ten dollars for a "painter" and five for a bear. This fee could be taken up in land.

The Elkinses, we were told, "did nothing else but hunt." Probably this accounts for part of Archibald's 1000 acres. Said Jim Duncan: "Dave came to our house one day and said to my father: 'Louis, clean up your gun and we'll go out in the morning and kill three bears if not four'." They hitched a horse to a sled, their only vehicle- They went to the river and unhitched the horse. Then Dave led the way to a certain tree which the&r chopped down. "Davy said 'Louis, the one that comes up on that side, you get it, and the one that comes up this side, I'll get it.' Sure enough they got two bears. Then they chopped down a hollow tree and got two more. One of the bears weighed 400 pounds." Twenty doUars for that morning's work. On another hunting trip, this time on Nax Mountain, Dave got lost. Night caine. With his flintlock rifle he crawled into a hollow log to sleep. The panthers and beasts clawed and clawed, but could not get to him, and when morning came, he crawled out and retumed safely home. Davy died a bachelor. Too bad. He would have been a delightful ancestor for somebody. Returning briefly to the earlier Elkinses, we find on May 6, 1784, the marriage bond of Elizabeth Elkins and Barnett Farmer. Mary Elkins gives her consent. Thomson Farmer, probably brother of the groom, is surety. Daniel Dobins and Thomas Alley were witnesses to the marriage on June 14, 1785. (A year after the bond. Did Elizabeth waver?) What connection Mary was of Archibald's we can only guess. But cousin marriages were so frequent that we almost feel it a proof of relationship when twenty years later we find John, presumably Archibald's son, marrying the daughter of the marriage just mentioned. John Elkins and Elizabeth Farmer were married April 8, 1824. 127