Laura May Jones (Jackson)

I was born on October 8, 1913 in Parker Idaho. My parents were Edward David and Laura May Jackson Jones. I am the ninth of eleven children, having seven sisters and three brothers. Verna, Orpha, Earl, Iva, Mary, Jessie, Hannah, Donald, Vivian, and Leston. The first thing I can remember was my dad installed a hand pump for my mother to get water. She was so proud of that. It was out on the porch, and I remember I got to pump it once in a while, then somebody would take over and we would take turns. I was so small that someone had to help me push the handle to make it work; there was no water in the house. They tore the house down several years ago. Now there’s nothing but a field or a lot where they raise grain or something. There used to be more buildings there when we’d go back. Leston was born in a little house, separate from the big house. What they used that for was to store ice. We’d go down to the Snake River and bring up big chunks of ice to store it in there and then haul shavings to cover it up so it wouldn’t melt. In the summer time we would take chunks of the ice to keep our milk cold. I remember my brother Earl would take me with him behind the horse and swim across the canals. They were pretty deep. My dad was a trader. He operated a grocery store in Rexburg, Idaho when he and Mom were first married. He would go out selling and leave Mom to tend the store. He was always selling something. Later they moved to Parker. Here Dad had a butcher shop and he had a little buggy and he’d haul meat out to the ranchers and sell to them. Earl used to go with him and they’d camp out under the buggy. It was great fun. One of the chores I would do was chopping wood to burn in the stove. I remember one winter, when I was young, they took a bobsleigh and a team of horses (Earl was the one that started it) and we’d go down the street and the kids would ride on it. Once he got brave and took the horses right over the top of the fence where the snow was very deep and frozen. All eleven children were born in Parker. Mom’s parents and a lot of her brothers and sisters lived in Parker. My cousin, Lowe Rudd, was just a few days younger than me. Lowe and I were good friends and did a lot of things together. I have a lot of respect for my mother, she was very patient, but when she said something she meant it. Since Dad was gone so much, Earl (who was ten years older than me) kind of took over in his place. He took me with him anytime he could. One time he took me with him on a horse. We had to cross a river, and Earl never did like to cross at the shallow places. So we crossed where it was deeper and we both got wet. Earl told me not to tell Mom, but one of my sisters, probably Verna, saw us one day and told on us. Earl got in trouble for that. One time Earl was crossing the river alone and his horse reared on him. He fell off and was washed downstream by the current. He had a heavy coat which weighed him down. He was finally able to catch hold of a tree root and pull himself out. Sometimes we would ride in a buggy over the mountain from Parker. It was very steep and when we reached the top we had to tie a log on the back of the buggy to keep it from going down too fast. Mom didn’t want to take any chances, so she and the kids would get out and walk down the mountain while Dad drove the buggy down. One time Mom and one of my sisters were going somewhere in the buggy alone and they had to cross the river. There weren’t always bridges then. One of the horses laid down and tipped the buggy over. Mom’s big skirt trapped air in it as she went into the water, and they were able to float over to the side and get out. One day in the store, one or two men came in. they had a chew of tobacco in their mouths and spit some on the floor. Mom chased them out with her broom and told them to stay out until their manners were better. I remember the winters were much colder back then than they are now. People would wear scarves over their noses and mouths to keep warm, and they would have frost on their eyebrows from their breath. We had a cook stove in the kitchen and a stove in the front room, after supper was over we would light the stove in the front room and the kitchen stove would go out. When there was coal it was easier to keep the kitchen stove banked, but with wood it was harder. We could only keep one room warm at a time, so we usually spent most of our time together. In the evening we would have to make our own entertainment. Dad would have us learn and recite scriptures from the Bible, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants. My sister Jessie was very good at this. When it was bath time we would put chairs around the stove with blankest draped over them and the bathtub inside the circle. Then we would all take turns having a bath. At bed time we would warm bricks on the stove, wrap them in cloth, and put them at the bottom of the bed to warm the bed and keep our feet warm. We had a pot to use when we needed to go to the bathroom. Nobody wanted the job of emptying it, so we all took turns. When I was 8 or 9, Dad sold the store and we moved to Provo, Utah. We had a Model T Ford. Dad bought several houses and fixed them up to sell. We lived up on 200 East a block short of the field that goes up to the Y (on the mountain). Another house we lived in was