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 days 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 tu 
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 80 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 
