very close acquaintance with either of them, for
the Ingins were cheatin', deceivin', and scalpin' critters, and the
bears had an onpleasant way with 'em, that people of delicate narves
didn't like. I came out for some people over on the east side of the
mountains, lookin' land, in company with four men who had hunted over
the country. Ohio warn't any great shakes then, but let me tell you,
stranger, it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin'
around waitin' to be opened up to the sunlight. It's goin' ahead now,
and people are rushin' matters in the way of settlin' of it, but you
could stick down a stake most anywhere in it then, and travel in
any direction a hundred miles climbin' a fence.

"'Wal, we came down the Alleghany in two canoes, and shantied on the
Ohio, just below where the Alleghany empties itself into it. We hid
our canoes, and struck across the country, and travelled about
explorin' for six weeks, and when we got back to our shantyin' ground,
we were tuckered out you may believe. We rested here a couple of days,
layin' around loose, and takin' our comfort in a way of our own. Early
one morning, when my companions were asleep, I got up and paddled
across the river after a deer, for we wanted venison for breakfast. I
got a buck, and was returnin', when what should I see but a bear
swimmin' the Ohio, and I put out in chase right off. I soon overhauled
the critter, and picked up my rifle to give him a settler, when I
found that in paddlin' I had spattered water into the canoe, wettin'
the primin' and makin' the gun of no more use than a stick. I didn't
understand much about the natur of the beast then, and thought I'd run
him down, and drown him, or knock him on the head. So I put the canoe
right end on towards him, thinkin' to run him under, but when the
bow touched him, what did he do, but reach his great paws up over the
side of the canoe, and begin to climb in. I hadn't bargained for that;
I felt mighty onpleasant, you may swear, at the prospect of havin'
sich a passenger. I hadn't time to get at him with the rifle, till he
came tumblin' into the dugout, and as he seated himself on his stern,
showed as pretty a set of ivory as a body would wish to see. There we
sat, he in one end of the dugout and I in the other, eyein' one
another in a mighty suspicious sort of way. He didn't seem inclined to
come near my end of the dugout, and I was principled agin goin'
towards his. I made ready to take