Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — Thanks to the Bear. [ARTICLE]

Thanks to the Bear.

Almost a hundred years ago two young men who lived in a Kentucky 'fort went out to look for a strayed horse. They wandered hither and ithither through the woods until, toward evening, they found themselves in a wild valley six or seven miles from home. Here the younger of them, Francis Downing by name, fancied that he heard the snapping of twigs behind them. Some Indians were dogging their footsteps, he believed. His companion, Yates, treated the matter as a jest, and o’ffered to insure Downing’s scalp for sixpence. Downing was not satisfied, and finally, as he continued to hear she suspicious noises, he fell behind Yates some twenty or thirty paces, and at a favorable spot sprang suddenly aside and dropped into a thick patch of huckleberry bushes. Yates, who was singing, continued his course, and was soon out of sight. Almost at the same moment two Indians pushed aside the stalks of a panebrake, and looked cautiously in the direction that Yates had taken. Poor Downing, fearing that his own movements had been observed, determined to fire upon the savages, but in his nervbvsness —he was hardly more than a boy—he let off his gun without taking aim.

Then he started to run. Very soon he met Yates, who had heard the report, and had hastened back to see what was the matter. The enemy was now in full view, and the two white men ran for their lives. Yates, who was the faster of the two, would not leave Downing in the lurch. The Indians gained upon them steadily, till they came to a deep gully. Yates cleared it easily enough, but Downing, being pretty well exhausted, fell short, and after striking the farther bank, dropped to the bottom. The Indians meantime were crossing the gully a little farther down, and seeing Yates making off ahead, they took chase after him. Downing crept along the bed of the gully till it became too shallow to conceal him; and then, looking up, saw oneof the Indians returning, evidently to look for him. Again he took to. his heels, and the Indian followed. All hope of escape was dying out of the young fellow’s heart when he came to an overturned poplar-tree. He took one side of it and the Indian took the other. Just then the Indian yelled. A she-bear, it appeared, was suckling her cubs in a bed which she had made near the roots of the tree. She greeted the Indian with a hug, and Downing did not tarry to see how the interview terminated. New hope put new life into his legs, and he reached the fort in safety, where he was welcomed by Yates who had arrived two hours before.