The story of Old Ephraim

              The Story of Old Ephraim as told by Newell Crookston in 1966
Your teacher, I’m going to try to tell you a true story about a famous grizzly bear by the name of Old Ephraim that lived and roamed in the hills of Cache National Forest east of Logan for about 15 years that they know of.  The main character in this story, besides Old Ephraim, is Frank Clark who lived on Cherry Creek near Malad, Idaho.  When he was a young man he helped tend sheep in Box Elder County and sometimes was out on the desert in the cold winter months.  Later, he helped organize the Ward Clark Sheep Company and became a part owner in it.  They had quite a range right on the Cache National Forest and began taking their sheep across Cache Valley to the forest area about July 1st  of each year.  They had 5 or 6 herds with about 1500 or more sheep in each one.  Each group had its own herder, camp mover, the wagon, drawn by two horses, which followed them into the hills as far as they could go.  Then they’d have to leave it.  Each herd had a designated area to herd in.  They tried to keep the sheep at least 2 or 3 miles apart so they wouldn’t get mixed up together.  Mr. Clark was a quiet sort of a fellow, not much given to talking.  I suppose that’s because he spent so much time alone.  At a sheep camp, you seldom had a visitor or saw a newspaper during the entire summer.  The camp mover would come up there about every 6 or 8 days and bring some grub, as they called it, move to a new spot.  As they moved to higher areas, they left the camp wagon, used a tent for shelter.  This was carried up there on pack horses.  It would be set up near a spring or stream of clear water.  Mr. Clark knew these hills very well there was not a trail or spring or creek in that area that he was not acquainted with.  He was a very versatile man as were other sheep herders of that day.  They had to do their cooking, take care of their clothing, be their own doctor, in case of accidents or sickness, shoe the horses, and do many other things that required training and skill, as one can well imagine.  He was not entirely alone; however, there were three things that were always with him his horse, his dog, and his gun.  There were always two or three horses and dogs around the camp.  The horses were used for transportation every day as he rounded up the sheep, kept them from spreading out too far, and moving them on to good feed.  One or two dogs always went along with him to help with the job.  The others would remain in camp.  They took turns with the work, as did the horses.  The gun was carried on a scabbard in the saddle and was used mostly to kill marauding animals that ventured too near the sheep.  Mr. Clark carried a .25-35 Winchester rifle just like the one I have here.  To load this gun you put the bullets through this little place.  It’ll hold 7 shells and then you move this back, it puts a new shell into the chamber and it’s ready to shoot again.  Mr. Clark carried that gun with him all the time.  Whenever he came in off’n the range, he’d take the gun off the scabbard and put it by his tent door.  He always kept it loaded and ready for any emergency that came along.  These horses were turned out on the range were hobbled so they wouldn’t run away too far.  You take a pair of hobbles like these and buckle these two straps on their front feet so they can’t run too fast.  They can walk around quite comfortably and feed alright, but with these hobbles they can’t run fast enough to get away from the herder or stray too far away from camp.  When Mr. Clark came to this area July the 13th, 1911 to herd sheep, it was considered the worst bear infested area in the state of Utah.  Black and brown bear were numerous and each year a number of them were trapped and killed, but not Old Ephraim.  He was a little too clever.   Only one man actually ever seen him, this was Mr. Clark’s pal Sam Kemp from Portage, Utah.  Sam was tending sheep in this area the summer of 1913 one morning he came almost face to face with old Ephraim.  As the huge bear came up on his hind legs, Sam became so unnerved and frightened that he didn’t dare fire a shot; he just backed slowly away.  Old Ephraim looked at him and turned and went the other way so Mr. Kemp and Ephraim parted in a friendly manner and went in opposite directions, never saw each other again.  Mr. Clark heard about Old Ephraim when he first came up to this area in 1911, but by 1913 he knew quite well the habits of ‘em, where he went, where he traveled, and how often he would come around to the sheep herd to get sheep.  Sam Kemp told him about seeing Old Ephraim, described him to him, told him what a fierce, big monstrous looking thing he was.  So Clark had a pretty good idea about the size of Old Ephraim.  