Makoh 23, 1582.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



147 



use whale oil and not a drop of water, so my gun is never 

 tested." 



I think with Nathan, that rust don't hurt the barrels, and 

 for one prefer to keep the outside and the mechanism of the 

 works perfectly clean than the inside of the tubes. The idea 

 of carefully cleansing the gun after every hunt, no matter if 

 the harrels have been discharged only once, is absurd in my 

 eyes, though I see some of your correspondents advise it. 

 If they would go out with me on some of my hunting trips I 

 think they would find it impracticable, A man coining home 

 after dark broken down and dead sleepy, is uot apt to worry 

 over his gun, and when on a ducking sloop he dives down 

 in his cabin twenty times a day and seizes his gun and 

 blazes away at some skurryiug duck or darting wild fowl, 

 were he to attempt to clean tip after every shoot he would 

 find that the cleaning rod would never leave his hand. A. 

 fancy gun for a. fancy sportsman, both to be in keeping, 

 should be speokless and spotless, neither rust on the one nor 

 dirt or mud on the other, but to the true huntsman all such 

 daintiness is senseless and silly. Chasseur. 



AN ARKANSAS BEAR FIGHT. 



TN TWO PARTS — PAltT I. 



BlTEB, a bear fight. A bear fight I suppose means, tech- 

 JL nically, a fight between two hears; and a fight with a 



bear means that something else, for instance a man, a dog or 

 a hull, fought with a bear? My heading may be wrong for 

 my story, but my private opinion is that "Judge Bill Jones, of 

 (he northeast part, of this State, when he had his bide 

 wrapped around a quart of whisky, was nearer the genus 

 ursuH than the genus h/ii>w. Therefore let us not cpiarrel 

 with the heading, but proceed with the story. As editors 

 say. as we were not there ourselves, we will have to give the 

 Story as nearly as may be as it was given to us. 



The members of a certain county court in the northeastern 

 part of this State — old bear-hunters all three of them — after 

 a tedious tw r o weeks' session of their honorable court, con- 

 cluded a.s soon as they adjourned for the term to have 

 a regular old-fashioned baah* hunt for a week. So, early 

 Monday morning, the three "Jidges" — Bill Jones, Jidge Sol. 

 Smith and "Jidge" Jim Barker— loaded their tent, a bushel 

 of corn meal, a ten-gallon keg of home-made peach brandy, 

 and a few other "traps" and things into Judge Barker's ox- 

 wagon, and, with old Sol Smith on his old "yaller maah" 

 (mare), started for the "bottoms" of the St, Francis River, 

 some thirty miles away, which they reached about ten o, clock 

 of the evening of the same day. They had brought with 

 them about fifteen dogs, some of them" veterans of many 

 a baah fight. They had full-blooded mongrels, high-blooded 

 curs, "yaller dorgs," "brindlc dorgs," half-bloodhounds, 

 blue-blood "fists," etc., etc. The blood of nearly every 

 oreed of dogs on earth was to some extent represented in the 

 motley pack, if we may call such a conglomeration a pack. 

 The. main reliance was placed on five large, heavily-built 

 dogs, headed by Judge Smith's old veteran Tige, a great 

 brindled dog, seemingly a cross between a large bulldog and 

 a hound, with a little pure mongrel and cm - thrown in. Tige 

 had an excellent nose and plenty of true courage. I would 

 define what I mean by true courage, or true bravery, as 

 being that kind of courage that will not force men or dogs 

 to fight a thing or animal that they have no chance of whip- 

 ping, corn-age guided by discretion and common sense (not 

 such as Bill Jones had). " Tige knew all the tricks of Bruin, 

 and loved the sport of bringing him to hay. The other four 

 heavy dogs were good ones. The smaller dogs were, good at 

 close quarters when the bear was brought to bay by the 

 larger tracking dogs. 



