Mountain Charley.

Charles McKiernan was a well-known lumber merchant of San Jose, Cal.  To old timers he was “Mountain Charlie,” having spent most of his life in the Santa Cruz mountains, where he owned timber land and saw mills.  McKiernan’s face was strangely disfigured.  His left eye was missing and his forehead was so badly scarred that he wore his hair in a bang falling to his eyebrows to conceal the marks.  From his own lips I heard the story of those scars.

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 so happened that the bear also fancied that he had business on the top of the spur, and began climbing soon after the men lost sight of him.

The bear and the men met unexpectedly at the top, and the bear halted hesitatingly with his head and breast just showing above the rocks at the brink of the steep slope.  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.

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.  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.  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.  The Grizzly had partly recovered, and throwing his head upward he closed his jaws upon McKiernan’s forehead, with a snap like a steel trap.  One lower tusk entered the left eye socket, and an upper canine tooth sunk into the skull.  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.