--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 24 number: 6 published: 1921-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "My Bear Story," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 6 (April 1921): 483–490.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2406unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2406unse start_page: 483 end_page: 490 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2406unse publication_year: 1921 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # My Bear Story — MY BEAR STORY 483 spring of the year named. For some years a company in Centerville had been running a cheese factory up on a tributary of the Weber river, in Morgan county, directly north some miles of Peterson, a station on the U. P. Railroad. Cottonwood was the name of the stream, and "The Dairy," as the factory was called, nestled in some irregular foothills on the long point which separates the Weber and the Cottonwood, before they sink into the beautiful valley at the head of the Weber canyon proper. Farther back in the hills, two miles above the Centerville Dairy, a California company had been running a cheese factory on what, for the times, was a large scale. But the California company had been meeting for years with reverses of fortune. The business had been badly managed; and the man whom the company had brought from the East to run the factory, a very good cheese-maker, also, by the way, and a gentle, good man, too, had unfortunately become mentally unbalanced, and incapable of running the business except as directed by his good wife, one of the most patient and excellent of women. The misfortunes made the California company anxious to sell out their ranch, stock, and cheese factory, and the Centerville Dairy company became the willing purchaser, which so increased their need of hands that when it became known that the "young blacksmith," as I was familiarly called in those days, intended to break away from the shop, the manager of these now consolidated companies urged me to take employment with them and ride the range for them that summer. The offer had its attractions, among which was the fact that a dozen or more of the young people of the village — boys and girls of my own acquaintance had been engaged for the summer for the same company, so that there was the prospect of merry times, song and laughter and joy unmeasured, things which, in those days, had their appeal. Then there was — the promise of freedom and the big out-of-door life the life I had always loved, and which, before apprenticeship days, was the life I had always lived. And so I accepted the employment to ride the range that summer of 1877. The job yielded me all the pleasure I had anticipated. The days of April and May, and the days of all the summer months, were golden; and all the nights, sleeping in the open — for I scorned the bunk house were glorious. In my earlier reading I had learned the names of some of the great, fixed, star groups, and somewhat their relations in space, and now I could mark their rising and progress across that great "inverted bowl" we call the sky, and marvel to my heart's content upon their beauty, and majesty and glory; with now and then a flashing thought upon the greater majesty and 484 IMPROVEMENT ERA glory of him who must have created them, his very handywork. All this with the fresh mornings and thin sunlight tinting the snow-clad peaks of the Wasatch mountains; likewise the sultry noons of the mid-summer months; the frugal meal from the saddle bags, eaten in the solitude and the silence of the mountains while my horse, relieved of his saddle and bridle, cropped and munched the tender mountain grass with evident delight. Then there was the return to the ranch, the shouted welcome as one approached it, the jest, the courteous retort, the joy of being young, without being quite conscious that you were young, and not knowing really that that was the source of your joyful exuberance. Such the setting of my story. Starting off early one morning, for what was to be a long day's ride in search of stray cattle missed from their accustomed range, I saw in the dusty road of the canyon, two miles above the ranch house, the tracks of what must have been a very large bear. They were sufficiently fresh to cause me to keep a sharp lookout for bruin himself, and I thought I noticed an unusual restlessness in the roan mare I was riding, which I attributed to her scenting the nearness of the brute whose tracks were so plainly visible in the road. These, after a bit, turned off from the road into a red willow swale on the right and I rode on up the canyon, a little relieved that I had not come up with the owner of the tracks. An earlier find than I had expected to make of the stray cattle I was in search of, and an easy drive of them over a low divide to their accustomed range, enabled me to return to the ranch early in the afternoon. Riding down the canyon road, over which I had passed in the morning, I noted again the bear tracks and the point at which they came down from the