“’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.