"'Well,' he said, 'the old Club-Foot looked as big as an elephant, and I thought if I shot him and didn't kill him, that he would come and shake the tree down and eat me up.'
"And the other men said that was the reason that they didn't shoot. Then they said to the brave fellows who stayed on the ground, 'Why didn't you shoot?'
"'Well,' they said, 'we didn't know the bear was so big.'
"After the men had got nearly home, they sat down and talked it all over, and one of them said, 'What will you say to the two Irishmen that were going to kill Club-Foot? You know we thought we would kill him, and he would never get as far as the Irishmen?'
"And they all agreed that they would not say a thing about it to any one, but would wait and see what the Irishmen said when they came into the store the next evening.
"Well, the next evening, I went down and hid behind the house to hear what the men would say. And sure enough, very soon in came the two Irishmen. One Irishmen was named Mike, and the other, Pat. The men all said, 'Hello, Mike,' and 'Hello, Pat.' But no one said anything about old Club-Foot.
"After a while Alex said, 'Well, Mike, where is the bear skin you were going to bring us?' For Mike had said that he would have a bear skin for them that night. 'Didn't you see old Club-Foot?'
"'Yes,' Mike said, 'we saw Club-Foot. He came right by us, and we were sitting on the roof of the pig-pen. He knocked the pig-pen right out from under us, and took a little pig and ran off with it.'
"'Well,' Alex said, 'why didn't you shoot him?'
"And Mike said, 'Well—well, we couldn't find our guns.'