"He went on, sometimes here, sometimes there, and at last he changed his mind, and seeing that he couldn't get away from the horse across the open, he turned, and made for the 10 mile forest. It was as much as I could do to drive him, by shouting and cracking my whip whenever I headed him; if I had only once let him get out of sight, I should never have seen him again. The ground is full of stones, as you know, which bothered the horse in turning quickly; but we went on, sometimes full gallop straight away, at other times dancing round and round, until at last the old bear got regularly tuckered-out, and he was so done he could hardly move. There he was, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, standing, panting and blowing, and my horse wasn't much better, I can tell you. Well, I was drawn up as close to him as though I was going to strike him, and he was so completely done there wasn't any fight in him; my horse's flanks were heaving in such a way that I could hardly load the two chambers that I had fired. I was determined to have all my six shots ready before I began to fire, and it was just lucky that I did, for I'm blessed if I could kill him. There he stood, regularly exhausted-like, and he took shot after shot, and never seemed to notice, or to care for anything. At last I almost touched him, when I fired my sixth cartridge between his shoulders, and he dropped stone dead. That's all that happened, and I thought you wouldn't believe me if I came back without a proof; so I cut him open, and took out his liver to show you; and here it is." Although this fine fellow thought nothing of his achievement, I considered it to be the most extraordinary feat of horsemanship that I had ever heard of, combined with wonderful determination. In the darkness of night, without a moon, to hunt single-handed, and to kill, a full-grown bear with a revolver, was in my experience an unprecedented triumph in shikar. Early on the following morning I sent for the bear's skin. It proved to be a large silver-tipped, and a close examination exhibited the difficulties of the encounter during darkness. Eight shots had been fired from the commencement, to the termination by the last fatal bullet; but, although Texas Bill was an excellent shot with his revolver, he had missed seven times, and the eighth was the only bullet that struck the bear. This had entered between the shoulders vertically, proving the correctness of his description, as he must have shot directly downwards. The bullet had passed through the centre of the heart, and had escaped near the brisket, having penetrated completely through this formidable animal. Upon my return to England I immediately purchased a similar revolver of Messrs. Colt and Co.---the long frontier pistol, .450 bullet.