"Shoot, yourself, you bloody red-skin!" retorted the other.
"No more a red-skin than yourself!"
"Are you a white man?"
"To be sure I am. Are you?"
"Yes; no mistake in me!"
Whereupon, each being undeceived, they threw down their guns, rushed together with open arms, and took a hearty hug. The hunter now learned that the stranger had been settled, with his family, about ten miles from him, for several months past, and that each had frequently roamed over the same hunting-ground, supposing himself the sole inhabitant of that region. On the following day the hunter saddled his horse, and taking up his good wife behind him, carried her down to make a call upon her new neighbor, who doubtless received the visit with far more sincere joy than usually attends such ceremonies.
There is a well-accredited bear-story which belongs to the early history of Ohio, and which is of a little different type from most of the adventures with these ugly animals. An old pilot of the Ohio was once obliged to give a bruin a free ride—but he could hardly blame the bear, after stopping so kindly to take him in. But we must let him tell his own story. "Twenty odd year ago," said the pilot, "there warn't a great many people along the Ohio, except Injins and b'ars, and we didn't like to cultivate a clust acquaintance with either of 'em; fer the Injins were cheatin', scalpin' critters, and the bears had an onpleasant way with them. Ohio warn't any great shakes then, but it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin' about, waitin' to be opened to the sunlight. 'Arly one mornin' when my companions was 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 b'ar 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, but the primin' had got wet and the gun wouldn't go off. I didn't understand b'ar as well then as I do now, and I thought I'd run him down and drown him or knock him in the head. So I put the canoe right eend on toward him, thinkin' to run him under, but when the bow teched 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 believe, at the prospect of sech a passenger. I hadn't time to get at him with the butt of my rifle, till he came tumbling into the dugout, and, as he seated himself on his starn, showed as pretty a set of ivory as you'd wish to see. Thar we sot, he in one end of the dugout, I in t'other, eyein' one another in a mighty suspicious sort of way. He didn't seem inclined to come near my eend of the canoe, and I was principled agin goin' toward his. I made ready to take to the water, but at the same time made up my mind I'd paddle him to shore, free gratis for nothin' if he'd behave hisself. Wal, I paddled away, the b'ar every now and then grinnin' at me, skinnin' his face till every tooth in his head stood right out, and grumblin' to hisself in a way that seemed to say, 'I wonder if that chap's good to eat.' I didn't offer any opinion on the subject; I didn't say a word to him, treatin' him all the time like a gentleman, but kept pullin' for the shore. When the canoe touched ground, he clambered over the side, climbed up the bank, and givin' me an extra grin, made off for the woods. I pushed the dugout back suddenly, and give him, as I felt safe agin, a double war whoop, that astonished him. I learned one thing that morning—never to try to drown a b'ar—'specially by running him down with a dugout—it wont pay!"
Big Joe Logston's Encounter with an Indian—Page [7].
TALES,