p396-021 THE BIG BEAR OF ARKANSAS.

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BY T. B. THORPE, ESQ. OF LOUISIANA.

As the author of “Tom Owen the Bee Hunter,” and other tales and
sketches, Mr. Thorpe has acquired a distinguished reputation on
both sides of the Atlantic. Though by profession a painter, his time
for several years past has been about equally divided between the
brush and the pen. He is now engaged in the publication of the
“Concordia Intelligencer,” a journal of unusual ability, issued weekly
in the pleasant little village situated directly opposite the city of
Natchez. The New York “Spirit of the Times” was the medium
through which Mr. T. first appeared before the world of letters; and
his inimitable delineations of South-western characters, incidents,
and scenery, soon attracted attention. Now, wherever the language
is spoken, he is deemed

— “Great in mouths of wisest censure.”

A steamboat on the Mississippi frequently, in
making her regular trips, carries between places varying
from one to two thousand miles apart; and as
these boats advertise to land passengers and freight at
“all intermediate landings,” the heterogeneous

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character of the passengers of one of these up-country boats
can scarcely be imagined by one who has never seen it
with his own eyes. Starting from New Orleans in one
of these boats, you will find yourself associated with
men from every state in the Union, and from every portion
of the globe; and a man of observation need not
lack for amusement or instruction in such a crowd, if
he will take the trouble to read the great book of character
so favourably opened before him. Here may be
seen jostling together the wealthy Southern planter, and
the pedler of tin-ware from New England—the Northern
merchant, and the Southern jockey—a venerable
bishop, and a desperate gambler—the land speculator,
and the honest farmer—professional men of all creeds
and characters—Wolvereens, Suckers, Hoosiers, Buckeyes,
and Corncrackers, beside a “plentiful sprinkling”
of the half-horse and half-alligator species of men, who
are peculiar to “old Mississippi,” and who appear to
gain a livelihood simply by going up and down the river.
In the pursuit of pleasure or business, I have frequently
found myself in such a crowd.

On one occasion, when in New Orleans, I had occasion
to take a trip of a few miles up the Mississippi,
and I hurried on board the well-known “high-pressure-and-beat-every-thing”
steamboat “Invincible,” just as
the last note of the last bell was sounding; and when
the confusion and bustle that is natural to a boat's getting
under way had subsided, I discovered that I was
associated in as heterogeneous a crowd as was ever got
together. As my trip was to be of a few hours' duration
only, I made no endeavours to become acquainted

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with my fellow passengers, most of whom would be together
many days. Instead of this, I took out of my
pocket the “latest paper,” and more critically than
usual examined its contents; my fellow passengers at
the same time disposed of themselves in little groups.
While I was thus busily employed in reading, and my
companions were more busily still employed in discussing
such subjects as suited their humours best, we were
startled most unexpectedly by a loud Indian whoop, uttered
in the “social hall,” that part of the cabin fitted off
for a bar; then was to be heard a loud crowing, which
would not have continued to have interested us—such
sounds being quite common in that place of spirits—
had not the hero of these windy accomplishments stuck
his head into the cabin and hallooed out, “Hurra for
the Big Bar of Arkansaw!” and then might be heard
a confused hum of voices, unintelligible, save in such
broken sentences as “horse,” “screamer,” “lightning
is slow,” &c. As might have been expected, this continued
interruption attracted the attention of every one
in the cabin; all conversation dropped, and in the
midst of this surprise the “Big Bar” walked into the
cabin, took a chair, put his feet on the stove, and looking
back over his shoulder, passed the general and familiar
salute of “Strangers, how are you?” He then
expressed himself as much at home as if he had been
at “the Forks of Cypress,” and “prehaps a little more
so.” Some of the company at this familiarity looked
a little angry, and some astonished; but in a moment
every face was wreathed in a smile. There was something
about the intruder that won the heart on sight.

