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“Say! I rounded the end of that log and put down the hill at a two-twenty clip, old bald-face reachin’ for me at every jump. At the bottom was a broad, open flat, quarter of a mile to timber and full of niggerheads. I knew if ever I slipped I was a goner, but I hit only the high places till you couldn’t a-seen my trail for smoke. And the old devil snortin’ along hot after me. Midway across, he reached for me, jest strikin’ the heel of my moccasin with his claw. Tell you I was doin’ some tall thinkin’ jest then. I knew he had the wind of me and I could never make the brush, so I pulled my little lunch out of my pocket and dropped it on the fly.

“Never looked back till I hit the timber, and then he was mouthing the biscuits in a way which wasn’t nice to see, considerin’ how close he’d been to me. I never slacked up. No, sir! Jest kept hittin’ the trail for all there was in me. But jest as I came around a bend, heelin’ it right lively I tell you, what’d I see in middle of the trail before me, and comin’ my way, but another bald-face!

“‘Whoof!’ he says when he spotted me, and he came a-runnin.’

“Instanter I was about and hittin’ the back trail twice as fast as I’d come. The way this one was puffin’ after me, I’d clean forgot all about the other bald-face. First thing I knew I seen him mosying along kind of easy, wonderin’ most likely what had become of me, and if I tasted as good as my lunch. Say! when he seen me he looked real pleased. And then he came a-jumpin’ for me.

“‘Whoof!’ he says.

“‘Whoof!’ says the one behind me.

“Bang I goes, slap off the trail sideways, a-plungin’ and a-clawin’ through the brush like a wild man. By this time I was clean crazed; thought the whole country was full of bald-faces. Next thing I knows–whop, I comes up against something in a tangle of wild blackberry bushes. Then that something hits me a slap and closes in on me. Another bald-face! And then and there I knew I was gone for sure. But I made up to die game, and of all the rampin’ and roarin’ and rippin’ and tearin’ you ever see, that was the worst.

“‘My God! O my wife!’ it says. And I looked and it was a man I was hammering into kingdom come.

“‘Thought you was a bear,’ says I.

“He kind of caught his breath and looked at me. Then he says, ‘Same here.’

“Seemed as though he’d been chased by a bald-face, too, and had hid in the blackberries. So that’s how we mistook each other.

“But by that time the racket on the trail was something terrible, and we didn’t wait to explain matters. That afternoon we got Joe Gee and some rifles and came back loaded for bear. Mebbe you won’t believe me, but when we got to the spot, there was the two bald-faces lyin’ dead. You see, when I jumped out, they came together, and each refused to give trail to the other. So they fought it out. Talkin’ of bear. As I was sayin’—-“