"Where we goin' hunting this year, Bill?" The old familiar query, yet as ever it did not fail to bring that old surge of excitement, "hunting fever", if you like, into play. Anytime between spring and hunting season these simple words inevitably led to an all-inclusive research and discussion of all the various experiences, hearsay's and planning as important and as dear to the heart of the hunter as votes to a politician, and I might add, never fails to bring from "the good wife" some caustic remark such as "hunting again, huh? I wish hunting was here and you were gone. Those two weeks you're gone are about the only time I can hear something around this house besides "bolt action", "06", "bull elk", etc., etc., etc. Poor dears, they really get as much kick out of it as we do and I'll bet all the time we're gone they talk about what they think we'll come home with.
This season we finally decided on the upper North Fork of Sun River country. This region is a part of the country in which ranges one of the largest elk herds on the North American continent and due to the inaccessibility of this portion of it, it is a veritable "Hunter Paradise", with plenty of deer, goats, sheep and bear; including a few grizzlies.
It is a wild rugged country unsurpassed in the beauty of it's sharp rugged peaks, its vast expanse of timbers unmarred by the terrible devastation of the forest fire or unsacred by roads or any other signs of civilization. One can sense the vastness, the beauty, and the majesty of these age-old mountains; feel the thrill of nature in all its wild ruggedness. A place where one leaves all the care and worries of civilization behind, without being reminded of them by the honk of an automobile horn or all the other noises so alien to nature in its original state. One really feels the aloneness, the sense of his own unimportance in the realm of nature in all its grandeur. One must feel, in a smaller sense, the thrills of the explorers and adventurers of old in pitting his meager strength against the unrelenting laws of nature in the raw.
There were four of us in the party. Charlie Hansen from Bynum, Montana, an old experienced hunter whose favorite expression was "meat in the pot at the crack of the gun". Believe me he wasn't bragging either. His little old "pea flipper", as he called it, seldom failed when he "cracked down on em". He used a little old 25-35 Winchester '94 model and while it is a little light for elk or bear, never the less he gets them. That "little pea flipper" has hung up a very enviable record in its 20 years of "crackin em down". Al Bergmann of Great Falls, while not so old in years, was old in hunting experience having quite a few elk to his credit. He used a Sedgly Springfield '06 and boy was he glad it was more than just a "pea flipper", as subsequent events will show. Gene Leistiko, a young fellow of 21 with 3 years hunting experience used a 30-30 Winchester. It was my seventh trip and I was using a 30-40 Krag.
After several hectic days of preparation, including shoeing horses and getting pack outfits repaired and assembled and getting all our paraphernalia together and loaded in a trailer plus two horses in Genes truck, Al, Gene and myself finally got away from home about 8:30 on Tues. morning, Oct. 13th. We drove 70 miles to Bynum arriving about noon. It is 28 miles from there to our first camp on the Teton River. After a quick lunch, Charlie and Gene set out cross-country with Charlie's five horses intending to ride up to the mountains by dark.
Al and I loaded Charlie's equipment in the trailer, and still hauling the two horses, intended to get up to the mountains in time to make camp and have supper ready. We had a little trouble with the trailer because of the rough roads and it was dark by the time we hit the mouth of the canyon. We were only about half a mile ahead of Charlie, Gene and their horses. We were still 5 miles from camp and the road was very rough and slow going so we only beat them to camp by about 15 minutes.
I couldn't understand how those boys could see to travel up that snakey canyon in the dark and boy it was really pitch dark in the canyon. Charlie said he just turned his horse loose and hung on and the rest followed. That roan horse led them 5 miles right into camp. It was his third trip and although the trail forked in several places and the camp was sort of isolated back in the timber, old Roanie never hesitated a minute.
Next we had a busy half-hour unloading horses and equipment, feeding the horses and getting supper. We had a small single burner Coleman gasoline lantern that we found to be practically indispensable as we did all our wrangling and cooking before and after daylight.
It was a beautiful night so we didn't bother to put up our tent. We just rolled out beds and rolled in. Tired? Yes, but happy. It started raining about 3 o'clock in the morning, but we slept so sound we didn't feel it until it started coming through the blankets.
I got up at four, built up the fire and started breakfast. By daylight we were all ready to pack. It took 5 horses to carry our outfit. That left 2 to ride. We had 9 miles to pack so by taking turns riding and walking none of us had to walk very far. Our trail lay up the middle fork of the Teton River over Teton Pass, an elevation of 6900 ft. To the left of us towered Teton Peak, the highest in that vicinity. Through our glasses we could see goat sheds and trails criss crossing clear up to the top of it's bare rocky slopes on trails one would think only an eagle could ascend.