originally owned by Brigham Young’s daughter, Lucy Y. Gates. One time Earl and I were cutting down some big poplar trees and a man came along and told us the history of that house. I can’t remember much, except that it was a stopover, like a bed and breakfast. It was a bog two-story house and Dad built an extension on it. Dad also sold extracts. I remember when I was nine; I drove him around in the Model T while he did his business. You didn’t need any licenses at all. No car inspections. When I was eight or nine I got a job stocking shelves at a grocery store called Hayward’s Market. There were no labor laws then. You could work as long as you wanted, as long as they could pay you. I worked there and then the Depression hit somewhere in there, in the thirties. They had to close the store out and they moved to California. Then I worked for an old French couple that did clothes cleaning and hats. I bought a bicycle and made deliveries for fifteen cents a delivery. I also did janitor work at Headquist Drug. We didn’t have much money during the depression, but we always had enough to eat. Dad traded whatever we had for the things we needed. One winter Dad brought home a load of onions he had traded for, and put them in the cellar. Mom wasn’t very happy about this because you could smell them in the house. Dad sold them here and there, and he and Vivian would load some up in the wagon and take them down to the train. They did that all winter, but there were still some left by the time summer came around, and they had to be thrown away. One time Dad brought home some codfish, and we ate them all winter long. We also had wheat, and ate whole-wheat cereal for breakfast. It was hard to come up with cash to buy the things we couldn’t trade for, so we very seldom went to see a movie. I remember Mom saying, “Wear those pants, they might have patches in them, but they’re clean.” I went to the Parker grade school in Provo, about two blocks away. I went to Provo High School for one year. I was playing basketball at Provo around eighth grade and I got kicked off the team because I wasn’t good enough. Then someone invited me to play at BY High School so I went up there. The first year I didn’t make third team, and then in tenth and eleventh grade we really had a good team. I graduated from BY High. When I was in the eighth grade, I went up to the Clark’s Saw Mill with Dad and Earl, about thirty miles north of Parker. Dad had a nervous breakdown and he was having a heck of a time. He had problems with depression and sometimes couldn’t get out of bed. I remember carrying food to him. I drove a team up there and drug logs down to the saw mill. One time Dad and I took a team and wagon down to a stream to fill barrels with water for the camp. As the horses put their heads down to get a drink, the shaft came unhooked from the harnesses. Dad told me to get down and hook it back up. The water was so cold and I was crying the whole time I was doing it. Dad kept telling me I was a good boy for getting into the cold water to do this. He had a way of talking people into doing things. I remember hauling logs out on wagons with the beds taken off and just the axle to lay the logs on. They would have horses pulling them. Mother came up the second year and stayed the summer. I went back to school, but Earl stayed up there. Then Dad made him come home. Later Earl went to New York on his mission. He’s the only one that went. My sisters were against that. They thought he only went on a mission so he could go buy beautiful white shirts. It cost eighty dollars a month to keep him out. It was one of the most expensive missions and that was a lot of money. The whole family worked to support him. I also worked up by Camas at a ranch during high school. I went up there for three summers I think, and that made a little bit of money. I think I got two dollars a day. We’d get up at four o’clock in the morning and milk cows and do other chores, such as haul hay. I milked thirteen cows morning and night. It didn’t take long because they were in a coral. The people that ran the place were old folk, and the lady milked right along with her husband. I couldn’t keep up with her. She’d chew her tongue and milk as fast as she could chew. I think her teeth were glass. After I was out of high school, I hitch hiked clear to Dillon Montana with a friend of mine. We had two dollars apiece. On the way we got hungry, so we made a makeshift fishing pole with a safety pin and a bunch of worms. The stream was lousy with fish. We caught a couple Montana Graylings, fried them up, and had a great supper. Later I got us both a job with Dee Brimhall on a ranch. My job was stacking hay and his was raking it. We made two dollars a day working there. One day my friend had an accident with some horses and got a couple of deep gashes on his back. That was enough for him, so Dee drove him home, and he slept in the car the whole way. I stayed and worked. They had tame antelope and buffalo and elk on the ranch in a certain area. Finally I went to college at BYU. I saved up thirty dollars for one quarter. I did that three or four times. At college I studied business, bookkeeping, and accounting. I was trying to gather up thirty dollars to go the last quarter, and my sister Iva’s husband, Joe Benson (Ezra Taft Benson’s brother) died. The family talked me into