Animals: Bad Bear, Good Bear

Favorite advertising of U. S. filling-station owners is a zoo. Favorite animal in George Langley’s filling-station zoo near Ellsworth, Me. was a big black bear which he had raised from cubhood eleven years ago, taught to roll over and sit up for peanuts. One morning last week when Langley went into the pen to give the bear breakfast it pounced on him, chased him 100 yd., knocked him down, mauled him to death. When Langley’s hired man ran up with a shovel, the bear killed him, too.

In Burns Lake, B. C.’s hospital last week, suffering from broken leg and exposure, Prospector Arthur Gammon told how a little black bear had saved his life. Injured by a falling tree, Prospector Gammon had started to crawl to his cabin two miles away, been overtaken by a snow-storm after six days. He inched into a cave, found a bear inside. The bear did not budge. When he resumed his crawl, the bear went with him. One day he fainted, came to to find the bear holding off an encircling pack of coyotes. Still standing guard, the bear scampered away when a neighbor found Gammon.