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He appeared to be a man enjoying perfect health and
contentment: his eyes were as sparkling as diamonds,
and good-natured to simplicity. Then his perfect confidence
in himself was irresistibly droll. “Prehaps,”
said he, “gentlemen,” running on without a person
speaking, “prehaps you have been to New Orleans
often; I never made the first visit before, and I
don't intend to make another in a crow's life. I am
thrown away in that ar place, and useless, that ar a
fact. Some of the gentlemen thar called me green—
well, prehaps I am, said I, but I arn't so at home; and
if I aint off my trail much, the heads of them perlite
chaps themselves wern't much the hardest; for according
to my notion, they were real know-nothings,
green as a pumpkin-vine—could'nt, in farming, I'll bet,
raise a crop of turnips: and as for shooting, they'd
miss a barn if the door was swinging, and that, too,
with the best rifle in the country. And then they talked
to me 'bout hunting, and laughed at my calling the principal
game in Arkansaw poker, and high-low-jack.
`Prehaps,' said I, `you prefer chickens and rolette;'
at this they laughed harder than ever, and asked me
if I lived in the woods, and didn't know what game
was? At this I rather think I laughed. `Yes,' I
roared, and says, `Strangers, if you'd asked me how
we got our meat in Arkansaw, I'd a told you at once,
and given you a list of varmints that would make a caravan,
beginning with the bar, and ending off with the
cat; that's meat though, not game.' Game, indeed,
that's what city folks call it; and with them it means
chippen-birds and shite-pokes; maybe such trash live

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in my diggins, but I arn't noticed them yet: a bird any
way is too trifling. I never did shoot at but one, and
I'd never forgiven myself for that, had it weighed less
than forty pounds. I wouldn't draw a rifle on any
thing less than that; and when I meet with another
wild turkey of the same weight I will drap him.”

“A wild turkey weighing forty pounds!” exclaimed
twenty voices in the cabin at once.

“Yes, strangers, and wasn't it a whopper? You see,
the thing was so fat that it couldn't fly far; and when
he fell out of the tree, after I shot him, on striking the
ground he bust open behind, and the way the pound
gobs of tallow rolled out of the opening was perfectly
beautiful.”

“Where did all that happen?” asked a cynical-looking
Hoosier.

“Happen! happened in Arkansaw: where else
could it have happened, but in the creation state, the
finishing-up country—a state where the sile runs down
to the centre of the 'arth, and government gives you a
title to every inch of it? Then its airs—just breathe
them, and they will make you snort like a horse. It's
a state without a fault, it is.”

“Excepting mosquitoes,” cried the Hoosier.

“Well, stranger, except them; for it ar a fact that
they are rather enormous, and do push themselves in
somewhat troublesome. But, stranger, they never stick
twice in the same place; and give them a fair chance for
a few months, and you will get as much above noticing
them as an alligator. They can't hurt my feelings, for
they lay under the skin; and I never knew but one case

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of injury resulting from them, and that was to a Yankee:
and they take worse to foreigners, any how, than
they do to natives. But the way they used that fellow
up! first they punched him until he swelled up and
busted; then he sup-per-a-ted, as the doctor called it,
until he was as raw as beef; then he took the ager,
owing to the warm weather, and finally he took a steamboat
and left the country. He was the only man that
ever took mosquitoes at heart that I know of. But
mosquitoes is natur, and I never find fault with her. If
they ar large, Arkansaw is large, her varmints ar large,
her trees ar large, her rivers ar large, and a small mosquitoe
would be of no more use in Arkansaw than
preaching in a cane-brake.”

This knock-down argument in favour of big mosquitoes
used the Hoosier up, and the logician started on a
new track, to explain how numerous bear were in his
“diggins,” where he represented them to be “about
as plenty as blackberries, and a little plentifuler.”

Upon the utterance of this assertion, a timid little
man near me inquired if the bear in Arkansaw ever
attacked the settlers in numbers.

