Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-03-21
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80 90 ldes to the north of my
comrades. If had not met with some
game, following the shadows, perhaps,
Is 4 had been doingYI might hsEs
come back in the neighborhood of,
whereof Started ffom9 ST6ere was some
game, howeFeFyAt shout eleFen.o,cioek
saw a large black bear looking right
at me. threwa1d 1dy9 eyeS up 3 small
tree that stood near, and thought
If l missed the bear, and he came Tor
me, would make tracks up that little
tree. had been taught to believe that
a bear could not climb tree, but l
never was. more mistaken in my life,
fer they can claw up a tree that isn't
more than three inches through. l ran
my eye along that tree and along my
rife. barrel, and pulled the trigger. The
bear fell. I loaded up again right
quick, took another look up that tree,
and then went c&ufoqs-like toward
the bear. Nov, hetwseh- me and the
beast there were quite a number of
small trees, but kept my eyes on
them all the time. Presently / got
near the bear, and dead for sure he was.
He had fallen between two small logs,
and / had hard time to pull him out,
as he weighed fully three hundred
pounds. When l went to look at him,
/ found my bullet had gone square be
tween his eyes, and that must have
killed him stone dead. The arrange
ment with my comp mpRnions was, that
if anylof us killed any large game, we
were TO FIRE, as q signal, three shots as
quickly as we could load. l blazed
away, but no answer came. The rea-
son was that was many miles to the
north of them.0 Ny position, as Imsje
it out just then, was pretty much as
follows: Here was boy nineteen years
old, thirty miles from any house, with
three hundred pounds of bear on his
hands, and only q jack-knife to skin
him with. did skin him, though,
took the hide yand one of the
hams, and started for the blaze-line
we had gone out by" My load was
dreadfuEy heavy; SO l had to rest
most every thirty rods. ] kept on
though, until I thought / had gone far
enough to notice the blaze. But there
was no sign of 8 blaze. " May be" l
thought, 81 have gone past itm So 4
turned back to look for it, but with no
better luck. Then 1 Just made up my
mind that l would go straight by a
compass, and did. / walked until it
was most night, when ] looked around
for camping ground came across a
big log which would make first-elass
back for q fire, and found q pine tree,
full of dry knots which stuck out so
that could use them like rounds on 3
ladder, and shin up the tree in case
wolves were prowling around. for
wolves were plenty in those parts. I
built rousing fire and broiled some
BEARS meat and had a prime supper.
/ lay me down, and was soon fast
asleep. How long l slept l don't know,
but il must have been some time, as
my fire was almost out when | awoke.
/ was kind Of, chilled with the cold, and
set about raking in the ashes to get a
brand to start FIRE again, but before I
had a blaze l heard some kind Of an
animal nigh me. This made me SO
uneasy that guess l must have built
up that fire with one hand and kept Il e
other hand on the limb of the tree.
j ust then the animals began TO snort
and stamp their feet, and 1 knew they
were deer, and that / need not be
afraid Of them. Before l had my fire
going well II heard a pack Of wolves
coming along, and the deer made
tracks, but the wolves didn't follow the
deer, for they stopped short near me,
and commenced oircling and circling
around me at 3 distance Of some fifteen
rods. ....
As my fire grew brighter the wolves
lOunged off somewhat further. There
they kept, going round in a ring, q
yelping and bowling only in that dread
full way which naturally belongs to a
pack of famished wolves. | kept
throwing chunks into the fire until
! got myself warm. Then I began to