up an' down a tree with a bear after
you. But the tump-line was on it, just as we carried it the day
before, so it wasn't as bad as it might 'a' been.

"Well, when I went up the east pine, the bear follered, an', as there
wasn't any too much room between me an' the bear, I crosses over into
the birch an' slides down its slippery trunk as tho' it was greased. I
hits the ground a little harder than I wanted to, but didn't waste no
time in lightin' out for the west pine, where the Injun was restin';
an' all the time the bear was tryin' to grab me coat-tails.

"It was just a case of up to the west pine, cross over and down the
birch; then up the east pine, cross over an' down the birch; then up
the west pine, cross over an' down the birch, till we got so dizzy we
could a hardly keep from fallin'. If you could just 'a' seen the way
we tore roun' through them trees, I'll bet you would 'a' done a heap o'
laffin'.

"The bear was mighty spry in goin' up, but when it came to goin' down
he'd just do the drop-an'-clutch, drop-an'-clutch act. That's just
where me an' me pardner had the advantage on the brute; for we just
swung our arms an' legs roun' that birch an' did the drop act, too;
but, somehow, we hadn't time to do the clutch, so our coat-tails got
badly crushed every time we landed.

"It was a kind of go-as-you-please until about the tenth roun', when I
accidentally drops the mail-bag on the bear's head, an' that makes him
boilin' mad; so he lights out after us as tho' he had swallered a
hornet's nest.

"Then away we goes up an' down, up an' down, an' roun' an' roun' that
perpendicular race track, until we made such a blur in the scen'ry that
any fool with half an eye an' standin' half a mile away could 'a' seen
a great big figger eight layin' on its side in the middle o' the
landscape. We took turns at carryin' the packet, but sometimes I
noticed Old-pot-head's son was havin' a good deal of trouble with it.
It didn't seem to bother him much when he was climbin' up; for he just
swung it on his back with the loop o' the tump-line over his head, an'
so he had his hands free. But it was when he was comin' down the
slippery birch that the weight of the bag made him rather more rapid
than he wanted to be; an' so, when he an' the bag struck groun', they
nearly always bounced apart; an' if the Injun failed to get his feet in
time to ketch the sack on the first bounce, I ketched it on the second
bounce as I glode by. So