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“I recollect one perty morning in particular, of putting an old he fellow on the stretch, and considering the weight he carried, he run well. But the dogs soon tired him down, and when I came up with him wasn’t he in a beautiful sweat I might say fever; and then to see his tongue sticking out of his mouth a feet, and his sides sinking and opening like a bellows, and his cheeks so fat that he couldn’t look cross. In this fix I blazed at him, and pitch me naked into a briar patch, if the steam didn’t come out of the bullet-hole ten foot in a straight line. The fellow, I reckon, was made on the high-pressure system, and the lead sort of bust his biler.”

“That column of steam was rather curious, or else the bear must have been very warm,” observed the foreigner, with a laugh.

“Stranger, as you observe, that bear was WARM, and the blowing off of the steam show’d it, and also how hard the varmint had been run. I have no doubt if he had kept on two miles farther his insides would have been stewed; and I expect to meet with a varmint yet of extra bottom, that will run himself into a skinfull of bear’s grease: it is possible; much onlikelier things have happened.”

“Whereabouts are these bears so abundant?” inquired the foreigner, with increasing interest.

“Why, stranger, they inhabit the neighborhood of my settlement, one of the prettiest places on old Mississipp a perfect location, and no mistake; a place that had some defects until the river made the ‘cut-off’ at ‘Shirt-tail bend,’ and that remedied the evil, as it brought my cabin on the edge of the river a great advantage in wet weather, I assure you, as you can now roll a barrel of whiskey into my yard in high water from a boat, as easy as falling off a log. It’s a great improvement, as toting it by land in a jug, as I used to do,evaporatedit too fast, and it became expensive.

“Just stop with me, stranger, a month or two, or a year, if you like, and you will appreciate my place. I can give you plenty to eat; for beside hog and hominy, you can have bear-ham, and bearsausages, and a mattress of bear-skins to sleep on, and a wildcat-skin, pulled off hull, stuffed with corn-shucks, for a pillow. That bed would put you to sleep if you had the rheumatics in every joint in your body. I call that ar bed, a quietus.

“Then look at my ‘pre-emption’ the government ain’t got another like it to dispose of. Such timber, and such bottom land,why you can’t preserve anything natural you plant in it unless you pick it young, things thar will grow out of shape so quick.

“I once planted in those diggins a few potatoes and beets; they took a fine start, and after that, an ox team couldn’t have kept them from growing. About that time I went off to old Kaintuck on business, and did not hear from them things in three months, when I accidentally stumbled on a fellow who had crapped in at my place, with an idea of buying me out.

” ‘How did you like things?’ said I.

” ‘Pretty well,’ said he; ‘the cabin is convenient, and the timber land is good; but that bottom land ain’t worth the first red cent.'”

“‘Why?’ said I.

“”Cause,’ said he.

“‘ ‘Cause whet?’ said I.

“”Cause it’s full of cedar stumps and Indian mounds, and can’t be cleared.’

“‘Lord,’ said I.’them ar “Indian mounds” tater hills.’

“As I had expected, the crop was overgrown and useless: the sile is too rich, and planting in Arkansaw is dangerous.