hillside into the road, from the left as one would face the head of the canyon. About a mile above the ranch house of the company for which I worked, and several hundred yards from the canyon road, was a strongly built stake and rider corral, made of quaking aspen poles. Indeed, the corral had been made in an aspen grove where the poles had been cut, some of the stumps unwisely being left standing at the height of from two to four feet. People from the valley settlements had made the corral into which they might drive their range horses, capture the ones they might need for work purposes, and turn the band loose. A few days before this bear incident, a band of horses had been driven into the corral for the above named purpose, when, in racing among the stumps, a two-year-old had struck on one of them, ripped out his entrails and died. Remembering this I turned from the road and went to see if bruin had not visited this carcass. My impression was right, MY BEAR STORY 485 for there were plenty of bear tracks in the corral, and bruin had nosed about the carcass and ripped it wider open, and tore away the fleshy parts, though I could not see that he had eaten much, if any of it. My reporting to the ranchmen what I had discovered during the day, created quite an interest, and led to a very general desire that the bear might be killed. Especially was this so with one member of the ranch force, one Alma Peterson, familiarly called "Al," and son of the man after whom the settlement of Peterson, in Morgan county, had been named. "Al" was about thirty-three, and an odd character in many ways; very interesting, however, because of the Indian stories he could tell us of early days in Morgan and Summit counties. The memory of his family, and his own, too, as I now recall it, went back to the days of Chief Wanship and Little Soldier and their bands, which were wont to range through these mountains of Wasatch and Summit counties, with an occasional visit from Chief Pocatello and other Shoshone braves from Idaho. Also "Al's" brother was the hero of a hand-tohand fight with a wounded grizzly bear; and while the bear had been killed, Al's brother always carried the marks of the fight on his face and neck; and the flesh from his right shoulder had been cruelly torn away. Some of the glory of this fight, one way or other, seemed to be reflected upon Al. Al was also interesting on another account; not because of his beauty of person, but contrary wise. He was among those few men I have met with who were ugly enough to be positively attractive. He was built on the ram-shackle order of — loose, big-jointed men tall, gaunt, with big hands and big feet. This frame was topped with a huge head, on which grew bristle-like hair with disposition to sprawl out in all — — directions yet it knew no parting. All the features were large and ill formed this was true of the big and spreading nose, the mouth, the large and outstanding ears; his face was badly marked from a severe case of small-pox, and the eyes so turned that you could never be sure in which particular direction Al was looking. But for all this rough and uncouth exterior, one could not help liking Al; perhaps it was because the innate gentleness and patience, and the really sympathetic nature of the man was in such marked contrast with all the outside of him. At any rate, all at the ranch liked Al, and especially companionable did I find him to be. Well, as I said before, the remembrance of Al's odd personality flashed upon me, he of all the ranch force was anxious to attempt the killing of the bear whose tracks I had seen, and pointed out how this could easily be done by several of 486 IMPROVEMENT ERA the men going to the corral wherein lay the horse carcass, and which would doubtless be visited again by the bear, and likely this very night. The party could lie outside the corral, and when bruin arrived and proceeded to amuse himself with the carcass, they could shoot him deliberately from their place of concealment, and with entire safety to themselves. It happened that I was the only one to whom Al's plan of battle appealed, so about ten o'clock, when darkness had well settled over mountain and canyon defile, we took our departure for the scene of action, with many good wishes for "good luck" from the rest of the ranch folk. Half a mile from the corral we proceeded with utmost care lest we should startle the quarry, if he had already arrived at the proposed place of meeting, although it was our theory that very likely he would not arrive until towards morning. Silently we reached the corral. Bruin had not yet arrived, so we chose a point for our ambush nearest the carcass, and settled down to wait for our victim. Hours dragged their slow length along, but no sign of bruin's coming. After the passing of several hours, I fell asleep; so, too, I think Al did, but he always denied my guess. When I awoke, the stars in the east seemed to be growing brighter, and by that token I knew the dawn was approaching. "The thin, grey line that frets the east as herald of the day soon appeared, and