taking over Joe’s business selling auto supplies. So I started selling auto supplies out of a black Coupe. I never got a chance to finish school after that. I met Ruth Lee while I was down getting my teeth fixed. She worked in the dentist’s office and we went on a blind date. We dated a year and two months before being married on April 30, 1938 in Provo. It was a double wedding with my sister Merle and Bert Buckley. Ruth’s mother died, and her brother Jack stayed with us for a while until he was old enough to join the Marines. At that time we were in a rented home at 750 South 500 west, and we used my mother’s furniture. That was our first home and we were there for one year. The rent was eighteen dollars a month. Karen was born April 12, 1939 while we were still living in this home. We then moved into an apartment on “D” street while we scrimped and saved until we had $300 to buy some property up on “D” street. Ruth and I went to work chopping grain for a farmer to earn that money. His name was Dee St. D’jour. Our house cost $3,995 to build. It had two bedrooms, and no driveway, garage, or landscaping. Marily was born on June 1, 1942, shortly after we moved in. Kathy was born on May 10, 1947, Craig on December 20, 1949, and Clark on July 29, 1951. We lived there for twelve years and moved out on my forty-second birthday. We sold the house for $11,000. We bought land up by the temple. It was $2,000 an acre for 4 acres. We bought one acre and made payments on the others. Our home there was $20,000. Ruth and I raised mink from 1955 to 1972. The mink market dropped, so I decided to get back into selling auto parts. Later we sold the home and one lot for $135,000. We moved to Mapleton, Utah where we lived for close to 12 years and then moved to Pleasant Grove Utah. (Ron died June 20, 2002) Ron Jones’ Hunts with Walt Hays Back in the 1940’s, about every three weeks, I would travel from Provo to Duchesne, Roosevelt, and Vernal, Utah. On one of these trips I met Walt Hays. He had just come out of the pool hall on Main Street in Duchesne with a fresh lion hide over his shoulder. I spoke to him, asking where he had caught it. He said that he had caught it at his ranch up Avintaquin on the Strawberry River. I told him I would like to hunt lions, so I was invited to go with him (He had said how lonesome hunting was). He said there were many lions to pick from up Avintaquin. This was the beginning of my lion hunting adventures. On my next trip to the basin, I went to Walt’s cabin on the Strawberry, stayed overnight with him and hunted the next day. Years before, Walt had homesteaded in the river bottoms of Avintaquin and Strawberry Canyons. The soil produced the very best potatoes I have ever eaten; sweeter than any others I had tasted. The corn and all other vegetables seemed better, too. Walt’s wife lived in Duchesne. He had no car, so he would catch a ride into town for supplies. He would then visit with his wife and his sluff-playing friends at the pool hall before catching a ride back to his cabin on the Strawberry. The first meal with Walt was venison and potatoes, both raised on his property, which made the venison “legal-like.” It snowed several inches that night, making a foot of snow altogether by morning. I was very eager to leave early, but Walt needed his “beauty rest” after breakfast. We left at about 9:30 a.m. on his two best horses. Old Jack was the only hound he had, but he was also his best. Walt wanted to hunt Lion Hollow, a fork of Avintaquin (meaning white waters to the Indians). We reached Lion Hollow where the trail is very rough up the side of a wash, so we walked and led the horses. As we dropped off the wash on to more level ground, we found a trail made by some animal’s body dropping through the snow. We couldn’t spot Old Jack anywhere. He had found the lion trail long before we got to it and was quite a silent tracker. But, later, we could hear him treeing to the north of us. He made a lot of noise at the tree, so we followed the sound for about one quarter of a mile. Jack had a large lion treed about ten feet up a pine tree, lying very safe and quiet on a limb. This was my first hunt. I didn’t know a sport could be so thrilling! Walt had a single-shot .22 rifle. I was surprised at the small size of the gun. It had been in his scabbard, so I hadn’t noticed its small size. He said, “That’s all I need. No use having extra weight.” After we estimated the lion’s weight and length, Walt shot him through the roof of his mouth as he spit at us with his mouth open. No hide was hurt. When the lion hit the ground, Old Jack pounced on him like he was killing him by himself. What do we do now? I thought. Walt put his lariat on the lion’s neck, got on his horse, and fastened the rope to his saddle horn. Then we headed for the cabin back the same trail we had come on. We skinned the lion at the cabin and Walt and Old Jack were to share the lion meat. I persuaded Walt to trade me the hide for something I would bring him in the future. I think we settled for some fishing equipment. This was the beginning of many interesting lion hunts, as well as fishing trips, with Walt Hays. In January of 1948, my good friend Eldon Perry and I met Walt at his cabin for coffee before going on a hunt. Walt lived Walt was in no hurry to go. He hadn’t had his coffee, and two of his lady widow