The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 17, 1899, Page 28

THE SUNDAY CALL They Stopped the Tonsorial Friend- d d Bear Fight, s0 Gives the Qwner \laluable Pointer Which Enables Him to Turn Old Brunette Bruin Info a fondined” Cub colleges city the crea bear cub, a b fieknéssee Oa'cz" “Ursus Horribis.” and Get a Fancy moun- particu- horri- before specie er him in . For a long time it among the hunters, s Tel were very a special attra; these animals therefore an rn Califor- tory to the pub- Fellows RAL. App, e Ly ) s CO/"j)cg,?i'; THE BEAR 0 lie functionaries who had so long been desirous of owning such a creature. He not on represents at the present time the outlay of a nice little pile of vellow s but they look forward compla- to the near future, when, grown ive and mighty, he shall be an object n to old and young—a living exempli- fication of Califor 's emblem and & no- ble representative of his nearly extinct family. Daily some members of the august bady which directs the affairs of Los Angeles’ civic pleasure gardens visit the handsome ’;‘,COa{ye~ GAP CREEK [OOF IN THIS CAVERN SALTPETER WAS Dug TO SUPPLY THE PATRIOTS DURING THE EVOLUTIONARY WAR. room of Gap Creek Lodge No. T Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The lodge for five years has been meet- ing in Hyder's Cave, near Gap Run, ROBABLY the most curious meet- ing place in the worid is the lodge- Tenn. The cave, in Carter County, five miles from Elizabethtown and seven miles from Johnson City, was discov- er y the first settlers of Tennessee. Earth taken from the cave has long been used for the manufacture of salt- peter. During the Clvil War the cave was worked by the Confederate Gov- ernment, and thousands of pounds of saltpeter were made there. Some of the powder used in the battle of Kings Mountain was manufactured from salt- peter dug in this cave. The cave lles due east and west, and at any time during the day there is light enough to read. The anteroom of the lodgeroom is twelve feet square, arched over by variegated limestone. It is separated from the main hall by folding doors. The hall proper is twelve feet lower than the anteroom. The main floor is 20x36 feet. At one end is a rostrum 13 feet square, elevated thirty inches above the floor. The roof is an arch, the top of which is twenty feet from the door. During the summer season the sun shines in the face of the noble grand from 3 o’clock until evening. Since the lodge, which has fifty-five members, began meeting in the ocave it has had no deaths. Frequently pic- nics and occasionally preaching serv- ices are held in the cave, which is so light that pictures can be taken sixty lflee':‘- underground without artificlal g and luxuriously appointed home which has been specially designed and arranged for his bearship and from a safe distance admire thelr new acquisition and en- deavor to propitfate him by offerings of dainties which are supposed to be particu- larly sulted both to the taste and stomach of an infantile grizzly. Queerly enough, though, captivity or something else seems to have developed In this little creaturs qualities and proclivities very different from those characteristic of his species. Young as he apparently is he has decided and fndeed depraved ideas on the subject of diet. The nuts and fruits and crisp gresn things which are dear to the heart of the grizzly in his native wilds and In captivity eagerly welcomed by him are looked upon by this youngster with surly scorn. The tender, fresh red meat which Foom n a Cave. is generously provided for his delectation is left untasted if he can but unearth somewhere about his ablding place a plece of decayed flesh, the odor of which would drive any grizzly worthy of the name ng over the mountains into the next county. He looks like a young grizzly most cer- talnly as far as the color of his shaggy coat {s concerned, but in no other respect does he resemble the powerful, ferocious but always self-respecting animals who are supposed to be his forefathers, or rather his forebears. A grizzly is cleanly in his habits, dain- tily nice regarding his diet, loftily digni- fled in his deportment, and gifted with a high grade of animal intelligence. The Moorpark scion of this aristocratic race is a vulgar, stupid, flithy little beast, pre- cocious in nothing save the number, size and general appearance of his dental ar- rangements, which even the commission- ers are unwillingly obliged to admit are surprisingly aged-looking considering t few months