THE BEAR STORY
By Mary Emma Langston Stout
In the spring of 1884, my husband Alfred Fisk Stout Sr., known to everyone as “Ap” was getting ready to build a sawmill at Crystal springs, below the Kanarra/Cedar Mountains. I, Mary Emma Langston Stout, his wife, had had a hard winter. On the 4th of July, Ap came down from the mountain to get supplies and someone to cook for the men. Everyone was in the bowery, celebrating when he drove by with his horses and wagon trimmed with cottonwood branches for decoration. His red ducklined vest was turned wrong side out, of course it caused a big laugh. The children and I hurried home to greet Ap, as he had been gone a long time. We tried hard to find a cook, but were unable. Even though I was needed here at home, I told Ap I would go – I just felt I should!
On July 7th we started for Crystal Springs. The road to Kolob was quite a journey in itself. The trail from Rockville to Virgin, up North Creek to lower Kolob, past Tabernacle knoll and the Black Canyon sink holes, down through Oak Valley and deep into Crystal took three big days. The sawmill was what some of the men called a tri-weekly, or an “up and down” saw. They said it would go up one week – and try to get down the next!
The work progressed until the morning of the 17th. A huge grizzly bear had been killing small stock at the mill, that morning we found a calf had been killed during the night. The chore boy, Brigham Dalton, went up on the flat to get the horses and calves. When he started for the corral the horses snorted and wouldn’t go. He looked around and saw a bear coming down the ridge on the other side of the creek. He came screaming, “A bear! A bear! All the men grabbed their guns and started after it. They paired up in twos- eight men in all. Ap and his brother John, a young man of 17 went together.
About noon, the men came straggling in until all had come except Ap and John. The boys said, “Well, Ap will get him” Ap and John had followed the bear up the left-hand fork of the creek. The bear was a female grizzly with two cubs, which she had ditched. The two men were going up a ridge when they decided to split up with John detouring around a large thicket to try and head the bear off. Ap started through the thicket but the bear had laid down in it and was waiting for him. After going a few steps, Ap shouted, “Here she comes!” The bear had suddenly reared up on her hind feet. Ap had a 45-60 and knowing he could only shoot once before the bear would be upon him, waited until he thought he had a sure aim, but the bullet struck the bear in the top of the head. She pitched forward and Ap thought he had killed her. As he moved closer, the bear reared up and took a swat at him, knocking his gun out of reach and giving him a glancing blow across the shoulder. Ap said if she had hit him straight on, she would have torn his shoulder right off. The bear knocked him down and came right at him. She tried to grab his throat. He yelled for help and pulled his leg up for protection. The bear grabbed Ap by the knee and when John arrived, she had Ap’s kneecap in her teeth. John had a rifle (a single shot 45-70 or 45-90) the only words exchanged: Ap yelled, “For God’s sake, don’t shoot me!” So John would shoot at the bear’s side since her head was too close to Ap’s. John kept shooting, every time hitting the bear, but she would drop Ap and bite her wound then she would go back for Ap’s throat and he would pull the leg up again for protection. One time she had her teeth locked around his kneecap and kept trying to shake loose. Ap weighed 250 pounds but the bear was shaking him like a rag doll. John shot seven or eight times before the bear finally fell down. Ap hollered to John, “There, I think you finally got her. I guess this will be my last bear fight, come help me up.”
Ap’s leg had been chewed from his ankle to his thigh, it was clawed and chewed into a bloody mess. They bound it up as best they could and John went for help, running the 5 miles back to camp. About 3 o’clock, John arrived at the mill. He came running in all out of breath and as white as cloth. He said, “We got him, but Ap is hurt!” He put his arm across my shoulder and said, “Don’t get scared. He is not bad, but he is hurt pretty bad!” He hardly knew what he was saying! The men took a horse and went back with John. Ap had come nearly a mile and a half on his own, but was getting very weak from loss of blood. The men put him on the horse and he
wondered how he was going to get down without hurting too much. His boat was full of blood. When they lifted him off the horse, he almost fainted. As they carried him into the house, they told me to leave so they could dress it. They didn’t feel I could stand to see Ap in such a condition.