We could look far to the west and see the Continental Divide jutting its rugged outline against the sky. Below us lay the drainage area of the North Fork of the Sun River with its innumerable creeks and tributaries and its vast covering of timber broken only by the many smaller rocky peaks sticking above the timberline. Our trail wound down Route Creek to where we camped. We were about 5 miles from the main river, which is the game preserve line. We were in the heart of the most likely looking game country I've ever seen. We could hunt any direction from camp and expect the best of luck. We reached our campsite about 3:30 and spent the rest of the afternoon building camp and making things comfortable. We had a beautiful campsite right on the bank of Route Creek. Just a nice little park surrounded on all sides by heavy timber, which afforded a good windbreak.
About 500 yards below camp was a natural horse pasture with good feed. By throwing a few logs across the trail and hobbling part of the horses we had little trouble holding them. The evening was spent reminiscing, telling jokes and planning our hunting strategy for the morrow. Charlie and Al elected to do the cooking and Gene and I were to supply camp wood and wrangle horses. Hopes were high and everybody was enthusiastic for the next day. What a glorious feeling. We could hardly sleep, tired as we were. The sweet music of the creek, babbling at the door of our tent, the sighing of the pines around us, the lonely wail of a coyote on a mountain to the south of us answered by another to the north, the snorting and occasional whinnying of the horses below us and best of all the shrill high pitched bugling of a bull elk above the horse pasture, tended to make the blood tingle with excitement. Do you wonder why we didn't want to go to sleep?
At 3:45 in the morning we were aroused by a hearty "Hey, youse guys, gonna' sleep all day?" Charlie was awake and raring to go. Charlie and Al had breakfast ready by the time Gene and I brought in the horses, grained and saddled four of them. By daybreak we were off. Charlie had hunted up here the year before and knew the country well so we let him formulate our plans which were to ride down the trail 4 miles and spread out and hunt up the ridge between Route Creek and Ray creek to the south of us but the best of plans can go astray. We had just left camp and started to cross the horse pasture when Al, who was in the lead suddenly stopped his horse. With a whispered "hold'er a minute, take a look up there will ya." We followed his gaze and sure enough about a thousand yards up the slope above the horse pasture, right on the edge of a little grove of jack pine we could make out in the dim morning light, a bull elk standing broadside to us. It wasn't light enough to risk a shot at that distance. We hesitated a minute. The elk was watching us intently though seemingly unafraid. At the first move to get off our horses it whirled away and was out of sight in the grove.
Charlie immediately took charge of the situation. "There's a high rock cliff in back of him. One of you fellows start up this side of the timber. Two of us will go down the trail and work up through the timber. I'll go down about 800 yards. There's another opening he'll have to cross. Between the four of us we can bottle him up and work him up to the ledge where one of us ought to get in some shooting."
Al started up first. Gene went down the trail about 200 yards, then started up through the timber. I cut up about 400 yards down the trail and Charlie led the horses down to the opening he spoke of, then climbed to where he could watch both ways. Carefully we worked up the mountainside. Gene was the first to jump the elk, shooting through an opening just as the elk entered the last little bunch of pine under the ledge. He fired 3 times in rapid succession, wounding it badly. It wheeled and staggered down toward Al. He shot twice, the last shot getting the elk in the head, bringing him down about 15 yards away.
In the meantime Charlie and I met and decided to go down the trail as planned. We rode 4 miles, left our horses on the trail and started up the ridge. We were in pretty heavy timber all day and although we jumped several bunches of elk we didn't get a chance to see them. We got to camp about sun down. Al and Gene were just a few minutes ahead of us.
The evening was spent talking over the day's events. We got a pretty good laugh of Al's description of Gene's antics on the mountainside after he started shooting at the elk. It seems he was carrying his ammunition in a little knapsack on his back. In his excitement he emptied his gun and came running down the mountain waving his gun wildly in one hand and trying to reach up between his shoulder blades to get his shells with his other hand.
Al said, "Boy if he ever caught up with that elk he'd have clubbed it to death for sure." Anyway Gene didn't pack shells in his knapsack any more.
