A fiunter'b life. 241 



Down tumbled the bear, and over and over lie rolled, 

 into the rand, when the do<?s jumped in also, and at it they 

 went, for life and death. I saw that he would kill some 

 of the dogs if I did not help them ; so I drew ray knife, 

 and, as he was trying to catch the dogs, I struck him. But 

 the knife turned in my hand, and hung fast in his side ; 

 and, as I was not able to draw it out, I left it there, with 

 only the handle projecting. I immediately commenced 

 loading ray rifle, while the dogs and the bear were doing 

 all they could to overcome each other. In the mean time, 

 Enlow carae up with his rifle and shot the bear in the 

 Head, and the fight was ended without any one of us being 

 hurt. 



In the autumn of 1825, about the last of October, I 

 commenced building a barn without other help than that 

 of my oldest son, William. However, we went to work ; 

 and the first day, though it stormed hard, with wind, rain, 

 and snow, I kept on cutting tiraber, and the boy hauling, 

 until he was so chilled that he had to quit. But I wanted 

 to get the barn done, as I had no shelter for ray horses or 

 other stock, and I was anxious to get into the woods. I 

 stopped for no kind of weather, nor did I stop even at 

 night, as long as I could find anything that I could do 

 after dark that would forward my work the next day. I 

 worked by moonlight until nine, or even ten o'clock at 

 night ; and by this means I was, in a little over a week, 

 ready to raise my building. 



The barn was to be forty-eight feet by twenty-five, and 

 built of round logs. I collected twenty-two hands, who 

 were two days in raising the walls, and left the roof un- 

 touched. I had two rounds of rafters to put up myself, 

 for it was a cabin-shaped roof. We had ropes to raise 

 them with, and I would help William and his mother to 

 raise each log upon the skids, and prop it up until I 

 mounted to the top of the wall and let down the rope, 

 21 Q 



