But the reader, I expect, would have no objection to know a little about
my employment during the two years while my competitor was in Congress.
In this space I had some pretty tuff times, and will relate some few
things that happened to me. So here goes, as the boy said when he run by
himself.
In the fall of 1825, I concluded I would build two large boats, and load
them with pipe staves for market. So I went down to the lake, which was
about twenty-five miles from where I lived, and hired some hands to
assist me, and went to work; some at boat building, and others to
getting staves. I worked on with my hands till the bears got fat, and
then I turned out to hunting, to lay in a supply of meat. I soon killed
and salted down as many as were necessary for my family; but about this
time one of my old neighbours, who had settled down on the lake about
twenty-five miles from me, came to my house and told me he wanted me to
go down and kill some bears about in his parts. He said they were
extremely fat, and very plenty. I know'd that when they were fat, they
were easily taken, for a fat bear can't run fast or long. But I asked a
bear no favours, no way, further than civility, for I now had _eight_
large dogs, and as fierce as painters; so that a bear stood no chance at
all to get away from them. So I went home with him, and then went on
down towards the Mississippi, and commenced hunting.
We were out two weeks, and in that time killed fifteen bears. Having now
supplied my friend with plenty of meat, I engaged occasionally again
with my hands in our boat building, and getting staves. But I at length
couldn't stand it any longer without another hunt. So I concluded to
take my little son, and cross over the lake, and take a hunt there. We
got over, and that evening turned out and killed three bears, in little
or no time. The next morning we drove up four forks, and made a sort of
scaffold, on which we salted up our meat, so as to have it out of the
reach of the wolves, for as soon as we would leave our camp, they would
take possession. We had just eat our breakfast, when a company of
hunters came to our camp, who had fourteen dogs, but all so poor, that
when they would bark they would almost have to lean up against a tree
and take a rest. I told them their dogs couldn't run in smell of a bear,
and they had better stay at my camp, and feed them on the bones I had
cut out of my meat. I left them there, and cut out; but I hadn't gone
far, when my dogs took a first-rate start after a very large fat old
_he-bear_, which run right plump towards my camp. I pursued on, but my
other hunters had heard my dogs coming, and met them, and killed the
bear before I got up with him. I gave him to them, and cut out again for
a creek called Big Clover, which wa'n't very far off. Just as I got
there, and was entering a cane brake, my dogs all broke and went ahead,
and, in a little time, they raised a fuss in the cane, and seemed to be
going every way. I listened a while, and found my dogs was in two
companies, and that both was in a snorting fight. I sent my little son
to one, and I broke for t'other. I got to mine first, and found my dogs
had a two-year-old bear down, a-wooling away on him; so I just took out
my big butcher, and went up and slap'd it into him, and killed him
without shooting. There was five of the dogs in my company. In a short
time, I heard my little son fire at his bear; when I went to him he had
killed it too. He had two dogs in his team. Just at this moment we
heard my other dog barking a short distance off, and all the rest
immediately broke to him. We pushed on too, and when we got there, we
found he had still a larger bear than either of them we had killed,
treed by himself. We killed that one also, which made three we had
killed in less than half an hour. We turned in and butchered them, and
then started to hunt for water, and a good place to camp. But we had no
sooner started, than our dogs took a start after another one, and away
they went like a thunder-gust, and was out of hearing in a minute. We
followed the way they had gone for some time, but at length we gave up
the hope of finding them, and turned back. As we were going back, I came
to where a poor fellow was grubbing, and he looked like the very picture
of hard times. I asked him what he was doing away there in the woods by
himself? He said he was grubbing for a man who intended to settle there;
and the reason why he did it was, that he had no meat for his family,
and he was working for a little.
I was mighty sorry for the poor fellow, for it was not only a hard, but
a very slow way to get meat for a hungry family; so I told him if he
would go with me, I would give him more meat than he could get by
grubbing in a month. I intended to supply him with meat, and also to get
him to assist my little boy in packing in and salting up my bears. He
had never seen a bear killed in his life. I told him I had six killed
then, and my dogs were hard after another. He went off to his little
cabin, which was a short distance in the brush, and his wife was very
anxious he should go with me. So we started and went to where I had left
my three bears, and made a camp. We then gathered my meat and salted,
and scaffled it, as I had done the other. Night now came on, but no word
from my dogs yet. I afterwards found they had treed the bear about five
miles off, near to a man's house, and had barked at it the whole
enduring night. Poor fellows! many a time they looked for me, and
wondered why I didn't come, for they knowed there was no mistake in me,
and I know'd they were as good as ever fluttered. In the morning, as
soon as it was light enough to see, the man took his gun and went to
them, and shot the bear, and killed it. My dogs, however, wouldn't have
any thing to say to this stranger; so they left him, and came early in
the morning back to me.
We got our breakfast, and cut out again; and we killed four large and
very fat bears that day. We hunted out the week, and in that time we
killed seventeen, all of them first-rate. When we closed our hunt, I
gave the man over a thousand weight of fine fat bear-meat, which pleased
him mightily, and made him feel as rich as a Jew. I saw him the next
fall, and he told me he had plenty of meat to do him the whole year from
his week's hunt. My son and me now went home. This was the week between
Christmass and New-year that we made this hunt.
