had not gone fifty yards before we discovered a very heart-rending scene. Poor Double-head lay lacerated and bleeding upon the ground, and our anguish became deeper and deeper as we listened in vain for his voice of complaint. He bore his awful affliction with so much fortitude and patience that we could not forbear associating him in our mind with the brave old DeKalb, who fell in the arms of his country by the storm which rolled over Camden, and who finished his career on this earth without a murmur. We were soon on our knees, bending over the tempest-scattered remains of the noble dog. He yet breathed, but was still bleeding. He feebly wagged his tail, looked dreamingly in our face, licked his master's hand, and saw him shed a bitter tear. We gently took him up, carried him to the camp, and as gently laid him down again. Here we watched him and cared for him as though he had been a brother, for three successive days; hearkening to his slightest wants, even at the latest time of the night. But his final hour was come. Poor Doublehead was dying, and it was a solemn thing with us to know that he had run his last race; guarded his master's body and licked his hand for the last

time; that he had barked his final bark, was sleeping his last sleep, and that no shout of mine, no blast of horn could ever awake him to action again. Noble dog, methought,

Having at length paid our last tribute to his departed spirit, we again renewed our hunt, and soon experienced the truth of the old adage, "A bad beginning makes a good ending," for we were rewarded for our next round by the sight of three fine elks, all of which we killed by a large tree on a branch of Mulherren, ever since known as Elk Fork. McLendon set fire to the tree, which burned down and fell so close to him that I am sure if the fright of both of us had been put together, and fixed upon either one, it had been quite sufficient to have deprived him of his life, for each of us felt like we were about half dead.

We now returned to camp, where we found in waiting for us two young men, who wished to join us in another round. We took a horse each, and after reaching the head of Barren Fork, crossed

it and took a course for Cumberland river, at a point where it receives Jennings' creek, and hereabout we had some good sport and fine luck in killing game. Our dog which had been wounded by the storm, and not so badly as we had imagined, had recovered, and though not so great a favorite as Double-head, was nevertheless on foot, and when he barked seemed to say, "Richard is himself again." At the end of three days, we had killed meat enough to load that number of horses. We started the young men, Wright and Patterson, home with it, instructing them to unload and return. They were gone five days, I having in the meantime slept in the camp by night and hunted in the woods by day all this while, and when they returned, I supplied each of them with a bear, took one myself, and we all departed for home, not, however, without leaving painful remembrances behind us. At the end of the day's travel, we dismounted and began to make preparations for supper. We had a little corn along for our horses, and I concluded that I must have some bread, and with this view cut a sapling down, levelled the top at the stump, wrapped a broad band of raw bear-hide around the top and

confined it, thus forming a mortar into which I poured the corn and beat it into meal. I now removed a green bear-skin from under my saddle, hollowed out a small concavity in the ground, spread it with the flesh side up, and pressing into the hole until it fitted all round, I had quite a snug little tray. I emptied my meal into it and proceeded to work it into dough. My next step was to select a nice flat rock, and put the mass upon it. I soon had a fine johnny-cake, which looked as black but tasted as well as any morsel I had ever seen or eaten. The next day we reached home, and finding that we had more meat than the settlers could consume for a time, I took two out of the six loads and carried them to Dixon's Spring, where I sold one hundred pounds or about half of the load for ten dollars in silver.

CHAPTER XII.

HUNTING continued to be my principal employment during several years after this, but the sea of civilization, heretofore dammed up in a great degree by the Alleghanies, had by this time swollen so much that its billows had already broken over that eternal chain of mountains, and the waves were flowing over the valleys of the West, carrying before them the bear, the buffalo, and the elk, and thus terminating in no small measure the pursuit in which I so much gloried.

About this time a Mr. Stokes came from North Carolina to survey a large tract of land in this country, which he had never seen. He requested me to point it out to him, and I readily and cheerfully fulfilled the request, whereupon he would make me receive for my services a gratuitous lease on six hundred acres for ten years. This land lay upon my side of the river, but hav