“No,” said our hero, warming with the subject, “no,
stranger, for you see it ain't the natur of bar to go in
droves; but the way they squander about in pairs and
single ones in edifying. And then the way I hunt them—
the old black rascals know the crack of my gun as
well as they know a pig's squealing. They grow thin
in our parts, it frightens them so, and they do take the
noise dreadfully, poor things. That gun of mine is a
perfect epidemic among bar: if not watched closely, it

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will go off as quick on a warm scent as my dog Bowie-knife
will: and then that dog—whew! why the fellow
thinks that the world is full of bar, he finds them so
easy. It's lucky he don't talk as well as think; for
with his natural modesty, if he should suddenly learn
how much he is acknowledged to be ahead of all other
dogs in the universe, he would be astonished to death
in two minutes. Strangers, that dog knows a bar's
way as well as a horse-jockey knows a woman's: he
always barks at the right time, bites at the exact place,
and whips without getting a scratch. I never could tell
whether he was made expressly to hunt bar, or whether
bar was made expressly for him to hunt: any way, I
believe they were ordained to go together as naturally
as Squire Jones says a man and woman is, when he
moralizes in marrying a couple. In fact, Jones once
said, said he, `Marriage according to law is a civil contract
of divine origin; it's common to all countries as
well as Arkansaw, and people take to it as naturally as
Jim Doggett's Bowie-knife takes to bar.”'

“What season of the year do your hunts take place?”
inquired a gentlemanly foreigner, who, from some peculiarities
of his baggage, I suspected to be an Englishman,
on some hunting expedition, probably at the foot
of the Rocky mountains.

“The season for bar hunting, stranger,” said the man
of Arkansaw, “is generally all the year round, and the
hunts take place about as regular. I read in history
that varmints have their fat season, and their lean season.
That is not the case in Arkansaw, feeding as they
do upon the spontenacious productions of the sile, they

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have one continued fat season the year round: though
in winter things in this way is rather more greasy than
in summer, I must admit. For that reason bar with us
run in warm weather, but in winter they only waddle.
Fat, fat! it's an enemy to speed; it tames every thing
that has plenty of it. I have seen wild turkeys, from
its influence, as gentle as chickens. Run a bar in this
fat condition, and the way it improves the critter for
eating is amazing; it sort of mixes the ile up with the
meat, until you can't tell t'other from which. I've done
this often. 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 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 warm,” observed the foreigner,
with a laugh.

“Stranger, as you observe, that bar 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

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extra bottom, who will run himself into a skinfull of
bar'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 neighbourhood of
my settlement, one of the prettiest places on old Mississippi—
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,
evaporated it 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
bar-ham, and bar-sausages, and a mattrass of bar-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 land—the government ain't got another such a piece
to dispose of. Such timber, and such bottom land,
why you can't preserve any thing 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.

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About that time I went off to old Kentuck on bisiness,
and did not hear from them things in three months,
when I accidentally stumbled on a fellow who had stopped
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 what?' said I.
`'Cause it's full of cedar stumps and Indian mounds,'
said he, `and it can't be cleared.' `Lord,' said I, `them
ar “cedar stumps” is beets, and them ar “Indian
mounds” ar tater hills.' As I expected, the crop was
overgrown and useless: the sile is too rich, and planting
in Arkansaw is dangerous. I had a good-sized sow
killed in that same bottom land. The old thief stole an
ear of corn, and took it down where she slept at night
to eat. Well, she left a grain or two on the ground,
and lay down on them: before morning the corn shot
up, and the percussion killed her dead. I don't plant
any more: natur intended Arkansaw for a hunting
ground, and I go according to natur.”

The questioner who thus elicited the description of
our hero's settlement, seemed to be perfectly satisfied,
and said no more; but the “Big Bar of Arkansaw”
rambled on from one thing to another with a volubility
perfectly astonishing, occasionally disputing with those
around him, particularly with a “live Sucker” from
Illinois, who had the daring to say that our Arkansaw
friend's stories “smelt rather tall.”

In this manner the evening was spent; but conscious
that my own association with so singular a personage

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would probably end before morning, I asked him if he
would not give me a description of some particular bear
hunt; adding, that I took great interest in such things,
though I was no sportsman. The desire seemed to
please him, and he squared himself round towards me,
saying, that he could give me an idea of a bar hunt that
was never beat in this world, or in any other. His manner
was so singular, that half of his story consisted in
his excellent way of telling it, the great peculiarity of
which was, the happy manner he had of emphasizing
the prominent parts of his conversation. As near as I
can recollect, I have italicized them, and given the
story in his own words.

