Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/215



Another circumstance occurred during* this hunt that dem- onstrated the courage and sagacity of this remarkable woman. Her husband, being ambitious to excel in hunting, was reckless in his encounters with the grizzly. He raised a young cub, and thinking to capture it, dropped his rifle and ran after it. The cub made good his escape by climbing a tree. Frank, unwilling to be outwitted, began throwing stones. Very soon the cub raised the cry, much to Frank's encouragement. He plied the rocks ; the cub cried again. Frank had thrown with good aim, and had evidently w r ounded the cub, who gave signs of letting go the limb. Just at this moment his fun was inter- rupted by a sound which put life into his limbs, such as he had not felt since his boyhood. "Wah, wall," came to him from the breaking bushes. He knew well what it meant, and lost no time in putting" in his very best Kentucky jumps down the mountainside. He turned his eye to see an old she-bear, as she came tearing after him. Away went Frank, and on came the she-bear. As he now describes the race, "it was nip and tuck 'twixt me and the bear," with the latter closing up the space at a fearful rate, considering the stakes they w^ere run- ning for. Every muscle was doing duty in the man, while Mrs. Bear \vas paying out muscle in quantity extremely un- healthy to the hunter. Frank shouted with every jump; the bear "wah, wahed" at every bound. Frank thought his "time had come," and was almost in despair of ever seeing his brown-skinned wife again, when suddenly, as if she had dropped from the clouds, she sprang between the racers, and spreading her skirts, shouted in Modoc so loudly that the mother-bear suddenly halted, and turned about, making way to her cub. The breathless Frank crept cautiously to where he had dropped his gun, covered each step by the little rifle in Wi-ne-ma's hands. When they were in camp again she read him a short chapter from her Modoc vocabulary which he will not soon forget. It is said on good authority that a bear never attacks a woman.

At the time of Wi-ne-ma's marriage to Mr. Riddle, the several tribes in the southern portion of Oregon were at war. Many bloody battles were fought within the lines of the w r hite