The next day, I stayed in to help. Since Brother Cal kept saying, “When you dress this in the morning, fix it this way,” I told Ap that I was expected to dress it. But he did not want me to; he thought I could not stand it. But the next morning I dressed it. From then on it was my job. I had to keep the kiddies out of doors all day because Ap was so nervous and afraid that they would fall on him. Ap was lying on the floor on a pallet in the middle of the room and we had a little bedroom that the children and I slept in. I was cooking for fifteen men besides my family. The baby was only four months old, but a better baby never was born. The men got some wild sage and I steeped it and washed Ap’s leg till it was the color of buckskin. Then I was told to get oak bark and chokecherry bark. I steeped them together and bathed the leg with that. We remember seeing a cord sticking out of the wound about 2-1/2 to 3 inches long.
The men brought the bear down and skinned it and I rendered the oil and made salve of it and balsam gum from trees and sugar. That was the best salve I have ever used. Ap got along fine until the ninth day when a fever came on. For three days he was delirious. He did not sleep or let me sleep. Toward the morning of the third night, I was completely done in and could not stand alone, so I called Hoke to come and stay with Ap until morning. The boys were hurt that I had not called on them to help before, but I thought I could make it all right.
One day, I do not remember which, some Indians came in and asked to watch me dress the leg. I said they could. When I took the bandage off, they threw their hands in the air and told me to cover him up and let “Mormon die” I said, ” No Mormon won’t die!” The Indians were scared, but for me, ignorance was bliss, for I did not know the green patch on the wound was gangrene. I thought it was caused from the herb’s I was bathing the leg with. The Indians however knew, they went to town and told the doctor. He said, “If the Indians were telling the truth, Ap was already dead”.
Well, one morning I dressed the leg and it looked all right. But about an hour later Ap began to beg me to undo it and see what was the matter. He said it felt like a stick was stuck in it. I told him it was all right, but finally I undid it and there was a black streak, which went up from both wounds and was within eight inches of his body. Well, I knew the streak was inflammation and was very frightened. I thought, “Well if I go down to the mill and tell the men, they will say it is all up with him.” I just could not do it, so I put a cloth over him and told him to hold it there so the flies could not get to the wound.
I went into the bedroom, got down on my knees and asked the Lord to let me know what to do and I felt He knew what I meant and that I really needed his help. I got a “feeling” and when I came back, I went to the milk cupboard and got a six-quart pan of morning milk. I put it on the stove, took a warm loaf of salt rising bread and cut off the crust and put the inside portion in the milk. When it was hot, I used it as a poultice. When I had changed it twice, Ap was asleep and the black streak was all gone! God blessed my efforts and Ap got well.
Ap lay on his back on that pallet on the floor for 21 days without getting up. He weighed 250 pounds when he went down, and was nothing but skin and bones after three weeks. If I tell you that the blow flies were so thick that they blowed on the outside of his bedding until I would get as much as a teaspoon off, you will find it hard to believe. Even though it was the last part of July, we had to keep a fire going all the time. For gauze, I tore up my sheets and tablecloths.
Ap was quite lame for a long time. He had to use crutches for sometime afterwards. Later, he was dragging some logs and in some way he fell on the lame leg and injured the cords again. When he got better, he never was as lame as before, he just limped a little.
Of course, I have not told everything that happened, but you can imagine the rest. We don’t always understand why things happen, but I do know the Lord will come to your aid if we pray and trust in Him.
Ap’s Testimony
While Ap was on the job in Salt Lake City after their marriage, he took up the tobacco habit, and became a very heavy user, smoking a pipe and also chewing it. Later he quit the use of tobacco and never used it again. When he was chewed by the bear he was in good condition, and afterwards said he would have never survived if he had been using tobacco.
(we received this story from Glade Dalton and is also contained in the book, Memories of John Langston, second edition, by Lynn Ivan Langston).
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