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Show Pioneer Story Spins Weird Bear Tale Editor's Note: Periodically Interesting In-teresting stories of our pioneers and our locale crop up and we find it refreshing to bring these stories to our readers to remind them of days gone by and of the ever changing conditions ot our area. Such is the following story, a review of an incident near Rockville, written by Willis E. Robinson. (Condensed by the Editor). About the year 1885, some par-ties par-ties from Rockville in southern Utah were building a saw mill at Crystal Spring on the east side of Kanarra Mountain. Personnel Per-sonnel of the party were Alfred and Hosea Stout. Charles Smith and his son Joseph, and Jacob and Frank Langston. The location was a virtual paradise par-adise for wild game of all kinds and later became grazing land for livestock of the pioneers. On the morning of July 17, 18S5, as the men were beginning begin-ning their day's activities one of the group chanced to look across the valley to see a large grlzbly bear slowing wending his way past their camp and apparently appar-ently ignoring both it and its occupants. immediately the camp became a commotion as the men grad-bed grad-bed their guns and other weapons wea-pons to pursue the large grizzly. During this commotion the bear passed out of sight but the men decided to go after him. The group followed the bear Into a sandy wash and very cautiously cautious-ly followed the track of the huge beast. Eventually the track led the men from the wash onto the hillside. When the men found where the bear had left the wash all of the party decided to return to camp -with the exception of mm.. Alfred and John Stout who decided de-cided to continue the chase. The two men were each armed arm-ed with a 45-70 Winchester rifle, ri-fle, an up-to-date weapon in every respect. They had plenty of ammunition and they eagerly pressed forward following the grizzly path by small signs left on rocks, dirt and trees. They came upon a grove of quaking aspens, willows and birches and decided to investigate investi-gate this retreat, hoping to find the animal. Carefully they worked work-ed their way up the edge of the grove. Alfred a little higher on the hillside than John. Both had their rifles In readiness for ln-i ln-i stant use. After watching and listening for several minutes the two decided de-cided to skirt the grove and look for signs on the opposite side. It ' was at this time that the grizzly decided to make his move. With a deafening roap. he sprang ! from the cover of the bushes, . bounding toward them and ; heading directly for Alfred. His . sudden and unexpected charge , startled the two men, but they . did not panic for both raised i their rifles and let" the bear get even closer before they fired. When the bear was not more i than 10 feet away both fired at once. Alfred's volley struck the bear at the top of the head while John's, from his lower position, r hit the animal in the shoulder. 1 As the two guns cracked the bear '- seemed to turn a complete sum- 51 mersault and landed directly at the feet of Alfred who shouted, "We've got him John!" But the words were hardly out of his mouth before he realized his mistake for the bear was only momentarily stunned, and an Instant later reared up and with one blow of his big paw sent the gun flying through the air and felled Alfred to the ground and pounced on him. Alfred! underneath un-derneath the bear, grabbed the bear's nose and as he struggled he forced his knee into the mouth of the grizzly. The strong Jaws of the bear clamped down crushing the bone and tearing the flesh in a most horrible manner. The bear savagely gnawed-at the knee, dragging and tossing Alfred to and fro. John had managed to fire two more shots at the grizzly before the bear finally released Alfred from his Jaws and came directly at John. With one more well directed shot, as the bear advanced ad-vanced upon him the bear was dropped again, this time at the feet of John. There was no mistaking mis-taking that the animal was now dead. John Immediately attended the wounds of Alfred and then left for a rescue party. Alfred managed man-aged to slide a considerable distance dis-tance down the hillside where he was met, returned to camp and was properly treated. It was many months before he regained the use of his leg. "Alfred Stout is still living," (this was written in 1909), "in Hinckley, Millard County, and probably enjoys the distinction of being the only man in the state who has wrestled with a ' full grown male grizlzy bear in his native wilds, and had the au. diclty to twist his nose and then live to tell the story." |