Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
The stock of the rifle broke in McKiernan's hands and the barrel fell close by the bear, which had fallen upon the very edge of a steep slope at the side of the spur or knob. McKiernan stooped to recover the rifle barrel with which to beat the bear to death, and in doing so his head came close to the bear's.
Being a past master of woodcraft, Doctor Chismore read the signs like a printed page, and applying the method of Zadig he reconstructed the whole story of the dolorous passing of the greatest bear in the world. Charles McKiernan was a well-known lumber merchant of San Jose, Cal.
McKiernan fell face downward, his arms under his face, and the bear slid over the edge and rolled down the almost vertical wall into the canyon, having dislodged himself by the effort to seize the man. McKiernan did not lose consciousness, but he was unable to move. He knew his left eye was gone, and he feared that he was bleeding to death.
This was also in the days of the muzzle-loading rifle. McKiernan and a partner were holding down timber claims in the mountains and living in a cabin overlooking a wide canyon. One morning they saw a Grizzly turning over rocks at the foot of a spur jutting from the main ridge into the canyon, and taking their rifles they followed the ridge around to the spur to get a shot at him from that point.
It was a Yeager rifle carrying an ounce ball, and it checked the charge for a moment by bringing the bear to his knees. As the bear gathered himself for another rush, McKiernan swung the heavy rifle and struck the bear over the head with the barrel. He was a powerful man, accustomed to swinging an axe, and the blow knocked the bear down and stunned him.
He had read something about trephining and inserting silver plates, and he hammered out a silver dollar and set it like a piece of mosaic into McKiernan's forehead, where it resisted the efforts of nature to repair damages and caused McKiernan a thousand times more agony than he had suffered from the Grizzly's tusks.
But McKiernan's partner lost his nerve, turned tail and ran away, and that encouraged the bear to take the offensive, just as it would invite attack from a hesitating dog. The Grizzly sprang up over the edge of the steep and charged McKiernan, who threw up his rifle and fired at the bear's chest.
McKiernan did not want to begin the fight at such close quarters, and he was confident that the bear would back down and attempt to return to the brush at the foot of the spur if given time. Then he would have the advantage of the up-hill position and plenty of time to reload if the bear should attempt to return after the first shot.
The partner finally saw the movement and plucked up enough courage to come back, and with his help McKiernan somehow got to the cabin. A young doctor from San Jose attempted to patch up the broken skull after removing a large piece and leaving the envelope of the brain exposed.
Then old Doctor Spencer went up to "Mountain Charlie's" cabin, took out the silver dollar, removed a wad of eyebrow that had been pushed into the hole made by the bear's lower tooth in the eye socket, and McKiernan recovered.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking