We found the
stomach full of acorn mush, just as clean and sweet as a mess of
cornmeal.
Murphy left us to pack the bear up on the pine flat above, while he
went around three or four miles to get the horses. After a strenuous
half hour, we got our bear up the steep bank and rested on the flat.
Here we ate our pocket lunch.
As we sat there quietly eating, we heard a rustle in the woods below
us, and looking up, saw another good-sized black bear about forty yards
off. I had one arrow left in my quiver, Young only two broken shafts,
the rest we had lost in our final scramble. So we passed no insulting
remarks to the bear below, who suddenly finding our presence, vanished
in the forest. We had had enough bear for one day, anyhow.
Tom came with the horses, and loaded our trophy on one. Ordinarily a
horse is greatly frightened at bears, and difficult to manage, but
these were long ago accustomed to the business. It interested us to see
the method of tying the carcass securely on a common saddle. By placing
a clove hitch on the wrists and ankles and cinching these beneath the
horse's belly with a sling rope through the bear's crotch and around
its neck, the body was held suspended across the saddle and rode easily
without shifting until we reached home.
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