“Yes,” said Wid, now devoting his attention partly to a boiling pot of coffee, “Thet day war a tough un. Hit war a hot summer day. We,--thet is, Bill Massey who’s awmost blind now, Bill Allen who gin up huntin’ long ye’rs ago, my brother El, me, an’ sev’ral others,--we started a bar on the Jackson county line nigh Scotts creek in the mornin’. We driv till arter-noon, an’ in the chase I got below hyar. I heered the dogs up on Ole Bald, an’ abearin’ down the ridge-top I was on. Powerful soon I seed the bar comin’ on a dog-trot under the trees. He war a master brute!” “How big, Wid?” “Four-hunderd an’ fifty pound, net. Thinks me to myself, ‘Gun fust, knife next’; fer, you see, I war clean played out with the heat and long run, an’ I war in favor o’ bringin’ the thing to a close; so I brought my ole flint-lock to my shoul’er. This is the very gun I hed then,” and he tapped the battered stock of a six-foot, black-barreled, flint-lock rifle. “I wouldn’t hev your cap arrangements. This kind never misses fire; an’ rain never teches hit, fer this ’ere kiver, ter put over the pan, keeps hit as dry as a tarripin hull.” “Go on with the story,” exclaimed an interested auditor. “Jist tend ter brilin’ your bacon, Jonas, an’ let me travel ter suit my own legs. I fetched my gun to my shoul’er an’ fired. The brute never stopped, but I knowed I’d hit him, for I hed a dead sight on his head; an’, like blockade whisky, a ball outer thet black bore allus goes to the spot. He’s a thick-skulled varmint, I thought. I dropped my gun, an’ pulled my knife. On he cum. He didn’t pay no more tenshun to me then ef I’d bin a rock. I drew back a step, an’ as he brashed by me, I bent over him, grabbin’ the ha’r o’ his neck with one hand, an’ staubed him deep in the side with the knife in the other. Thet’s all I knowed for hours.” “Did you faint?” some one asked. “Faint?” sneered Wid, sticking out his square chin and showing his teeth. “You ass! You don’t reckon I faint, do you? Women faint. I fell dead! You see all the blood in me jumped over my heart into my head, an’ ov course hit finished me fer a time.” “A dead faint,” was suggested. “I don’t like thet word, stranger. But, the boys an’ dogs cum on me a second arter. Bill Allen cut my veins an’ in a short time I cum round, but I war sick fer a week.” “How about the bear?” “Hit lay dead by the branch below, staubed clean through the heart.”