AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
93 
ferocity, and exceeding courage, for half an hour, but the 
Bear was an overmatch for them, and we were fearful that 
he would bite them in pieces, and escape at last, without 
our being able to get a ball into him. Amongst our dogs 
was a favourite old dog, we called “Drive,” and, without 
exception, the best dog to hunt I ever saw, and, withal, 
the most courageous; he had been our companion, both in 
toil and pleasure, for several years, and his encounters with 
wild animals were so numerous, that, often has been the 
time, that we carried him from the field of battle helpless 
and mangled, for miles, to our homes, but always on reco- 
vering, was eager to engage in deadly strife with any mon- 
ster of the forest. This old dog, in the present battle, had 
seized the Bear by the back of the neck with so firm a hold, 
as to disable him, in some measure, from injuring the other 
dogs. The Bear, however, endeavoured to rid himself of 
Drive in every possible way, but to no effect; thinking now 
it would be a good opportunity to despatch him, I resolved 
to try the virtue of my hunting knife, and approached him 
with a view of stabbing him, but the Bear immediately 
broke away from the dogs, and then threw himself on his 
back again, and when in this position, I stood my rifle 
against a tree, and attempted to make the fatal stroke, 
but the Bear anticipated my intention, and met my blow, 
with a stroke of his paw, with so much force as to knock 
the knife from my hand to a distance of thirty feet, and 
then arose, and made a bold push at me, but I showed him 
a light pair of heels, and being again seized by the dogs, 
deterred him from further pursuit. We then thought of 
other means, and commenced cutting large clubs; but whilst 
engaged at this, the Bear, disrelishing his new enemies, 
cleared himself of the dogs, which were so disabled by this 
time, that they could hardly fight more, and made off at 
full speed. I seized my rifle, and just as he was springing 
over an old hemlock log, I fired at him, but being afraid 
of shooting the dogs, I shot too high, and only cut him 
across the rump as he pitched over the log, this put him 
to a stand, and he ascended a tree, to the height of about 
forty feet, when I approached, and shot him through the 
heart. 
We examined the dogs, and found, although badly 
wounded, they would be enabled to reach home with care 
and assistance. 
A few days previous to the above hunt, I had set a large 
spring-trap for Bears, made of iron, for the purpose, and 
acted similar to a spring rat-trap, but with square joints, 
and two large springs acting against them, with two smaller 
springs inside of these: beneath the jaws were arranged a 
number of iron spikes, so that, as soon as the trap sprung, 
it held its prisoner perfectly secure. These traps usually 
weighed forty or fifty pounds, to which were appended, by 
A a 
means of chains, clogs of wood, four or five feet in 
length, to prevent the caught animals from escaping. We, 
therefore, at the commencement of this day’s chase, had 
sent our two men to the trap to ascertain, if any animal 
was caught; and while we were engaged in dressing the 
Bear we had just killed, these men came to us with infor- 
mation, that a large Bear was caught by the trap, and so 
securely, that there was no probability of his escaping, as 
the trap had closed upon him about eight inches above his 
paw. The day was drawing to its close, and having before 
us sufficient to employ the balance of time before night 
set in, we concluded to leave the trapped Bear for another 
day’s excursion, and make arrangements to get home our 
dogs, in which we succeeded, and had them well provided 
for, until they would finally recover. 
The next morning, several of our neighbours joined us 
in our excursion after the caught Bear; our number amount- 
ed to eight or ten persons, full of glee, and with the pros- 
pect of a fine day’s sport, armed with but an axe, and one 
rifle, we sallied forth, with an addition to our list of dogs, 
after our sable antagonist. We soon reached the scene of 
our operations, and judged, the Bear must have been en- 
trapped several days, as he was somewhat fatigued; and, 
during his repeated endeavours to rid himself of the trap, 
had broken the bone of his leg, so that it held him merely 
by the skin and sinews. At our approach, however, he 
hobbled off, and seizing the trap in his mouth, and running 
on three legs, made considerable progress; but the young 
dogs soon fastened on him, and fought very handsomely, 
and, in order to give the Bear a better chance to defend 
himself, we cut him loose from the trap; being thus disen- 
cumbered,. he boxed the dogs about pretty freely, until an 
old dog, which we had kept in reserve, seized him by the 
back of the neck, with so much ferocity, as to compel the 
Bear to back himself against a large hemlock log, which 
prevented the dogs from getting behind him, by which 
means he kept them at a respectful distance. As conside- 
rable time had elapsed since we first found him, we began 
to grow weary, and concluded, that if it was possible to 
master him, we would bind him and carry him home alive, 
for a sight to the ladies of our village; and having deter- 
mined on sport that day, we were unwilling to put an end 
to it, by destroying the Bear, especially as our number 
warranted the belief that we could take him home a pri- 
soner, or that eight or ten stout men could secure one 
disabled Bear — but here was the difficulty — how were we 
to secure him, without danger to ourselves? Various plans 
were proposed, but none seemed practicable; at last J — , 
an old hunter, and a large athletic man, proposed the fol- 
lowing, which was to cut a long pole, with a large fork at 
one end, and crawl behind the Bear, and while his atten- 