gradually grew broader until day light was unmistakably coming down from the mountain, and Al was confident no bruin would now put in appearance, and so we slowly, and with our disappointment plainly visible, returned to the ranch to meet as best we might the gibes of our friends. That morning, my day's ride took me again up Cottonwood Canyon and past the corral. A short distance above the ranch, and yet before coming opposite the horse corral, I was surprised to see bear tracks in the dust of the road, heading up the canyon, and from their size they must have been made by the brute whose tracks I had seen the day before, farther up the canyon. The peculiar bellowing of a cow, off in the direction of the creek bottom at the right, attracted my attention and I turned off to see what her distress might be, and though I found her in a wild state of excitement, and rushing here and there, wild-eyed through the thickets that fringed the creek, I could find no cause for her alarm, unless she had been startled by Mr. Bruin. The half remains of a young calf found a day or two later, was generally accepted as the cause of her alarm, bruin had killed and eaten part of it. I followed the tracks up the road until they turned off on the side in the direction of the horse corral, and I traced them for a short distance through the sage brush up the hill-side. MY BEAR STORY 487 A late start for my day's ride through the hills made it necessary to cut short the trailing and get on my way. Back into the canyon road, and well past the corral, I saw again bruin's tracks in the dust, and reached the conclusion that during the night the bear had come up the road after his depredation on our calf-corral, and having scented Al and myself at the — horse corral a thing he would most likely do, since a breeze — came nightly down the canyon he had merely walked around the corral and us and then come back into the road, and so to his daylight wallow in the willows. I did not return to the ranch this day until after dark, and interest in the bear hunt seemed to have subsided. Discussing my report as to what was evidently bruin's movements during the night before, it was thought that the best plan would be to let him get to the horse-corral first and to its carcass, and then open fire upon him as before planned. But how to find out the time at which bruin would likely visit the carcass was a problem. It was the consensus of opinion that he would not go there before early in the morning, and some one suggested that the alarm clock might be set for about three in the morning and such "Nimrods" as might be disposed for the adventure could undertake it. Most of the ranch hands had no stomach for it. Neither had I, at that hour in the — morning three o'clock! and especially after the previous night's experience, its loss of sleep, and the long ride of the day. It was now about eleven o'clock of the night, and some remarked that bruin might even be at the corral now. "That is so," I responded, "as likely there now as at three o'clock in the morning. Al, let's go." "Alright," said he, and with that we picked up our guns and left the ranch. Al carried a breech-loading Ballard rifle, such as were once used by U. S. cavalry. I had an old Enfield rifle — — a musket in common use during the Civil War. I had bought it some years ago, and after cutting off a few inches of the barrel, had used it as a shot gun in hunting mountain hares, and geese on the Jordan bottoms. It was loaded literally for bear, however, on this occasion. I had put in fully two ordinary charges of powder, the regular Enfield slug bullets, two slugs cut from the end of a bar of lead, and some buck shot. It was a matter of good-natured banter at the ranch, among those who knew how it was loaded, as to which would be the most dangerous end of the gun when fired. The night was intensely dark, the sky was over-spread by clouds, there was no moon, not a star could be seen. As we came into the canyon road, Al muttered something about a couple of fools going out on such a night hunting a bear perhaps a grizzly! But then one does such things when he is — 488 IMPROVEMENT ERA young —when he is twenty, else how would there be adventures? On we went. We were approaching the corral, and left the road for the hill-side and the brush clumps. Cautiously we drew near, creeping slowly and breathlessly for silence' sake. A few rods from the corral we halted to listen beside a clump of bushes. I had dropped to one knee. Al remained standing. I heard what I thought was a movement through the bushes immediately above and in front of us. The air, or else I, was tense. Al laid a hand on my shoulder and whispered, "I think he is coming." "Be sure it's not a calf," I whispered back; for even now I thought of the possible ridicule to which we might be subjected, in the event of shooting a calf for a bear. Just then I saw an object move above the tops of the sage brush, and quickly raised the hammer of my gun. The loud click, click, of the hammer as it went to half and full cock startled his bruinship, and