This great king of the Cache National Forest was widely known.  His nightly killings had been going on for years.  His activities were first observed in the north end of the forest near Soda Springs, Idaho.  Over the years he had drifted south as far as Weber County.  But for the past 10 or 12 years he’d made his home in the upper area of Right Hand Fork of Logan Canyon, Elk Valley and Temple Fork.   He made a wallow about half way up the hollow where water from a spring trickled down the ravine.  He’d make his visits to the sheep camp for meat and would return again to the wallow about every 6 or 8 days.  Sometimes he’d stay around there for 3 or 4 days if the weather was hot.  One day Mr. Clark came upon the wallow.  It was about 10 or 12 feet in diameter and had about 1 or 2 feet of water in it.  He could see very large tracks around in the dust on the banks of the pool.  He noticed that one track showed only three toes, so Frank decided they were the tracks of Old Ephraim because the herders used to call him Old Three Toe.  Later he was given the name of Ephraim after a great grizzly bear in California described in a story written by Mr. Barnum.  Mr. Clark decided that would be a good place to put a trap.  So as soon as he could he got the largest trap he could find, took it up there and set it in the wallow, then went about tending his sheep.  I have a trap here just about like the size of the one that Mr. Clark had.  This is a large fellow; weighs about 23 pounds.  To set this trap you turn this clamp down on the spring ‘til the spring touches the bottom.  Then you remove it, then you put another little clamp on there, then you remove it, and put it on the other spring and turn it down so that the spring touches the bottom.  Then you open the jaws, being careful to keep your hands underneath so if it slips off you won’t get caught.  With this jaw under this trigger here and lift up the center one and hold it.  Then release one spring a little bit and tighten it up.  The pressure on there will keep that jaw down and then you can remove both the clamps and it’s ready to set.  This chain, on the end here, has a ring 5 inches in diameter.  It’s a heavy chain.  The trappers put another chain on the end of this and spread it out over the bank and have a weight on the other end to hold it down.  This tree, this section of a tree I have here, is one that was found by my wife and I up in Trail Holler about three miles from Ephraim’s grave on October the 15th, 1958.  You can see Sam’s initials very plainly.  He cut those initials in that tree on August the 17th, 1914.  That’s 50 years ago.  We found the stump laying across the trail as we were walking up there.  We didn’t have any way to get it, so we had to make another trip up there with a saw and take out this section of the tree.  We value it verily highly.  It’s one that we really think is quite an exhibit.   Bears feed on a variety of fruits, pinion nuts, rodents, and fish.  They also like to eat grass, clover, and other green plants.  In the fall they eat lots of berries and fruits.  In fact they’ll eat almost any kind of food, but once they get a taste of a cow or sheep, and learn how easy it is to catch ‘em, they’re not content to leave them alone.  Old Ephraim could break the back of cow or an elk with a single blow of his huge paw, but he preferred to kill sheep rather than cows.  Bears can’t see very far, but they do have a very keen sense of smell and can hear fairly well.  They can run fast too; they can easily out run a horse in the woods.  They locate the herds as soon as they come onto the range and follow them all summer killing sheep whenever they like.  They don’t always wait ‘til it gets dark; they like to kill at daybreak as soon as the sheep start to graze.  After they’ve eaten what they want, coyotes come along and clean up the rest and leave a few scraps for the birds.  Frank Clark was not afraid of bears especially when he had this gun with him.  If he’d met a bear and he didn’t have a gun, I don’t know what he would do, but that didn’t happen because he always carried a gun with him, it was always loaded, ready for action.  He killed 34 bears in the 43 years he was up in Cache National Forest.  Government trappers were up there in this area trying to get rid of some of the bears; they were getting too numerous, killing too many sheep.  Mr. Clark counted 150 dead ones the first summer he came up here. The bears were bad killers and scared the herders and so they wouldn’t stay on the job.  The sheep owners were having a hard time to get men to go up there and stay there and tend the sheep.  These bears would run around the camp in the moonlight nights, chase the sheep and scare the wits out of the herders.  