friends were expected to come and see if he wanted to go fishing. But the river was frozen solid, and fishing season was over. So we figured his arthritis was bothering him and he didn’t want to admit it. I know that at this time he was 71 years old. At any rate, Eldon and I were on our own for this hunt. After some consideration, we decided to hunt Currant Mountain for lion. Walt had seen a track cross over from the burnt spot to Currant Mountain and travel up the crack in the ledge just two days earlier. For dogs, we had old Babe and two of her year-old pups. Ruth’s dad shipped Babe to us from Springville, California. I rode Old Nick and Eldon had his black horse. As we rode Currant Mountain, which is more like a long overgrown ridge, we saw many deer of all sizes. It seemed the bucks were together, and the does were in separate bunches. I have never since seen so many large spreads of horns as on this trip. Just on top of the point, Babe began smelling the ground and wagging her tail faster. We followed her and soon she opened and began barking. I found the lion track in frozen slush and thought it to be about two days old (the same day as when Walt had seen it). Eldon was riding ahead on the ridge in case it crossed back over going north. When we separated we were not sure if Babe was on the font track or the back track. By separating we could save time and be more sure of catching the lion. When I reached the spot where Babe began barking louder, I found a deer kill. It was well covered with dirt and sticks and was very fresh. Soon I heard Babe change her bark, and I knew she had stopped the lion on the ground. I reached an opening in the trees, which ran south up the hill to a rocky point overlooking Strawberry River Canyon. On the point was the lion with Babe and her pups, Sue and Tex, Really telling us all about it. Soon Eldon showed up. The lion got nervous, jumped off the point, ran down though boulders and ledges, and climbed up a tree hanging over another ledge. We had to back track some distance so we could get our horses down to the lower ledge where the dogs were holding the lion. I don’t remember who shot the lion, but it fell out of the tree and over the ledge for fifty to seventy-five feet. It lit on some shale and slid to the bottom of the canyon next to the river. We were very relieved to get the horses the rest of the way through the drop offs, boulders, and logs. The trip down with the horses could be another story. The lion brought us some bounty, which helped pay for dog food. When we made it back to Walt’s cabin, we found him settled very comfortably in bed. He couldn’t figure out how we could have caught a lion without him. Another time Eldon and I hunted for lion was in Avintaquin, up Lion Hollow. At that time we drove an old 4x4 army truck, converted into a stake body for three horses and many dogs. We had old Babe again and my new dog, Nigger, a blue and tan we had shipped in from Arkansas. This was Nigger’s first lion hunt. I had owned him for a very short time, and I didn’t know if I liked him or not. Of course, we had to stop at Strawberry at Walt’s cabin before turning up the Avintaquin road. Walt was there cutting pinion wood. After the greetings were over, he began telling us that we had better not hunt right now because the snow was scarce, and the weather was very cold. He told us it had been so cold he couldn’t get to town to get canned milk, so he had to cheat the pups and take their mother’s milk for coffee. We finally left Walt’s after several stories and jokes, and headed up Avintaquin. Near Lion Hollow, we saw many deer and thought it a good place for a lion to be hanging around for a meal. Sometime earlier, there had been a thaw. Then the cold settled in, leaving the ground frozen hard. It was quite dangerous riding a horse over this rough country under such conditions. The trails were narrow and steep. We walked and led the horses quite often, not only because of dangerous trails, but also because it helped to keep us warm. Further up Lion Hollow, the snow lay in a flat canyon bottom. We noticed indentations crossing to the other side. On close examination, we could see a lion track in the crust. Now and then the lion would break through and leave a big hole. Well, I thought I would find out what Nigger could do. He was not acquainted with snow at all. I think it worried him. I got off old Nick, and Eldon led him while I tried to get Nigger interested in the track. I tried all the tricks I knew, but he didn’t understand. Finally, we crossed flat bottom land and started up a side hill bare of snow, covered with mahogany and cedar trees. Nigger was at home then (no snow). He opened with a beautiful long howl and took off. I could see no tracks at all. About then, old Babe opened and ran with Nigger, barking loud and clear. Then I could hear them barking at two different locations. Nigger was trailing beyond a side hill covered with ice. Babe doubled back above us toward the flat bottom. Soon Babe treed just over the hill. We knew she would stay at the tree, so we went to get Nigger, who was about a half a mile uphill from Babe. We had treed a large kitten about two years old. We took it and hurried over to get the one Babe had, as it was getting darker and colder. Eldon and I walked back to the truck, leading the horses with our quarry