Richard Randolph, a carpenter, showed up at the hospital with a badly mangled finger.

Asked what happened, he stammered, “G-g-got bit by a durned ole brown bear.”

Randolph was heavily under the influence of a “cargo of booze,” so it took a while to get the rest of the story out of him.

Randolph had gone to the Manito Park Zoo and was trying to feed the bear some peanuts. But he stuck his hand “into the maw of the big cinnamon bear,” which chomped on his finger.

Randolph was bandaged up and booked as a drunk.

From the zoo beat: Speaking of the Manito Park Zoo, the animals were following the wartime food restrictions. Their handlers were cutting back on the amount of wheat mixed into their rations.

“The animals have never looked better than they do this spring, even though the nation’s food supply is low,” said the paper.

From the war beat: Pvt. Henry Heiner, of Spokane, was wounded in action at “No Man’s Land” in France.

No details were released about the seriousness of the injury. He was one of the first men from Spokane to be reported wounded in action. Many more would follow.