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A Daring Exploit

A Daring Exploit image
Parent Issue
Day
1
Month
May
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

A DARING EXPLOIT
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How Eight Japs Caught a Bear Without Weapon or Trap
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Smoke Huge Beast From Tree and Then by Sheer Strength Overpowered and Bound Him
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The feat of eight Japanese woodcutters who without other weapons than their bare hands captured a big 400 pound bear is probably without parallel.

The Japs were in camp on Burrard inlet, about fifteen miles from Vancouver, B. C. They had discovered that some animal had made its home in a hollow tree and determined to capture it. H. Takahashi, foreman of the gang, told the story of the capture.

"Early in the morning seven of my men and myself," said Takahashi, "went to the place, and we started to the work of getting the animal out of his winter home. We first hit the tree with bars of wood, but this did not appear to have any effect at all. Finally we found another small hole on the opposite side of the tree from where we had first seen the eyes of the animal. Into this we started a fire and threw in plenty of moss to make a smoke.

"By and by we heard a growling inside, and we threw in more moss to make the smoke worse. In a few minutes out came a head and then the shoulders, and we found it was a small bear that we had for our cage.

"He tried to back in again, but the smoke was too thick, and then he made a run along the covered passage we had made into the log cage which we had built.

"We all danced around the cage, when all at once we had all kinds of trouble on our hands.

"Out of the hole in the tree came an other head and shoulders, this time of an immense bear three times as big as the other. He did not come timidly like the first, either, but he threw himself forward through the hole and roared like an angry bull.

"He was nearly blind with the smoke that had driven him out of the hollow tree and was correspondingly mad.

"The small bear was still yelling lustily, and the big one lost no time to gather himself together to be aggressive. The only weapon we had brought from the camp was a single ax, and it was never used against the bear, as it turned out.

"We had all dodged around the cage which contained the smaller bear. But Shinado, the oldest man in the party, was too slow, and the bear jumped against him with an angry growl.

"Both rolled over together, and Shinado called for help. It was useless to try to use the ax when man and bear were so close together, so we all piled in to help our friend.

"With two others I grabbed the bear's hind legs and began pulling him away from Shinado. He turned on us, and by that time the other four men were catching at the fur of his neck and his front paws. Shinado was almost unhurt. He snatched at a bar of wood, and as the bear tried frantically to bite him he shoved the wood between his jaws and held it there.

"We all threw our weight on the bear's throat, holding the animal's head down, pinned to the ground.

"As soon as we had the mastery the camp boy, who had heard us shouting, ran and secured ropes and more short pieces of timber. We bound his hind feet to a two foot strip of wood, keeping his claws as far apart as possible.

"All the time he was vainly trying to bite and kept growling as much as the heavy gag on his throat would let him. Then we bound his fore feet, and finally we tied a larger stick of wood tn his mouth. We then bound him round and round fast to a long timber, and that was the way we carried him into camp."