“I jest squinted through the sights, an’ afore that goat hed time to wink twice, I hit him plum atween the eyes. Ov coorse he wur throwed in his tracks.
“Now, you’d a-jumped up, an’ frightened the rest away—that’s what you’d a done, strengers. But you see I knowd better. I knowd that so long’s the critters didn’t see my karkidge, they wan’t a-gwine to mind the crack o’ the gun. So I laid still, in behopes to git a wheen more o’ them.
“As I hed calc’lated at fust, they didn’t run away, an’ I slipped in my charge as brisk as possible. But jest as I wur raisin’ to take sight on a doe that hed got near enough, the hull gang tuk scare, an’ broke off as ef a pack of parairy-wolves wur arter ’em.
“I wur clean puzzled at this, for I knowd I hedn’t done anythin’ to frighten ’em, but I wan’t long afore I diskivered the pause o’ thur alarm. Jest then I heerd a snift, like the coughin’ o’ a glandered hoss; an’ turnin’ suddintly round, I spied the biggest bar it hed ever been my luck to set eyes on. He wur comin’ direct torst me, an’ at that minnit wan’t over twenty yards from whur I lay. I knowd at a glimp he wur a grizzly!
“’Tain’t no use to say I wan’t skeart; I wur skeart, an’ mighty bad skeart, I tell ye.
“At fust, I thort o’ jumpin’ to my feet, an’ makin’ tracks; but a minnit o’ reflexshun showed me that ’ud be o’ little use. Thur wur a half o’ mile o’ clur parairy on every side o’ me, an’ I knowd the grizzly laid catch up afore I hed made three hundred yards in any direction. I knowd, too, that ef I started, the varmint ’ud be sartin to foller. It wur plain to see the bar meant mischief; I kud tell that from the glint o’ his eyes.
“Thur wan’t no time to lose in thinkin’ about it. The brute wur still comin’ nearer; but I noticed that he wur a-gwine slower an’ slower, every now an’ agin risin’ to his hind-feet, clawin’ his nose, an’ sniffin’ the air.
“I seed that it wur the red blanket that puzzled him; an’ seein’ this, I crep’ closter behint it, an’ cached as much o’ my karkidge as it ’ud kiver.
“When the bar hed got ’ithin about ten yards o’ the spot, he kim to a full stop, an’ reared up as he hed did several times, with his belly full torst me. The sight wur too much for this niggur, who never afore had been bullied by eyther Injun or bar.
“’Twur a beautiful shot, an’ I kudn’t help tryin’ it, ef ’t hed been my last; so I poked my rifle through the hole in the blanket, an’ sent a bullet atween the varmint’s ribs.