Cow Range and Hunting Trail by Malcolm S. Mackay

Author:Malcolm S. Mackay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Read Books
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

VI

MY FIRST BEAR HUNT WITH MULLENDORE

MY wild goose chase after grizzlies with Old ED Van Dyke made my desire for bear hunting all the keener. I noticed that the big majority of the boys around the country were like me. They had killed a good many deer and a few elk, but when it came to bear there was nothing doing. A few were trapped each year by Swan Youngstrom, a rancher, who lived close to the mountains, so we all knew that there were bear in these regions.

It so happened that the winter before a man by the name of Horace Mullendore drifted into our country. He had come up from the Sun River District, where he had been trapping and hunting with an old-timer by the name of Buckmaster. Mullendore used to stop over night now and then at our cow-camp and naturally we got to talking about bear hunting. He told me he had never really hunted bear much, but had had a close call with a couple of grizzlies which he had stumbled onto unawares. He was a born hunter, this fellow Mullendore, one of the best I ever hunted with, a man of untiring energy, a dead shot, and possessed of an almost supernatural instinct for finding game. Horace and I soon became fast friends, and we both decided that just as soon as green grass came we would camp on the trail of the “woolly boys” and stay with them until we got at least one.

As soon as the first sign of Spring showed up we kept our eyes peeled for bear signs, and finally about the 13th of May we saw where a bear had come out of a cañon near the south fork of Red Lodge Creek. Back to the ranch we rode, had supper, got a little chuck together, ran in a few pack ponies and made ready to pull for the bear country in the morning. We pulled out from the ranch about seven o’clock, and at noon we had our bear camp established.

We had no more than gotten settled in camp when winter came on again for fair. Two feet of snow was nothing unusual to see in the morning. Our ponies got disgusted and pulled for the ranch, leaving us plumb afoot. We let them go for a day or two until the worst was over, then Horace and I each grabbed a bridle and went horse hunting. We found them close to the ranch. Each of us hopped a pony and drove the bunch back to camp on a high lope. After this we took no chances, always keeping a picket pony up.

Along about the 18th of May we saw more bear signs travelling along the foothills, but as yet nary a bear. On the 21st I had a strong hunch to pull towards the Butcher Creek country, so we untied “Old Shep” (a half-breed Collie that old Frank Kelly had lent us) and hit the trail. We had almost reached Butcher Creek and had not seen a toenail scratch.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.