Another Bear story

Barely Prepared
You may not believe this, but one year on my dad’s homestead, we had an oat crop that in places stood over six feet tall. That is until, the bears decided to invade the crop. I think we counted as many as 6 to 9 bears that made that little field their home.

We were poor those days, and we had been hunting bear for a while already, and we had run out of rifle shells. Then one day, dad said to my older brother Chuck, “Go and shoot at those bears again, and make sure they aren’t back in the oat crop. Take the old double barrel shot gun and use it. It should make enough noise to scare them away.” So my brother took the old gun, loaded up both barrels. He put extra shells into his pants pocket and headed away on foot, to scare or hunt bears.

He arrives at the field and walks along the edge of the crop, up to a place in the field where, when working the field, we had to work around a willow bunch. As he walked around it now, he just happened to walk between an old mother bear and her cubs, who just happened to be there as well. They really startled each other, and the old she bear started her advance towards my brother, while he proceeded to bring the old double barreled shot gun into action. As he leveled the gun to his shoulder, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger, not realizing he was pulling the scatter barrel trigger. It goes off and only sprays the old she bear with pellets, and now, she is really ticked off, and continues her advance towards my brother Chuck.

By this time, she was getting a little too close for comfort. So he pulls the trigger for the plug barrel and all he hears is a click. The gun had misfired. Without hesitation, he broke the gun open, the old gun jumped the unshot shell out of the chamber into my brother's waiting hand, which immediately latched onto it and slid it into the other chamber. Snapping the gun back into shooting position, cocked the hammer back. And now, all he could see of the old she bear, was tongue, teeth, and lips. So, in one smooth motion, he lowered the gun down, and pointed it right into her mouth and pulled the trigger once more. The old gun jumped into action, and the old she bear turned tail and disappeared, into the bush, following her cubs, who had been gone for a bit already.

Chuck never waited to see if he had got her or not, the minute she turned tail, so did he. I don’t think he slowed his pace once, he ran the whole half mile home, and never slowed down until he hit the front door of the house. Puffing, and very much out of breath, he tried to relay the story the best that he could. Well, that’s the way I remember him telling it to us. And I remember that as he came through that door, he was still as white as a ghost.