In settling the Mississippi Valley, when bear's meat was such a factor in the way of food, each of the frontiersmen kept a pack of dogs--all the way from three to half-a-dozen--partly for bear hunting, which was a very exciting sport, in fact the most of any other game hunting. I have been long and well acquainted with the courage shown by dogs in hunting and fighting game, and there is nothing I ever saw a dog undertake that arouses his courage so much as a contest with a bear. The dog seems to think a fight with a bear the climax of his existence. One familiar with, and accustomed to, bear hunting can tell at long distances whether the dogs are having a combat with a bear or some other animal, by the energy they put into their yelping. When fighting a bear the dogs continually snap and bite at his hind legs, as this is the only way they have of exasperating and irritating him, as they dare not approach him in front. The full-grown bear is able to stand off any number of dogs that can get around him. So strong are they that if they can get hold of a dog in their forearms or mouth, he is very likely to be killed. The large she-bear can take an ordinary sized dog in her fore paws and crush him to death, and they can strike with such force as to send the sharp nails of their paws fairly through the dog. On account of the adeptness with which bears use their fore paws, the dogs try constantly to be in their rear, and the bears are always trying to confront them. The bear in moving his paws to strike never draws them back, but invariably makes a forward movement, which is a surprise to the dogs, as it gives them no warning, hence the aim of the former to confront the enemy, and of the latter not to be confronted. I have stood several times, when a boy, upon the doorstep of my father's log-cabin and watched the men and dogs in their chase after a bear, only a few hundred yards away. This was, of course, only a few months after the first settlers came into the country, for it was the habit of these bears to leave as soon as they knew the white people had come to stay. Bears roam in the very thickest woods and roughest portions of the country, and it is difficult to find one so far away from the rough woods that he can not reach such locality in a very few moments after he is attacked; and unlike other game that was found on the frontier, instead of trying to get into the open prairie, where they can run, they make at once after being disturbed for the cliffs of the rivers and creeks and the canebrakes; in fact into the very roughest places they can find, and take the shortest cut to get to them.