The hunter took the wooden pail in one hand and his gun in the other and started down the hill, his eyes alert for bear tracks. It was a cold morning and he put his hands into his pants pockets, carrying the bucket in the crook of his left arm, the gun in the crook of his right. Two hundred yards down the hill the trail makes an abrupt turn to the cliff from which flows the Oil Spring. At this point Gaskins came face to face with a large black bear followed by a half-grown cub.
He had killed many bears in close quarters and seldom got excited about it. But this occasion called for quicker action than he had ever experienced. Before the hunter could get his hands out of his pockets the bear had the end of the barrels of the gun in her mouth, chewing like mad. There was no time to get the gun to his shoulder so he fired from the hip, pulling the triggers of both barrels with his left hand, the bucket still on his left arm. It stopped the bear all right, almost blowing the animal’s head from its shoulders, but it did more than that. The end of the barrels in the bear’s mouth caused the gun to explode. Gaskins got a severe wound on his right forearm from the “kick” of the gun. The end of the barrels were twisted out of shape by the explosion. You may see the twisted barrels of this old gun at the Ozark Museum, Highway 62 West, Eureka Springs. Go and see for yourself.... Oh, yes, they had bear steak and spring water for dinner at the White Elephant that day.[14]
Vance Randolph gives this tale under the title “Uncle Johnny’s Bear” in Who Blowed Up the Churchhouse? (New York, 1952), pp. 72-73. In his notes (p. 200) he says:
“Told by a resident of Carroll County, Arkansas, March, 1934. This individual credited it to Louis Haneke, who used to run the Allred Hotel in Eureka Springs. Sam Leath, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at Eureka Springs, told an almost identical story in 1948, and showed me the remains of a shotgun which he said was used in killing the bear. Otto Ernest Rayburn wrote a story based on Leath’s account. It was published in the Eureka Springs Times-Echo (April 20, 1950) and reprinted in Ozark Guide (Spring, 1951, p. 53). Rayburn says ‘the twisted barrels of the old gun may be seen at the Ozark Museum,’ which is on Highway 62, west of Eureka Springs. Both Leath and Rayburn give the name of the hunter as Johnny Gaskins, who killed more than two hundred bears and wrote a book (Life and Adventures of John Gaskins, Eureka Springs, Ark., 1893, pp. 113) describing his hunts in great detail. But Gaskins does not mention this adventure. Some old residents think it was Johnny Sexton who killed the bear at the ‘White Elephant.’ Cora Pinkley Call (in Pioneer Tales of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. 1930, p. 24) prints a photograph of Sexton with a shotgun in one hand and a wildcat in the other without any reference to the White Elephant. Constance Wagner tells the story in her novel Sycamore (1950, pp. 151-52), but doesn’t mention the bear-slayer’s name.”
The Basin Spring as it appeared in the early days.
X
“WATER PACKIN’ DAYS”
The first settlers at Eureka Springs considered the water from the Basin Spring to be a potent agency for healing and rejuvenation. Judge J. B. Saunders, one of the first to try the water, gave this report:
“In five weeks I lost thirty-three pounds in weight and forty odd pounds during my stay, and felt that I had been fully renovated, or made new, and was as active then and now as I ever was in my life. I will also add that from the frequent bathing of my head in its waters, and the improved condition of my health, portions of my hair changed from a yellowish white to black, its original color. The color of the hair then grown was not changed, but a new crop grew out from the scalp, the color of my hair in my younger days.”[15]
John Gaskins, the old bear hunter, seemed to think the water from this spring might influence the mental as well as the physical life of those who used it. He wrote: