Ok I hope you guys are enjoying this, because it's kind of fun to write. :)

Here's a quick flash back to remember the story up to this point.
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We all broke into our smaller groups and waved/smacked the others as we made our way into the woods.

"All right Emmett, 1 weeks worth of mucking the stalls is the bet that I find the beast before you." Aaron said as he walked into the woods.

"Oh, that's a bet that I want a part of." John laughed as he followed Aaron in.

"OK, but remember that you are the one who made the bet Aaron. No whining when I win." I said as I passed them both and began follow the animal trails deeper into the woods.

We all split up following our own trails when I hear something breaking the branches off to my west. I turned my head towards the sound and slowly began to quietly walk near the sound.

"RROOOOWWWWRRR" Aaron laughed as he came out of the wood to my west.

"Aaron you are going to get shot, or smacked soon." I said as I turned back to the trail that I was following.

We all continued our separate ways and didn't hear anything for about an hour. I was sitting on a rock trying to hear anything out of the normal when I heard a gun shot just off to my south.
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I took off running as fast as I could, thinking of my brothers and who could have gotten into such trouble that the would have to discharge his gun. As I rounded a large spruce tree, I saw John sitting on a large rock, with shock written all over his face.

"John, what happened? Are you alright?" I asked as I came into his view.

I fully expected him to start laughing, some new joke to see who would come running. However; he just sat on the rock staring off at something that I couldn't see. I walked closer to him and looked in the direction that he was staring, and there on the ground was a young grizzly bear. I quickly walked over to him and shook his shoulder until he looked at me.


"I was walking the woods, trying to follow a trail when I heard the sound of something crashing near me." He said, his voice just barley a whisper at this point.

"I turned to yell at you or Aaron, thinking that one of you were going to jump out and yell. Then this bear walks out of the brush, and started to charge at me." He said as he pointed the barrel of the gun at the dead animal about 10 feet away.

John was shaking so hard at this point that I took his gun from his trembling hand and turned the safety on, setting the gun on the rock.

Right about that time, my father and my eight brothers all came running to investigate the gun shot. They all had questioning looks about them as they looked from John to the bear and back again.

"Well, it looks like we may have found what has been killing our livestock, what happened?" My father said as he walked forward to check on John.

With everyone looking around, I went to investigate the bear. I would guess that the bear weighed about 200 pounds and was still a youngin'. We all knew something about bears, living in the woods and all and my first thought was that it's mother would not be too far behind.

I turned to my father, and told him all of this information. He nodded and decided that we had best all head back to the farm since he didn't want to worry my mother any longer seeing as how she would have heard the gun shot at the house.

We gathered the dead bear and all headed back to the house, with my father and John leading the way. When we rounded the small barn, father said that Michael and Phillip would be responsible for taking care of the bear. They grumbled quietly as the rest of us headed back to the house.

As we neared the house my mother burst out the front door, wiping her hands on her apron and subconsciously counting all of us at the same time. My father was quick to point out that we had left 2 boys at the barn.

After reassuring ma that we were all fine, we all started back to the pole barn to discuss strategy.

We all filed into the barn and tried to find an empty spot to sit or lean as our father cleared his throat to get our attention.

"Ok here's what we know, we have one grizzly bear cub that charged John. I know that we all had a chance to at least look at it, so we all know that it was just a cub. I would guess that it was about 2 years old, and that it's mother and possible siblings are still out there. The main question now is, what do we do now?" He said as he paced around the barn.

Everyone started talking at once, each thinking that his idea was better then everyone elses.

"We need to set traps." Aaron said.

"We should just let them be, and watch to see if they come back." David added.

"We should just go find the others and kill them, why take chances?" I added as I looked around.

My father stood by the door thinking about all of the options. "I think that Aaron may be right, we should start by just baiting the traps and see if we can catch them that way."

There was quite the grumble at that, I caught Aaron's eye and nodded towards him. He smiled and nodded back. No one seemed to notice our little nonverbal conversation, yet dad seemed to sense that something was up.

"I don't want any of you going into the woods for a while. I know it is tempting to think that one of you could take down the bear alone, but remember that the mother will know that something has happened to her cub, and there is nothing worse in this world then an angry mother bear." He made sure to look each of us in the eye, as he started to walk out of the barn.

Aaron and I were the last two to get leave, and he elbowed me in the ribs.

"So we're going in the woods tonight then?" He said as he laughed quickly then frowned.

"Yeah, I think that we can track the bear and take care it and not have anyone in the family fear for their safety. The kids play in the woods all the time, and my biggest fear is one of them getting hurt because we put this off." I said as I looked out into the woods.

"Dad is going to be very, very upset when he finds us gone. I hope we do find that bear, because she will be less angry then dad." Aaron laughed.

All I could do at this point was nod, because he was right about all of his points. We made sure that no one was looking for us, and headed out the door and into the woods.