The Mail-Journal, Volume 15, Number 36, Milford, Kosciusko County, 27 September 1978 — Page 19

floor, table, the stove and out the other window. Slim tolerated bears prowling around his ranch as long as they showed proper respect, for killing them necessitated a burying detail. But one fighting over his garbage bucket went too far. Returning from the Salmon Trout River with a creel full of fish, Slim surprised the bear headdeep in the bucket, searching for a bone. "I had a chew in my mouth, so when he looked up, I spit in his face and he took off.” The bear kept slipping back, so the trapper finally wired the bucket to a grindstone. Slim stood at the kitchen stove stirring stew. His seven-foot-tall friend, Gus Dahl, rounded the woodshed and caught a glimpse of the bear at the bucket again. But the bear saw Gus first and charged full speed. He knocked Gus flat. The trapper got up running and made the kitchen in three steps. ”1 killed that one the next night —-or a dead ringer for him. I didn’t ask him his name,” said Slim. But burying was something else. The sand plains lie thin as frosting on solid hardpan. Slim loaded the bear on a truck and headed down the road to where the sand ran deeper. After digging a hole deep enough, he dumped in the bear, poked down its four legs and piled on the sand. Heading for town, he picked up his mail and the week’s groceries. En route home, he slowed down at the burying place. Something along the sandy bank caught his eye. He pulled over and watched. Slowly, the sand moved. Then four big

paws emerged, followed by four furry legs stiffening with rigor mortis. "Now I don’t shoot unless they argue too much,” said Slim. "Even porcupines. They prowl around here thicker than chipmunks — and don’t

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have brains enough to be scared. But it’s easier to chase them with a stick than bury them.” From time to time, life has found away of searching out the Grasshopper Ranch. While serving as justice of the

peace for 14 years, Slim even performed a wedding. The couple knocked on the door of the cabin, brushed through woolen socks steaming over the oildrum heatef and into the kitchen with its cans of peaches and stacks of

cereal boxes piled on the table. Slim slid the beaver he was cleaning into a crate near the stove while he performed the ceremony. Now he thinks he may as well have left the beaver on the table — the marriage didn’t last anyway.