"But I set out to tell the story that the old Ohio pilot told that night, while the travellers sat smoking around their camp-fires, and the wolves were howling in the wilderness about us. I do not, of course, vouch for its truth; I simply tell it as he told it to us. He seemed to believe it himself, for he told it with a gravity of face, and a seriousness of manner, which would ill comport with its falsity. His hearers did not seem to regard it as passing belief, but they laughed at the idea of drowning a bear.
"'Twenty odd years ago,' said the old pilot, as he lighted his pipe and seated himself on the head of a whisky-keg, 'there warn't a great many people along the Ohio, except Ingins and bears, and we didn't like to cultivate a very close acquaintance with either of them, for the Ingins were cheatin', deceivin', and scalpin' critters, and the bears had an onpleasant way with 'em, that people of delicate narves didn't like. I came out for some people over on the east side of the mountains, lookin' land, in company with four men who had hunted over the country. Ohio warn't any great shakes then, but let me tell you, stranger, it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin' around waitin' to be opened up to the sunlight. It's goin' ahead now, and people are rushin' matters in the way of settlin' of it, but you could stick down a stake most anywhere in it then, and travel in any direction a hundred miles climbin' a fence.
"'Wal, we came down the Alleghany in two canoes, and shantied on the Ohio, just below where the Alleghany empties itself into it. We hid our canoes, and struck across the country, and travelled about explorin' for six weeks, and when we got back to our shantyin' ground, we were tuckered out you may believe. We rested here a couple of days, layin' around loose, and takin' our comfort in a way of our own. Early one morning, when my companions were asleep, I got up and paddled across the river after a deer, for we wanted venison for breakfast. I got a buck, and was returnin', when what should I see but a bear swimmin' the Ohio, and I put out in chase right off. I soon overhauled the critter, and picked up my rifle to give him a settler, when I found that in paddlin' I had spattered water into the canoe, wettin' the primin' and makin' the gun of no more use than a stick. I didn't understand much about the natur of the beast then, and thought I'd run him down, and drown him, or knock him on the head. So I put the canoe right end on towards him, thinkin' to run him under, but when the bow touched him, what did he do, but reach his great paws up over the side of the canoe, and begin to climb in. I hadn't bargained for that; I felt mighty onpleasant, you may swear, at the prospect of havin' sich a passenger. I hadn't time to get at him with the rifle, till he came tumblin' into the dugout, and as he seated himself on his stern, showed as pretty a set of ivory as a body would wish to see. There we sat, he in one end of the dugout and I in the other, eyein' one another in a mighty suspicious sort of way. He didn't seem inclined to come near my end of the dugout, and I was principled agin goin' towards his. I made ready to take to the water on short notice, but at the same time concluded I'd paddle him to the shore, if he'd allow me to do it quietly.
"'Wal, I paddled away, the bear every now and then grinnin' at me, skinnin' his face till every tooth in his head stood right out, and grumblin' to himself in a way that seemed to say, 'I wonder if that chap's good to eat?' I didn't offer any opinion on the subject; I didn't say a word to him, treatin' him all the time like a gentleman, but kept pullin' for the shore. When the canoe touched the ground, he clambered over the side, and climbed up the bank, and givin' me an extra grin, started off into the woods. I pushed the dugout back suddenly, and gave him, as I felt safe again, a double war-whoop that seemed to astonish him, for he quickened his pace mightily, as if quite as glad to part company as I was. I larned one thing, stranger, that mornin', and it's this, never to try drownin' a bear by runnin' him under with a dugout. It won't pay.'"
CHAPTER XIX.
SPALDING'S BEAR STORY—CLIMBING TO AVOID A COLLISION—AN UNEXPECTED MEETING—A RACE.
"That story," said Spalding, "reminds me of a bear story. I shall do as the Doctor did, tell it as it was told to me. I did not see the bear, but I know the man who was the hero of it, and his brother told the story in his presence one day, and he made no denial. He at least is estopped from disputing it, and we lawyers call that prima facie evidence of its truth. It occurred a long time ago, when there were fewer green fields in Oswego county and especially in the town of Mexico, than there are now. The old woods stood there in all their primeval grandeur. The waves of Ontario laved a wilderness shore, and their dull sound, as they came rolling in upon the rocky beach, died away in the solitudes of a gloomy and almost boundless forest. Here and there a 'clearing' let in the sunlight, and the woodman's axe broke the forest stillness as he battled against the brave old trees. The smoke of burning fallows was occasionally seen, wreathing in dense columns towards the sky. Civilization, enterprise, energy and new life were just starting on that career of progress which has moved onward till the wilderness, under the influence of their mighty power, has been made to blossom as the rose. Those were pleasant times, as we look upon them now, just fading into the dim and shadowy past, but they were times of toil and privation. The arms of the men of those times were nerved by the hope of the future, and the spirit that sustained them was that of faith in the fact that the promise of reward for their labor was sure.
"Do the men of the present day ever think what a gigantic labor that was of clearing away those old forests? Contemplate a wilderness, reaching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, from the great lakes and the majestic St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, every acre of which was covered with tall trees which had to be cut away one by one, not with some great machine which mowed them down in broad swaths like the grass of a meadow, but by a single arm and a single axe. Talk about the Pyramids, the Chinese Wall, the great canals of the earth! They sink into utter insignificance when compared with the prodigious labor of clearing away the American forests, and spreading out green fields where our fathers found only a limitless wilderness of woods. The sons of these men who performed that labor, in my judgment, have a better patent to preferment and honors than those who come from other lands to claim their inheritance after it has been thus perfected by such toil and hardships, and dangers as the history of the world cannot parallel."
"I think, if I remember rightly," said the Dr., "you set out to tell a bear story. You are now indulging in a sermon on progress. Allow me to call your attention to the bear."
"I appeal to the court," said Spalding, addressing Smith and myself, "against this interruption."