The manner of killing bears in this country is to go into 

 places where bears range, start the trailing dogs out who, 

 when they find a bear's trail follow it verj r fast, giving 

 tongue or barking as they follow the trail, -the hunters and 

 the other dogs following by the sound as fast as possible, all 

 the other dogs falling in as the chase gets hot, until the bear, 

 stopped by fatigue or by the dogs nipping at his heels, turns to 

 fight them off.} He usually stops in the thickest part of an 

 almost impenetrable cane break; here, he pauses and gives bat- 

 tle to the dogs, here the small active dogs have tlie advan- 

 tage of the large ones and also of bruin, for being quick and 

 active, they can slipup and give the bear an irritating nip aud 

 then dodge back out of the way; therefore the more of these 

 small dogs in one of our southern "baah" hunts the better. The 

 large dogs if not killed on their first hunt, soon learn great 

 descretion when in close quarters with a full grown black 

 bear, for a. single fair stroke with one of his powerful arms 

 armed with its long claws, will "knock the stulfin' " all out of 

 any dog, and nil the fight and life also; therefore there is 

 seldom a bear chase of this kind without some of the dogs 

 being fearfully wounded or killed outright. When the bear 

 is brought to bay in the thick cane in this way, and does 

 not care to run from the dogs any longer, it devolves upon 

 the hunters or part of them, to slowly cut and force their 

 way through the cane to where the ''circus is going on" and 

 shoot the bear if possible. This is usually done with a Colt's 

 cavalry pistol or a short carbine, sometimes with a shotgun 

 charged with heavy buckshot or a large bore rifle; but. these 

 are very unhandy. The pistol or carbine is the correct 

 thing, but generally as soon as the bear gets scent of the 

 approaching hunter, if not too far gone, he bolts at once for 

 another retreat, and so on until be can run no longer, and he 

 is at last dispatched by the hunter. This is the roughest, 

 of rough sport, and it requires a man of "considable nerv' " 

 and confidence in himself to crawl through a cane break 

 where he cannot see three feet ahead of him, and interview 

 an enraged bear weighing 500 pounds, and put a|bulletin his 

 eye. 



Bill Jones had the only gun with the party, an old rifle 

 with a barrel about i'om- "feet long, the barrel tied into the 

 stock at several points with buckskin "raw hide," and the 

 SKiols wrapped with many coils of " stove-pipe wire," where 

 it had been split asunder behiud the lock. This rifle "carried 

 about twenty balls to the pound," and to use Judge Bill's 

 own words, '"she is a regular old ripper. I can put a buck's 

 eye out every time [.sometimes] eighty yards off. I have 

 killed many a deer two hundred yards; she will hold up that 



b the people of this re- 

 ' i, giving the 



Bob 1 



* I have endeavored to spell the 

 jion speak it, The aean si 

 Broad sound to the a. My friend C 

 my manuscript, said that tin's was not cj 

 spelled the same as bar on a steamboat, 

 must take issue with the Col., thinking t 

 he. The pronunciation of the word h 

 ao h, instead of an r, at the end of bai 



;ett. 



:.mg 



■ bf 



Tin 



Of 1 



: it ii 



t that it should be 

 a sand bar. But I 

 i nearer right than 

 a tne same as if we put 

 bah, or possibly btiwh. 

 vh. 



■I Bears living iu some of the Southern river bottoms, as a. general 

 rule, climb trees when pursued by dogs. Tln-y sometimes do this 

 here, but generally, if the cane is thick and strong, ihry prefer to try 

 and whip the dogs on the ground; especially will they not. tree if very 

 angry. Old hunters say that a wounded bear never trees here. 



far as level as water" [running down hill]. The brackets are 

 mine. _ This Judge Bill Jones was six feet, one inch tall, 

 weighing two hundred and twenty pounds; the " bully" and 

 best staying fighter in Eastern Arkansas; good-natured and 

 full of fun when sober, but he. did love a good old-fashioned 

 "rough and tumble" fight, drunk or sober: When "full," 

 he was full of fun and always ' ' spoiling for a fighl . " Drunk, 

 he would fight anything or any number, if "whipped," 

 he would " give the word," get up, shake the gravel out of 

 his hair, and be as good friends with bis late opponent as 

 ever. But, if he considered himself very badly imposed on, 

 he "got mad cl'ar through," and staid "mad and resentful 

 for some time, He had fought and drank his way to be one 

 of the foremost men of the county, and had the county 

 judgeship. 



1 find that 1 have left out one of the most important per- 

 sonages, or rather two, of our little party, namely, Uncle 

 Larkin Smith and his old "yaller 'possum" dog Otoar, 

 Uncle Lark, as he w T as called by every one, was a very 

 trusty full-blood African, afraid of " nufhn" but a "baah" and 

 "spooks." He was the property of Judge Sol. Smith — for 

 the time of our hunt was in ante, bellum. clays. Lark " could 

 roast a 'possum or bake a hoe-cake better'n any cnllud 

 gen'eman in the State." Lark's business was to drive the 

 " steers" and " get up the grub" for the party. 



