I discussed my neighbour’s good cheer with an excellent appetite, and was in the very act of pledging mine host, when I heard the cattle start off. We left the table with precipitation, but-were, alas! too late to stop the refractory oxen, which galloping down a steep hill, on the summit of which the house was built, stumbled in their descent, and fell to the bottom, where we found them struggling, apparently, in the agonies of death. We cut the bows from their necks as soon as possible, but not in time to save the life of poor Spot, the near ox, who was quite dead; and it was for some minutes doubtful if Dandy the off “critter,” as the Yankees would style him would survive his companion. I killed the dead one over again to make its flesh fit for consumption, and bled the other, which happily saved its life. But, notwithstanding my careful endeavour to make the best of a foolish matter, I felt myself in an awkward predicament. To my worthy father-in-law the loss of an animal worth thirty dollars was, at that time, particularly inconvenient; but his moral justice was high and his temper mild; so he listened meekly to my account of the misfortune, quietly remarking, that it could not be helped, and that no blame attached to me. It is in these worrying affairs of every-day life that we discern the real beauty of the Christian character. My mother-in-law behaved as well, on this trying occasion, as any lady could do who found her larder suddenly stocked with a quantity of lean tough beef a prospect, indeed, by no means cheering to any member of the household. On my return home from my first essay in ox-driving, or rather ox-killing, I found Dennis, our Irish servant, waiting for me with the greatest impatience. “Och, sir,” he exclaimed; “if you had but been with me you might have shot a bear. I was out in the bush searching for the cows, and just as I was crossing the Big creek, near the beaver meadow, I heard a noise from a thicket of cedar bushes close by me, and thinking it might be one of the lost cows I ran forward to see, when to my astonishment and dismay I came suddenly upon a large bear.” “Well,” said I, “what did you do?” “Faith, then, sir, to tell you the truth, I did not do much only took to my heels, and ran home as fast as I could to tell you; as I thought yer honour might perhaps get a shot at the baste, and, troth! he warn’t in the laste bit of a hurry to get out my way, sure.” “Well, Dennis, only show me the brute, and it shall be a hard case if I do not make the addition of fat bear to eat with the lean beef, with which I have already stocked the larder.” I loaded my gun with ball, and in company with Dennis and his father started for the place where Master Bruin had been seen. I took Neptune with me a remarkably fine Irish greyhound one of the most powerfully built dogs of that breed I had ever seen, and well he proved his strength and courage this day, as you shall hear.