Project Gutenberg's When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry, by Charles Neville Buck

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Title: When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry

Author: Charles Neville Buck

Illustrator: George W. Gage

Release Date: October 11, 2010 [EBook #34057]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY

[Illustration: You're agoing to marry me and we're goin' to dwell
thar--together]

WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY

BY

CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

_Author of_
"THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS," etc.

Illustrations by
GEORGE W. GAGE

NEW YORK
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1918, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY

_OTHER BOOKS_

_By_

CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY
THE LIGHTED MATCH
THE PORTAL OF DREAMS
THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS
THE BATTLE CRY
THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS
DESTINY
THE TYRANNY OF WEAKNESS

PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.

TO

M. F.

WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY

CHAPTER I

A creaking complaint of loose and rattling boards rose under the old
mountaineer's brogans as he stepped from the threshold to the porch.
His eyes, searching the wooded mountain-side, held at first only that
penetration which born woodsmen share with the hawk and ferret, but
presently they kindled into irascibility as well.

He raised his voice in a loud whoop that went skittering off across the
rocky creek bed where Little Slippery crawled along to feed the trickle
of Big Slippery ten miles below, and the volume of sound broke into a
splintering of echoes against the forested crags of the Old Wilderness
Ridges.

"You, Turner!" bellowed the man with such a bull-like roar as might
have issued from the chest of a Viking. "You, Turner, don't ye heer me
a-callin' ye?"

A woman, rawboned and crone-like before her time under the merciless
forcing of drudgery, appeared in the door, wiping reddened hands on a
coa