Carried Off by a Bear

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 3, 1884

Carried Off by a Bear.

HENRY FLYNN, of Inskip, Cal., let his three-year-old daughter ride upon a horse, and after she had ridden about forty rods from home, lifted her off the animal, and told her to run home. On returning he found that the child had not reached home. Going to the spot where he last saw her, he saw bear tracks in the sand. Search was made all night in the forest for the lost child. In the morning as the searchers were passing a swampy spot where the undergrowth was thick, they heard her voice. They called to the little girl and told her to come out of the bushes. She replied that the bear would not let her. The men then crept through the brush, and when near the spot heard a splash in the water, which the child said was the bear. They found her standing upon a log extending half-way across the swamp. The bear had undertaken to cross the swamp on the log, and being pursued, left the child, and got away as rapidly as possible. She had received some scratches about the face, arms, and legs, and her clothes were almost torn from her body; but the bear had not bitten her to hurt her, only the marks of his teeth being found on her back, where he had taken hold of her clothes to carry her. The child says the bear put her down occasionally to rest, and would put his nose up to her face, whereupon she would slap him, and the bear would hang his head by her side and purr and rub against her as a cat. The men asked her if she was cold in the night, and she told them that the old bear lay beside her, put his 'arms' around her and kept her warm, though she did not like his long hair.—Vallejo Chronicle.