“Stranger,” said he, “in bar hunts I am numerous,
and which particular one, as you say, I shall tell, puzzles
me. There was the old she devil I shot at the
Hurricane last fall—then there was the old hog thief I
popped over at the Bloody Crossing, and then—Yes, I
have it! I will give you an idea of a hunt, in which the
greatest bar was killed that ever lived, none excepted;
about an old fellow that I hunted, more or less, for two
or three years; and if that ain't a particular bar hunt,
I ain't got one to tell. But in the first place, stranger,
let me say, I am pleased with you, because you ain't
ashamed to gain information by asking, and listening;
and that's what I say to Countess's pups every day
when I'm home; and I have got great hopes of them
ar pups, because they are continually nosing about; and
though they stick it sometimes in the wrong place, they
gain experience any how, and may learn something
useful to boot. Well, as I was saying about this big

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bar, you see when I and some more first settled in our
region, we were drivin to hunting naturally; we soon
liked it, and after that we found it an easy matter to
make the thing our business. One old chap who had
pioneered 'afore us, gave us to understand that we had
settled in the right place. He dwelt upon its merits
until it was affecting, and showed us, to prove his assertions,
more marks on the sassafras trees than I ever
saw on a tavern door 'lection time. `Who keeps that
ar reckoning?' said I. `The bar,' said he. `What
for?' said I. `Can't tell,' said he; `but so it is: the
bar bite the bark and wood too, at the highest point
from the ground they can reach, and you can tell, by
the marks,' said he, `the length of the bar to an inch.'
`Enough,' said I; `I've learned something here a'ready,
and I'll put it in practice.'

Well, stranger, just one month from that time I killed
a bar, and told its exact length before I measured it, by
those very marks; and when I did that, I swelled up
considerable—I've been a prouder man ever since. So
I went on, larning something every day, until I was
reckoned a buster, and allowed to be decidedly the best
bar hunter in my district; and that is a reputation as
much harder to earn than to be reckoned first man
in Congress, as an iron ramrod is harder than a toadstool.
Did the varmints grow over-cunning by being
fooled with by green-horn hunters, and by this means
get troublesome, they send for me as a matter of course;
and thus I do my own hunting, and most of my neighbours'.
I walk into the varmints though, and it has
become about as much the same to me as drinking.

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It is told in two sentences—a bar is started, and he is
killed. The thing is somewhat monotonous now—I
know just how much they will run, where they will tire,
how much they will growl, and what a thundering time
I will have in getting them home. I could give you this
history of the chase with all the particulars at the commencement,
I know the signs so well—Stranger, I'm
certain. Once I met with a match though, and I will
tell you about it; for a common hunt would not be
worth relating.

“On a fine fall day, long time ago, I was trailing
about for bar, and what should I see but fresh marks on
the sassafras trees, about eight inches above any in the
forests that I knew of. Says I, `them marks is a hoax,
or it indicates the d—t bar that was ever grown.' In
fact, stranger, I couldn't believe it was real, and I went
on. Again I saw the same marks, at the same height,
and I knew the thing lived. That conviction came home
to my soul like an earthquake. Says I, `here is something
a-purpose for me: that bar is mine, or I give up
the hunting business.' The very next morning what
should I see but a number of buzzards hovering over
my corn-field. `The rascal has been there,' said I,
`for that sign is certain:' and, sure enough, on examining,
I found the bones of what had been as beautiful
a hog the day before, as was ever raised by a Buckeye.
Then I tracked the critter out of the field to the
woods, and all the marks he left behind, showed me
that he was the bar.

