ard that was barren of grass. When I accused him of
maliciously picking that chicken, his face was a spot of smiles as he
vigorously denied it.

"Are you going to school?" I asked him.

The smile changed to a look of surprize at an inquiry so out of line
with his immediate activities.

"When it starts," he called back as he and the chicken disappeared under
the cabin.

I dropped questions and adopted the direct statement as a method of
procedure in which there was less personal liability.

Alvin Terry, dressed in a patched corduroy with a hunting-pouch made of
the skin of a gray fox and with his long rifle in his hand, stopped at
the store and told how he "got a bear." There was a hunter's pride in
the achievement with apparently little value given to the bravery of the
personal role he had played.

He had been on a hunt back in the hills. His dogs had gone ahead of him
and he "knowed they had somethin'." When he came in sight of them they
rushed into a cave and some came out yelping and bloody. When they
wouldn't go back, then it was he "sized hit wur a bear." He looked at
the mountains around him, but there was not a cabin in sight where he
could get help.

"Ez the dogs couldn't git out whatever wuz in there, and wuz only
keepin' hit in, I sat down to think hit over. I lowed I would tell some
one en folks would say, 'that's the man who had a bear in a cave, and
did not git him.' Ef I went in en come out alive with scratches on me,
folks would say 'a bear done that, but he got the bear.'"

He cut a long pole, fastened a pine knot to the end of it and set it
afire. Getting to the side of the mouth of the cave he began slowly to
push in the burning knot, "leavin' the channel open ef anything wanted
to come out."

But the bear didn't come out, and the hunter grew afraid that the smoke
would not move his prey yet would prevent him seeing around in the cave
if he had to go in. The cave's mouth was low, a rock hung over it and he
could not crawl upon his hands and knees.

"I pushed the pine knot ez fur ez hit would go. I set my rifle, en
pushed hit ahead of me. Got my knife where I could git hit. Went down
flat en begun to pull myself on my elbows. When I could jes peep around
a rock I seed the bear. He wuz settin' on his haunches, his head turned
alookin' at the pine knot. I picked out a spot about three inches below
his collar-bone, en never drew such a bead on anything. Then I tetched
her oft. Ye should have