208 FORTY-FOUR YEARS OF 



I was obliged to return to ray old home again, on ac- 

 count of ray wife's ill-health ; leaving the fifty acres in 

 possession of the same persons with whom I had been at 

 law to gain the ownership. The agreement made between 

 Mrfi. Lewis and myself was, that she was to hold the land 

 as long as she lived ; when it was to be mine again. This 

 agreement was entered into with the full knowledge of the 

 whole family. 



Mrs. Lewis died within two years after she obtained the 

 land, and I allowed the family to live two years on it before 

 I again demanded it ; when I was compelled to sue them 

 a Becond time, and go through a tedious law-suit, to gain 

 the possession which the sheriff had given me before. 

 This was the most costly land that I ever owned. I men- 

 tion this circumstance in order to set public opinion right, 

 as much has been said about my cruel treatment of Lewis. 

 Having now made a true statement of all the facts in that 

 case, I will return again to my old subject of hunting. 



My eldest son, when about sixteen years of age, being 

 anxious to hunt a bear in the holes, in the month of Janu- 

 ary we sat out for the Big Gap of Meadow Mountain, 

 where we seldom failed to have good luck. 



We reached the rocks early in the day ; but before we 

 got to the bears' holes we found in the deep snow what 

 we took to be the tracks of a wolf, which had apparently 

 just passed along before us. We slipped the dogs, and, 

 soon hearing them barking at a great rate, we ran to them ; 

 when, to our surprise, instead of a wolf, we found a pan- 

 ther, upon a tree. I took a fair shot at him, and killed 

 him without any fight. 



We then went to the holes, when the dogs soon found a 

 large bear in one of them. They ran in, commenced the 

 attack, and fought desperately until we came up. We 

 pulled one dog out, and held him, though the other would 

 not budge, but kept up the fight a long lime, until my boy 