Just the day before Clark put this trap in the wallow, on the way up there he saw eight sheep that been killed in the (Rees herd).  The bears were not content to kill just one or two sheep and eat them and let them go or let them go, but they’d run through the herd and knock over as many as they could hit.  They drove the sheep over on their back, rip their body open and eat the tender parts of the inside, then go after another and leave the last sheep struggling for its life.  Almost every day Frank would find some sheep or two still alive and would have to shoot them to get them out of their misery.  One day he found 23 left that way.  He also saw a bear eating a fawn deer one morning.  Its mother was standing at a distance helplessly looking on.  He saw a bear pulling down bird’s nests and looking for eggs or birds or whatever might be in them.  Seeing these things every day disturbed Frank to no end and he swore eternal vengeance against them.  He decided to kill every bear that he could find.  For 10 years Clark tried every way he could think of to get Old Ephraim into that trap, but every time he went to the wallow he’d take the trap out and put it up on the bank without setting it off and then take his mud bath and go before daylight.  Clark never could figure out how he ever got that trap out of there without setting it off because it didn’t take very much to release those springs and let them go.  Even though Clark was discouraged he was going to keep on trying to catch Ephraim.  He put the trap back into the wallow, covered his tracks also the log and chain and the log that was attached to the other end of the chain.  Then he went back to his camp which was about a mile down the hollow near the headwaters of Right Hand Fork of Logan Canyon.  He knew old Ephraim would be killing more sheep and would return again to his wallow and maybe step into the trap.  Next morning Clark went up that way to see if anything had happened, there was the trap up on the bank again, this time however they’d been sprung, but it didn’t catch the bear.  It must have made him suspicious because he had dug a new wallow below the other one and drained some water into it.  Just imagine how clever that old bear must have been.  He had taken his bath in it and had gone on his way rejoicing.  It seemed like in the hot days of August, he wanted to bath every night.  It was strange to Clark that an animal as large as him could keep out of sight in the day time.  In all these years, Clark had only seen him once; it was morning as he’s going out to the sheep he saw him going up the side of a steep mountain carrying a sheep.  Clark tried to shoot him; he shot several times but he couldn’t hit him because it was too far away.  He made him drop the sheep, however, and scamper into the brush for protection.  His large strikes were easily seen where he’d gone in and out of the pool so there was no doubt in Clark’s mind who removed the trap and made the new wallow.  Clark wasn’t about to give up so he decided to make another try at catching him.  He set the huge trap again and put it into the wallow, into the new wallow and he stirred the mud all up good and let it settle over the trap then covered the log chain and log, which was on the outside of the pool attached to the fore end of the chain.  The log was about a foot in diameter and nine feet long, heavy enough so the bear could drag it if he got caught in the trap.  Trappers don’t attach a chain or a trap to a solid object because in such a case if the bear got caught in the trap he could chew his foot off or break it off the jaws of the trap because he’d have a solid anchor to pull on.  Clark got some willows and made a brush with which he removed his tracks from around the pool, cleaned it all up, and made it look like it’s not been disturbed, then went about tending his sheep. The night of August the 21st was a beautiful starry night.  After Clark sat long gazing at millions of bright stars, so familiar in his outdoor life, he could hear the tinkling of bells on the necks of the horses as they were feeding in the meadows and on the hillsides nearby, and now and then the sad call of the lonely coyote.  All else was still.  The sheep had bedded down for the night and the birds had gone to rest and his dogs were curled up on the saddle blankets near the tent.  It was getting late so Clark went to bed as usual.  He had been asleep only a short time, maybe two or three hours when he was awakened by a strange sound up the hollow.  It was an awful roar and screams mingled with pain and misery.  It’d ring around the hills and between screams it sounded like everything in the hills was listening for the next roar.  He tried to go back to sleep but he couldn’t.  