He Was Mauled by a Brown Bear and Left for Dead

This story, “Blood Toll to Brown Bears,” appeared in the March 1949 issue of Outdoor Life.

Every year Alaska brown bears kill or maim at least one man. It seems these huge beasts — the larg­est meat eaters in the world — take a toll in blood as a tax mankind must pay for invading their domain. For the human animal is the only one since the mam­moth and the mastodon that could men­ ace the brownies that live on the mainland and on the islands off Alas­ka’s coast.

Natives consider them supernatural creatures capable of taking on human form and speech, and there are numer­ous legends about them. Tales by white men about these enormous ani­mals — some are estimated to weigh as much as 2,000 pounds — are less roman­tic than the Native legends, but often much bloodier.

Many men have been mauled by the beast, and have suffered a horrible death as fangs and claws ripped huge chunks of flesh from their bodies. Others have escaped by pretending to be dead, since a brownie usually loses interest in a motionless human being after the first savage onslaught. But that, unfortunately, is not always true. There are the cubs to consider. They can be playful little beggars, and as cruel as human child who pulls wings from a captured fly.

Of all the men mauled by bears in Alaska, perhaps Captain William H. Royden — they called him Wabash Bill­ came nearer to death than any other who survived. This certainly is true if the severity of his mauling can be judged by the number of his wounds and the days of his suffering in the woods.

It happened about forty years ago­ August 7, 1908 when Wabash Bill went ashore at Rodman Bay on Admiralty Is­land to get fresh meat for the crew of his fishing schooner.

Hiked Two Miles Inland

It was a pleasant afternoon and the sun was still high after Wabash Bill had hiked inland about two miles. He was on the side of a hill when he spotted a fat Sitka deer. He shot the buck, dressed it out, and started back to the beach with the carcass slung over his shoulders.

Admiralty Island, because of heavy rainfall and a fairly temperate climate, can be as hard to travel as a jungle. Un­derbrush is heavy, deadfall trees often interlace over marshy ground, and prickly devil’s-club adds to the difficulty of the going.

Wabash Bill was a veteran of the woods as well as the water. He worked his way carefully through the heavy growth and sharp ravines, and cautious­ly skirted patches of dangerous muskeg. Then he came to larger timber where the going was easier.
It was growing late, and he wanted to get the meat back to the beach be­ fore darkness caught him in the woods.

He came to two large trees, close to­gether.

He paused a moment, then decided to take a chance by violating the first rule of caution in bear country. He would walk between the trees rather than carry his burden either down the sharp bank to his right or over the outcrop­ ping of rocks to his left. The trees, he realized, would screen the brush from view. If a bear should be lurking in the brush …

He took two strides after passing be­ tween the trees. Then a roaring female brownie struck him from behind!

The first slash of her teeth nearly ripped the scalp from the back of his skull as her weight flung him to the ground. She struck again. Her fangs slashed his right shoulder.

Then her two cubs were upon him, squealing their delight as they ripped and tore his body with their sharp teeth and claws.

Wabash Bill was helpless. The she­ bear’s first rush had knocked his rifle from his hands, and he had neither pistol nor hunting knife. He could not reach his pocketknife.

He knew that if he moved to defend himself from the cubs, the old bear would rip him again. She was standing over him; the slobber from her jaws dripped on his neck. Silently he bore his pain, pretending to be dead.

After a few minutes the young bears lost interest in their cruel play and the three animals moved away. But he could still hear them grunting and breathing. An involuntary shudder twitched Wa­ bash Bill’s right arm. With a roar, the old bear was upon him again. This time her teeth caught his right wrist, crushedthrough, and met between the bones.

The cubs were back, too, cuffing and slashing the suffering man who tried to remain quiet and yet exert enough pressure with his knees and elbows to keep from being turned face up, ex­posing his throat and belly.

Finally Wabash Bill fainted.

When he awakened it was night, and a cold rain was drenching him. He tried to crawl, but his lacerated muscles refused to move his body.

For three agonizing days the wounded man lay where he had fallen. Fever came upon him and the wind lashed rain against his body. Breathing was difficult, not only because of the torture each time his chest expanded, but be­ cause his nose had been broken and the swelling had blocked his nostrils. Although he had received some mois­ture from the rain, by the third day he was almost mad from thirst and fever.