aboard. I didn’t mind because my feet and other extremities were very cold and numb. I think we ended up at Walt’s and stayed the night with him. If I remember right, that was the time we had to build a fire under the 4x4 motor to get it started the next morning. We stopped for gas at Deep Creek and met a man from Texas. He looked at the larger lion and said, “The lion we catch in Texas have to be folded double to get them in a pickup.” I think Walt was quite a lion hunter in his earlier days. People in Duchesne have said he had come to town many times with a fresh lion hide or two, and paraded up the street to show what he had caught with his hound, Old Jack. Walt told me the story of how Old Jack was born. The mother of Jack was due to have her litter of pups. One morning, Walt went to the river to get a pail of water. There he was a fresh lion track in the snow. Back to the kennel he went for Jack’s mother and put her on the lion track. She trailed the lion track okay. Walt followed her track up a steep hill. There on top was a newborn pup in the snow. A ways further on was another, and then another. Five in all were born while the mother tracked a lion, finally treeing it for Walt. Now, I don’t know which one was Jack, but that is the story of his birth. I always enjoyed listening to Walt’s colorful and humorous stories. One of them goes like this: it seems that the game warden had told Walt to be sure and not break the game laws. Walt said he followed the law very close, but one law he couldn’t quite get clear. One day he was sitting on his horse in the middle of Strawberry River, fishing. The game warden came along and told Walt he would have to arrest him for fishing off a horse. Walt’s reply was, “I am not fishing off this horse, I am fishing on him.” I can only remember one other story he told me. For several years he raised goats because he liked the meat. Sometimes he got tired of venison, so he would go out and shoot one of the goats, which were very wild. He would never feed them because he had just enough feed for his horse. One day, he needed some goat meat, so he began looking for the goat herd. Finally, he saw the head of one appear over the highest ledge that hangs over his cabin. He shot once and the head disappeared. It appeared again, he shot, and it disappeared again. This went on for seven times until, finally, he decided he couldn’t be that poor of a shot. He rode around and up on top of the ledge, and there laid seven dead goats. Walt turned to us and said, “That’s how I got out of the goat business.” Hunting with Willis Butolph Written by Ron Jones For the Full Cry Magazine About 1942, I was told of a hunter who had moved to Wellington, Utah from Sundance, Wyoming, looking for work as a trapper and hunter. The livestock men in that area were losing livestock in great numbers to predators; lions, coyotes and bear. I made a number of inquiries to find out about this hunter, but didn’t get very far. All I found out was that he drove a jeep. On one of my business trips to Price, I noticed a jeep with a spotted hound in it parked on Main Street. I parked my truck, walked over to the jeep and was looking it over when a man spoke to me. He had a new straw hat he had just bought, and he said his name was Willis Butolph. He said he had come to town for a new hat. His old one blew off his head when hunting on Argyle Ridge chasing a sheep killing lion. We visited for a long time. He told me he hadn’t been in the area but a short time. The livestock men had hired him to kill off lion and other predators. So far he had treed and killed many lions, and he had seven smaller ones penned up in his chicken coop at Miller Creek. This I had to see. We drove out to his home, where I met his wife Myrtle and kids, Phyllis and Jerry. A few dogs were tied nearby. In the chicken coop were seven lions perched on the chicken roosts. They ranged in size from about 25 pounds up to 75 pounds. These lions had been caught alive for a special purpose. The Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City took them. Some were traded to other zoos for different animals. Two lions from this group remained at the Hogle Zoo for many years. Willis’ fame as a predator hunter soon spread. The Fish and Wildlife Service hired him to hunt down and trap predators. He was very faithful to his job. Many times he spent days and nights tracking down a livestock killer. Through his efforts and ability, hundreds of lions, as well as bobcats, coyotes and bear were taken for a savings of millions of dollars to the livestock men. After he retired he took hunters out for a fee, with a 90 percent success rate. Willis was very proud of his hounds. He had the best dogs he could get. Many of them he bought at high prices. Others he raised and trained himself. During that first visit at his place, I was invited to hunt with him whenever I could and bring a dog if he didn’t chase deer. On my next trip to Price, I took my dog-named Nigger. I stayed an extra day to hunt for bobcats. That day we treed three cats and ran one in a hole, which we smoked and poked out only to have it find another hole. About 1950, Willis’ second son, Leo was born, named after Leo the Lion. He was named right. His interests were a copy of his dad’s, a real hunter. The first words I remember him saying were, “I’m going hunting with