Paul the Hunter

     Hello again, this is Eugene Redwood. The first story that I am going to tell is about Paul going hunting and tracking. From when Paul was a boy, I watched him go fishing and catch more than anyone. He would take out his little red boat and come back with a whole bunch of fish. Paul's fishing was just the beginning. At age nine, Paul got his first shotgun. This shotgun was so big, it took ten buckets of powder to fire one shot. I once seen Paul shoot and kill an elk from four counties over. By the time we had got to the elk, it had rotted away and was nothing but bones.
    As Paul became older he started tracking, which he liked the most. One time Paul and I were walking through a clearing in south Montana when we came across a dead bear. Paul wanted to see where the bear was born so he followed the tracks all the way up the coast to Washington, just to see where the bear was born. As most hunters use tracks to find an animal for food, Paul used the tracks more as entertainment.
     This was a good sport for Paul, but he also wasted a lot of time. When heading out to a job, Paul would often get sidetracked following every track he saw. This tracking ability also helped Paul. While on a job way up north Babe, Paul's big blue ox, was nowhere to be found. Paul followed the footprints and ox poop through the mountains, and was able to track him all the way down in Texas. I think Paul enjoyed dragging me all over the country. My legs had to move five steps to Paul's one step.

    There was one time that Paul and I were together that really sticks with me. It was early fall and the crew was packing up to head south for the winter, and Johnny Timber, Paul's lead crew chief, came running down the path. Johnny was out of breath and had been running for days. Someone or something had gotten into their food supply and taken it all, and left footprints everywhere. Paul was the only person who could follow these tracks and find the food. Paul headed north and followed the tracks for hours. He jumped over the mountains and waded through the woods. Finally the tracks came to an end in a big canyon. It was here that Paul found the food and a sleeping bear. Paul used his lighting quick speed to get the food before the bear woke up. This canyon is called Sleeping Bear Canyon to this day.
Paul was always walking beside the river looking for the biggest fish he could find. Up north in Colorado, I watched Paul go after the biggest fish I have ever saw. Paul jumped in the river and swam up and down for hours. He finally cornered the fish near a shallow bank when a big black grizzly came up from behind, took the fish and ran. Paul chased the grizzly all the way down to the four corners of New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Utah. Paul wrestled with the bear until he got his fish back. Paul did not even eat the fish. Paul was not one to be beaten at anything.
    Following Paul around was always a treat for me. Paul had a dog named Sport who was an even better hunter than Paul himself. Sport was part wolf and part elephant hound. Sport was fast and had an excellent nose. While chasing a wild hog one evening, Sport ran right through a barbed wire fence. The fence cut him right in two. Sport let out a howl and Paul came to see what was wrong. Paul picked up Sport, twisted him together and bandaged him up. The next morning Sport came running out with his two hind legs pointing straight up. Paul had twisted him together backwards. This looked funny, but Sport could run faster than any four-legged animals. Another advantage of running on two legs is that when Sport got tired he would flip over and run on his fresh legs. Sport enjoyed running so much that he took off running and never came back.

Author's notes:
I retold Paul the Hunter from the point of view of a reporter named Eugene Redwood. The book that I chose as a source for my stories contained several hunting stories, but however I thought it would be interesting to make some new stories also. One of the original hunting stories that I retold was Sport the reversible dog. This story was really funny to me so I kept most of it the same. The first story about Paul and his shot gun came from my source. In the original story, Paul shot a bird; I changed it to an elk.
Because there are just a few stories about Paul Bunyan hunting, I wanted to add to this collection with my own stories. I thought that it would be fun to add the story about Paul wrestling the bear over the big fish that he had tried to catch. I also added the story about Paul tracking down Babe and the bear stealing the food. I am going to try and make up my own collection of stories to add to the already popular story collection. I am going to have to work harder on this subject than I thought to try and tell the stories from a reporter's point of view. When making up or retelling a Paul Bunyan story there are a few key elements. The story needs to have a problem so big that is unimaginable. The story also needs to be somewhat humorous, and of course Paul has to be the hero.

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Biblography:
The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan as Told in the Camps of the White Pine Lumbermen for Generations During Which Time the Loggers Have Pioneered the Way Through the North Woods From Maine to California Collected from Various Sources and Embellished for Publication. Text and Illustrations By W. B. Laughead. Published for the Amusement of our Friends by The Red River Lumber Company Minneapolis, Westwood, Cal., Chicago, Los Angeles - San Francisco. 1922
Website: Books about California History and Culture

Image from Roadside America website