An account in Latah County, Idaho

My incident took place during the summer of 1963.I was eight years old at the time.The incident took place on Moscow Mountain(I believe it was the south side of the mountain.)A small mountain near Troy Idaho.Moscow Idaho is not to far from Troy.(Moscow being the state university of Idaho.)From time to time I would ride with my father to his work site.He would buy ,what is/was referred to as a stumpage site .This site would be a small area that the Forest service would award to someone through a bidding process.The person to which the contract was awarded to,would then be responsible to clean the area of brush.My father really did this to obtain the old growth cedar trees,on the site.He would than reduce the trees into posts and rails and sometimes into shakes.(roofing shingles.)On one particular morning,approximately 10am to 11am my father and I were on the site.My father began to notch out a cedar that was appoximately five feet across.He had real difficulty falling this tree,because it had a lot of papery material inside of it.About half way through the falling process my father pulled the saw out of the tree and shut it off.In the meantime I kept getting a feeling that something was staring at me. I had not yet talked to my father yet about my odd feeling,because he always had me stand behind another tree,hopefully at the opposite side of the direction that the tree was supposed to fall.He was an excellent tree faller.After he shut his chainsaw off,he looked over to me and said,I feel like something is staring at me.I said I think it is an elk.He said no,I think that there is a cub bear up in this cedar snag.He gave me directions to walk around the tree and look up and watch for the cub bear.He did the same,only he walked in the opposite direction.Neither one of us saw a cub bear up in the tree.He than said to me ,you must be right,it probably is an elk.Sometimes I could find elk that thought they were hidden when I would get this feeling.My father proceeded to fall this cedar snag.It fell on a slope,which was thickly covered with brush that was almost as tall as I was.As soon as the tree quit moving,I ran up its trunk.I had gotten about half way up the trees length.At that moment ,something jumped up on the tree with me.It was about the same height as I stood.It stopped in front of me,looked me right in the face.Its face was about eight inches from mine!I let out a,as my father put it,a blood curd curdling screem.It took off on its legs similar to the way a human would run.It went toward the top part of the tree,and disappeared.I on the other hand,could not get back to my father soon enough.My father approached me and said,I think you saw a cub bear.I responded with,no dad!!I saw a big monkey!WE did not talk another word about it.I believe my father thought my mother would blow a gasket if she found out what had happened.This episode took place during a mostly clear,warm summer morning.The following Monday,I told my story to my third grade teacher.She later contacted someone at the Moscow Idaho state university,so as to find out if any circus animals had escaped or been lost in our area.She later told me that no animals had escaped or been lost from a circus.What prompted her to take these actions,was the fact that I had told her,that I thought it looked just like a chimpanzee,only bigger.I was small for my age,until I hit my teen years.,but it was about my size,only heaver built,much more muscular.Its face looked just like a chimpanzees.Its fur was clean,short,and shiny.It had a clean and neat look about it.This is my story and I swear on my fathers grave that everything that I have told you is true! My father started to take his 3006 hunting rifle with him to his job sites after that time.He usually worked alone.