"The woman replied that while she was sorry her ‘man’ had shown such weakness to change his mind so quickly, when on leaving he had told her that he had been sickened by the importunities of the two strangers the day before, yet she claimed, the calf as hers and it would not leave the premises for any price, and except over her dead body. She prized it especially since she had also raised the mother, which had recently been killed by a wandering panther.
"The men departed in an ugly mood. When the boniface returned in the evening he was indignant at what his wife told him; he had not met the drovers on the road, and if he had, the calf was not for sale.
"Shortly after his arrival a German Gypsy, one of the Einsicks, appeared in the inn-yard with a big she-bear, a brown one, which he took about the mountains to dance and amuse the crowds at public houses, fairs and political meetings. The stables were full, but after some arguing the landlord consented to let the bear occupy the box stall where he kept the Big Calf, which he removed to the smoke house.
"During the night, which was very dark, the covetous drovers returned, and, not knowing of the Big Calf’s changed quarters, one of them went into steal it. In the darkness the bear seized him and hugged him almost to death. His companion, vexed at his slowness in fetching out the Big Calf, called to him, and he made known his predicament.
"There was no way to free the captive but to begin clubbing the bear, which set up such a loud growling that it aroused the owner and the landlord, who ran out with pistols, just in time to see the two would-be cattle thieves decamping from the inn-yard. They both fired after them, but the scoundrels got off scot free. They never returned.
"The Big Calf grew into a very handsome cow, and was the pride of the mountain community. It was always brought in from pasture at night and milked, lest it share its mother’s fate and be pulled down by a Pennsylvania lion.
"One evening, while the landlord’s only daughter, a very pretty, graceful girl, was driving the cow home, she was joined by a handsome, dark-complexioned young man, mounted on a superb black horse. He accompanied her to the stables, where he watched her milk, and then put up for the night at the inn. Next day he became very sick, and several doctors were called in, who bled him, but could not diagnose his ailment.
"Meanwhile he proposed marriage to the landlord’s daughter, who nursed him, pretending that he was a young man of quality from Pittsburg, which flattered the innkeeper and his daughter mightily.
"All this while he was trying to learn if the landlord kept any large sum of money in the house. It was not long until the girl confided to him that her father had gone into debt buying a farm in Nippenose Bottom, as he wanted to retire from the tavern business. It was there where he was when the two dishonest drovers from Greensburg had returned and tried to euchre his wife out of the Big Calf.
"Satisfied that there was no booty in the house, the fellow rose one morning before daybreak, dressed quietly, although the girl was in the room, wrote a note to her which he left on the clothes press, and made his escape. The wording of the letter ran about as follows: