“Durn this blow, anyhow! No bear ’ll cross the mountain sich a night as this.”
“Can’t we hunt down on the Carolina side?” I asked.
“That’s whar we’re goin’ to drive; but hit’s no use if the bear don’t come over.”
“How is that? Do they sleep in one State and eat in the other?”
“Yes: you see, the Tennessee side of the mountain is powerful steep and laurely, so ’t man nor dog cain’t git over it in lots o’ places; that’s whar the bears den. But the mast, sich as acorns and beech and hickory nuts, is mostly on the Car’lina side; that’s whar they hafter come to feed. So, when it blows like this, they stay at home and suck their paws till the weather clars.”
“So we’ll have to do, at this rate.”
“I’ll go see whut the el-e-ments looks like.”
We arose from our squatting postures. John opened the little clapboard door, which swung violently backward as another gust boomed against the cabin. Dust and hot ashes scattered in every direction. The dogs sprang up, one encroached upon another, and they flew at each other’s throats. They were powerful beasts, dangerous to man as well as to the brutes they were trained to fight; but John was their master, and he soon booted them into surly subjection.
“The older dog don’t ginerally raise no ruction; hit’s the younger one that’s ill,” by which he meant vicious. “You, Coaly, you’ll git some o’ that meanness shuck outen you if you tackle an old she-bear to-morrow!”
“Has the young dog ever fought a bear?”