“When the other dogs found her, he rushed right in. She hadn’t been trapped more’n a few hours, and she larned Coaly somethin’ about the bear business.”
“Won’t this spoil him for hunting hereafter?”
“Not if he has his daddy’s and mammy’s grit. We’ll know by to-morrow whether he’s a shore-enough bear dog; for I’ve larned now whar they’re crossin’—seed sign a-plenty and it’s spang fraish. Coaly, old boy! you-uns won’t be so feisty and brigaty after this, will ye!”
“John, what do those two words mean?”
“Good la! whar was you fotch up? Them’s common. They mean nigh about the same thing, only there’s a differ. When I say that Doc Jones thar is brigaty among women-folks, hit means that he’s stuck on hisself and wants to show off——”
“And John Cable’s sulkin’ around with his nose out o’ jint,” interjected “Doc.”
“Feisty,” proceeded the interpreter, “feisty means when a feller’s allers wigglin’ about, wantin’ ever’body to see him, like a kid when the preacher comes. You know a feist is one o’ them little bitty dogs that ginerally runs on three legs and pretends a whole lot.”
All of us were indignant at the setter of the trap. It had been hidden in a trail, with no sign to warn a man from stepping into it. In Tennessee, I was told, it is a penitentiary offense to set out a bear trap. We agreed that a similar law ought to be passed as soon as possible in North Carolina.
“It’s only two years ago,” said Granville to me, “that Jasper Millington, an old man living on the Tennessee side, started acrost the mountain to get work at the Everett mine, where you live. Not fur from where we are now, he stepped into a bear trap that was hid in the leaves, like this one. It broke his leg, and he starved to death in it.”
Despite our indignation meeting, it was decided to carry the trapped bear’s hide to Hensley, and for us to use only the meat as recompense for trouble, to say nothing of risk to life and limb. Such is the mountaineers’ regard for property rights!