“That was very strange, Jim; how did you account for that?”
“Why he were too fat to bleed! Oh, you think I am foolin’ you, but you ask Chunkey. It is frequently the case. I follered his trail about a quarter and a half a quarter, and thar he lay; so I jist hollered to Chunkey to git two negers and a yoke of steers to take him to the house. How much do you reckon he weighed?”
“I have no idea, Jim.”
“Now, Sir, he weighed, without head, skin, or entrails, four hundred and ninety-three pounds, and his head sixty pounds! You don’t believe me! Well, just ask Chunkey if I haint killed ’em smartly over seven hundred pounds! Killin’ him sorter got my blood up, and I determined to have another. Chunkey had been jerkin’ it to the licker gourd mighty smart, and was jest right.”
“ ‘Chunkey,’ says I, ‘let’s gin it to another!’
“ ‘Good as ——,’ says Chunkey. ‘Who cars for expenses? a hundred-dollar bill ain’t no more in my pocket nor a cord of wood!’
“With that we started down to the Bend; we haddent been thar long when in comes an old buck; he was a smasher, and one horn were broke off. I telled Chunkey now’s his time, as I skorn’d to toch him arter killin’ a bar. Chunkey lathered away, and ca chunk! he went into the creek; he then gin him a turn with t’other barrel; the buck wabbled about a time or two and sunk, jist at the head of the little raft at the lower end of the clearin’. I know’d he’d lodged agin the drift, and determined to have him, and if you’ll believe me, I’d been workin’ at the gourd since I’d killed the bar. I pulled off my coat and jest throwed myself in; I swimd out to the place and div—you know the current are might rapid thar. Well, I found him, yes, —— if I diddent. But, Moses! warn’t I in a tight place that time? Well, I reckon I were. I’d been willin’ to fite the biggest he on the creek, and gin him the first bite, to have been out!”
“Why, Jim, what was the matter?”
“Arter I’d got in, I couldent get out—that was the matter! You see the drift were a homogification of old cyprus logs, vines, and drift-wood of evry description, for nigh three hundred yards long, and the creek runs under thar like it was arter somebody; the trees and vines, and prognostics of all sorts, ar sorter nit together like a sock, and you couldent begin to get through ’em. Well, Capting, I thought my time had come, and I knowed it war for killin’ that cub what I telled you about. And, sir, it would have come if it haddent been for the sorritude I felt arterwards. You see, the young cub was standin’ in the corner of the fence eatin’ roastin’ ears, and I was goin’ to the——”
“But, Jim, you have told that once, and I don’t want to hear it again.”