“However, my neighbor, whose name is McDaniel, and my little son and me, went on down to the lake to my second camp, where we had killed the seventeen bears the week before, and turned out to hunting. We hunted all day without the dogs getting a single start. We had carried but little provisions with us, and the next morning were entirely out of meat. I sent my son to the house of an old friend, about three miles off, to get some. The old gentleman was much pleased to hear that I was hunting in those parts, for the year before the bears had killed a great many of his hogs. He had that day been 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, and 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 till we got up. I encouraged my dogs, and they know’d 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, if he would have only come to light, so they could have seen him. They bulged in, and in an instant the bear followed them out, and I told McDaniel 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 had got our dinners, we packed up and cut for the house of my friend, whose name was Davidson. “We got there and stayed 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 Reelfoot lake. As there had been a dreadful harricane which passed between them, 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.