d of Elijah Thompson, who
was hunting in the woods near Geneva, when a pack of seven wolves fell
upon his dog. He clubbed his rifle and beat them off; then when the last
had slunk away, he gathered up his wounded dog under his arm, and walked
away with the barrel, which was all that was left of his rifle, on his
shoulder.

Bears were very common, and very fond of pork. One night two ladies who
were alone in their cabin, were alarmed by wild appeals from the pigpen,
and found it invaded by a bear. They tried to frighten the intruder away
with firebrands, but failed. Then they loaded the family rifle, which
they had heard the men folks say took two fingers of powder. They
therefore poured in the powder to the depth of six inches, and drove
home the bullet. One held a light while the other pulled the trigger.
Both were knocked down by the recoil of the gun, which flew into the
bushes. What became of the bear was never known; but it was probably
blown to atoms.

Other pioneer women were effective with firearms, and Mrs. Sarah Thorp
of Ashtabula County was one of these. The family fell short of food
in their first year in the backwoods, and in June, 1799, the husband
started to Pennsylvania, twenty miles away, to get supplies. Before he
could return, his wife and little girls had begun to live upon roots and
the few grains of wheat which she found in the straw of her bed. When
these were all gone, and she was in despair, a wild turkey one day
alighted near the cabin. She found that there was barely powder enough
left in the house for the lightest charge; but she loaded her husband's
rifle and crept on her hands and knees from bush to bush and log to log,
till she was close upon the bird, wallowing in the loose plowed earth.
Then she fired and killed it, and her children were saved.

Starvation was one of the horrors which often threatened the newcomers
in the wilderness, as it had often beset its improvident red children.
In the first year of the settlement at Conneaut, James Kingsbury was
forced to leave his family and go some distance into New York state.
He fell sick, and was unable to return before winter set in. Then he
hurried homeward as fast as he could with a sack of flour on horseback.
His horse became disabled, and then he carried the flour on his
shoulders. He reached home one day at nightfall, and found his older
children starving; his wife, wasted with famine, lay on the floor, and
near her the little one bo