“Fellers,” he added feelingly, “I wish t’ my legs growed hind-side-fust.”
“What fer?”
“So ’s ’t I wouldn’t bark my shins!”
“Bears,” remarked John, “is all left-handed. Ever note that? Hit’s the left paw you wanter look out fer. He’d a-knocked somethin’ out o’ yer head if there’d been much in it, Doc.”
“Funny thing, but hit’s true,” declared Bill, “that a bear allers dies flat on his back, onless he’s trapped.”
“So do men,” said “Doc” grimly; “men who’ve been shot in battle. You go along a battlefield, right atter the action, and you’ll find most o’ the dead faces pintin’ to the sky.”
“Bears is almost human, anyhow. A skinned bear looks like a great big-bodied man with long arms and stumpy legs.”
I did not relish this turn of the conversation, for we had two bears to skin immediately. The one that had been hung up over night was frozen solid, so I photographed her standing on her legs, as in life. When it came to skinning this beast the job was a mean one; a fellow had to drop out now and then to warm his fingers.
The mountaineers have an odd way of sharing the spoils of the chase. They call it “stoking the meat,” a use of the word stoke that I have never heard elsewhere. The hide is sold, and the proceeds divided equally among the hunters, but the meat is cut up into as many pieces as there are partners in the chase; then one man goes indoors or behind a tree, and somebody at the carcass, laying his hand on a portion, calls out: “Whose piece is this?”
“Granville Calhoun’s,” cries the hidden man, who cannot see it.