‘AN ADVENTURE IN THE FLORIDA HUMMOCKS.’
“I was boarding at a country house not far from the banks of the Caloosahatchee River, in a district full of game. Most of my time was spent in wandering with gun and dog through the luxuriant woods that clothed the hummocks, and along the edges of the waving savannas or interval meadows. The dog which always accompanied me was a large mongrel, half setter and half Newfoundland, belonging to my landlord. He was plucky and intelligent, but untrained; and I used to take him rather as a companion than as an assistant.
“The soil in Florida is generally very sandy; but in the hummocks, or, as they are more usually called in Florida, ‘hammocks,’ the sand is mixed with clay, and carries a heavy growth of timber. The trees are chiefly dogwood, pine, magnolia, and the several species of oak which grow in the South. These ‘hammocks’ vary in extent from one or two to a thousand or more acres, and in many places the trees are so interlaced with rankly growing vines that one can penetrate the forest only by the narrow cattle-paths leading to the water.
“One afternoon I was threading a path which led through a particularly dense hummock to the bank of a wide, shallow stream, known as Dogwood Creek, a branch of the Caloosahatchee. I carried a light double-barrelled fowling-piece, and was seeking no game more formidable than wild turkeys. My cartridges were loaded with No. 2 shot, but I had taken the precaution to drop a couple of ball-cartridges in among the rest.
“Presently there was a heavy crashing amid the dense undergrowth on my right; and Bruce, the dog, who had dropped a few paces behind, drew quickly up to my side with an angry growl. The hair lifted along his back and between his ears.
“As the crashing rapidly came nearer,—startlingly near, in fact,—I made haste to remove my light cartridges and replace them with ball. But, alas! to unload was one thing, to find one of those two ball-cartridges in the crowded depths of my capacious pocket was quite another. Every cartridge I brought to light was marked, with exasperating plainness, No. 2.
“In my eager haste the perspiration stood out all over my face. I knew well enough what was coming. It was unquestionably a bear. A panther would move more quietly; and a stray steer would cause no such great concern to Bruce. Whatever may have been my emotions, surprise was certainly not among them when, just as I had concluded that those two ball-cartridges must have been a dream, a huge bear, which seemed very angry about something, burst mightily forth into the pathway only three or four yards behind me.
“It was not hard to decide what to do. On either hand was the thicket, to me practically impenetrable; and behind was the bear. Straight ahead I ran at the top of my speed. At the same time I managed to slip a couple of cartridges into my gun. They were just whatever ones came to my hand; but devoutly I hoped against hope that they might prove, when tested, to be those which were loaded with ball.
“For perhaps two or three hundred yards the running was distinctly in my favor, but then the pace began to tell on me. At once I slackened speed, and my pursuer closed in upon me so swiftly that I concluded to try a snap shot.
“Facing about with a sharp yell, I expected the bear to rise on his hind legs and give me a fair chance for a shot. But I had miscalculated my own momentum. The bear, indeed, rose as I expected. But at the same instant I tripped on a root and fell headlong. The gun flew up in the air in a wonderful way, and disappeared in the undergrowth.