After they dressed the elk they climbed to the top of the ledge and worked north along the rim rock, jumping a mountain goat. It cut down on the north side and although Al got within 30 ft of it once, it managed to keep out of sight under the ledge. It was too steep for them to get down until they worked around to the next ridge and by that time the goat was out of the country. From there they hunted down through what is called the Basin with no luck. Anyhow, we had fried liver for supper.
The second day we planned on doing down to the Ray creek ridge. This was likely looking country. We'd seen plenty of elk sign the day before. We got up at 4 o'clock and were down the trail five miles by daybreak. We split up, working up the ridge about a thousand yards apart, planning to meet up in the Ray creek pass about noon. Gene and I were to try to work up there first in case anything went over. Charlie and I had run about 15 head over the day before. We got up there all right but nothing showed up. Charlie was the only lucky man. He was sneaking up a game trail through deadfall and timber so thick he could scarcely get through. Suddenly, through a narrow opening he spied a big six-point bull sauntering up the trail about a hundred yards ahead of him. He dropped to one knee and drawed down on him. I don't think that bull ever knew what hit him. He dropped at the first shot with a bullet through the heart.
The third day Charlie and Gene spent packing the two elk into camp. Al and I started north to hunt the Basin. We worked around through the basin and on around to the Walden creek pass, about 8 miles from camp by trail. We covered about 20 miles but saw nothing but fresh tracks. The elk were getting pretty wary and refused to work into the open.
The fourth day we rode down the trial eleven miles to Ray creek and hunted the south side of Ray creek over to Headquarter creek. We jumped a bunch of 5 cows in the heavy timber. It had to be quick shooting or none. In my excitement I jammed my gun and that was that. I didn't get another chance to shoot. The laugh was on me that night.
We got back to camp about 2 hours after dark. Again it was old Roanie who led us in. It was a pretty discouraged bunch that night.
We had hoped for a little tracking snow as the leaves and under brush were getting pretty dry. It was hard to sneak up on game. Hope was revived by morning when it started to rain. We spent the day around camp resting up. By ten o'clock it was snowing. At sundown we had about 3 inched of good tracking snow. We had visitors after supper. Some of the boys that were camped above us came down and we spent a pleasant evening swapping yarns. The talk finally led around to bears.
Some of their party had gotten some shooting every day at black and brown bears but only one was wounded. Charlie told about one of the men in his party about killing two black bear the year before. "Say", offered a fellow named Allum, who had a small packing outfit, "Speaking of bears - Bakers packed in a dude from New York last month and he and an old bear hunter from Choteau run into a big old grizzly up on the Paupers Reef just north of here. That was really a bear! I've been hunting in these hills for nigh onto 40 years and I've killed me plenty of bars", says that old hunter, "but that old bar is too big for me to tackle off hand. I would if he had me cornered or somethin', but he's off there about 400 yards now and by dang that's as close as he'll get if I can help it! They got out of there fast like, and said they hadn't lost no old bar. I'd give a thousand dollars for that bears hide for a trophy offered by the dude, but so far I think that bar is still king in these parts."
You're talking about you wanting a bear Al. "Why don't you look for him. Say, what'd you do if you did run into him?"
"I don't know. Same thing as they did, I guess. At least I bet I'd be in the highest tree I could find before I did shoot. Then if that little old Sedgley couldn't kill him....Well, I don't know but I'll bet there'd be some tree sitting records broke around here before that bear would get little Albert." That seemed to be the general sentiment of all of us.
"I'd just like to get a pop at him with my little "pea flipper", ventured Charlie. "What", I cried. "You'd take a chance with that little bee bee gun? You're a bigger fool than I ever thought you were. Why that gun wouldn't stop a big grizzly in time if it were near you and you know it. You're too old and stiff to climb a tree."
"Maybe he'd do like Ole did when the bull got after him", said Gene. "If he couldn't make it in one 'yump', he'd take two."
"Yah, and if he missed it going up he still had a chance on ketchin' it on the way down."
"I don't know how I'd get up there but if I run into Mr. Bear tomorrow, we'll soon find out," said Charlie, who was no slouch at kidding, himself and could take it in return.
"What do you say if we go looking for him tomorrow, Bill?", asked Al. "Not me, I ain't lost no bear either. Besides I don't think you have either." No answer. A little more joshing back and forth and finally we went to bed.
The next morning we were to the Ray creek ridge by daylight. We spread out and hunted about the same way as we did the second day. About a half-hour after I'd left the horses, I run across a peculiar track in the snow. It came from the direction of Paupers Reef and headed down toward Ray creek but I couldn't make out just what it was. It was the first bear track I'd ever seen made in snow but I didn't know it yet. I followed it a ways and saw it headed down into Ray creek.
