208 WILD SPOUTS IN THE FAR WEST. 



countrymen, who remarked that, as they had given 

 him no certificate, lie supposed that they had forgotten 

 him. 



This affair had detained me longer than I had at 

 first intended, and I now prepared for another cane 

 trip. This time I went no further than Tennessee, a 

 little below my old ground, and lodged with a relation 

 of my former host. 



After a few days, some of the neighbors and my 

 host proposed a shooting party to the Tironia, in 

 Arkansas, and as they intended to be only fourteen 

 days absent, I agreed to join them, obtained the loan 

 of a horse and rifle, and was in a few days once again 

 in Arkansas. We remained about a week at the 

 junction of the Tironia with Big Creek, and shot three 

 bears ; but the season was the most unfavorable that 

 we could have .selected. They were not only very 

 thin, but their skins foxy arid useless. While here 

 we happened to fall in with a young man named 

 Woodsworth, who wished to go to my old swamps of 

 Baz de View, and Cash river, to try for buffalo, these 

 marshes being now dry. ^Nothing could have presented 

 itself more opportunely. My comrades were soon per- 

 suaded, and in five days we were in the buffalo feeding 

 grounds. 



After three days' fruitless search, we came upon a 

 herd of sixteen, a cow and a calf in the. rear. We all 

 fired at the cow, in hopes of taking the, calf alive. The 

 cow fell, after making a few bounds, but to our great 

 annoyance, the wild fat calf threw up his tail, galloped 

 after the rest, and was soon out of sight. 



Oh, what a feast we had ! Well tanned sole-leather 



