I've hearn tell of
elephants gittin' crazy and breakin' loose from their keepers, or
killin' them, and makin' a general smash of whatever comes in their
way. I believe its so sometimes with a bull moose; and when the fit
is on the animal forgets its timid nater, and is bold and fierce as a
tiger. I've seen two sich in my day; one of 'em sent me into a tree,
and the other put me around a great hemlock a dozen or twenty times, a
good deal faster than I like to travel in a general way, and if I
hadn't hamstrung him with my huntin' knife, maybe he'd have been
chasin' me round that tree yet. Wal, as I was sayin' I was out among
the Adirondacks one fall, airly in November; I'd wounded a deer, and
sent Crop forward on his trail to overtake and secure him. It was a
big buck, with long horns, and Crop had a pretty good general idea of
what sich things meant. He was cautious about cultivatin' too close an
acquaintance with such an animal, unless something oncommon obligated
him to do so. I heard him bayin' a little way over a ridge layin' gist
beyond where I shot the buck. I warn't in any great hurry, for I knew
Crop would attend to his case, and I tho't I'd wipe out my rifle afore
I loaded it again. I was standin' by the upturned roots of a tall fir
tree that had been blown down, and in fallin' had lodged in a crotch
of a great birch, maybe twenty feet from the ground, and broke off.
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