I left it and worked on up the ridge. I jumped a bunch of 6 elk a little further up but didn't get to see them. I could hear them cracking through the timber a little ways ahead of me. Later, I found out I'd run them just ahead of Charlie, who was coming up somewhere to my left. It was the same story with all of us. We jumped elk all over that ridge but they were too smart for us. Couldn't get open shot all morning. I got to the pass first and Al followed shortly. We built a little fire to warm our can of beans and waited for Charlie and Gene who were supposed to meet us there. Charlie finally showed up but Gene didn't.
"There's no use waiting for him," suggested Charlie. "He probably couldn't stand to see all those fresh tracks. He's probably trying to run one of them elk down." It's about 2 o'clock now and we're 5 miles from our horses. We'd better start back. What do you think?" We agreed. "We'd just as well spread out and hunt down the south side of this ridge on our way down. As for me I'm going to take the near side and cut at an angle and come out on the trail in that quaking aspen grove just below the horses. You'll find a series of little hogbacks running crossways of this ridge on the south side. There're little parks and open spaces on the tops of these knolls that ought to be good for something. I'd suggest one of you work along the lower end of these and one go over the top or a little to the north side. There's game trails in all the little saddles between these hogbacks and there's a chance if you jump anything, you might run them into one another. After you get by these knolls you'd better angle off toward the trail too cause you've got about 7 miles to horses by that route."
"O.K., which way do you want to go Bill", asked Al. "Over the tops or around the end?"
"Oh, it doesn't make any difference. Over the tops, I guess."
"Alright, give me a few minutes start cause I've got a little farther to go. I'll tell you, when you see me come out on the end of the rocky ridge down there to our left you can start." And he disappeared into the timber.
Charlie had started down. I waited. Presently Al showed up on the rocky point, crossed a little saddle pass and started up carefully over the first hogback. Just as Charlie said, the top of the knoll was a grassy park, an ideal spot for a little bunch of elk to be feeding. With my heart beating wildly, just as expectant as ever and keeping in the timber out of sight, I slowly stalked up to the edge of the park. Nothing. A little disappointed I worked down to the next saddle and up the next ridge. It was about the same. Another little park. Again my pulses were racing. Again, nothing.
Wait a minute! Was that a flash through the trees? It ran up the hill a little further over the top. I could see nothing but trees. I got to where I thought I'd seen something. Sure enough fresh tracks. I had made too much noise and jumped them. They headed right down into the saddle and started to angle around the left end of the next hogback. I thought I'd better run around this next knoll and watch the next pass. It looks like they're either going to run into Al or else circle around this knoll and back through the next saddle. I raced madly around the north end of the ridge, high enough up so I could eye the top and still watch the pass below me.
I'd just got around to the west side and stopped to get my breath when BOOM, BOOM!!! Three shots in rapid succession from the south end of the pass I'd just left, or across the hogback I'd just circled. I worked around the ridge where I could watch the south side in case they came on around.
Suddenly, another BOOM. Then the loudest, most blood curdling roar I'd ever heard and two more shots in rapid succession. I could tell he'd hit something and it was mighty mad but I couldn't imagine what it was. It sounded something like the long drawn out bawl of a mad cow when it's protecting it's calf from a dog, only it was boulder and louder. It sent chills up and down my back.
I started running toward the battle. I expected to see Al up a tree with a mad bull elk under him, especially when I heard faintly at first, Bill", then louder, "Bill, come here!" I came running around the knoll and there was Al, white, as a sheet and shaking like a leaf. He was looking at something down in the bottom of the pass about 20 yards away.
"Now I know what to do when one of them devils make for you", were his first words. "What did you get?" I asked, running down to him.
"Take a look down there, will ya," he shouted with a queer, grim look. I looked.
"Holy smoke! A BEAR! Is he dead yet?" I don't know which one of us was the most scared. "I don't know, I've been watching him since he went down and he hasn't moved a bit."
"We'd better make sure", I said. "I've heard of these devils getting up an hour after they were down and tearing a man to pieces." We edged closer, our guns ready. Al worked around in front of him and let him have it right between the eyes. That last shot of Al's had smashed its backbone in two.
"Boy, oh boy, it's a silver tip, too. Isn't it a big fellow?"
"Gee", I cried, "You're a lucky stiff. How did you ever do it? I thought you had run into the 3 head of elk that came through here."
"I did".