Hunting Lore 271 



a grisly roped by the riders of the plains, nor a black 

 bear killed with the knife and hounds in the South 

 ern canebrakes ; though at one time I had for many 

 years a standing invitation to witness this last feat 

 on a plantation in Arkansas. The friend who gave 

 it, an old backwoods planter, at one time lost almost 

 all his hogs by the numerous bears who infested his 

 neighborhood. He took a grimly humorous re 

 venge each fall by doing his winter killing among 

 the bears instead of among the hogs they had slain ; 

 for as the cold weather approached he regularly 

 proceeded to lay in a stock of bear-bacon, scouring 

 the cranebrakes in a series of systematic hunts, 

 bringing the quarry to bay with the help of a big 

 pack of hard-fighting mongrels, and then killing it 

 with his long, broad-bladed bowie. 



Again, I should like to make a trial at killing pec 

 caries with the spear, whether on foot or on horse 

 back, and with or without dogs. I should like much 

 to repeat the experience of a friend who cruised 

 northward through Bering Sea, shooting walrus and 

 polar bear; and that of two other friends who trav 

 eled with dog-sleds to the Barren Grounds, in chase 

 of the caribou, and of that last survivor of the Ice 

 Age, the strange musk-ox. Once in a while it 

 must be good sport to shoot alligators by torch 

 light in the everglades of Florida or the bayous 

 of Louisiana. 



