a tall tamarack pine, and left the freebooters to help themselves; while Antone, calling him a coward, and declaring that he was not going to let bears eat up his sheep before his face, set the dogs on them, and rushed toward them with a great noise and a stick.

The frightened cubs ran up a tree, and the mother ran to meet the shepherd and dogs.

Antone stood astonished for a moment, eying the oncoming bear; then fled faster than Joe had, closely pursued.

He scrambled to the roof of their little cabin, the only refuge quickly available; and fortunately, the bear, anxious about her young, did not climb after him,—only held him in mortal terror a few minutes, glaring and threatening, then hastened back to her cubs, called them down, went to the frightened, huddled flock, killed a sheep, and feasted in peace.

Antone piteously entreated cautious Joe to show him a good safe tree, up which he climbed like a sailor climbing a mast, and held on as long as he could with legs crossed, the slim pine recommended by Joe being nearly branchless.

“So you, too, are a bear coward as well as Joe,” I said, after hearing the story.

“Oh, I tell you,” he replied, with grand solemnity, “bear face close by look awful;

she just as soon eat me as not.

She do so as eef all my sheeps b’long every one to her own self.

I run to bear no more.

I take tree every time.

” After this the shepherds corraled the flock about an hour before sundown, chopped large quantities of dry wood and made a circle of fires around the corral every night, and one with a gun kept watch on a stage built in a pine by the side of the cabin, while the other slept.

But after the first night or two this fire fence did no good, for the robbers seemed to regard the light as an advantage, after becoming used to it.

On the night I spent at their camp the show made by the wall of fire when it was blazing in its prime was magnificent,—the illumined trees around about relieved against solid darkness, and the two thousand sheep lying down in one gray mass, sprinkled with gloriously brilliant gems, the effect of the firelight in their eyes.

It was nearly midnight when a pair of the freebooters arrived.

They walked boldly through a gap in the fire circle, killed two sheep, carried them out, and vanished in the dark woods, leaving ten dead in a pile, trampled down and smothered against the corral fence; while the scared watcher in the tree did not fire a single shot, saying he was afraid he would hit some of the sheep, as the bears got among them before he could get a good sight.

In the morning I asked the shepherds why they did not move the flock to a new pasture.

“Oh, no use!

” cried Antone.

“Look my dead sheeps.

We move three four time before, all the same bear come by the track.

No use.

To-morrow we go home below.

Look my dead sheeps.

Soon all dead.

” Thus were they driven out of the mountains more than a month before the usual time.

After Uncle Sam’s soldiers, bears are the most effective forest police, but some of the shepherds are very successful in killing them.

Altogether, by hunters, mountaineers, Indians, and sheepmen, probably five or six hundred have been killed within the bounds of the Park, during the last thirty years.

But they are not in danger of extinction.

Now that the Park is guarded by soldiers, not only has the vegetation in great part come back to the desolate ground, but all the wild animals are increasing in numbers.

No guns are allowed in the Park except under certain restrictions, and after a permit has been obtained from the officer in charge.

This has stopped the barbarous slaughter of bears, and especially of deer, by shepherds, hunters, and hunting tourists, who, it would seem, can find no pleasure without blood.

The Sierra deer—the blacktail—spend the winters in the brushy and exceedingly rough region just below the main timber-belt, and are less accessible to hunters there than when they are passing through the comparatively open forests to and from their summer pastures near the summits of the range.

They go up the mountains early in the spring as the snow melts, not waiting for it all to disappear; reaching the high Sierra about the first of June, and the coolest recesses at the base of the peaks a month or so later.

I have tracked them for miles over compacted snow from three to ten feet deep.

Deer are capital mountaineers, making their way into the heart of the roughest mountains; seeking not only pasturage, but a cool climate, and safe hidden places in which to bring forth their young.

They are not supreme as rock-climbing animals; they take second rank, yielding the first to the mountain sheep, which dwell above them on the highest crags and peaks.

