“’Twas a mighty pretty fight—­’twould have done any one’s soul good to see it, just to see how they all rolled about.  It was as much as I could do to keep the strangers from shooting him; but I wouldn’t let ’em, for fear they would kill some of my dogs.  After we got tired seeing ’em fight, I went in among ’em, and the first time they got him down I socked my knife in the old bear.  We then hung him up, and went on to take our elk-hunt.  You never seed fellows so delighted as them strangers was.  Blow me, if they didn’t cut more capers, jumping about, than the old bear.  ’Twas a mighty pretty fight, but I believe I seed more fun looking at them than at the bear.

“By the time we got to the Harricane, we were all rested, and ripe for a drive.  My dogs were in a better humor, for the fight had just taken off the wiry edge.  So I placed the strangers at the stands through which I thought the elk would pass, sent the driver way up ahead, and I went down below.

“Everything was quiet, and I leaned old Betsey ’gin a tree, and laid down.  I s’pose I had been lying there nearly an hour, when I heard old Tiger open.  He opened once or twice, and old Rattler gave a long howl; the balance joined in, and I knew the elk were up.  I jumped up and seized my rifle.  I could hear nothing but one continued roar of all my dogs, coming right towards me.  Though I was an old hunter, the music made my hair stand on end.  Soon after they first started, I heard one gun go off, and my dogs stopped, but not long, for they took a little tack towards where I had placed the strangers.  One of them fired, and they dashed back, and circled round way to my left.  I run down ’bout a quarter of a mile, and I heard my dogs make a bend like they were coming to me.  While I was listening, I heard the bushes breaking still lower down, and started to run there.

“As I was going ’long, I seed two elks burst out of the Harricane ’bout one hundred and thirty or forty yards below me.  There was an old buck and a doe.  I stopped, waited till they got into a clear place, and as the old fellow made a leap, I raised old Bet, pulled trigger, and she spoke out.  The smoke blinded me so, that I couldn’t see what I did; but as it cleared away, I caught a glimpse of only one of them going through the bushes; so I thought I had the other.  I went up, and there lay the old buck kicking.  I cut his throat, and by that time, Tiger and two of my dogs came up.  I thought it singular that all my dogs wasn’t there, and I began to think they had killed another.  After the dogs had bit him, and found out he was dead, old Tiger began to growl, and curled himself up between his legs.  Everything had to stand off then, for he wouldn’t let the devil himself touch him.