the older settlers, and who is usually best known as having killed the
last wolf or bear or cougar ever seen in the locality.

Generally the weapon mainly relied on by these old hunters is the rifle;
and occasionally some old hunter will be found even to this day who
uses a muzzle loader, such as Kit Carson carried in the middle of the
century. There are exceptions to this rule of the rifle however. In the
years after the Civil War one of the many noted hunters of southwest
Virginia and east Tennessee was Wilber Waters, sometimes called The
Hunter of White Top. He often killed black bear with a knife and dogs.
He spent all his life in hunting and was very successful, killing
the last gang of wolves to be found in his neighborhood; and he slew
innumerable bears, with no worse results to himself than an occasional
bite or scratch.

In the southern States the planters living in the wilder regions have
always been in the habit of following the black bear with horse and
hound, many of them keeping regular packs of bear hounds. Such a pack
includes not only pure-bred hounds, but also cross-bred animals, and
some sharp, agile, hard-biting fierce dogs and terriers. They follow the
bear and bring him to bay but do not try to kill him, although there are
dogs of the big fighting breeds which can readily master a black bear
if loosed at him three or four at a time; but the dogs of these southern
bear-hound packs are not fitted for such work, and if they try to close
with the bear he is certain to play havoc with them, disemboweling them
with blows of his paws or seizing them in his arms and biting through
their spines or legs. The riders follow the hounds through the
canebrakes, and also try to make cutoffs and station themselves at open
points where they think the bear will pass, so that they may get a
shot at him. The weapons used are rifles, shotguns, and occasionally
revolvers.

Sometimes, however, the hunter uses the knife. General Wade Hampton, who
has probably killed more black bears than any other man living in the
United States, frequently used the knife, slaying thirty or forty with
this weapon. His plan was, when he found that the dogs had the bear at
bay, to walk up close and cheer them on. They would instantly seize
the bear in a body, and he would then rush in and stab it behind the
shoulder, reaching over so as to inflict the wound on the opposite side
from that where he stood. He escaped scathless from all thes