Well, as 1 said, our party reached their camping ground 

 about ten o'clock in the evening. Before the camp" was half 

 pitched, old Cssar, who had been coiled up in the wagon all 

 day, was heard barking furiously a little distance away in 

 the timber. Away went all the dogs to see what was' up. 

 Uncle Lark picked up an axe, and soon returned with a fine 

 fat 'possum. Judge Bill had knocked over a fine fat doe as 

 he came, along, and Judge Sol. had helped the. dogs catch a 

 few rabbits on the road. These, with Uncle Lark's sweet 

 hoe-cake and sweet " 'taters" roasted in the ashes, washed 

 down with a pot of " bikn' " hot coffee, gave our hunters a 

 good supper, ending up with a liberal allowance of "peach 

 and honey," and provisioned the camp for several days. 

 They slept the sleep of the just, and were up betimes in the 

 morning, preparing for business. 



The first work of Uncle Lark in the morning was to bring 

 a bucket of water from a "crick" a few yards away. In a 

 few moments he came, running back fairly white in the face 

 with fright, yelling, "Oh! golly, massa. Oh! golly, massa, 

 dis niggah sec de debble, suah, wite down dali by tie krick, 

 and he beckoned and beckoned dis niggah to go wid him. 

 Oh! golly, massa, I thought I had to go suah." 



Judge Barker at once started off to see what had so fright- 

 ened Uncle Lark, and soon he came back about as badly 

 frightened as Lark. ^ The other judges gathered around Judge 

 Barker and asked him to describe what he had seen. As soon 

 as he could get his breath, he answered: "I dunno what it is; 

 it was not so big as a painter (panther), but oh! such fearful 

 eyes, and it bowed and beckoned with both arms as if it 

 wanted me to come with it. I believe Uncle Lark is right 

 and it is the devil sure enough." 



Water must be had for breakfast, but who had the courage 

 to bring it? No one volunteered. As a last resort, it was 

 agreed that all go together, that Judge Bill should take his 

 rifle, and to take all the dogs. This cornered old Lark, for 

 he. was afraid to interview "de debil" again and afraid to stay 

 iu camp alone; so he compromised by bringing up the rear 

 of the party, with his old teeth chattering so that one could 

 hear them rods away. Judge Bill stepped forward with his 

 rifle at f till cock, as brave as a mule. When he came in sight 

 of the fearful monster he stopped and turned pale, so pale 

 that the pallor drove the peach and honey out of his face and 

 into the end of his red nose, from which it dripped in great 

 drops. He was too proud to run, too scared to think of 

 shooting, so he stood his ground. 



The suspense was awful. Judge Smith, who was next be- 

 hind Judge Bill, being so well protected in front, was not so 

 badly scared as the others. 



After they had all gazed at the thing for some little time, 

 he burst out with a tremendous ha-ha laugh. This brought 

 Judge Bill to his senses, and he raised his trusty rifle to shoot, 

 but at the outburst of laughter, the fearful monster slowly 

 spread his wings and floated down the creek. They had 

 been frightened by a great grey "spectre" owl. Then, and 

 from that time on, Judge Smith had it on the other judges 

 and Lark bad. "Think of it," he would say, "men raised in 

 the woods all their lives to get skeared at an owl." The owl 

 had been sitting on a branch of a tree over the water watch- 

 ingf or ' 'a mice" or a muskrat. 



This owl will frighten most anyone. I recollect that when 

 quite a boy, the owls were catching our chickens, and earl y 

 one morning I heard one squeal. I seized the old shot- 

 gun aud rushed out toward the barn to kill the. robber. 

 Near the barn there stood a slender tree stump about fifteen 

 feet high. When within a couple of rods of this stump, I 

 heard a fearful rush through the air over my head, and 

 looking up I saw perched on top of this stump in the dull 

 gray of the early morning the most fearful looking object 

 my eyes had ever rested on. It bowed and beckoned to me 

 with both arms, and its great fierce eyes withered me with 

 fear. I gave it two looks and a half, dropped the old gun, 

 and rushed screaming to the house, aud reached it iu full as 

 bad : > condition as Uncle Lark came into camp after his 

 interview at the "krick." I was so badly scared that I have 

 never been able to tell the truth since. I had yet breath 

 enough to tell my big brother what I had seen. After con- 

 sultation we organized for battle. He got his rifle; we called 

 "old Bull," the best hunting mongrel dog that ever lived. 

