922

INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES.

in a direction where he thought he might find a bear. Every hour the storm grew more furious. The bushes, with which the forest was filled, became so thick with ice that he could no longer force his way through. He had seated himself on a log to rest, when he heard his dogs set up a terrible barking. He followed them as best he could, but no game was in sight, and he concluded the dogs were only making mischief. " Just at that moment," says he, "looking on before my dogs, I saw the biggest bear that ever was seen in America. At that distance he looked like a big, black bull." He hurried forward to find his dogs engaged in a life and death conflict with the bear. It required three bullets to kill him.

The storm had not abated at all. Crockett hurried back through the icy forest to his cabin, twelve miles away. He and the other two men, who had returned unsuccessful from their hunt, taking four pack horses, set out at once, in spite of fatigue and tempest, to secure the game, an -entei'prise in which they succeeded. In this way the cabin was furnished with an abundant supply of splendid meat.

It soon occurred to Crockett to again offer himself for the legislature. On a certain day he appeared at a great political gathering, and began his own peculiar method of electioneering. Having mounted a stump, he began to banter his opponent, Dr. Butler. He took care to assure his audience that though he was very poor, he proposed to furnish his supporters all the whisky they could drink. "When I goes electioneering, I goes fixed for the purpose. I've got a suit of deer leather clothes with two big pockets. I puts a bottle of whisky in one, and a twist of tobacco in t'other, and starts out. Then if I meets a friend, why I pulls out my bottle and gives him a drink. He II be mighty apt, before he drinks, to throw away his tobacco. So, when he is done, I pulls my twist out of t 'other pocket, and gives him a chaw. I never likes to leave a man worse off than I found him."

Dr. Butler, Crockett's opponent, lived in a frame house. In