80 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 



tired him down, and when I came np with him wasn't 

 he in a beautiful sweat — I might say fever ; and then to 

 see his tongue sticking out of his mouth a feet, and his 

 sides sinking and opening like a bellows, and his cheeks 

 so fat that he couldn't look cross. In this fix I blazed 

 at him, and pitch me naked into a briar patch, if the 

 steam didn't come out of the bullet-hole ten foot in a 

 straight line. The fellow, I reckon, was made on the 

 high-pressure system, and the lead sort of bust his 

 biler." 



" That column of steam was rather curious, or else 

 the bear must have been very ivarm^''^ observed the for- 

 eigner, with a laugh. 



" Stranger, as you observe, that bear was warm, and 

 the blowing ofi" of the steam show'd it, and also how hard 

 the varmint had been run. I have no doubt if he had 

 kept on two miles farther his insides would have been 

 stewed ; and I expect to meet with a varmint yet of ex- 

 tra bottom, that will run himself into a skinfull of bear's 

 grease : it is possible ; much onlikelier things have 

 happened." 



" Whereabouts are these bears so abundant ? " in- 

 quired the foreigner, with increasing interest. 



" Why, stranger, they inhabit the neighborhood of 

 my settlement, one of the prettiest places on old Mis- 

 sissipp — a perfect location, and no mistake ; a place 

 that had some defects until the river made the ' cut-off ' 

 at ' Shirt-tail bend,' and that remedied the evil, as it 