When I got home, one of my neighbours was out of meat, and wanted me to
go back, and let him go with me, to take another hunt. I couldn't
refuse; but I told him I was afraid the bear had taken to house by that
time, for after they get very fat in the fall and early part of the
winter, they go into their holes, in large hollow trees, or into hollow
logs, or their cane-houses, or the harricanes; and lie there till
spring, like frozen snakes. And one thing about this will seem mighty
strange to many people. From about the first of January to about the
last of April, these varments lie in their holes altogether. In all that
time they have no food to eat; and yet when they come out, they are not
an ounce lighter than when they went to house. I don't know the cause of
this, and still I know it is a fact; and I leave it for others who have
more learning than myself to account for it. They have not a particle of
food with them, but they just lie and suck the bottom of their paw all
the time. I have killed many of them in their trees, which enables me to
speak positively on this subject. However, my neighbour, whose name was
McDaniel, and my little son and me, went on down to the lake to my
second camp, where I had killed my seventeen bears the week before, and
turned out to hunting. But we hunted hard all day without getting a
single start. We had carried but little provisions with us, and the next
morning was entirely out of meat. I sent my son about three miles off,
to the house of an old friend, to get some. The old gentleman was much
pleased to hear I was hunting in those parts, for the year before the
bears had killed a great many of his hogs. He was that day killing his
bacon hogs, and so he gave my son some meat, and sent word to me that I
must come in to his house that evening, that he would have plenty of
feed for my dogs, and some accommodations for ourselves; but before my
son got back, we had gone out hunting, and in a large cane brake my dogs
found a big bear in a cane-house, which he had fixed for his
winter-quarters, as they sometimes do.
When my lead dog found him, and raised the yell, all the rest broke to
him, but none of them entered his house until we got up. I encouraged my
dogs, and they knowed me so well, that I could have made them seize the
old serpent himself, with all his horns and heads, and cloven foot and
ugliness into the bargain, if he would only have come to light, so that
they could have seen him. They bulged in, and in an instant the bear
followed them out, and I told my friend to shoot him, as he was mighty
wrathy to kill a bear. He did so, and killed him prime. We carried him
to our camp, by which time my son had returned; and after we got our
dinners we packed up, and cut for the house of my old friend, whose name
was Davidson.
We got there, and staid with him that night; and the next morning,
having salted up our meat, we left it with him, and started to take a
hunt between the Obion lake and the Red-foot lake; as there had been a
dreadful harricane, which passed between them, and I was sure there must
be a heap of bears in the fallen timber. We had gone about five miles
without seeing any sign at all; but at length we got on some high cany
ridges, and, as we rode along, I saw a hole in a large black oak, and on
examining more closely, I discovered that a bear had clomb the tree. I
could see his tracks going up, but none coming down, and so I was sure
he was in there. A person who is acquainted with bear-hunting, can tell
easy enough when the varment is in the hollow; for as they go up they
don't slip a bit, but as they come down they make long scratches with
their nails.
My friend was a little ahead of me, but I called him back, and told him
there was a bear in that tree, and I must have him out. So we lit from
our horses, and I found a small tree which I thought I could fall so as
to lodge against my bear tree, and we fell to work chopping it with our
tomahawks. I intended, when we lodged the tree against the other, to let
my little son go up, and look into the hole, for he could climb like a
squirrel. We had chop'd on a little time and stop'd to rest, when I
heard my dogs barking mighty severe at some distance from us, and I told
my friend I knowed they had a bear; for it is the nature of a dog, when
he finds you are hunting bears, to hunt for nothing else; he becomes
fond of the meat, and considers other game as "not worth a notice," as
old Johnson said of the devil.
We concluded to leave our tree a bit, and went to my dogs, and when we
got there, sure enough they had an eternal great big fat bear up a
tree, just ready for shooting. My friend again petitioned me for
liberty to shoot this one also. I had a little rather not, as the bear
was so big, but I couldn't refuse; and so he blazed away, and down came
the old fellow like some great log had fell. I now missed one of my
dogs, the same that I before spoke of as having treed the bear by
himself sometime before, when I had started the three in the cane break.
I told my friend that my missing dog had a bear somewhere, just as sure
as fate; so I left them to butcher the one we had just killed, and I
went up on a piece of high ground to listen for my dog. I heard him
barking with all his might some distance off, and I pushed ahead for
him. My other dogs hearing him broke to him, and when I got there, sure
enough again he had another bear ready treed; if he hadn't, I wish I may
be shot. I fired on him, and brought him down; and then went back, and
help'd finish butchering the one at which I had left my friend. We then
packed both to our tree where we had left my boy. By this time, the
little fellow had cut the tree down that we intended to lodge, but it
fell the wrong way; he had then feather'd in on the big tree, to cut
that, and had found that it was nothing but a shell on the outside, and
all doted in the middle, as too many of our big men are in these days,
having only an outside appearance. My friend and my son cut away on it,
and I went off about a hundred yards with my dogs to keep them from
running under the tree when it should fall. On looking back at the hole,
I saw the bear's head out of it, looking down at them as they were
cutting. I hollered to them to look up, and they did so; and McDaniel
catched up his gun, but by this time the bear was out, and coming down
the tree. He fired at it, and as soon as it touch'd ground the dogs were
all round it, and they had a roll-and-tumble fight to the foot of the
hill, where they stop'd him. I ran up, and putting my gun against the
bear, fired and killed him. We now had three, and so we made our
scaffold and salted them up.