 Bull was the advanced guard, my big brother the main army, 

 and I, major-general, commander-in-chief in the rear, to 

 impel the army directly on the enemy. My big brother 

 remarked when loading his rifle that," "be it devil or be it 

 ghost, I will put a ball through it," We. marched. A big 

 apple tree stood between tis and the stump. As my big 

 brother stepped out from under the branches of the apple 

 tree and the demon came in full view, he did not shoot; he 

 did not even raise his rifle, but turned "slightly pale around 

 the gills" and "gazed." Old Bid), who had never feared 

 man nor "varmint" nor devil before, stopped, the hair rose 

 on his back, and he uttered a noise between a whine and a 

 growl, but advanced not. The "demon" nodded and beck- 

 oned, we three stood and gazed. My knees knocked together 

 and my hair lifted my hat off my head. At last the fearful 

 shape "spread its wings and sailed a few rods away and 

 alighted on another stump. This brought my brother "to his 

 senses; he raised his rifle with unsteady aim, and luckily 

 broke the tip of its wing. Old Bull rushed forward and got 

 the worst "ricking" he ever had in his life. It was a great 

 gray spectre owl. But to return to our bear hunters. 



At last breakfast was over and the hunt planoed. Judge 

 North was to take his old "maah" and the riff-raff of the 

 dogs and keep in the break of timber skirting the cane 



break. Some explanation is needed here, or many of my 

 Northern readers will not understand this hunt. We read of 

 swamps in the South along the rivers. The name swamp 

 gives'the Noi'thern man no idea of these low lands subject to 

 overflow by high water. The Northern man understands by 

 the word swamp a wet, miry or muddy place well-nigh or 

 entirely Impassable, The' swamps along the margins of 

 Southern rivers are simply land overflowed in high water, 

 and are as dry as any land generally from midsummer until 

 the rivers overflow their banks, usually the latter part of 

 winter. The cane breaks* are generally found growing on 

 the highest ridges of these overflowed lands, often above high 

 water mark. Old cane breaks generally occupy the land 

 alone to the exclusion of everything else, except green 

 briars, a long, slender tough vine covered thickly with sharp 

 strong briars, There is nothing pleasant about them, espe- 

 cially when one is in a hurry, and now and then an immense 

 and generally dead tree. It' is said the timber is killed by 

 the cane burning in a very dry time. When the ground is 

 covered with young cane the timber is as dense there as else- 

 where. The 'rest of the country is covered generally by tall, 

 straight timber, except where itis covered with permanent 

 deep water, into which the cypress and Tupelo gum generally 

 extends considerably. 



The woods are generally open and free from underbrush, 

 except vines and the greenbriars aud cane on the ridges. It 

 takes a very slight rise in the earth to make a Southern 

 ' ' ridge. " The couutry is nearly a dead level, but slightly un- 

 dulating, like, the great swells of the ocean suddenly solidi- 

 fied by frost. Logs, great and small, solid and rotten, and 

 great uprooted trees strtw the ground everywhere, more or 

 less — therefore a man on a horse or on foot can travel through 

 these bottom lands quite comfortably, and by twisting around 

 the logs can get along slowly with a" team and wagon, but in 

 all cases he must skirt or go' around the cane breaks. These, 

 if strong, are practically impassable. Only by cutting a road 

 or path right through can they be traversed. 



Our judges knew "the lay of the land" exactly, and one 

 to get around in these bottoms must have a good knowledge 

 of the country, or he will quickly become badly bewildered 

 and lost — for one acre is very like the next, and the ridges, 

 bayous, and cane breaks run m every direction, as do also the 

 rivers. Each hunter carries a horn, a veritable horn, made 

 from the horn of a "steer," which they toot continuously to 

 know where each one is, and to encourage the dogs. The 

 camp was near a very large and strong cane break, stretching 

 for many miles along the margin of a partially dry lake. It 

 did not take our experienced hunters long to find "baah sign" 

