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Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod by S. H. Hammond
page 164 of 270 (60%)
course, vouch for its truth; I simply tell it as he told it to us. He
seemed to believe it himself, for he told it with a gravity of face,
and a seriousness of manner, which would ill comport with its falsity.
His hearers did not seem to regard it as passing belief, but they
laughed at the idea of drowning a bear.

"'Twenty odd years ago,' said the old pilot, as he lighted his pipe
and seated himself on the head of a whisky-keg, 'there warn't a great
many people along the Ohio, except Ingins and bears, and we didn't
like to cultivate a very close acquaintance with either of them, for
the Ingins were cheatin', deceivin', and scalpin' critters, and the
bears had an onpleasant way with 'em, that people of delicate narves
didn't like. I came out for some people over on the east side of the
mountains, lookin' land, in company with four men who had hunted over
the country. Ohio warn't any great shakes then, but let me tell you,
stranger, it had a mighty big pile of the tallest kind of land layin'
around waitin' to be opened up to the sunlight. It's goin' ahead now,
and people are rushin' matters in the way of settlin' of it, but you
could stick down a stake most anywhere in it then, and travel in
any direction a hundred miles climbin' a fence.

"'Wal, we came down the Alleghany in two canoes, and shantied on the
Ohio, just below where the Alleghany empties itself into it. We hid
our canoes, and struck across the country, and travelled about
explorin' for six weeks, and when we got back to our shantyin' ground,
we were tuckered out you may believe. We rested here a couple of days,
layin' around loose, and takin' our comfort in a way of our own. Early
one morning, when my companions were asleep, I got up and paddled
across the river after a deer, for we wanted venison for breakfast. I
got a buck, and was returnin', when what should I see but a bear
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