Clark didn’t know that Ephraim had gone to his new wallow and in a moment of carelessness had stepped on the trigger of that trap.  The mighty jaws of the steel trap snapped shut on his right leg with vise-like grip.  Ephraim roared and jumped out of the wallow and started to run.  He was terrified when the chain was fastened to the trap and the log stopped him.  Old time bear hunters say there’s nothing that will enrage a grizzly bear as much as to be caught and held in a trap.  The next situation is when the grizzly bear is trying to defend her cubs if they’re in danger.  The enraged Ephraim fought and knotted the trap and chain and dragged the log down the hollow.  Finally the log caught between some trees and held him fast.  Then he was furious.  He roared and plunged and fought with all his savage fury, but the jaws of the great trap held his leg in a solid grip.  He couldn’t get it off so started to rip on the chain.  He followed it to the log and tried to break it loose, but it was fastened securely.  There was a ring on the end of the chain and the chain had been put through it as it was placed around the log.  Ephraim bit at the ring twisting, crushing, and turning, trying to get loose.  Finally he broke the ring in two.  In doing so he broke one of his teeth off—his great tusks.  Now he was free from the log, he started down the hollow again.  He was badly hurt.  He had been tricked by man and he was going to get revenge.  It’s written that the grizzly bear in its primitive state was a very peaceful animal—one who wouldn’t start a fight, but, when he got into it, would fight to the finish.  Over the years man with his rifle had changed the nature of the grizzly and made him the most ferocious fighter of all animals.  They all feared him and kept out of his way.  Ephraim bit at the trap and chain, but couldn’t get free from its powerful grip.  The more he tore at the trap the more severe the pain became.  He was raging mad.  He knew where Clark’s camp was.  He’d seen it many times and seemed to know it was Clark who set the trap for him and he was going down there and fight it out with him.  He screamed with pain and he roared with anger as he smashed through the trees and brush in the darkness of the night.  After listening to the screaming and roaring for some time, Clark thought it might be a horse down.  They make an awful noise when they get down.  So he realized this noise was getting closer, he’d never heard one just like that before and decided he’d better get out of there.  So, he jumped up and put on his shoes, got his rifle, and in his underwear went up the trail about 3 or 400 yards.  He hadn’t gone far when he realized that Ephraim had got in the trap.  He heard the chain rattling and he knew it now for sure, that Old Ephraim was in there, because no other bear went in that wallow, that was Ephraim’s wallow and the rest of them stayed out of there so it’d have to be Ephraim in the trap.  Ephraim stopped going when Frank got closer and let him walk right by the trail.  He stopped again when the roaring started.  Ephraim was now between him and the camp down deep in the wash in the brush.  Clark had walked within about ten feet of him as he was going up the trail.  Clark was now shaking with fear and cold—mostly fear—for once he was really scared.  He had killed many bears but this was different.  This was a fierce raging grizzly, one that was wounded severely, and he was the largest one ever seen in this country, and it was dark.  He was sure there were 7 cartridges in the .25-35—all steel balls.  But what could he do now?  Both sides of the hollow were covered with brush.  He couldn’t go back down the trail in darkness so he decided he’d have to keep quiet and listen to the animal the rest of the night.  He went up on the side hill a little ways to get off of the trail so that if the bear came back up there he wouldn’t be to close to him.  He could hear the old bear thrashing and howling and roaring down in there all night long.  Finally daylight came at last.  Clark was plenty mad.  He’d been mad all night because, not at the bear, but because he didn’t have enough clothes on ‘em to keep him warm.  He went down cautiously down the trail where he’d last heard the old bear.  When he got down there the bear hid, under some, in the willows in the bottom of the wash.  Clark couldn’t see him down there but he thought that he was right there close.  He could see a shadow down at the bottom of the wash, it wasn’t very light yet.  So he got some rocks and stones and threw in there and tried to make him move, but he didn’t, so Clark picked up a clovers line there and poked down through there and jibbed him.  Old Ephraim let out a roar and a groan, got up, and started down the wash.  He went down toward Frank’s tent and hid in the bottom of the creek.  