 in plenty. Soon old Tiger gave tongue across a moist place 

 in the lake. Judge Barker examined the trail, and found the 

 tracks of three bears, that of a very large female and two 

 good-sized cubs. He said the old one was very large and 

 poor, the cubs strong and very fat. He. could tell this readily 

 by the depth of the different tracks in the soft earth. Away 

 went the bear dogs, aud [dunged into the cane break, no more 

 to be seen until the hunt was over. A bear dog, hog, 'coon, 

 and some other animals can run through a break of cane very 

 fast; a deer can also get through them lively; while a man, 

 afoot or on a horse, is brought to a stand-still. A bear started 

 in a large cane break seldom breaks cover. Cane breaks are 

 not usually wide, but are narrow and long — therefore, all the 

 hunter has to do is to skirt the break and keep as near as he 

 can to the sound of the chase. The bears have their paths 

 leading through the breaks, in which they can run at great 

 speed ; also paths leading from one break to another, always 

 through the thickest cover. The experienced hunters know 

 all these paths, so they can make "short cuts" on the bear. 

 A bear when started, either by the dogs or by a scent of the 

 hunter, runs for a great distance, and then stops in the thick- 

 est ancl most impenetrable cover, whether pursued or not. 



The hunters separated, Judge Sol. on his mare taking the 

 outside of the break ; the other two the inside next the lake, 

 where it was the best walking. Away went the hunt, for 

 many a mile down the lake. The dogs were fresh, the old 

 she-bear a good one, the dog cool, and everything favored a 

 long and lively chase. Our hunters on foot were soon left 

 far behiud, also the Judge on the old "maah," At last the 

 hunters on foot could no longer hear the yelping of the 

 dogs, still they followed on, knowing full well that the 

 " baahs" would either he brought to bay, or that they would 

 turn and come back through the same break. After a long 

 tramp they stopped. Even Judge Smith's horse could no 

 longer be heard, and they sat down on a log to rest, intently 

 listening. After a long time they heard away down the lake 

 the faint yelping of a dog. After attentively listening for 

 some time they nearly concluded that the dogs had a bear 

 "treed." This term "treed" is not always used by Western 

 and Southern men to mean literally " up a tree;" but when 

 they say an animal is " treed, " they mean it is Drought to 

 bay, either up a tree, in a hollow log, tree or a hole in the 

 ground; also that it has quit running and stopped to light off 

 its pursuers. 



There being no hurry they continued to rest and listen. 

 After sometime the yelping began to be heard more plainly. 

 They had stopped at a narrow and rather thin place in the 

 cane, and on the side opposite from where the wind came 

 from. Louder grew the noise of the chase. Every few 

 minutes there would be a halt, and then on they would come 

 again, Judge Bill straightened himself, uncorked his rifle 

 and said: " Jim, when them critters come past, I can see 

 the cane shake, and I am going to sec if I can't put one of 

 old Betsey's pills into one of them." Now the chase was 

 drawing near. The cubs could be heard complaining in a 

 voice half way bel ween the whine of a puppy and the squeal 

 of a pig. The hoarse growls of the mother could be heard 

 as she fell back to protect the rear of her cubs; and then as 

 she rushed on ahead of them to encourage them, their piteous 

 whines would be heard. On they came. Judge Bill had his 

 "nerves strung up" like a man of steel.. It so happened 



'Cane break. When I first began to ■write this bear hunt I war in 

 camp a long distance from civilization, by the words from civilization 

 I do not mean thai 1 v. as many miles from houses and people, but that 

 I was mam- mill - from i teopli «ho had, or had any need of books of 

 reference, dictionaries and many other of the discomforts of life, and 

 I of course hud no books in camp. Therefore when 1 undertook to 

 spell the word cane break T did not know bow to spell the word break. 

 I Btudied over it for some time and concluded that from the meaning 

 given to the word hereby the people, who use and evidently coined 

 the word, that break was the proper way to spell it, as per the mean- 

 ing explained in the text, Since, I have bad a chance to consult Web- 

 ster's Unabridged, and rind that be spells it b-r-a-k-e. But Webster is 

 undoubtedly wrong. He is led into tne mistake by accepting an en- 

 tirely wrong derivation of the word. Break, as used here, was not 

 derived from any word. It. ts a word 01 the southwest, coined hcrf. 

 and has in no sense the meaning of brake. By the word "break" ■«.•« 



lean a sudden change in the growth of anything, especially timber, 

 istance 1 say 1 struck a break of oj press, I mean 1 passed on 

 other kind of timber into a growth of cypress, then we bay 



for instau 



utof 



break of ash, a break of cane. I do not know whether the word 

 should be spelled break or brake, it makes no difference. When wo 

 get a dictionary to the Arkansas language I will spell it right. 



