He settled down again in his place before the fire, crossing his long legs and chuckling reminiscently as he looked at Allen. “Puts me in mind of old Jeff Slocum,” said he. “A lot of us boys saw him lyin’ side o’ the road one blizzardy night. He’d been thrown out o’ the tavern an hour before an’ started fer home too drunk to stagger. We all thought ’twas jest a log o’ wood or some brush that the snow was beginnin’ to cover, but I wasn’t dead sure an’ went back. Thar he lay, half drifted over, an’ right on the edge o’ freezin’. So I threw him over my shoulder an’ lugged him home to his cabin. I got a fire goin’ an’ rubbed him with snow an’ finally thawed him out, an’ thanks to all the red-eye he’d drunk, he was ’round in a week, right as ever. “But come summer he got in trouble again, an’ that time I couldn’t help him a particle. Seems like some o’ his shoats got into Newt Padgett’s bean-patch an’ dug things up pretty general. An’ Newt, bein’ the meanest man on the whole creek, hauled Jeff into court. He got a judgment fer more’n Jeff ever owned, spite o’ the fact that the trouble all rose from Newt bein’ too mean to keep his fences up. “I sure wished right then that I was a lawyer,” Abe finished. “I believe I could have saved Jeff’s bacon.” “You’ve got the right idee,” said the bear-hunter. “Whar the land is bein’ settled up so fast, thar’s bound to be more an’ more law, and with it more lawyers. An’ this country sure needs the kind o’ lawyers that you aim to be, ’stid o’ the other kind. “Speakin’ fer myself, I don’t keer so much about law as I do about independence. When I’ve got the ol’ rifle along I don’t need laws to protect me. Here in Tennessee it’s gittin’ ’most too civilized now. I don’t take no comfort when I shoot, fer fear I’ll hit some one. I’ve been thinkin’ some about goin’ up the Missouri or down Mexico way. As long as that’s more b’ars than people, I kin stand ’most any sort o’ country. But soon as the folks ketches up on the b’ars, I figger it’s gittin’ too crowded.” Crockett rose and stretched his powerful frame. “Sun’s a-settin’ an’ I’ve got ’most ten miles to travel back to my camp,” he said. “Much obleeged fer your company an’ fer the wrastlin’ lesson. If you aim to push on tonight, you’ll be out o’ this cut within two mile, an’ it’s open river fer quite a ways below.” They bade him farewell and saw him slip into the tangled cane silently as an Indian, the big dogs trotting at his heels. Then they boarded the flatboat once more, and pushed off. Tad, searching among the gear in the _Katy Roby’s_ hold, found a light chain which he substituted for the rope about the cub’s neck, and fastened him to a staple amidships, with a pile of dry grass for a bed. The little black fellow pulled comically at the chain with his paws, tested its length by prowling back and forth a few times, and finally curled up in his nest for a nap. Tad left him snoring and tiptoed forward where Abe was pulling at the oars.