"'Whoof!' he says.

"'Whoof!' says the one behind me.

"Bang I goes, slap off the trail sideways, a-plungin' and a-clawin'
through the brush like a wild man. By this time I was clean crazed;
thought the whole country was full of bald-faces. Next thing I
knows--whop, I comes up against something in a tangle of wild blackberry
bushes. Then that something hits me a slap and closes in on me. Another
bald-face! And then and there I knew I was gone for sure. But I made up
to die game, and of all the rampin' and roarin' and rippin' and tearin'
you ever see, that was the worst.

"'My God! O my wife!' it says. And I looked and it was a man I was
hammering into kingdom come.

"'Thought you was a bear,' says I.

"He kind of caught his breath and looked at me. Then he says, 'Same
here.'

"Seemed as though he'd been chased by a bald-face, too, and had hid in
the blackberries. So that's how we mistook each other.

"But by that time the racket on the trail was something terrible, and we
didn't wait to explain matters. That afternoon we got Joe Gee and some
rifles and came back loaded for bear. Mebbe you won't believe me, but
when we got to the spot, there was the two bald-faces lyin' dead. You
see, when I jumped out, they came together, and each refused to give