which are supposed to ha passed over his baby head. Of a truth he {s an anomaly, and as such would be worthy of study were it not that thers is attached to him, grizzly though he is sup- posed to be, a tale of quite another kind of a bear. Shortly before this year's glorious Fourth Dave O'Brien, a vaquero on the Tejon Ranchos, captured a common black bear, one of the despised species known as the ‘“buzzards” of the bear family— worthless, cowardly, ill-smelling scaven- gers of the brute creation—and not know- ing what else to do with him, made ar- rangements with a Bakersfleld man who owned a huge and ugly-tempered mastiff for a finish fight between dog and bear on the day of our national celebration. After going to considerable expense in the way of advertising the match, and bringing the bear to Bakersfield, the pro- moters of the affair and the big crowd which had assembled to witness it, met keenest disappointment at the hands of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which put an emphatic veto on the whole enterprise. To drown his disappointment Dave, in company with his three financial backers (two of them miners and the other a va- quero, like himself) started to make an experimental tour of Bakersfield's saloons, and that brought them almost immediate- ly into the company of a barber named Duggans, who had arrived at that satis- fying stage of inebriation wherein his own professional prowess seemed to him of all things In the world most worthy of loud- voiced and continuous praise. One of his specialties, it seemed, and the one on which he most prided himself, was his ability to turn the darkest kind of a bru- nette into a blonde with a neatness and dispatch unequaled among his fellows. | He could “bleach the bristles of a shoe- brush any shade of red or yellow,” he dedlared, and as he heard this O'Briog had an inspiration upon which he im- mediately acted. After comsulting with A his “backers,” the four proceeded to treal the barber to all the whisky that he could bear up under, meanwhile encourag- ing him to brag his biggest and loudest, until at last he was so with pro- fessional pride, combined alcohol, ushe with that he was ready to undertake anything to prove his vast superiority to all others of his trade. d arrived at this satis- friends the bear he d bleach as he very prob- d his busi- y to under- did not ess, but was_also take such a job. This. was too much for Duggan. Hs ed but for a moment and then being e animal was securely »d the wager and went to sleaching finid he had in rly all that could ru; stores was poured into a five- his shop and pr be found in the t speedily secured an gallon ga °d iron pail, and armed with a long-handled whitewash brush the barber proceeded to prove his previous as- sertions. ng even approaching to dertaking several appli- uid_were necessary and rubbing, to which the ected. neither clear as to his brain nor ste y as to his legs and the bear was active, vigorous and vicious it required the united vigilance of the four spectators—who were almost exhausted with laug before the ludicrous per- over wi to prevent a " between the two, which, in the To attain anyt success in the cations of the considerable bear violently ol As Duggan wa formanc: exasperated te of ' mind, have rest unpleasantly tonsorial artist. It seemed it would be necessary ear to soak in the bl on in order to produce ar ever upon his thic yond measure. True it w. color which would have been for their purp a larger, but as for him to masq member of the Ur. was eminently satisf: The barber was the next day e made it neces: de as a very 3 family the s tory 1 his §10 at once and en sent a tel- egram and received an _answer. A few days later the Park Com- missioners of Los Angeles welcomed a “little stranger” who traveled to them in a stout iron-bound crate upon which was a_label stating that the occupant thereof was a ‘‘cub grizzly.” From the size of the check which Dave O’Brien and his three friends divided up among them- selves a short time afterward it might be judged that the “‘cub” fell into appreci- ative hands. One thing is certain: If the Park Com- been decelved as to the mlss]hmer? h}; specles of their new acquisitic v & least have adequate cngseSX;‘L;n sz};fe}m;s gratulation. If the creature for whioh tge;\ have paid so generous an amount of e People 8 money really is not—as som. captious persons are beginnin, unp!ease antly to assert—a ‘“‘cub grizzly, 1t js, most certainly, th “ - the whole w:fl&my blondined” bear in