he rose to his haunches with a tremendous whoof! whoof ! Two rifle reports rang out at the same instant, (though Al always contended that his barked a hundredth part of a second before mine roared). The shots were answered by such a mingled scream of fear, rage and pain as I had never heard before, and would not care to hear again. The huge form literally fell at our feet, or so close that I could have touched him with the point of my gun, and then bounded down the hill-side which here was rather steep. Bruin had landed in a clump of bushes and we could hear him crunching there as he twisted them off with his teeth in his rage and agony. His screeching had now lowered to deep, low growls. I noticed Al slip his gun through his hands, clubbing it, and then I remembered that on the way up he had remarked that he had forgot to bring any cartridges with him, so that he was limited to his single shot. So, too, was I; for I had not more than half thought we would meet bruin; then, too, my gun was muzzle-loading, and it was night. But noting that Al had clubbed his gun, made me sense that there might still be a fight, and the thought flashed through my mind that I could do better with my belt knife at close quarters than by clubbing my gun and so I drew the knife. By now the growls of bruin had grown fainter, but we could not see just where he was, nor judge the state of his helplessness; but Al at this moment spoke to me, still in a whisper, "Don't you think we had better get out of this?" "You bet I do," was my prompt answer, and with that we sprang to the left, and a few leaps and bounds brought us into the road. Al's foot caught a root as we gained the road, and head over heels he went rolling. I remember thinking that it was well that J had not so fallen as I still carried my belt knife MY BEAR STORY 489 in my hand, and might have been severely cut if I had so stumbled and fallen. The road gained, we stopped and listened for a while, but could hear no more of bruin's movements, and so went on to the ranch, where we detailed and discussed our adventure. With daylight, all the male hands of the ranch went with us to the scene of the shooting; and there, sure enough, lying square on his back and all four legs straight up in the air was bruin, stark and stiff in death. An examination showed that APs shot had passed through the lungs, while mine tore through — the groin and hips of the brute perhaps hitting him just as he — sprang in the air and rendering use of the hind limbs impossible. From the clump of choke-cherry bushes into which he had rolled after being shot, and which he had broken off with his teeth as if they were but straws, he had dragged himself by his front paws to the place where we stood when shooting, and there died. Bruin was a large grizzly. I was accounted broadshouldered in those days, but when I stretched myself at full length on the carcass, my shoulders between the brute's front legs, there were several inches between my shoulders and each — foreleg so broad was he across the chest. A drag-litter was formed with small quaking aspen poles and brush, onto which bruin was rolled, and dragged by lariats and ropes hitched to saddle horns, and so taken triumphantly to the ranch. On the scales he tipped the beam for more than five hundred and fifty pounds. The only thing of value about him, at this season of the year —it was August — was his hide, and upon this, of course, Al and I had equal claims. It was decided that we would fix a value upon the hide, the half of which we would either give or take. The price fixed, I sold my claim to Al, as I felt that I I have always regretted selling, how- could ill afford to buy. ever, for what would I not now give for that trophy of my young manhood days? But, during the summer on the range, the determination had been slowly forming in my mind to at- — — tend the then Deseret now the Utah University, for a year, at least, and this made it necessary to augment my savings through the years of my apprenticeship; certainly I could take nothing from my savings to buy shares in bear skins, while selling would add a little to them; and so I sold. I have always regretted the selling of the skin, however, and all the more so because of the bad use Al made of his bargain; for he sold the skin at a few dollars in advance of the value we had fixed upon to each other, and the man buying it cut it up into housing 490 IMPROVEMENT ERA for the harness of a pair of horses of which he was rather proud. To such base uses do things noble sometimes come, Horatio! Sunshine or Shadow Our life is what we make it, In this world of joy and care; And if we're hunting sadness, It greets us everywhere. Each day will grow more dreary, Our lives seem less worth while, And nothing will be worthy Of e'en a kindly smile. But, if we seek for gladness, We'll find it every day, No matter what our trials and cares, 'Twill drive them all away. Then life will be worth living, And joy will fill the heart, And smiles will chase the shadows And cheer to each impart. Mesa, Arizona Mrs. Ida R. Alldredge