my dad”. He shot his first lion when he was only six years old. One evening Willis met me at a service station and invited me to supper and to stay overnight for a bobcat hunt on Iceland Range. Well, I couldn’t turn down Myrtle’s chicken dinner or the hunt. I called my wife, Ruth, telling her I would be an extra day. The dinner was great. We retired early and were up early to eat a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hotcakes. Leo was about six years old, but he couldn’t go because of school. I noted he was busy wrapping something in tin foil. Then he said, “Ron, take these matches, you may need to make a fire to keep warm”. I thought this was a great gesture for such a young hunter. We left at daybreak with one pickup, one horse, and five dogs. Trailing was quite poor for bobcat hunting, since the snow was scarce and frozen. We unloaded at a likely spot near a coal mine and headed south along a good cat area. Soon, we heard some of the dogs trying a cold track. This went on for a long time, and it seemed as if we were following in circles. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by fog. We couldn’t see any landmarks, but we could hear the dogs treeing on a point. There they had a bobcat backed to the edge of a ledge projecting out into this air and fog. As we got close, the cat jumped down some 20 feet and disappeared in the fog. The dogs backtracked to get off the ledge and finally treed far downhill from us. We located the dogs at the tree by following their barking, took some pictures, and then shot the cat. Willis and I had quite a discussion about the location of the truck. I tried to convince him that in this fog the only ones who knew the direction were the horse and the dogs. Willis responded with, “Now how in the----does that horse know we are ready to go back”! But, he got on old Amigo, tied the reins to the horn, and started him off. Well, we ended up at the truck all right, after much argument about directions, and then headed back to the ranch and out of the fog. That cat was number 31 that Willis had treed in the last two months, not to mention several mountain lions. For about ten years or so I stopped traveling through the Price area, and it was during this time that Leo, as well as my sons Craig and Clark had grown to manhood. I called Willis one day just to renew our friendship and visit for awhile. The day before, Clark, my son-in-law, John and I had found fresh lion tracks in Spanish Fork Canyon. I had no dogs at that time, and I mentioned that fact to Willis. He offered to lend us two hounds, Smokey and Jane. So we traveled the 80 miles to Wellington to pick them up, visiting until quite late before we drove back to Provo that same night. Early the next morning, we rode our horses after a lion, but the rain and snow were falling heavier by the minute, spoiling the hunt for that day. Later in the week, Willis and Leo met us at Water Canyon, where we followed a lion track until late in the afternoon when the sun melted the track away, ending the hunt for that day. About this time, my older son, Craig started hunting quite regularly with Leo, and they became good friends. It was also about this time that Craig agreed to raise a litter of pups from Jane, who had been bred to old Brandy 1, and split the litter. Jane raised 8 pups, Brandy, Jeff, Missy, Poncho and four others, which were sold. A few years later, Willis sent Polly to us. She was bred to Thunder, a top lion and bear dog. Polly came from Brandenberger Kennels with a long pedigree of many top dogs in her ancestry, such as Owen’s Heavy, Brandenberger’s Big Timber and Smithdeal’s Nigger. This mating produced six top dogs, three of which we kept as part of our pack. The other three Willis took back, along with Polly. Willis phoned a few days after the stormy hunt. He thought he had a lion treed in Icelander Canyon. The night before, he had turned two dogs on a good lion track at the mouth of the canyon. Since his hearing was bad, he couldn’t locate just where the dogs were. Craig, my son-in-law, John and I drove out to Wellington for the fun of finding out just what happened the night before. We drove to the spot with Willis (at that time Leo was working day shift in the coalmine). We got out of the truck and could near the dogs’ still treeing high up in the rough ledges. Willis stayed in the truck with one CB radio while we took the other. After an hour or so, the three of us reached a tree with a large female lion looking down at us. Willis was approximately 75 years old at this time, and this would have been a rough climb for him. He asked over the radio if we could jump the lion out and drive it downhill where he could walk to the tree. We soon jumped her out and down she went, but not far enough. She treed in a large dead pinion, possibly a mile from Willis, still in a rough area. This time, she wasn’t jumping out, so Craig climbed the tree and out she went. This time she treed just a short ways from Willis on more level ground. Here we took a few pictures, then led the dogs away and let her go so that we could run her and her offspring again. John and my daughter Kathy had flown out from Connecticut for a vacation. John had come on his first hunt with us. This was a great experience for him, and he was taking as many pictures as he could to take back to show his friends.