Still, the two meet frequently; for the deer climbs all the peaks save the lofty summits above the glaciers, crossing piles of angular boulders, roaring swollen streams, and sheer-walled cañons by fords and passes that would try the nerves of the hardiest mountaineers,—climbing with graceful ease and reserve of strength that cannot fail to arouse admiration.

Everywhere some species of deer seems to be at home,—on rough or smooth ground, lowlands or highlands, in swamps and barrens and the densest woods, in varying climates, hot or cold, over all the continent; maintaining glorious health, never making an awkward step.

Standing, lying down, walking, feeding, running even for life, it is always invincibly graceful, and adds beauty and animation to every landscape,—a charming animal, and a great credit to nature.

I never see one of the common blacktail deer, the only species in the Park, without fresh admiration; and since I never carry a gun I see them well: lying beneath a juniper or dwarf pine, among the brown needles on the brink of some cliff or the end of a ridge commanding a wide outlook; feeding in sunny openings among chaparral, daintily selecting aromatic leaves and twigs; leading their fawns out of my way, or making them lie down and hide; bounding past through the forest, or curiously advancing and retreating again and again.

One morning when I was eating breakfast in a little garden spot on the Kaweah, hedged around with chaparral, I noticed a deer’s head thrust through the bushes, the big beautiful eyes gazing at me.

I kept still, and the deer ventured forward a step, then snorted and withdrew.

In a few minutes she returned, and came into the open garden, stepping with infinite grace, followed by two others.

After showing themselves for a moment, they bounded over the hedge with sharp, timid snorts and vanished.

But curiosity brought them back with still another, and all four came into my garden, and, satisfied that I meant them no ill, began to feed, actually eating breakfast with me, like tame, gentle sheep around a shepherd,—rare company, and the most graceful in movements and attitudes.

I eagerly watched them while they fed on ceanothus and wild cherry, daintily culling single leaves here and there from the side of the hedge, turning now and then to ship a few leaves of mint from the midst of the garden flowers.

Grass they did not eat at all.

No wonder the contents of the deer’s stomach are eaten by the Indians.

[Illustration: Deer Feeding in the Forest.

] While exploring the upper cañon of the north fork of the San Joaquin, one evening, the sky threatening rain, I searched for a dry bed, and made choice of a big juniper that had been pushed down by a snow avalanche, but was resting stubbornly on its knees high enough to let me lie under its broad trunk.

Just below my shelter there was another juniper on the very brink of a precipice, and, examining it, I found a deer-bed beneath it, completely protected and concealed by drooping branches,—a fine refuge and lookout as well as resting-place.

About an hour before dark I heard the clear, sharp snorting of a deer, and looking down on the brushy, rocky cañon bottom, discovered an anxious doe that no doubt had her fawns concealed near by.

She bounded over the chaparral and up the farther slope of the wall, often stopping to look back and listen,—a fine picture of vivid, eager alertness.

I sat perfectly still, and as my shirt was colored like the juniper bark I was not easily seen.

After a little she came cautiously toward me, sniffing the air and grazing, and her movements, as she descended the cañon side over boulder piles and brush and fallen timber, were admirably strong and beautiful; she never strained or made apparent efforts, although jumping high here and there.

As she drew nigh she sniffed anxiously, trying the air in different directions until she caught my scent; then bounded off, and vanished behind a small grove of firs.

Soon she came back with the same caution and insatiable curiosity,—coming and going five or six times.

While I sat admiring her, a Douglas squirrel, evidently excited by her noisy alarms, climbed a boulder beneath me, and witnessed her performances as attentively as I did, while a risky chipmunk, too restless or hungry for such shows, busied himself about his supper in a thicket of shadbushes, the fruit of which was then ripe, glancing about on the slender twigs lightly as a sparrow.

Toward the end of the Indian summer, when the young are strong, the deer begin to gather in little bands of from six to fifteen or twenty, and on the approach of the first snowstorm they set out on their march down the mountains to their winter quarters; lingering usually on warm hillsides and spurs eight or ten miles below the summits, as if loath to leave.

