That day we saw where the bears had done some marking of dogs as well as
trees. We found that the dogs had separated the bears, some having gone
one way and some another. The grit had been taken out of us as well as
out of the dogs, and the bear hunt had lost its charms for us. We were a
long ways from home and we thought it best to get our wounded dogs back
there again, if we could. We gave up the chase and let those bears go. I
felt the effects of the previous day's chase and tired out more easily; I
wished I had let the Indian have the bears to do what he was a mind to
with, and that I had never seen them.
I presume there are now many persons in Wayne County, who little think
that thirty-three years ago, 1842, there could have been four wild bears
followed, in different towns in that county, for two days; yet such was
the case. This was about the last of my hunting. My attention was called
to other business, of more importance which I thought it was necessary
for me to attend to, so I hung up my rifle and have not used it to hunt
with, in the woods, six full days since. That Indian, who wanted the
bears, was the last Indian I ever saw in the woods hunting for a living.
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