“Well, stranger, the first fair chase I ever had with
that big critter, I saw him no less than three distinct

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times at a distance: the dogs run him over eighteen
miles and broke down, my horse gave out, and I was
as nearly used up as a man can be, made on my principle,
which is patent. Before this adventure, such
things were unknown to me as possible; but, strange
as it was, that bar got me used to it before I was done
with him; for he got so at last, that he would leave me
on a long chase quite easy. How he did it, I never
could understand. That a bar runs at all, is puzzling;
but how this one could tire down and bust up a pack
of bounds and a horse, that were used to overhauling
everything they started after in no time, was past my
understanding. Well, stranger, that bar finally got so
sassy, that he used to help himself to a hog off my premises
whenever he wanted one; the buzzards followed
after what he left, and so, between bar and buzzard, I
rather think I was out of pork.

“Well, missing that bar so often took hold of my
vitals, and I wasted away. The thing had been carried
too far, and it reduced me in flesh faster than an ager.
I would see that bar in every thing I did: he hunted
me, and that, too, like a devil, which I began to think
he was. While in this fix, I made preparations to give
him a last brush, and he done with it. Having completed
every thing to my satisfaction, I started at sunrise,
and to my great joy, I discovered from the way
the dogs run, that they were near him; finding his trail
was nothing, for that had become as plain to the pack
as a turnpike road. On we went, and coming to an
open country, what should I see but the bar very leisurely
ascending a hill, and the dogs close at his heels,

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either a match for him this time in speed, or else he
did not care to get out of their way—I don't know
which. But wasn't he a beauty, though? I loved him
like a brother.

“On he went, until he came to a tree, the limbs of
which formed a crotch about six feet from the ground.
Into this crotch he got and seated himself, the dogs yelling
all around it; and there he sat eyeing them as quiet
as a pond in low water. A green-horn friend of mine, in
company, reached shooting distance before me, and
blazed away, hitting the critter in the centre of his
forehead. The bar shook his head as the ball struck
it, and then walked down from that tree as gently as a
lady would from a carriage. 'Twas a beautiful sight
to see him do that—he was in such a rage that he
seemed to be as little afraid of the dogs as if they had
been sucking pigs; and the dogs warn't slow in making
a ring around him at a respectful distance, I tell you;
even Bowie-knife, himself, stood off. Then the way his
eyes flashed—why the fire of them would have singed a
cat's hair; in fact that bar was in a wrath all over. Only
one pup came near him, and he was brushed out so totally
with the bar's left paw, that he entirely disappeared;
and that made the old dogs more cautious still. In the
mean time, I came up, and taking deliberate aim as a
man should do, at his side, just back of his foreleg, if
my gun did not snap, call me a coward, and I won't
take it personal. Yes, stranger, it snapped, and I could
not find a cap about my person. While in this predicament,
I turned round to my fool friend—says I, `Bill,'
says I, `you're an ass—you're a fool—you might as

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well have tried to kill that bar by barking the tree under
his belly, as to have done it by hitting him in the
head. Your shot has made a tiger of him, and blast
me, if a dog gets killed or wounded when they come to
blows, I will stick my knife into your liver, I will —'
my wrath was up. I had lost my caps, my gun had
snapped, the fellow with me had fired at the bar's head,
and I expected every moment to see him close in with
the dogs, and kill a dozen of them at least. In this
thing I was mistaken, for the bar leaped over the ring
formed by the dogs, and giving a fierce growl, was off—
the pack, of course, in full cry after him. The run
this time was short, for coming to the edge of a lake
the varmint jumped in, and swam to a little island in
the lake, which it reached just a moment before the
dogs. `I'll have him now,' said I, for I had found my
caps in the lining of my coat—so, rolling a log into the
lake, I paddled myself across to the island, just as the
dogs had cornered the bar in a thicket. I rushed up
and fired—at the same time the critter leaped over the
dogs and came within three feet of me, running like
mad; he jumped into the lake, and tried to mount the
log I had just deserted, but every time he got half his
body on it, it would roll over and send him under; the
dogs, too, got around him, and pulled him about, and
finally Bowie-knife clenched with him, and they sunk
into the lake together. Stranger, about this time I was
excited, and I stripped off my coat, drew my knife, and
intended to have taken a part with Bowie-knife myself,
when the bar rose to the surface. But the varmint
staid under—Bowie-knife came up alone, more dead