About the end of November, a heavy, far-reaching storm drives them down in haste along the dividing ridges between the rivers, led by old experienced bucks whose knowledge of the topography is wonderful.

It is when the deer are coming down that the Indians set out on their grand fall hunt.

Too lazy to go into the recesses of the mountains away from trails, they wait for the deer to come out, and then waylay them.

This plan also has the advantage of finding them in bands.

Great preparations are made.

Old guns are mended, bullets moulded, and the hunters wash themselves and fast to some extent, to insure good luck, as they say.

Men and women, old and young, set forth together.

Central camps are made on the well-known highways of the deer, which are soon red with blood.

Each hunter comes in laden, old crones as well as maidens smiling on the luckiest.

All grow fat and merry.

Boys, each armed with an antlered head, play at buck-fighting, and plague the industrious women, who are busily preparing the meat for transportation, by stealing up behind them and throwing fresh hides over them.

But the Indians are passing away here as everywhere, and their red camps on the mountains are fewer every year.

There are panthers, foxes, badgers, porcupines, and coyotes in the Park, but not in large numbers.

I have seen coyotes well back in the range at the head of the Tuolumne Meadows as early as June 1st, before the snow was gone, feeding on marmots; but they are far more numerous on the inhabited lowlands around ranches, where they enjoy life on chickens, turkeys, quail eggs, ground squirrels, hares, etc. , and all kinds of fruit.

Few wild sheep, I fear, are left hereabouts; for, though safe on the high peaks, they are driven down the eastern slope of the mountains when the deer are driven down the western, to ridges and outlying spurs where the snow does not fall to a great depth, and there they are within reach of the cattlemen’s rifles.

The two squirrels of the Park, the Douglas and the California gray, keep all the woods lively.

The former is far more abundant and more widely distributed, being found all the way up from the foothills to the dwarf pines on the Summit peaks.

He is the most influential of the Sierra animals, though small, and the brightest of all the squirrels I know,—a squirrel of squirrels, quick mountain vigor and valor condensed, purely wild, and as free from disease as a sunbeam.

One cannot think of such an animal ever being weary or sick.

He claims all the woods, and is inclined to drive away even men as intruders.

How he scolds, and what faces he makes!

If not so comically small he would be a dreadful fellow.

The gray, Sciurus fossor, is the handsomest, I think, of all the large American squirrels.

He is something like the Eastern gray, but is brighter and clearer in color, and more lithe and slender.

He dwells in the oak and pine woods up to a height of about five thousand feet above the sea, is rather common in Yosemite Valley, Hetch-Hetchy, Kings River Cañon, and indeed in all the main cañons and Yosemites, but does not like the high fir-covered ridges.

Compared with the Douglas, the gray is more than twice as large; nevertheless, he manages to make his way through the trees with less stir than his small, peppery neighbor, and is much less influential in every way.

In the spring, before the pine-nuts and hazel-nuts are ripe, he examines last year’s cones for the few seeds that may be left in them between the half-open scales, and gleans fallen nuts and seeds on the ground among the leaves, after making sure that no enemy is nigh.

His fine tail floats, now behind, now above him, level or gracefully curled, light and radiant as dry thistledown.

His body seems hardly more substantial than his tail.

The Douglas is a firm, emphatic bolt of life, fiery, pungent, full of brag and show and fight, and his movements have none of the elegant deliberation of the gray.

They are so quick and keen they almost sting the onlooker, and the acrobatic harlequin gyrating show he makes of himself turns one giddy to see.

The gray is shy and oftentimes stealthy, as if half expecting to find an enemy in every tree and bush and behind every log; he seems to wish to be let alone, and manifests no desire to be seen, or admired, or feared.

He is hunted by the Indians, and this of itself is cause enough for caution.

The Douglas is less attractive for game, and probably increasing in numbers in spite of every enemy.

