cient to enable the hunter to strike with a more
certain aim: chance also favoured him; he found on the ground one of the
rails made of the blue ash, very heavy, and ten feet in length; he
dropped his knife and tomahawk, and seizing the rail, he renewed the
fight with caution, for it had now become a struggle for life or death.

Had it been a bull or a panther, they would have had their bones
shivered to pieces by the tremendous blows which Boone dealt upon his
adversary with all the strength of despair; but Bruin is by nature an
admirable fencer, and, in spite of his unwieldy shape, there is not in
the world an animal whose motions are more rapid in a close encounter.
Once or twice he was knocked down by the force of the blows, but
generally he would parry them with a wonderful agility. At last, he
succeeded in seizing the other end of the rail, and dragged it towards
him with irresistible force. Both man and beast fell, Boone rolling to
the place where he had dropped his arms, while the bear advanced upon
him; the moment was a critical one, but Boone was accustomed to look at
and brave death under every shape, and with a steady hand he buried his
tomahawk in the snout of his enemy, and, turning round, he rushed to his
cabin, believing he would have time to secure the door. He closed the
latch, and applied his shoulders to it; but it was of no avail, the
terrible brute dashed in head foremost, and tumbled in the room with
Boone and the fragments of the door. The two foes rose and stared at
each other; Boone had nothing left but his knife, but Bruin was
tottering and unsteady, and Boone felt that the match was more equal:
once more they closed.

A few hours after sunrise, Captain Finn, returning home from the
Legislature at Little Rock, called upon his friend, and, to his horror,
found him apparently lifeless on the floor, and alongside of him, the
body of the bear. Boone soon recovered, and found that the lucky blow
which had saved him from being crushed to death had buried the whole
blade of his knife, through the left eye, in the very brain of the
animal. [See note 1.]

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Note 1. The black bear does not grow to any great size in the eastern
and northern parts of America, but in Arkansas and the adjacent states
it becomes, from its size and strength, almost as formidable an
antagonist as a grizzly bear. It is very common to find them ei