' shoves it up against the birch tree, for fear o'
the fire spreadin' an' burnin' up the mail.

"Me an' Old-pot-head's son turns in an' sleeps as sound as any trippers
could. Some time in the night I wakes up with a mighty start that
almost busts me heart. Somethin' was maulin' me. So, with me head
still under the blanket, for I dassn't peep out, I sings out to the
Injun an' asks him what in creation he's kickin' me for; an' if he
couldn't wake me without killin' me. Old-pot-head's son yells back
that he hasn't touched me. Then you bet I was scared; for the thing
hauls off agen an' gives me a clout that knocks the wind plum' out o'
me.

"Just then I heard Old-pot-head's son shout, 'Keep still, Bill, it's a
big black bear.' I grabs the edges o' me blanket an' pulls 'em in under
me so hard I thinks I've bust it. But the bear keeps on maulin' me,
an' givin' me such hard swats that I began to fear it'd cave in me
ribs."

"But, Billy, why didn't you shoot it?" asked the Reverend Mr. Wilson.

"Shoot? Why, your reverence, don't you know, packeteers never carries
a gun?" the old man exclaimed with disgust, and then continued his
story:

"Not content with that, the brute starts to roll me over an' over. An'
all the time I'm doin' me best to play dead. Now you needn't laff.
I'd like to see any o' youse pretendin' you was dead while a big bear
was poundin' you that hard that you begin to believe you ain't
shammin'. An' when that ugly brute hauls off an' hits me agen, I
decides then an' there that there's no occasion to sham it. But just
as soon as I makes up my mind I'm dead, the bear leaves me; an' when I
can no longer hear him breathin', I peeps out of a tiny little hole,
and sees the big brute maulin' me old friend the Injun. Then I takes
another peep roun', an' don't see no escape 'cept by way o' them three
trees, so I just jumps up, an' lights out like greased lightnin' for
the nearest tree. After me comes the bear gallopin'. I guess that was
the quickest runnin' I ever done in all me life. I just managed to
climb into the lower branches o' the west pine as the bear struck the
trunk below me.

"When I stops for breath in the upper branches, I sees the old bear
canterin' back agen to have another go with me pardner.

"Just as soon as I was safe, the whole performance struck me as bein'
pretty funny, an' I couldn't help roarin' out and a-laffin' when I saw
the beast maulin' Old-pot-head's son, an' him tr