This second part of the sentence was addressed to a young lad of sixteen, an inmate of the hunter’s cabin; and the dogs, having come to the conclusion that we were not robbers, allowed us to dismount our horses.  The cabin was certainly the ne plus ultra of simplicity, and yet it was comfortable.  Four square logs supported a board—­it was the table; many more were used fauteuils; and buffalo and bear hides, rolled in a corner of the room, were the bedding.  A stone jug, two tin cups, and a large boiler completed the furniture of the cabin.  There was no chimney:  all the cooking was done outside.  In due time we feasted upon the hunter’s spoil, and, by way of passing the time, Boone related to us his first grizzly bear expedition.

While a very young man, he had gone to the great mountains of the West with a party of trappers.  His great strength and dexterity in handling the axe, and the deadly precision of his aim with the rifle, had given him a reputation among his companions, and yet they were always talking to him as if he were a boy, because he had not yet followed the Red-skins on the war-path, nor fought a grizzly bear, which deed is considered quite as honourable and more perilous.

Young Boone waited patiently for an opportunity, when one day he witnessed a terrible conflict, in which one of these huge monsters, although wounded by twenty balls, was so closely pursuing the trappers, his companions, that they were compelled to seek their safety by plunging into the very middle of a broad river.  There, fortunately, the strength of the animal failed, and the stream rolled him away.  It had been a terrible fight, and for many days the young man would shudder at the recollection; but he could no longer bear the taunts which were bestowed upon him, and, without announcing his intention to his companions, he resolved to leave them and bring back with him the claws of a grizzly bear, or die in the attempt.  For two days he watched in the passes of the mountains, till he discovered, behind some bushes, the mouth of a dark cave, under a mass of rocks.  The stench which proceeded from it and the marks at the entrance were sufficient to point out to the hunter that it contained the object of his search; but, as the sun had set, he reflected that the beast was to a certainty awake, and most probably out in search of prey.  Boone climbed up a tree, from which he could watch the entrance of the cave; having secured himself and his rifle against a fall, by thongs of leather, with which a hunter is always provided, fatigue overpowered him, and he slept.

At morn he was awakened by a growl and a rustling noise below; it was the bear dragging to his abode the carcase of a buck.  When he thought that the animal was glutted with flesh, and sleeping, Boone descended the tree, and, leaning his rifle against the rock, he crawled into the cave to reconnoitre.  It must have been a terrible moment; but he had made up his mind, and he possessed all the courage of his father:  the cave was spacious and dark.  The heavy grunt of the animal showed that he was asleep.