s
the bear dragging to his abode the carcase of a buck. When he thought
that the animal was glutted with flesh, and sleeping, Boone descended
the tree, and, leaning his rifle against the rock, he crawled into the
cave to reconnoitre. It must have been a terrible moment; but he had
made up his mind, and he possessed all the courage of his father: the
cave was spacious and dark. The heavy grunt of the animal showed that he
was asleep.

By degrees, the vision of Boone became more clear, and he perceived the
shaggy mass at about ten feet from him and about twenty yards from the
entrance of the cave. The ground under him yielded to his 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, giving 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 rejoi