PAGE 6
The Indefatigable Bear-Hunter
by
“We fit all round that holler! Fust I’d foller bar, and then bar would chase me! I’d make a lick, he’d fend off, and showin’ a set of teeth that no doctor, ‘cept natur, had ever wurkt at, cum tearin’ at me! We both ‘gan to git tired, I heard the boys and dogs cumin’, so did bar, and we were both anxshus to bring the thing to a close ‘fore they cum up, though I wuddent thought they were intrudin’ ef they had cum up some time afore.
“I’d worn the old leg pretty well off to the second jint, when, jest ‘fore I made a lick, the noise of the boys and the dogs cummin’ sorter confused bar, and he made a stumble, and bein’ off his guard I got a fair lick! The way that bar’s flesh giv in to the soft impresshuns of that leg war an honor to the mederkal perfeshun for having invented sich a weepun! I hollered – but you have heered me holler an’ I won’t describe it – I had whipped a bar in a fair hand to hand fight – me, an old sickly one-legged bar-hunter! The boys cum up, and, when they seed the ground we had fit over, they swore they would hav thought, ‘stead of a bar-fight, that I had been cuttin’ cane and deadenin’ timber for a corn-patch, the sile war so worked up, they then handed me a knife to finish the work.
“Doc, les licker, it’s a dry talk – when will you make me another leg? for bar-meat is not over plenty in the cabin, and I feel like tryin’ another!”