s weight, for
it was deeply covered with the bones of animals, and more than once he
thought himself lost, when rats, snakes, and other reptiles, disturbed
by him from their meal, would start away, in every direction, with loud
hissing, and other noises. The brute, however, never awoke, and Boone,
having finished his survey, crawled out from this horrid den to prepare
for the attack.

He first cut a piece of pitch-pine, six or seven feet long, then taking
from his pouch a small cake of bees'-wax, he wrapped it round one end of
the stick, it at the extremity the shape of a small cup, to hold some
whisky. This done, he re-entered the cavern, turned to his left, fixed
his new kind of flambeau upright against the wall, poured the liquor in
the wax cup, and then went out again to procure fire. With the
remainder of his wax and a piece of cotton twine, he made a small taper
which he lighted, and crawled in again over the bones, shading his light
with one hand, till he had applied the flame to the whisky. The liquor
was above proof, and as Boone returned and took up his position nearer
the entrance, with his rifle, it threw up a vivid flame, which soon
ignited the wax and the pitch-pine itself.

The bear required something more than light to awake him from his almost
lethargic sleep, and Boone threw bone after bone at him, till the brute
woke up, growled with astonishment at the unusual sight before him, and
advanced lazily to examine it. The young man had caught up his rifle by
the barrel; he took a long and steady aim, as he knew that he must die
if the bear was only wounded; and as the angry animal raised his paw to
strike down the obnoxious torch, he fired. There was a heavy fall, a
groan, and a struggle,--the light was extinguished, and all was dark as
before. The next morning Boone rejoined his companions as they were
taking their morning meal, and, throwing at their feet his bleeding
trophies, he said to them, "Now, who will dare to say that I am not a
man?"

The history of this bold deed spread in a short time to even the
remotest tribes of the North, and when, years afterwards, Boone fell a
prisoner to the Black-feet Indians, they restored him to liberty and
loaded him with presents, saying, that they could not hurt the great
brave who had vanquished in his own den the evil spirit of the
mountains.

At another time, Boone, when hardly pressed by a party of the Flat-head
Indians, fell into a crevice and bro