Morning journal and courier., 1889-02-12
Hunting Stories.

From the Kingston Freeman.l ! A correspondent of s'The Freeman" at Big Indian, in the Catskill Mountains, writes:
 "The Jansen brothers and well known Cattskill Mountain hunter named William Wilkins, who is said to have been nearly 'et up by an old she bear on Slide Mountain
 several years ago, passed through this yil- lage yesterday. There was blood in the
 hunters eyes, and their substantial hunting
 rig seemed to mean business. Wilkins was
 all there,' in spite of the fact that the best
 part of him had once been carried away in
 bears embrace. His game bag was far
 from empty when he reached here, but he
 remarked facetiously to railroad man that
 both he and the bag would be fuller afore night
 s'This morning 'Bilp told the following story regarding the hunt to friend whom he met near this village: Jest after we left here, said he, we struck into the woods. "Lem" Jansen was for killin' every durned thing that we came acrost from a rabbit up,
 but I told him he WAS wastin' his shot on
 nothing. An he bout concluded I was
 right when a wildcat came for us. The
 bloody varmint went for "Sandy" Jansen
 tooth and nail. It took slit in his right
 cheek an the linin' clean out of his flesh
 shirt. Gosh, but that cat did fight! It
 would have got clean away with meek "San- dy" only got in feeIer or two and knocked the life clean out of it. We killed it's mate without any trouble an knocked over a doz- en rabbits or SO.
 "'We wasn't huntin' cats an rabbits though. We was after bigger game that we had got tracks on the day afore. When we got to Slide Mountain we saw the tracks we was lookin' for, and you can bet your bot tom dollar old 'Bill'' was glad he come. "sWell, sir, we follered those everlastin' tracks bout in the snow for five mortal hours and then we come home. Didn't we kill a bear? No, we didn't kill bear. Now if you're seeh goll durned fool as to sup-
 pose we was goin' to stay round there in the
 cold snow any longer lookin' for bear I'm
 sorry for you. We he'd two cats, nineteen rabbits an coon, an if that wasn't enough to satisfy any reasonable man I'm sorry for him.
 "'Great ScotI' exclaimed railroad man to friend who had overheard part of tBill' Wilkins disappointing yarn, 'to think that he came so close and never hit.' And then the two men burst out into peal of laugh ter that reverberated among the grand old hills of Rip Van Wrinkles land" Old "Zeke" Turner, who lives the Red school house iu the Catskill Mountains, was in Rondout yesterday. He told the following yarn about bear that was fooled on Candlemas day: "Yer see ther day was cloudy, an no bar in ther nateral way could see his shadder no how. Well, this bar thet I watched cum rum his hole, snifed areun' few minnits, stretched hisself an luked fer his shadder. On the groun', at the foot of tree, wuz lukin'glass thet had bin lost there by summer boarder. Ther ugly cuss seed ther shiny face of ther glass, and he goes over to it an luked in an seed his- self. Yer oughter hev' seed thet bar git in- fer his hole apiQ fer six weeks more sleep.
 The weather after thet wuz mild, an' aP ther
 bars in ther mountains cum forth excep'
 ther one thet he'd seed his shadder in ther
 lukin'-glass. I wuz on ham when he cum out, six weeks after, an follered his trail un- til he fell in with two other bars thet he'd been out an wuz fat. When the bars met they 1uked at each other and whispered to- gether like. Then the bar thet he'd fsaled hisself so hung it's head, shivered so thet it's bones rattled aein it's skinny sides, an jumped over cliff ter heap of rocks a hundred feet below an committed suicide"