“‘Where is he?’ he asked, looking around sort of anxious.
“‘At the front end of these tracks, making more,’ said I.
“‘And what are we going to do now?’ he asked, cocking the Sharps.
“‘We’re going to trail him,’ said I, ‘and if we finds him and has any accidents, you wants to telegraph yourself up a tree, and be sure that it ain’t a big tree, too.’
“’”Be sure it ain’t a big tree!“’ he repeated, looking at me like he thought I wanted him to get killed.
“‘Exactly,’ said I, and then I explained: ‘The bigger the tree, the sooner you’ll be a meal, for he climbs by hugging the trunk and pushing hisself up. A little tree’ll slide through his legs, and he can’t get a holt.’
“‘I hope I don’t forget that!’ he exclaimed, looking dubious.
“‘The less you forgets when bear hunting,’ said I, ‘the longer you’ll remember.’
“We took up the trail and purty soon we saw the bear, and he was so big he didn’t hardly know how to act. He was pawing berries into his mouth for breakfast, and he turned his head and slowly sized us up. He dropped on all fours and then got up again, and Davy Crockett, not listening to me telling him where to shoot, lets drive and busted an ear. Ephraim preferred all fours again and started coming straight at us, and Moses and all his bullrushers couldn’t have stopped him. He was due to arrive near Davy Crockett in about four and a half seconds, and that person dropped his gun and hot-footed it for a whopping big tree. I yelled at him and told him to take a little one, but he was too blamed busy hunting bear to listen to a no-account hired man like me, so he kept on a-going for the big tree.
“I figured, and figured blamed quick, that the bear would tag him just about the time he tagged the tree, and so, hoping to create a diversion, I whanged away at the bear’s tail, him running plumb away from me. I was real successful, for I created it all right. When he felt that carload of lead slide up under his skin he braced hisself, slid and wheeled, looking for the son-of-a-gun what done it, and he saw me pouring powder hell-bent down my gun. He must ’a’ knowed that I was the real business end of the partnership, and that he’d have trouble a-plenty if he let me finish my job, for he came at me like a bullet.