Clark followed him down there slowly, by the movements in the willows and the brushes Ephraim was going down there.  He could hear him roaring now and then, too.  When he got down there, Ephraim hid in the bottom of the wash again.  Clark couldn’t see him so he stood around there a few minutes.  Finally he thought he could see something down in the bottom of the wash.  It was getting lighter now, so he thought he had a little more security.  He took a shot at this object and it was old Ephraim alright—hit him right in the top of the back; Ephraim stood up, roared, looked around, he had that big bear trap on his right leg holding it up high above his head, the chain was wrapped neatly around his right arm and he was looking for Clark.  He could have gone down the wash probably and got away, but that’s not what he wanted.  He was looking for Clark.  When he saw him, he turned around, when he saw Clark and he started for him raging and luring right at him.  Clark was so stunned he couldn’t move.  Well, Old Ephraim came within 6 or 8 feet of him before Clark got up enough composure to lift up the gun and fire a shot.  The first shot hit ‘em in the neck and knocked him back a little.  Old Ephraim staggered up came right after him.  Another shot; back he went again still on his feet.  He was coming toward Clark.  Three more shots but still he didn’t knock him down.  He didn’t knock him down once.  Every time he’d hit him Ephraim would come right back at him.  When he got up right close to Clark he couldn’t come any closer because Clark was standing up on a bank about 4 feet high.  Ephraim just turned around and went back down into the creek started to walk up the creek.  Clark could see the trap and the bear’s head and shoulders above the willows as he went on up the creek.  He thought Old Ephraim had had enough now, was going away, but not so.  For him the battle was still on and he was looking for a way to get to Clark, he came up out of the brush and on to the trail that Clark was on.  Clark was filled with amazement as he got his first view of the entire body of that great bear.  He appeared to be at least 12 feet tall with that trap held above his head.  His right leg and neck and breast were smeared with blood from the wounds of his mouth and foot and the 6 balls of steel that had gone into his body.  Clark could see blood squirting from his nostrils at every breath, streaming, foam dripping from his snarling open mouth as he started for him.  Clark had never backed away from a bear before in his life but this blood smeared charging monster was a little too much for him.  There he was with just one bullet in his gun and so he thought he’d better get out of there; he started to step back and caught his heels on some brush and fell flat on his back.  He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could and started down the trail with Old Ephraim close behind him roaring and trying to get to him.  He’d only gone about 20 yards when he heard his little dog Jennie barking.  It had appeared on the scene for the first time and was biting at the bear’s heels.  Bears don’t like dogs, and Ephraim had stopped to fight him.  Clark turned back and urged the dog on.  Ephraim turned to hit the dog again and Clark stepped up just as close as he dare and fired the remaining shot into the back of the bear’s head with a prayer in his heart that would finish him off.  It did.  The massive form of the great beast fell forward rolled a little bit and hit the ground with a thud right in front of Clark.  A strange sick feeling came over him.  His knees were shaking and buckled as he sat down beside the trail and watched the Great Spirit depart from a great body.  Seemed like a long time.  Finally Ephraim’s head raised just a little, looked Clark right in the eyes, and fell to the ground and was all quiet.  Clark for 10 years had been trying to get this bear.  Now that he’d caught him, killed him, seemed like he had killed an old friend and he wasn’t very happy, only thankful that it was all over with.  Soon as Clark got his composure and could stand up and walk, he went to his tent, which was nearby, and put on his clothes, got a rope, reloaded his riffle and went to find some horses that had been frightened away during the terrifying roaring of the night.  He went on and on, finally found one horse on its back in a wash with its hind foot caught in the hobbles that were on the front feet.  He removed the hobbles, put the rope on the horse, got on him and rode him up sheep, up to sheep camp, to Joe, the camp of Joe Brown.  Joe was having breakfast when Frank got there.  Frank told him about his battle with Old Ephraim and asked him to go back down there with him.  So they got on their horses and went back down to where Old Ephraim was.  