METAPHYSICS OF BEAR HUNTING. 379 



the chapfallen-looking scoundrels, who had expected to plunder 

 me, and galloped off. 



The motion of the horse was dreadful. I remember 

 dropping the bridle, and seizing the high pommel with both 

 hands, while the horse dashed off towards the eastward, at 

 the top of his speed. The next thing I remember was being 

 lifted off by the Rangers at the door of Johnson's, in the 

 square of Bexar. I heard some of them say, " Poor fellow ! 

 I thought it was his ghost." 



The clays were a blank then for several weeks. My next 

 waking was in a pleasant room, in bed, with the little Doctor 

 bending anxiously over me. I was safe the crisis was 

 past ! The Doctor had been wounded, and was now a spare, 

 thin little body. I supposed he, too, had seen his troubles. 



It appeared that the body of Comanches had been very 

 large. They had attacked the different detachments of our 

 scattered party, very nearly at the same time, and so entirely 

 dispersed it, that not more than two ever got together again. 

 Two men had been killed, and several others wounded. Hays 

 had saved the Doctor's life, with the faithful aid of pony; 

 and it is said the Doctor means to have pony embalmed when 

 he dies. All had a hard time coming in; but my case was 

 rather the most desperate. 



The sagacious critic will no doubt smile at the importance 

 I have attached to these simple incidents. He is free to 

 sneer they are facts, and the most remarkable under the 

 circumstances that ever came under my observation. This 

 " mott" was not more than thirty feet square ; the trees 

 dwarfish, and none of them nut-bearing. It was fully six 

 miles, above and below, to the other motts, and they were 

 not so large as this one, and were thirty miles from any 

 other timber. 



The sterile prairie produced nothing which I could perceive 

 to be natural food for such an animal. It may have been 