He could hear the alluring sound of a stream babbling not far away.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tried to crawl. He made a few inches, then a foot. The ground sloped sharply toward the creek. He rolled down.

Refreshed somewhat after drinking, he managed to crawl to a bush bearing salmonberries. Strengthened by the fruit, he began crawling along the stream.

Eventually, he reasoned, it would lead to tidewater. Along its banks were berries, and the water slaked his feverish thirst.

He kept crawling, crawling and faint­ing, crawling and sleeping. On the sixth day after the bears mauled him, Wa­ bash Bill heard rifle shots near by. He knew his boat crew was searching for him. He tried to call out, but could force no sound from his battered lips. The shooting continued, but the sound was fainter. Then there was silence. Later that afternoon, his slow, pain­ful crawling — he could use his knees and his left arm —brought him to flat land.

That stopped him. The effort required to move across it was beyond him.

He did not know whether he was a few hundred feet from the beach and al­most certain rescue, or if there was another ridge to cross. For a moment he dropped his head on the wet grass and decided he didn’t care. All he wanted was unconsciousness, and re­ lease from pain.

But determination flowed back into him, and he tried to crawl again. He inched along, perhaps a foot. A huge snail was moving sluggishly, almost beneath his nose.

He grabbed the snail with his left hand and crammed it into his mouth. It was food. He looked around. Salmon­ berries grew on a bush a yard to his left. He rolled over and over until he could reach them.

After a fashion, Wabash Bill had eaten. But it was not enough. He knew he was getting weaker. Without divine help he knew he’d die where he was lying. He prayed.

As his mangled lips formed the words, the screams of fighting eagles ripped through the stillness of the woods, and a fish fell into the bushes less than five feet away.

He looked up hastily and saw two ring-tail eagles slashing at each other. Then Wabash Bill had the fish in his left hand. He doesn’t remember how he got to it. He ripped it with his teeth and chewed and swallowed as the vic­torious eagle circled him, screaming at the man who had stolen his prize.

After eating, Wabash Bill slept. He awakened at noon of the seventh clay after his injury. He was stronger now, and made fair progress crawling toward the beach. He even managed to get over a little rise of ground. Parting the bushes, he had his first glimpse of the beach. And more than that! Less than a hundred yards away his schooner rode at anchor.

It was a grand sight – his own schooner. It meant medical attention, food, water, dry clothing, a bed. He felt like resting, as a man might sit and rest a moment in pleasant contempla­tion before the open gates of heaven.

Wabash Bill waved his left arm. A sailor on watch aboard the schooner looked directly at him. Why couldn’t the lookout see his moving hand? Then he realized his hand would seem like another piece of moving brush. He would have to crawl a few yards.

It would be a struggle, but he could do it. It would put an end to his ordeal in the woods. At that moment some sailors on the bow, apparently on order from the pilothouse, began hauling up the anchor. The schooner was getting underway. The search for the missing captain had continued for a week and the mate had abandoned hope.

With effort born of desperation, the injured man pulled himself to his feet -­ the first time he had stood in the week he had been fighting his way toward the shore. He tottered forward, broke through the screen of brush, and tumbled on the sand.

He hadn’t traveled far on his feet, but it was far enough. The lookout saw him. Soon Wabash Bill was on board and in his bunk, and the schooner was making all possible speed to the naval hospital at Sitka.

Surgeon H. G. Grieve did a skillful job on the mangled captain. He found sixty-four separate wounds that re­quired stitches. An inventory of injuries ran like this: nose broken; scalp torn, exposing the bone in the right temporal region; left ear almost torn from the head; two severe scalp wounds on the back of the. head: right forearm and shoulder badly bitten; right wrist bit­ ten through: large wound on left thigh; two large wounds on right thigh; five severe bites on right leg, skin badly swollen and turning black.

In addition to those wounds, Wabash Bill had suffered numerous bruises and cuts that did not require suture.

Mauled and battered as he was, the sturdy captain was out of the hospital thirty-seven days later. He went to Seattle for a visit, but vowed he would return to Admiralty Island and kill the bears that had mauled him.

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However, as the days passed, Wabash Bill kept postponing the trip. Finally he decided to call it all square with the brownies. He had paid his tax in blood for invading their domain.

Although this happened years ago, the story is still told wherever Alaskans gather and talk of big brownies, for no other man has taken such a mauling from the huge, fierce beasts-and lived. And no one can blame Wabash Bill if he never went back for more.