3rd Bear Story

Up A Tree and No Where To Go

When I was very young , I started into the life of a cowboy. One of the things I really enjoyed was riding the range. Kind of like the fly, I was at home on the range. I know my kids would say, “Dad that’s so corny.”

Anyhow, I loved riding out, and checking fence, and checking the cattle, watching for sick ones or lame ones. Sometimes, from time to time, I would find a cow that had just dropped a new calf, and I would have the privilege of working with this small newborn calf. This always was a treat, the idea of new life always gave me a thrill. Today, I rejoice when I hear that someone is born new into the family of God, and have that exuberant new zest for live, as they start their new life in Christ.

The other things, I enjoyed about this, was riding alone in nature. The wind blowing softly through the trees, the birds singing their song, somewhere out there in the midst of the forest. It was so peaceful and quiet. It seemed at times, and many times it was, just me and God, out there enjoying His creation. That was a time when I felt very close to my God.

I, also, was a bit mischievous and I liked to have fun. One day, I was riding along in a patch of new land, the trees had been cleared away, and the new grass was trying to take ahold before the cows came and eat it off too short, or pulled it out by the roots. There was brush piles in long rows, and at times you would come upon a hole in the ground, where the roots of a tree had been at one time, before it had been uprooted during the clearing process.

Well, it was in one of these holes, that I spotted my fun for the day. It was a young bear, about two years old or so. He was down in one of those holes, getting a drink of water, left from a recent rain fall. His head was down and his tail up. It was then, I realized, he did not hear me coming, that he never had a clue that anything, or anybody, was anywhere near him. So I thought that I would give him a scare of his life.

So, I brought my horse into a full gallop, and came upon this bear at a very fast pace. As I approached his drinking spot, I let out a blood curdling scream. Well, I had never seen a bear move so fast before in my life. He was off, he went from 0 to 50 miles an hour, in about two seconds flat. Making a break for safety, he headed straight for the nearest stand of trees. Then, aimed at the biggest tree, he made this gigantic lunge, landing on the tree at about six feet in the air. Then he proceeded up the tree with another five or six big jumps. Then, he turned and looked down at me as much to say, "Ha, ha, you didn’t catch me." But boy, was it close.

I laughed so hard, I could hardly stay in my saddle. He looked so funny hanging up in that tree. He was so scared, and little old me, had scared this ferocious black bear. Or, so I thought, at that time in my life. It was fun for me. And at the time, all I cared about was, that I was in control of the situation, and that I was having fun.

Yes, I was in control, and I was on the ground. He, on the other hand, was up a tree, with no where to go. But, I do realize now, that God was the one that had control, I was just a part of the big picture.

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.

Bears

Bears

When I was growing up we had many encounters with bears. I am not sure which one to start with but I guess the funniest and the scariest would likely be the best. There is actually two that come very close in this category, The one that I am going to start with I will call:

It Was Barely A Bear

This story begins in the fall of the year, very likely late July to mid-August, we, my brother Chuck and I, were out haying a fare distance from home. So we had taken our tent along, it was one of those big cabin type tents, that slept about six to eight people. So we had all of our stuff packed into the tent for safe keeping. Encluding all of our food, pots and pans, dishes and the works.

We had worked hard all day and we were very tired and had gone to bed at a decent time that evening to get a good sleep, so we could get a good start the next morning. We had to get repairs done to the machinery every morning, while we were waiting for the morning sun to burn the night dew off of the swaths of hay before we could start baleing again.

Our cousins were haying just across the road from us, but they were a little farther ahead of us and they were already hauling their hay home. They had taken a load of hay home, and were coming back to get another one, why they were hauling hay all night long I will never know. But they had stopped in town and had picked up some ice cream. Now you must understand, we loved our ice cream very much. It so happened that either they had bought too much ice cream and they couldn’t eat it all, or they were being nice and decided to bring some out for us. I'm not sure which.

But it was 1 A.M. in the morning and we were sound asleep. So their way of waking us was very inventive. Roy, their hired man would act like a bear, and scare our shorts off and then they would give us our ice cream. Roy, being part Indian, could do a real good imitation of a bear.

Here’s how it all played out. Remember now we were sound asleep in a dark tent, but the moon was shining bright outside. Roy comes in towards the tent on his hands and knees, grunting like a bear, he feels along the side of the tent, until he finds where we have a bunch of things piled along the inside of the tent. With a loud woof, and a big grunt, he swings with all his might, smashing into the pile of pans and dishes, sending them flying all over the tent. You can only imagine our fright.

This brought my brother and me, sitting straight up in bed, wondering what on earth was going on. Was it an earthquake or what? It was then, that we saw the shadow of the bear, big and black outside our tent. It was about that time, that he smashed his hand into our grub box, sending things once again, flying across the tent. I almost met myself coming back as I sprang out of bed.

By this time we were getting pretty scared. My brother reached over and grabbed the big butcher knife, that was in a grub box close by. Lifting it up over his head, he then turned to me and said, “Before I take him on with this knife, I am going to yell, and see if that scares him away first”. With that, he let the wildest, and loudest blood curdling scream I had ever heard. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he said something that showed everyone on the outside of the tent that we were very scared. Whatever he said, made my cousin realize, that they might be in a dangerous situation, if we had a gun in the tent with us, because chances are, we could of shot first and ask questions later.

At that, he, my cousin started to laugh, and then we were ready to kill them. As they came to the door of the tent, and saw my brother holding the big butcher knife, well, the little Indian went almost as white as one of us pale faces. Later, we had a good laugh about it and then, enjoyed some now very melted ice cream, but it still tasted good even in the middle of the night.

Just Face It

Thistles In The Face

Once again it was fall, dad was again doing the job he was supposed to be doing. He was hauling in the loads of sheaves, to the threshing machine, to retrieve the grain from them, and then, store it in a bin. My dad had been working hard all day, had put on quite a sweat. It was a very warm day in early fall.

It was middle of the afternoon, and as dad was bringing in his load, he noticed the threshing machine boss was laying down beside the tractor, and was having a sleep while everyone else was working away running the loads of sheaves through the thresher. So my dad was kind of a prankster anyhow, so he looked back at his load wondering what he could do. When he noticed that he had a number of real thistle bundles on the very top of his load. Perfect, he thought, as I drive by, I will reach back with my fork, and dump a bundle off on top of him, that will fix him for sleeping on the job.

So as the front wagon pulled away, dad moved passed to pull into position so he could put his load through the thresher. And as he passed by the sleeping thresher operator, he reach back with his fork and rolled a bundle off. Well, you would not believe how good of an aim he was, as he looked over the edge of his load to see what damage he had done, he saw the bundle land right up side down and land right in the guys face. The thistle part of the bundle is what landed in his face. Boy, was he ever spitting thistles for a while.

Dad realized that he had just better go about his business and not say a word, and maybe the threshing boss would just think that the bundle had fallen off on its own accord. Believe it when I tell you, that my dad was very happy, that is exactly what happened. The guy either knew that he shouldn’t of been sleeping on the job, or else he just thought the bundle had fallen off by it's self, because he never said a word about it. But he also didn’t sleep on the job right away again.
So he might have had a hunch that maybe, just maybe, that bundle was helped just a little bit.