"'There,' I said, 'that's the only gun in the room what any self-respecting bear will give a d----n for.' "He looked at it, felt its heft, sized up the bunghole and then squinted along the sights. "'Why, this gun will kick like the very deuce!' he said. "'Kick!' said I. 'KICK! She'll kick like a army mule if you holds her far enough from your shoulder. But I'd a whole lot ruther get kicked by a mule than hugged by a grizzly, and so'll you when you sees him a-heading your way.' "'But what'll you use?' says he, 'I don't want to take your gun.' "Well, when he said that I reckoned that he had some good stuff in him after all, and somehow I felt better. There he was, away from his mother and sisters, among a bunch of gamboling cow-punchers, and right in the middle of a good bear country. I sort of wondered if he was to blame, and managed to lay all the fault on his city bringing-up. "'That's all right,' says I, 'I'll take an old muzzle-loading Bridesburg what's been laying around the house ever since I came here. It heaves enough lead at one crack to sink a man-of-war, being a .60 caliber.' "Well, bright and early the next morning we started out for bear, and I knowed just where to look, too. You see, there was a thicket of berry bushes about three miles from the ranch house and I had seen plenty of tracks there, and there was a grizzly among them, too, and as big as a house, judging from the signs. The boys had wanted to ride out in a gang and rope him, but I said as how I was saving him for a dude hunter to practice on, so they left him alone. "We footed it through the brush, and finally Davy Crockett, who simply would go ahead of me, yelled out that he had found tracks. "I rustled over, and sure enough he had, only they wasn't made by no bear, and I said so. "'Then what are they?' he asked, sort of disappointed. "'Cow tracks,' said I. 'When you see bear tracks you'll know it right away,' and we went on a-hunting. "We had just got down in a little hollow, where the green flies were purty bad, when I saw tracks, and they was bear tracks this time, and whoppers. It had rained a little during the night and the ground was just soft enough to show them nice. I called Davy Crockett and he came up, and when he saw them tracks he was plumb tickled, and some scairt. "'Where is he?' he asked, looking around sort of anxious. "'At the front end of these tracks, making more,' said I. "'And what are we going to do now?' he asked, cocking the Sharps. "'We're going to trail him,' said I, 'and if we finds him and has any accidents, you wants to telegraph yourself up a tree, and be sure that it ain't a big tree, too.' "'"Be sure it ain't a big tree!"' he repeated, looking at me like he thought I wanted him to get killed. "'Exactly,' said I, and then I explained: 'The bigger the tree, the sooner you'll be a meal, for he climbs by hugging the trunk and pushing hisself up. A little tree'll slide through his legs, and he can't get a holt.'