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than alive, and with the pack came ashore. `Thank
God,' said I, `the old villain has got his deserts at last.'
Determined to have the body, I cut a grape-vine for a
rope, and dove down where I could see the bar in the
water, fastened my queer rope to his leg, and fished
him, with great difficulty, ashore. Stranger, may I be
chawed to death by young alligators, if the thing I
looked at wasn't a she bar, and not the old critter after
all. The way matters got mixed on that island was
onaccountably curious, and thinking of it made me
more than ever convinced that I was hunting the devil
himself. I went home that night and took to my bed—
the thing was killing me. The entire team of Arkansaw
in bar-hunting, acknowledged himself used up,
and the fact sunk into my feelings like a snagged boat
will in the Mississippi. I grew as cross as a bar with
two cubs and a sore tail. The thing got out 'mong my
neighbours, and I was asked how come on that individ-u-al
that never lost a bar when once started? and if
that same individ-u-al didn't wear telescopes when he
turned a she bar, of ordinary size, into an old he one,
a little larger than a horse? `Prehaps,' said I, `friends'—
getting wrathy—`prehaps you want to call somebody
a liar.' `Oh, no,' said they, `we only heard such things
as being rather common of late, but we don't believe one
word of it; oh, no,'—and then they would ride off and
laugh like so many hyenas over a dead nigger. It was
too much, and I determined to catch that bar, go to
Texas, or die,—and I made my preparations accordin'.
I had the pack shut up and rested. I took my rifle to
pieces, and iled it. I put caps in every pocket about

my person, for fear of the lining. I then told my neighbours,
that on Monday morning—naming the day—I
would start THAT BAR, and bring him home with me, or
they might divide my settlement among them, the owner
having disappeared. Well, stranger, on the morning
previous to the great day of my hunting expedition, I
went into the woods near my house, taking my gun and
Bowie-knife along, just from habit, and there sitting
down also from habit, what should I see, getting over
my fence, but the bar! Yes, the old varmint was within
a hundred yards of me, and the way he walked over
that fence—stranger, he loomed up like a black mist,
he seemed so large, and he walked right towards me.
I raised myself, took deliberate aim, and fired. Instantly
the varmint wheeled, gave a yell, and walked
through the fence like a falling tree would through a
cobweb. I started after, but was tripped up by my inexpressibles,
which either from habit, or the excitement
of the moment, were about my heels, and before I had
really gathered myself up, I heard the old varmint
groaning in a thicket near by, like a thousand sinners,
and by the time I reached him he was a corpse. Stranger,
it took five niggers and myself to put that carcase
on a mule's back, and old long-ears waddled under his
load, as if he was foundered in every leg of his body,
and with a common whopper of a bar, he would have
trotted off, and enjoyed himself. 'Twould astonish you
to know how big he was: I made a bed-spread of his
skin, and the way it used to cover my bar mattress, and
leave several feet on each side to tuck up, would have
delighted you. It was in fact a creation bar, and if it

had lived in Samson's time, and had met him, in a fair
fight, it would have licked him in the twinkling of a
dice-box. But, stranger, I never liked the way I hunted
him, and missed him. There is something curious
about it, I could never understand,—and I never was
satisfied at his giving in so easy at last. Prehaps, he
had heard of my preparations to hunt him the next day,
so he jist come in, like Capt. Scott's coon, to save his
wind to grunt with in dying; but that ain't likely. My
private opinion is, that that bar was an unhuntable bar,
and died when his time come.”

When the story was ended, our hero sat some minutes
with his auditors in a grave silence; I saw there
was a mystery to him connected with the bear whose
death he had just related, that had evidently made a
strong impression on his mind. It was also evident
that there was some superstitious awe connected with
the affair,—a feeling common with all “children of the
wood,” when they meet with any thing out of their everyday
experience. He was the first one, however, to
break the silence, and jumping up, he asked all present
to “liquor” before going to bed,—a thing which he did,
with a number of companions, evidently to his heart's
content.

Long before day, I was put ashore at my place of
destination, and I can only follow with the reader, in
imagination, our Arkansas friend, in his adventures at
the “Forks of Cypress” on the Mississippi.