last we had known of the drivers
was that they had been beyond Thunderhead, six miles of hard travel to
the westward. There was fog on the mountain. We did some uneasy
speculating. Then Granville and Matt took the lantern and set out for
Briar Knob. "Doc" was too stiff for travel, and I, being at that time a
stranger in the Smokies, would be of no use hunting amid clouds and
darkness. "Doc" and I passed a dreary three hours. Finally, at midnight,
my shots were answered, and soon the dogs came limping in. Dred had been
severely bitten in the shoulders and Rock in the head. Coaly was bloody
about the mouth, where his first day's wound had reopened. Then came the
four men, empty-handed, it seemed, until John slapped a bear's "melt"
(spleen) upon the table. He limped from a bruised hip.

"That bear outsharped us and went around all o' you-uns. We follered him
clar over to the Spencer Place, and then he doubled and come back on the
fur side o' the ridge. He crossed through the laurel on the Devil's
Court House and tuk down an almighty steep place. It was plumb night by
that time. I fell over a rock clift twenty feet down, and if 't hadn't
been for the laurel I'd a-bruk some bones. I landed right in the middle
of them, bear and dogs, fightin' like gamecocks. The bear clim a tree.
Bill sung out 'Is it fur down thar?' and I said 'Purty fur.' 'Waal, I'm
a-comin',' says he; and with that he grabbed a laurel to swing hisself
down by, but the stem bruk, and down he come suddent, to jine the music.
Hit was so dark I couldn't see my gun barrel, and we wuz all tangled up
in greenbriers as thick as ploughlines. I had to fire twiste afore he
tumbled. Then Matt an' Granville come. The four of us tuk turn-about
crawlin' up out o' thar with the bear on our back. Only one man could
handle him at a time--and he'll go a good two hunderd, that bear. We
gutted him, and left him near the top, to fotch in the mornin'. Fellers,
I'm bodaciously tired out. This is the time I'd give half what I'm worth
for a gallon o' liquor--and I'd promise the rest!"

"You'd orter see what Coaly did to that varmint," said Bill. "He bit a
hole under the fore leg, through hide and ha'r, clar into the holler, so
t' you can stick your hand in and seize the bear's heart."

"John, what was that dream of yours?"

"I dremp I stole a feller's overcoat. Now d'ye see? That means a bear's
hide."

Coaly, three days ago, had been an inconsequential pup; but now he
looked up