“Well, Capting, they war mighty savagerous arter likker; they’d been fightin’ the stranger[[13]] mightly comin’ up, and war perfectly wolfish arter some har of the dog, and I hadn’t a drop; so I started two negers, with mules and jugs, to the Pint (Princeton, Washington County), and the ox-team arter a barrel. Well, Sir, the day arter, the jugs come, and we darted on ’em” (giving a sigh), “but lord, what war two jugs in sich a crowd? They jist kept Chunkey from dyin’, as he was so dry he had the rattles; next day the barrel come, and then we krack-ovienned up to it in airnest. You know what kind of man Chunkey is when he gits started—if he commences talkin’, singin’, or whistlin’, no matter which, you’d jist as well try and stop the Mississippi as him. Why I’ve knoed him to whistle three days and three nights on a stretch—the Governor coulden’t eat nor drink for Chunkey’s whistlin’, and at last he gits mad, and that’s the last thing he does with anybody what he likes, and, says he to Chunkey—
“ ‘Chunkey, you have kept me awake two nights a-whistlin’, and you must stop it to-night, or you or me must quit the plantation.’
“Chunkey said: ‘Governor, I don’t want to put you to no trouble, but I can’t stop in the middle of a chune, and as you have known the plantation longer than me, I expect you can leave it with lest trouble.’
“The Governor jist roar’d, and gin Chunkey a new gun and—”
“Stop, Jim, you have forgot the bear.”
“Well, whar was I, Capting?—oh, I remember now! Well, when the barrel come we did lumber; Chunkey he soon commenced singin’. We went on that way nigh a week, and then cooled off. One mornin’, I and Chunkey had gone down to the creek to git a bait of water, and I knoed the bar would be thar, as it war waterin’ time with them.”
“Why, Jim, have they a particular time to water?”
“In course they has; they come to water at a certain place, and jist as reglar as a parson to his eatin’; every bar has his waterin’ place, and he comes and goes in the same path and in the same foot-tracks always, until he moves his settlement: and jist you break a cane, or limb, or move a chunk or stick near his trail, and see how quick he’ll move his cabin! Oh yes, a bar is mighty particlar about sich things—that’s his sens—that’s his trap to find out if you are in his settlement. Why, Capting, I have watched ’em—”
“Jim, you have left yourself and Chunkey on the bank of the creek, ‘a-waterin’.’ Are you going to stay there?”
“Well, we set down on the bank and took our stand opposite the biggest kind of sign, and sure enough, presently down he come; a bar don’t lap water like a dog; no, they sucks it like a hog. You jist ought to see him rais his nose and smell the wind. Well, he seed us, and with that he ris! He war a whopper, I tell you! He looked like a big burn, and he throw’d them arms about awful, honey. It war about one hundred and twenty yards to him, but I knoed he were my meat without an accident, so I let drive, and he took the creek—then out he went, and scampered up the bank mighty quick, and then sich a ratlin’ among cane, sich a growlin’ and snortin’, sich a breakin’ of saplins and vines, I reckon you never did hear; I knoed, in course, I had him. I throwed a log in and paddled across—found his trail, and lots of har and fat, but no blood!”