He goes his ways bold as a lion, up and down and across, round and round, the happiest, merriest of all the hairy tribe, and at the same time tremendously earnest and solemn, sunshine incarnate, making every tree tingle with his electric toes.

If you prick him, you cannot think he will bleed.

He seems above the chance and change that beset common mortals, though in busily gathering burs and nuts he shows that he has to work for a living, like the rest of us.

I never found a dead Douglas.

He gets into the world and out of it without being noticed; only in prime is he seen, like some little plants that are visible only when in bloom.

The little striped Tamias quadrivittatus is one of the most amiable and delightful of all the mountain tree-climbers.

A brighter, cheerier chipmunk does not exist.

He is smarter, more arboreal and squirrel-like, than the familiar Eastern species, and is distributed as widely on the Sierra as the Douglas.

Every forest, however dense or open, every hilltop and cañon, however brushy or bare, is cheered and enlivened by this happy little animal.

You are likely to notice him first on the lower edge of the coniferous belt, where the Sabine and yellow pines meet; and thence upward, go where you may, you will find him every day, even in winter, unless the weather is stormy.

He is an exceedingly interesting little fellow, full of odd, quaint ways, confiding, thinking no evil; and without being a squirrel—a true shadow-tail—he lives the life of a squirrel, and has almost all squirrelish accomplishments without aggressive quarrelsomeness.

I never weary of watching him as he frisks about the bushes, gathering seeds and berries; poising on slender twigs of wild cherry, shad, chinquapin, buckthorn, bramble; skimming along prostrate trunks or over the grassy, needle-strewn forest floor; darting from boulder to boulder on glacial pavements and the tops of the great domes.

When the seeds of the conifers are ripe, he climbs the trees and cuts off the cones for a winter store, working diligently, though not with the tremendous lighting energy of the Douglas, who frequently drives him out of the best trees.

Then he lies in wait, and picks up a share of the burs cut off by his domineering cousin, and stores them beneath logs and in hollows.

Few of the Sierra animals are so well liked as this little airy, fluffy half squirrel, half spermophile.

So gentle, confiding, and busily cheery and happy, he takes one’s heart and keeps his place among the best-loved of the mountain darlings.

A diligent collector of seeds, nuts, and berries, of course he is well fed, though never in the least dumpy with fat.

On the contrary, he looks like a mere fluff of fur, weighing but little more than a field mouse, and of his frisky, birdlike liveliness without haste there is no end.

Douglas can bark with his mouth closed, but little quad always opens his when he talks or sings.

He has a considerable variety of notes which correspond with his movements, some of them sweet and liquid, like water dripping into a pool with tinkling sound.

His eyes are black and animated, shining like dew.

He seems dearly to like teasing a dog, venturing within a few feet of it, then frisking away with a lively chipping and low squirrelish churring; beating time to his music, such as it is, with his tail, which at each chip and churr describes a half circle.

Not even Douglas is surer footed or takes greater risks.

I have seen him running about on sheer Yosemite cliffs, holding on with as little effort as a fly and as little thought of danger, in places where, if he had made the least slip, he would have fallen thousands of feet.

How fine it would be could mountaineers move about on precipices with the same sure grip!

Before the pine-nuts are ripe, grass seeds and those of the many species of ceanothus, with strawberries, raspberries, and the soft red thimbleberries of Rubus nutkanus, form the bulk of his food, and a neater eater is not to be found in the mountains.

Bees powdered with pollen, poking their blunt noses into the bells of flowers, are comparatively clumsy and boorish.

Frisking along some fallen pine or fir, when the grass seeds are ripe, he looks about him, considering which of the tufts he sees is likely to have the best, runs out to it, selects what he thinks is sure to be a good head, cuts it off, carries it to the top of the log, sits upright and nibbles out the grain without getting awns in his mouth, turning the head round, holding it and fingering it as if playing on a flute; then skips for another and another, bringing them to the same dining-log.