Page:A La California.djvu/237

Rh the bees sometimes make it very lively for him. I remember an old Arkansas hunter who told with infinite gusto one anecdote in point. Said he: "I had heard an angry growling and snapping in the bushes, and I knowed that a bar was thar and in trouble; but for the soul of me I couldn't make out what it was. I allowed that perhaps he might have got a bullet into him, and was tryin' to work it out by mouthing it; bar will do that sometimes; so I just crawled like a cat through the underbrush for about ten rods, pulling old Grim—that's what I used to call my old Kaintuck rifle for short—after me, and going mighty cautious, not to be heard. The growlin' and snappin' kept up all the time, and it was no trouble to find the right place. Jest when I got to the edge of the brush, I looked out into a little open space whar thar was no bushes, and right in the middle of it I seen a bar sittin' on a bee-gum that had been blowed down and split open, and jest shovelin' the honey into his mouth, hand over hand. The bees they was as thick as hair on a dog's back, all around and over him, and the way they was puttin' in their best licks in the way of stingin' him onto the nose and around the eyes and mouth, was a caution to snakes, you bet. Every time he shoveled a handfull of honey into his face he would give a growl and a slap or two at the bees. Arter a while, he reached forard a little more nor usual, and the bees seen a bare spot on his rump—bars has a bare spot on their rump generally, whar they wears the har off, sittin' down and turnin' round—and they went for it, for all there was in sight. This startled him like, and