In Texas with Davy Crockett

by John T. McIntyre

“Tight work,” observed Mr. Burr.

“It just was,” replied Colonel Crockett. “But it wasn’t long before I heard a noise ahead; and there was the bear climbing an oak tree. When he reached a good heavy branch he stopped, got out on it and turned. Then he began to look around for me. And now I had a chance to get another look at him, and still I felt he was the biggest bear I’d ever seen in those woods. If I’d had a scale along and could have induced him to get on them I’ll venture the critter’d weighed an easy six hundred pounds.

“I was less than a hundred yards from him, and to make sure of my shot I reprimed my gun. Then I drew a bead on him and fired.”

“Did you get him?” asked Ned Chandler, who had been listening intently.

“Not then. The bullet must have hit him somewhere, though, for he gave a kind of a yawp; but he looked none the worse, and went on sticking to the limb of the oak. So I rammed home another charge of powder and ball, primed as carefully as I could, and let him have it again. This time the shot counted. He fell out of the tree with a yell, his big paws going like mad, and his red mouth wide open. One of the hounds forgot his training and rushed in on him, thinking he was a goner.

“But that black fellow had lots of fight in him still. He scooped the hound up as a squirrel scoops up a nut; and he hugged him tight. The hound yowled something scandalous; and his comrade barked fit to split. As they were down on the ground through this part of the affair I couldn’t see much of them because of the denseness of the thicket. But, thinking I was about to lose a pretty fair kind of a hound, I dropped my rifle, drew my knife and tomahawk, and with one in one hand, and one in the other, I broke my way toward the place of action.”

“I suppose there wasn’t much left to the hound by that time,” said Burr.

“Oh, yes. He’d lots of life in him, for he yelled like a whole pack. You see the bear hadn’t got a proper pressure on him, and he was just shifting his grip when I busts through the thicket. And no sooner had I showed my nose than Mr. Bear seemed to understand that he’d been blaming his misfortunes on the wrong party. Right away he knew it wasn’t the hound that had tumbled him out of the tree, but me.

“And so, quick as a wink, he dropped the dog, and gave his attention to me. Now the knife I had in my left hand was a good enough knife, as such things go; and the hatchet was a fair kind of a weapon. But when I looked at them and then at that six hundred pounds of bear, they looked foolish; and so back I went, with all the speed I could get up, to the place where I had dropped my rifle.

“I picked it up, and saw, or rather heard, the bear coming for me; and as I was about to lift the piece to my shoulder, to wait for him, it struck me that it wasn’t loaded. I’ve done some quick pouring of powder in my time, but I think that was the quickest I ever undertook. I pulled the stopper from my powder horn and let the charge run into the barrel of that old rifle without paying much attention to how much, then I rammed it home, and the bullet, too, and then primed as carefully as I could under the circumstances.