BILL CROSS AND HIS PET BEAR. When my father settled down at the foot of the Oregon Sierras with his little family, long, long years ago, it was about forty miles from our place to the nearest civilized settlement. People were very scarce in those days, and bears, as said before, were very plenty. We also had wolves, wild-cats, wild cattle, wild hogs, and a good many long-tailed and big-headed yellow Californian lions. The wild cattle, brought there from Spanish Mexico, next to the bear, were most to be feared. They had long, sharp horns and keen, sharp hoofs. Nature had gradually helped them out in these weapons of defense. They had grown to be slim and trim in body, and were as supple and swift as deer. They were the deadly enemies When fat and saucy, in warm summer weather, these cattle would hover along the foothills in bands, hiding in the hollows, and would begin to bellow whenever they saw a bear or a wolf, or even a man or boy, if on foot, crossing the wide valley of grass and blue camas blossoms. Then there would be music! They would start up, with heads and tails in the air, and, broadening out, left and right, they would draw a long bent line, completely shutting off their victim from all approach to the foothills. If the unfortunate victim were a man or boy on foot, he generally made escape up one of the small ash trees that dotted the valley in groves here and there, and the cattle would then soon give up the chase. But if it were a wolf or any other wild beast that could not get up a tree, the case was different. Far away, on the other side of the valley, where dense woods lined the banks of the winding Bill Cross was a “tender foot” at the time He had taken up a piece of land down in the pretty Camas Valley where the grass grew long and strong and waved in the wind, mobile and beautiful as the mobile sea. The good-natured and self-complacent old sailor liked to watch the waving grass. It reminded him of the sea, I reckon. He would sometimes sit on our little porch as the sun went down and tell us boys strange, wild sea stories. He had traveled far and seen much, as much as any man “Bill,” said my father one day, “those black Spanish cattle will get after that red sash and sailor jacket of yours some day when you go down in the valley to your claim, and they won’t leave a grease spot. Better go horseback, or at least take a gun, when you go down next time.” “Pshaw! Squire. I wish I had as many dollars as I ain’t afeard of all the black Spanish cattle in Oregon. Why, if they’re so blasted dangerous, how did your missionaries ever manage to drive them up here from Mexico, anyhow?” Still, for all that, the very next time that he saw the old sailor setting out at his snail “Pooh, pooh! I wouldn’t be bothered with a horse or a gun. Say, I’m goin’ to bring your boys a pet bear some day.” And so, cocking his little hat down over his right eye and thrusting his big hands into his deep pockets almost to the elbows, he slowly and lazily whistled himself down the gradual slope of the foothills, waist deep in the waving grass and delicious wild flowers, and soon was lost to sight in the great waving sea. Two things may be here written down. He wouldn’t ride a horse because he couldn’t, and for the same reason he wouldn’t use a gun. Again let it be written down, also, that the reason he was going away that warm autumn afternoon was that there was some work to do. These facts were clear to my kind and indulgent father; but of course we boys never thought This stout log corral had become an absolute necessity. It was high and strong, and made of poles or small logs stood on end in a trench, after the fashion of a primitive fort or stout stockade. There was but one opening, and that was a very narrow one in front of the cabin door. Here it was proposed to put up a gate. We also had talked about port-holes in the corners of the corral, but neither gate nor port-holes were yet made. In fact, as said before, the serene and indolent man of the sea always slowly walked away down through the grass toward his untracked claim whenever there was anything said about port-holes, posts or gates. Father and we three little boys had only got the last post set and solidly “tamped” Suddenly we heard a yell; then a yelling, then a bellowing. The yelling was heard in the high grass in the Camas Valley below, and the bellowing of cattle came from the woody river banks far beyond. Then up on the brown hills of the Oregon Sierras above us came the wild answer of the wild black cattle of the hills, and a moment later, right and left, the long black lines began to widen out; then down they came, like a whirlwind, toward the black and surging line in the grass below. We were now almost in the center of what would, in a little time, be a complete circle and cyclone of furious Spanish cattle. And now, here is something curious to relate. Our own cows, poor, weary, immigrant cows of only a year before, tossed their tails in the air, pawed the ground, bellowed and fairly went wild in the splendid excitement and tumult. One touch of nature made the whole cow world kin! Father clambered up on a “buck-horse” They all four straggled in at the narrow little gate at about the same time, the great big, lazy sailor in a hurry, for the first time in his life. But think of the coolness of the man, as he turned to us children with his first gasp of breath, and said, “Bo—bo—boys, I’ve bro—bro—brought you a little bear!” The wolves were the little chicken thieves known as coyotes, quite harmless, as a rule, so far as man is concerned, but The cattle stopped a few rods from the stockade. We let the coyotes go, but we kept the little bear and named him Bill Cross. Yet he was never a bit cross, despite his name. |