A Providential Escape

A Providential Escape By Miles A. Romney While confined to my room with a badly bruised foot my mind wanders in many directions, and revels in various moods. Tonight it dwells, especially, upon a "Pro\ identiai" incident of the past, from which may be gleaned a thought that may cause other youths to stop in the rush of life and listen. Per- chance they, as I, may detect the influence of Providence, and hear the "invisible voice" in the incidents that come and go in this wonderful life of ours. , In the year 1887 my father and Helaman Pratt and their families moved into the mountains of Chihuahua, Old Mexico. The little valley in which we found ourselves, nestled closely between high, mountainous cliffs. We named it "Cliff Ranch." One afternoon, "Bill," from Williams Ranch, drew up his horse outside our corral. "Better watch your stock pretty close," he said, "one of our best cows was killed last night by a bear, not more than three miles from here." Boy-like, I determined to "get the bear." Shouldering my small 44- Winchester rifle, which I thought the most deadly weapon yet devised by man, since I had killed several turkeys and deer with it, I took the trail which led directly north. I scaled the shingly cliffs lying in that direction, and gradually descended the slopes and low-lying hills until I came to the spot on the edge of the first basin where the remains of the dead cow were lying. By this time the sun had set and the shadows were deep- ening. I had recently listened to the tales of old trappers, who declared that wild animals usually return in the night to feed. Undoubtedly, then, "Bruin" would be along soon. Entirely surrounding the small opening where the cow had been killed, was a thick growth of both large and small oak brush and timber. I selected the largest oak tree near the carcass, climbed into the branches and waited. The moon was shining for a while, and I felt as brave as a lion so long as I could look into its companionable face. When it set, as all moons will, I began to shiver, but of course, not from fear! I attributed the condition to my hasty walk to the scene of action — or inaction. The cool March breeze, whistling through the branches of the sturdy oak and my scanty covering, caused me to think of the home fireside where good "Aunt Catherine" dozed in the old chair by its side.

1034 IMPROVEMENT ERA Hist! A twig had snapped! My heart pounded audibly. Straining my eyes in the direction of the sound I saw two large, moving objects, just a shade blacker than the now dark night. The tree in which I was perched was on a steep incline. This brought the moving objects about on a level with me. I raised myself just a little to get more accurate aim. In doing so the small dry branch on which my right foot rested, broke. The "lead" bear raised to his full height on his legs, whirled, and both made a hasty retreat through the underbrush. The crash- ing ceased. The night was just as black and full of fears as before. I was left to keep my solitary watch over the cow. I knew that the bears would not make another visit there that night. I was afraid to stay up in the tree in my cramped position, but more afraid to get down. The intensity of the cold, however, brought me to a final decision. Stiffened by the mountainous "damps" I scrambled down the oak, passed the cow cautiously, and took the trail for home in a direction opposite to that in which the bears had fled. I was ready to sign a contract with Mr. Bruin to the effect that if he could guarantee me "safe conduct" home I would guarantee that, so far as I was con- cerned, he should live forever. With the next day's sunshine, courage was again established in my boyish constitution. I took another "vuelta" in the after- noon to see if I could run on to game of some kind. I climbed the high ridges immediately west of "Cliff Ranch" and about four miles up, dropped into the left fork of Spring Creek, which I followed in a homeward direction, thinking my after- noon's quest for game had been fruitless. About one mile below, as I was passing the forks of this same creek on its right prong, I saw what I thought was a black mare and her yearling colt, feeding along the shore. "What a heavy-set mare and colt!" was my first thought. Since the sun had set, the shadows from the overhanging crags in the west, settled sooner on that side than on my side of the canyon. Cau- tiously, I crept closer, keeping between me and the animals a large Juniper tree. Peering between the branches, I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was face to face with my friends of the preceding night. My rifle flashed over the trunk of the old Juniper, and I had fired at the larger of the two beasts. Immediately the blasts of the infernal regions were let loose. The roaring and bellowing of the wounded male bear struck the high cliffs, echoed and re-echoed again, and still again in that darken- ing box-canyon. The smaller of the two made a straight line for my location. I fired as it came toward me. It swerfved a little to the left. As it passed, I gave it one broadside shot, but it continued its flight for its life. I kept up my fire at its departing

A PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE 103$ end. A few hundred yards up the mountainside I found it lying square on its back. I fired one shot into its head to make sure that Mrs. Bruin was dead. I now retraced my steps past the old Juniper stronghold and on to the edge of the slough to the spot where I had wounded the head of this bear family. The old chap had crawled away. I then foolishly plunged into the willows and undergrowth along the bottom of the creek, up and then down, crossed it and re- crossed it, and taking a dim trail around the mountainside, which I could follow by the "moonbeams' misty light," I came out on the point of a jutting ledge. I looked below and shud- dered at the hundred feet of perpendicular cliff below me. Above at my right, the mountain lifted itself fifty feet in broken crags. "Just around this ledge," I thought, "I'll go, and then turn back." A few steps to the right brought me in full view of the moon, the sight of which seemed to change my plans entirely. I thought of supper and home. If I did not start immediately I could not get home before the moon set. The developments of the following day proved to me that either the sight of the moon and its suggestions of other thoughts, an "Invisible Voice," or Inspiration pure and simple, gave me a lease on life. A few more steps in the direction I was pursuing, and I would have — As I was saying, if I were to get home before the moon set I must start at once. As my footsteps sounded on the little back porch, Aunt Catherine's hand lifted the home-made latch. "Why, my boy," she said, "this kind of 'night-hawking' will wear us all out with suspense. If your mother were here she would go wild." "But," said I, "I've got the bear!" She told me then, that when prayers were said, that night, she felt impressed to ask the Lord to preserve the absent boy in the hills. All was excitement on the following morning. We were up before the day. Everybody wanted to be the chap to help bring in the "kill," so we lined up for the march to the canyon — Gaskell, George, Thomas, Junius and Ernest, the last two little chaps on the back of "Old Kate," the family mare. When we arrived upon the battleground of the night before, Old Kate decided that the odor didn't quite agree with her, and that she would leave for other parts, so breaking all restrains in the shape of ropes and wires, she switched her tail and fled. We dissected the bear and started for home. Looking again for the trail of the wounded bear I found that he had left the canyon up that same small trail I had followed

1036 IMPROVEMENT ERA the night before. Had I gone two rods farther from the spot at which I turned back twelve hours before, I would have come face to face with a wounded bear, as all signs showed that he had only left his den under a shelving rock a few hours before. Talk not to me of an unmindful Providence ! The assurance has been with me constantly through the passing years, since that night in 1887, when I stood on the cliff in the moonlight. By some method known to Him alone, I was directed to change my plans, and to take the backward trail to home and safety. Colonial Juarez, Chihuahua. Mexico. The Press upon which the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed, now at the Bureau of Information, Salt Lake City