“But that ain’t the fun yet. While Ike was er lammin’ the dogs, I hearn the allfiredest crackin’ in the cane, an’ I looked up, and thar was one of the eternalist whollopin’ bars cummin’ crack, crack, through the cane an’ kerslosh over the creek, and stopped right plumb slap up whar Ike’s gun was. Torectly he tuck hold er the ole shooter, an’ I thought I see him tinkerin’ ’bout the lock, an’ kinder whistlin’, and blowin’ into it. I was ’stonished, I tell you, but I wanted to see Ike outdone so bad that I lay low and kep’ dark, an’ in about a minit Ike got done lickin’ the dogs, an’ went to git his gun. Jeemeny, criminy! if you’d only been whar I was! I do think Ike was the maddest man that ever stuk an axe into a tree, for his har stuck rite strait up, and his eyes glared like two dogwood blossoms! But the bar didn’t seem to care shucks for him, for he jist sot the old rifle rite back agin the saplin’, and walked off on his hind legs jist like any human. Then, you see, I gin to git sorter jelus, and sez I to myself, ‘Mister Bar,’ sez I, ‘the place whar you’s er stanin’ ain’t prezactly healthy, an’ if you don’t wabble off from thar purty soon, Mizis Bar will be a widder, by gum!’ With that, Ike grabbed up ole Mizis Rifle, and tuk most pertickler aim at him, and by hokey, she snapped! Now, sez I, ‘Mister Bar, go it, or he’ll make bacon of you!’ But the varmint didn’t wink, but stood still as a post, with the thumb of his right paw on the eend of his smeller, and wiglin’ his t’other finger thus,” (and Mike went through with the gyration). “All this time Ike he stood thar like a fool, er snappin’ and her snappin’, an’ the bar he lookin’ kinder quare like, out er the corner o’ his eye, an’ sorter laffin’ at him. Torectly I see Ike take down the ole shooter, an’ kinder kersamine the lock, an’ when he done that, he laid her on his shoulder, and shook his fist at the bar, and walked toward home, an’ the bar he shuk his fist, an’ went into the cane brake, and then I cum off.” Here all the Yazoo boys expressed great anxiety to know the reason why Ike’s gun didn’t fire. “Let’s licker fust,” said Mik, “an’ if you don’t caterpillar, you can shoot me. Why, you see,” concluded he, “the long and short of it is this, that the bar in our neck o’ woods has a little human in um, and this feller know’d as much about a gun as I do ’bout preachin’; so when Ike was lickin’ the dogs, he jest blowed all the powder outen the pan, an’ to make all safe, he tuk the flint out too, and that’s the way he warn’t skeered when Ike was snappin’ at him.” III. COUSIN GUSS.[7]