Samson, Armed With The Hatchet, Was Chopping Wood.
I stayed to arrange the packs, and spread the blankets.
Suddenly I heard a voice from the bottom of the ravine,
crying out, 'Bring the guns for God's sake! Make haste!
Bring the guns!' I rushed about in the dark, tumbling over
the saddles, but could nowhere lay my hands on a rifle.
Still the cry was for 'Guns!' My own, a muzzle-loader, was
discharged, but a rifle none the less. Snatching up this,
and one of my pistols, which, by the way, had fallen into the
river a few hours before, I shouted for Samson, and ran
headlong to the rescue. Before I got to the bottom of the
hill I heard groans, which sounded like the last of poor
William. I holloaed to know where he was, and was answered
in a voice that discovered nothing worse than terror.
It appeared that he had met a grizzly bear drinking at the
very spot where he was about to fill his can; that he had
bolted, and the bear had pursued him; but that he had
'cobbled the bar with rocks,' had hit it in the eye, or nose,
he was not sure which, and thus narrowly escaped with his
life. I could not help laughing at his story, though an
examination of the place next morning so far verified it,
that his footprints and the bear's were clearly intermingled
on the muddy shore of the stream.
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