Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

A correspondent of the National Intelligencer, writing from the Alleghany Mountains in Georgia, describes an old hunter whom he found in a log cabin, in the center of a small valley completely hemmed in on all sides by wild and abrupt Mountains and one of the most romantic and beautiful rocks imaginable. He has lived there for thirty years, is about 60 years old, and wears a long white beard. He professes to have killed in his life time, about four thousand deer, and amused the correspondent of the intelligencer with long stories of his adventures with the wild beasts of the forests, some of which that writer has condensed as follows:
On one occasion he came up to a large grey wolf, into whose head he discharged a ball. The animal did not drop, but made its way into an adjoining cavern and disappeared. Vandever waited awhile at the opening, and as he could not see or hear his game, he concluded that it had ceased to breathe, whereupon he fell upon his hands and knees, and entered the cave. On reaching the bottom, he found the wolf alive, when a “clinch fight” ensued, and the hunter’s knife completely severed the heart of the animal. On dragging out the dead wolf into the sunlight, it was found that his lower jaw had been broke which was probably the reason why he had not succeeded in destroying the hunter.
At one time, when he was out of ammunition, his dogs fell upon a large bear, and it so happened that the latter got one of the former in his power, and was about to squeeze it to death. This was a sight the hunter could not endure, so he unsheathed his large hunting-knife and assaulted the black monster. The bear tore off nearly every rag of his clothing, and in his first plunge with the knife he completely cut off two of his own fingers instead of injuring the bear. He was now in a perfect frenzy of pain and rage, and in making another effort succeeded to his satisfaction, and gained the victory. The bear weighed three hundred and fifty pounds.
On another occasion he had shot a large buck near the brow of a precipice some thirty feet high, which hangs over one of the pools in the Tallulah river. On seeing the buck drop, he took it for granted that he was about to die, when he approached the animal for the purpose of cutting his throat. To his great surprise, however, the buck suddenly sprung to his feet and made a tremendous rush at the hunter with a view of throwing him off the ledge. But what was more remarkable, the animal succeeded in its effort, though not until Vandever had obtained a fair hold of the buck’s antlers, when the two performed a somersault into the pool below. The buck made its escape, and Vandever was not seriously injured in any particular. About a month subsequent to that time he killed a buck, which had a bullet wound in the lower part of its neck, whereupon he concluded that he had finally triumphed over the animal which had given him the unexpected dunking.
But the most remarkable escape which old Vandever experienced happened on this wise. He was encamped upon one of the lofty mountains in Union county. It was near the twilight hour, and he had heard the howl of the wolf. With a view of ascertaining the direction whence it came, he climbed upon an immense boulder-rock, [weighing perhaps fifty tons,] which stood on the very brow of a steep hill side. While standing upon this boulder he suddenly felt a swinging sensation, and to his astonishment he found that it was about to make a fearful plunge into the ravine half a mile below him. As fortune would have it the limb of an oak tree drooped over the rock; and as the rock started from its foundation, he seized the limb, and thereby saved his life. The dreadful crashing of the boulder as it descended the mountain side came to the hunter’s ear while he was suspended in the air, and by the time it had reached the bottom he dropped himself on the very spot which had been vacated by the boulder. Vandever said that this was the first time in his life when he had been really frightened; and he also added that for one day after his escape he did not care a finger’s snap for the finest game in the wilderness.