METAPHYSICS OF BEAR HUNTING. 859 
moss. In another instant he had fired two shots in quick 
succession. The idea of losing my shot entirely, made me 
desperate, and reining'the horse’s head with all my strength, 
T plunged the spurs furiously into his flanks. 
Three or four frantic bounds, and he had brushed through 
the dense moss curtain under the live oak, and came through 
on the other side, within five paces of the object of his terror, 
the bear, the loins of which had been broken by the two 
shots, and it was swaying its huge carcass to and fro, and 
gaping its great red mouth with roars. 
Had my horse been suddenly turned to stone he would not 
have been more rigid than he became the instant his feet 
touched the earth. There was something positively awful 
in the paralysis of fright which seized him. His skin had 
been perfectly dry, and in a second, big drops had started, 
running off to the ground. His legs were set and stiff; his 
nostrils prodigiously distended, but motionless; his eyes shot 
out, and fixed, in the fascination of terror, upon the hideous 
object. I was shocked. I drove my spurs into him with 
redoubled strength, wrenching at the bit at the same time. 
His head felt like a rock, and only a slight quiver of the 
muscles answered the spur. I fairly yelled with rage as I 
struck him over the head with my gun barrel. The blow 
sounded dull and heavy, but there was no motion, not even of 
anear. I never felt so strangely in my life. I was frightened 
myself, 
At this instant, for all had passed in an instant, just aa 
the Virginian was leveling his pistol for a third shot, our 
attention was arrested by the quick succession of firing, like 
a platoon, from the other side of the ridge, followed up by 
the stunning clamor, which has only to be heard once to be 
remembered forever, of the Comanche war-whoop! and then, 
above us, the heavy tramp and rush of a troop descending the 
hill directly towards us! There was no time for deliberation ! 
“The Indians! take care of yourself, Kentuck!” hastily 
