Tales of Toelke and Yenne

Hunting season has rolled around again and my two sons, two son-in-laws, and two grandsons are out there valiantly trying to get a little meat for their families. That’s what reminded me of Mary the Mule.

The first story I ever sold to a national magazine was “Mary Mule, the Elk Pointer,” a “mostly” true account of a successful hunting trip into the South Fork wilderness country. Sports Afield editors thought it was a funny yarn and liked the ideas of a mule that pointed out big bull elk. That was the main gist of the story; however, there was another funny thing that was never mentioned in my writing because ... it was so embarrassing.

To impress my new father-in-law, Bill Wilhelm and brother-in-law, Bud, I had taken them to a secret spot behind Spotted Bear Mountain. After Mary helped my father-in-law get a nice bull, there remained the job of getting the meat out to Spotted Bear Ranger Station using just one pack mule  and our three saddle horses. To get that done, I agreed to walk and let my two new relatives ride. We went north from Sargeant Lake and they ferried me with the stock across the Spotted Bear River then left me to walk the last six miles alone.

The weather was turning colder, wind blowing, some snow swirling. I was thinking about that long miserable walk, when around the bend behind me came a jingling pack string of mules, led by a broad shouldered horseman who looked a little bit like a grizzly bear in his bushy black beard. I got off the trail to give him room and told him I was bound for Spotted Bear. Didn’t know if he heard me or not, but when the last mule was even with me the string suddenly, almost magically stopped.

The packer yelled back, “That end mule rides well and you’re welcome to climb on him if you want.” I was glad to do that but said I would like to quickly make some rope stirrups on the empty packsaddle. The mule was anxious to get going and I was having trouble making stirrups with my half frozen fingers so I tied his halter rope to a tree. With the mule standing still that didn’t take long and I soon climbed stiffly aboard.

Nothing happened for a minute, the packer called back, “Hey dude, that’s one heck of a mule you’re sittin’ on but he’ll get to Spotted Bear a lot quicker ... if you untie him from that tree.”

Bob Toelke doesn’t pull pack strings through the wilderness anymore, but he sure did a lot of it for over thirty years. Just for fun, I called him up last Monday to see if he remembered giving that half frozen “dude” a ride down the Spotted Bear River Trail. He laughed, and I thought of asking if he laughed when that actually happened over fifty years ago; but then decided ... I’d rather not know.

It was fun talking to Bob after so many years and I remembered he is the one who first told me about our mutual friend Bill Yenne’s description of a bad situation. Remember? If there was a grizzly in the trail, Bill would say, “Boys, this situation is as dangerous as a rope handle in a two bitted axe.”

Bob told me another Yenne story, I’d not heard before. When Bill first went to work as a government packer in the twenties, he said he was told to go up the North Fork and inspect some wilderness cabins to see how they had come through the winter. It was new country to Bill and after riding his horse many miles he came to a three way fork and couldn’t remember which one he was supposed to take. Bill said he ended up taking the one to the right and after a few miles came to Polebridge. He went in the store and found four old guys sitting around a table playing cards and he asked them how to find those cabins.

They told him he should have taken the trail straight ahead. Bill thanked them and left. The next spring Bill had more assignments in the North Fork and it just turned out that exactly one year after he’d been there before, he rode up to the Polebridge Store. When he got inside he saw those same four old guys sitting there playing cards. Bill hummed and hawed a minute then said, “Excuse me fellas! I hate to bother you again, but did you tell me to take the trail to the left or the one straight ahead?”

That’s what Bob Toelke told me Bill Yenne told him.

G. George Ostrom is the news director at KOFI radio and a Hungry Horse News columnist.