In every crowd that, came to see him there was at least one fool
afflicted with a desire to poke the bear with a stick, and constant
vigilance was necessary to prevent such witless persons from enraging
him. At Mojave, when the correspondent went to the car, he found a
dozen idlers inside, and one inspired lunatic was stirring up the
Monarch, who was rapidly losing his temper. The cage would not have
held him five minutes had he once tackled the bars in a rage, and it
was only the moral influence of the chain around his neck that kept
him quiet. When the correspondent sprang into the car, the grizzly's
eyes were green with anger, and in a moment more there would have been
the liveliest kind of a circus on that freight train. Hustling the
crowd out with unceremonious haste--incidentally throwing a few
maledictions at the man with the stick--the correspondent drove the
Monarch back from the bars, and ordered him to lie down, and for the
next half hour rode in the car with him and talked him into a
peaceable frame of mind.
From the freight depot on Townsend Street the cage was hauled on a
truck to Woodward's Gardens, and under the directions of Louis
Ohnimus, superintendent of the gardens, the Monarch was transferred to
more comfortable quarters. His cage was backed up to one of the
permanent cages, both doors were opened, and he was invited to move,
but he refused to budge until his chain was passed around the bars
and hauled by four stout men. The grizzly resisted for a few minutes,
but suddenly decided to change his quarters and went with a rush and a
roar, wheeling about and striking savagely through the bars at the
men. But Mr. Ohnimus had expected just such a performance and taken
such precautions that nobody was hurt and no damage done.
The Monarch had shown himself a brave fighter and an animal of unusual
courage in every way. He had endured the roughest kind of a journey
without weakening, and compelled respect and admiration from the
moment of his capture. But when the strain and excitement were over,
and he was left to himself, the effects became apparent, and for two
or three days he was a sick bear. He had a fever and would not eat for
a time, but Mr. Ohnimus took charge of him, doctored him with
medicines good for the ills of bear flesh, and soon tempted back his
appetite with rabbits and pigeons.
Soon the Monarch was sufficiently convalescent to rip the sheet iron
from the side of his cage and break a hole through into the hyena's
quarters. By night he was on his muscle in great shape, and
Superintendent Ohnimus sent for the correspondent to sit up with him
all night and help keep the half-ton grizzly from tearing things to
pieces. By watching the old fellow and talking to him now and then
they managed to distract his attention from mischief most of the time,
but he got in considerable work and rolled up several sheets of iron
as though they were paper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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