Brutes In Battle

Tale of a Sanguinary Fight That Took Place In Montana.

How a Pack of Fierce Wild Dogs Attacked a Band of Silver Tips -- Fifteen Bears Killed.

"Twenty years or so ago an army officer at Fort Washakie who was a great lover of blooded dogs came into possession of a magnificent specimen of the Scotch staghound and one of the most misshapen, vicious looking English bulldogs I ever saw," said Frank Parker, a Montana pioneer, now of McKean county, Pa., during a discussion of the wild dogs of Montana.

"The latter was a female. A few days after these two dogs were brought to Fort Washakie they disappeared. No trace of them could be found, but in course of time a race of fierce beasts came into existence in the upper Wind River mountain region, and the description of members of it left no doubt that it had sprung from the runaway staghound and bulldog from Fort Washakie.

"The king of the Rocky mountain bear family is the tough and sagacious silver tip. One fall, being in that locality deer hunting, I learned that it was a favorite pastime of these bears to come down from the Wind River mountains, where they were plentiful, and lounge and sport on the sunny slopes of the Warm Spring basin. I had never shot a silver tip, and I went out one day for a little tour of the slopes, thinking I might bag one of the big and fierce fellows.

"During the course of my jaunt I came to a stretch of thick timber, through a vista of which I saw an open space some distance beyond. I found on investigation that this open space was a wide plateau extending along the face of the hill as far as I could see, but only a few rods in width. Walking to the outer edge of this plateau, I discovered that it terminated in a perpendicular drop of perhaps a hundred feet. The cliff overlooked a pleasant valley not more than 200 yards wide, the bluff forming its boundary on one side and a dense growth of timber enclosing it on the farther border.

"Scattered between the base of the bluff and the edge of the woods in various listless poses or shambling lazily here and there were fifteen enormous silver tips. After gazing at this amazing sight a few minutes I was about to try what the effect of a rifle bullet sent down among those bears would have upon them when suddenly a most surprising change came over every individual in the group. Those that were snoozing in the sun rose quickly to their feet, and every bear stood in the attitude of intent listening. A few seconds later I hear the sound of prolonged wailing or baying, evidently subdued by distance and borne from the direction of the mountain beyond the timber.

"The baying that had brought about this remarkable change in the dispositions of the bears drew nearer, and presently I could distinguish that it was made up of fierce canine-like yelps and vicious snarlings. These soon became one wild wave of discordant and blood curdling sound. A pack of wolves, I supposed, was dashing toward that valley, and the bears were enraged at their disturbing intrusion on their retreat. The silver tips massed themselves near the base of the bluff and almost beneath me.

"From between the trees among the timber border for a distance of many yard, and yelling and snarling and snapping their jaws frightfully, swarmed a horde of most ferocious looking beasts. They were not wolves. I knew at once, although I had never seen any of the dreaded creatures, that there was a pack of the fierce wild dogs of the Wind River mountains. There must have been at least a hundred in the pack. The bristling, savage front of that array of silver tips would have halted the fiercest, hungriest pack of timber wolves or dogs that ever was and sent it in hasty retreat. But these wild dogs rushed on without a break in their ranks and threw themselves upon that mass of silver tips, and a terrible conflict began. It was a frightful sight. In less than a minute the ground was strewn with bleeding and mutilated bodies of wild dogs, and two of the big bears were literally torn to pieces.

"Early in the battle the bears became widely separated. Half a dozen dogs would attack a single bear, the places of the dogs that fell victims to the fury of the silver tips being quickly filled by others. I think the combat must have continued more than a quarter of an hour, and then every bear but one had been killed. From their carcasses dozens of ravenous wild dogs were tearing the flesh and gorging themselves at the feast they had won.

"The lone survivor of the group of bears was an enormous brute. He had backed himself against the face of the bluff, and the dogs that still engaged him could attack only from the front. His flesh hung in strips from his sides and breast, and blood poured in streams from wounds in his throat. Yet he fought those swarming dog demons for fully five minutes after his last companion had fallen, and all about him the ground was heaped with the victims of his dying rage. At last he tottered and swayed. An immense wild dog, with a head and jaw of gigantic size, sprang clear over the ranks of his fellows, who were struggling to get their fangs somewhere in the brave old silver tip, and caught him full in the ragged, bleeding wound in the throat. The bear threw his fore legs around the determined dog and drew them quickly together. I could hear the dog's bones crunch above the sounds of the battle, but he did not loosen his jaws from the bear's throat even to give his death yell. That was the silver tip's last victim. He fell like a toppling tree to the ground, with his death clasp around the dog he had crushed and with the dog's death grip at his throat.

"The battle over, I counted forty-five torn carcasses of wild dogs strewn over the ground, which had been trampled into a bed of blood stained mud."

Illustration caption: The Dog Caught The Bear's Throat.