When they got there Joe wasn’t about to get off’n the horse, but he finally did after Clark assured him the bear was dead.  They looked him over and they figured that he would stand about ten feet tall, estimated he’d weigh well over 1000 pounds.  They removed the trap and skinned the bear and left the head on the body.  The hide was almost an inch thick.  They dragged it over by Clark’s tent, left it out in the sun where it could dry.  Later on Clark gave the claws away as souvenirs.  Someone was always after him for a souvenir of Old Ephraim.  They tried to drag the body away from the creek but they couldn’t.  They used the horses, the ropes on the horns and saddle and the bear’s neck, and they couldn’t even move him so they covered him up with brush and set fire to him.  For three days Clark burned him; every time he came around the camp set that, put that, pile on more brush and try to burn him, but it didn’t burn him, just the top part of the body down to the ground.  So he decided that he’d better bury him, he couldn’t leave him there because the smell would be too severe.  So he dug a hole right next to him close and rolled him in and covered him up.   News of the killing of this great grizzly, the last one known in these parts, soon spread from sheep camp to sheep camp and all herders rejoiced in the fact they didn’t have to worry about him anymore.  It got down to Logan and George R. Hill heard about it and he wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and told them about this monstrous grizzly bear that had been killed in Logan Canyon.  Officials there at the institution doubted that there was a grizzly bear(s) lived in this area.  They wrote back and said there had been grizzly bears there many years ago, but they’d long since gone.  But if he thought it was a grizzly bear he’d get the head and send it to them they’d send him $25.00.  So he suggested to his scouts that they go up there and find it and get the head and bring it down.  They were all eager to go, so they got a map and had it marked where the grave was, near where Clark’s camp was or had been and started out to make preparations to go. They went up to the Boy Scout camp at the mouth of Cowley Canyon and stayed there over night.  There’s about 12 or 15 boys in the group.  The next morning they left early and went up Box Canyon which appears on the map to be the shortest route, but proved to be the most difficult.  By mid morning it started to rain and snow and get quite cold so some of the boys weren’t very anxious to continue the trip.  They finally arrived at the hollow about one mile below the mouth of Long Hollow.  They soon located the mound and began digging.  They had with them a pick and a shovel and a box to put the head in.  The grave wasn’t very deep so they soon found the body and removed the head.  The hair on one side was burnt a little but otherwise it was in pretty good shape.  The odor, however, was anything but pleasant.  Some of the boys wanted the vertebrae to make a neckerchief slide.  So they dug back a little farther into the grave and removed part of the spinal column and took it with them.  After they filled the grave they took the head, which was large enough to fill a bushel basket, and put it into the box and carried it home.  Mr. Hill cleaned it up and sent it to the Smithsonian Institution.  Later on he received the $25.00 and a letter from them telling him that it was truly a grizzly bear and it would stand about 9 feet 11 inches and would weigh about 1100 pounds.  So, the boys used the money for their scout activity and the Forest Service put a rock monument by this grave designating the time and place of his death.  In fact there’s a plaque on the grave that is now there says “Old Ephraim’s grave, grizzly bear, killed by Frank Clark, Malad, Idaho, August the 22nd 1923, weighs approximately 1100 pounds, height, when standing, 9 feet 11 inches.  Smithsonian Institution still has his skull.”  Lot of people go up there every year to visit this grave, put wild flowers on it.  Become quite a landmark in the head of Logan Canyon. Well students that’s the story of Old Ephraim as I know it.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it, you’ve been very nice and thanks very much for listening.You just heard Newell Crookston relate the story of Old Ephraim, the grizzly bear in Logan Canyon to a bunch of Boy Scouts gathered at Guinavah Park.  
(Old Ephraim story transcribed by Sue Skeen November 2008; revised by Becky Skeen November 24, 2008.  This is the only part with a transcription.  After the story of Old Ephraim, the audio file continues with George R. Hill singing a few folk songs including the Boy Scout Troop 5 song and a Mormon Battalion song then he proceeds to tell some family pioneer stories.)