“I didn’t take my gun, ’cause I was only goin’ along to ’comerdate Harvey; an’ the trigger o’ mine was busted. I didn’t take Buck nuther, fer we _might_ ’a’ run across a bear, an’ Buck’s so swell-headed, he thinks he can wipe up anything, an’ a bear would ’a’ chawed him to a dish-rag. I couldn’t take any resk with him, fer Tim Reeves wrote me from Tennessee that he’d give me fifty dollars fer him when he comes back, he’s so hot fer fox. That first day me an’ Harvey travelled like brothers, an’ I got him a good ways along ’thout makin’ him feel the road. I carried his gun fer him, so he could walk faster, an’ he was likin’ me first-rate. At night I made a fine fire an’ he put his feet toward it an’ went to sleep. Next mornin’ he got up an’ et nine slices o’ bacon an’ a meal-pone I cooked on a rock. I pushed him to eat, tellin’ him we had a terrible climb afore us. He laffed at me, an’ says ‘Bring on yer mountains, Sam.’ An’ I brought ’em. By night we’s in a mile o’ the top o’ Smoky.” “But you were going to Pitcher Mountain!” “Aye, we _started_ there, but when we passed Jed Weaver’s, which is the last house, I said I’d go in an’ git me a little new terbacker, ’cause Jed raises it an’ it ’ud be neighborly to ast fer some. When I come out, I told Harvey that Jed said the bear on Pitcher had been killed an’ Mose Ashe had the hide. Which wuz ever’ word so. It ’uz the biggest bear in the memory o’ man, I told him; an’ that ’uz the truth too, fer I seen it myself. Harvey’s lip fell till I was sorry fer him, an’ I said I was willin’ to go on to the bear-ground on Smoky, if he thought he could hold out. I said I wouldn’t drive him, it wuz his trip anyway; an’ he said he was feelin’ better ever’ minute, that climbin’ agreed with him, an’ he looked like it did. I told him if he wanted to go on, it was lucky he took me with him, fer it was give up that I knowed the trails better’n anybody that had ever gone inter the bear-ground. Ain’t that so, Mis’ Dolly?” “That’s what I’ve heard, Sam.” “I spent a year in the woods after my first wife died. I thought it was the best chance I’d ever git, an’ I took it. So I said to Harvey: ‘Knowledge has got to be paid fer. It’s the custom.’ An’ he says: ‘Oh, anything, Sam!’ An’ I says: ‘What about yer gun?’ ‘Oh, my gun?’ says he, a little set back, fer it was fire-new, as you can see.” His glance fondled the gleaming barrel of the gun which was leaning against a tree near us. “I told Harvey I wasn’t feelin’ very well myself, an’ it might be better fer me to go home anyhow; but if we traded, I wouldn’t think o’ takin’ the gun till we got back home, an’ he could carry it from there on, ’cause we’s gittin’ inter a country where we might come on something wuth a bullet any minute. An’ he said: ‘All right, it’s a bargain. Move, partner.’