The Big Man slammed open the doors to the roadhouse out in the Alaskan bush, stomped over to the bar, bit the neck off of an unopened bottle of cheap hootchinoo, drank it, and roared, "Who thinks they're bad enough to beat me?"

There were no takers, and everyone kept drinking. No matter how much he roared and bellowed, the Big Man couldn't provoke a fight. As he stamped out the door, a bent old man said, "PSSST! Come here, I gotta tell ya somethin'."

The Big Man plunked himself down in a chair and said in a voice like a bad chain saw, "How's come none of these pansies wants ta fight?"

The old man replied, "Son, there're people in there who could tear you to shreds, and yeah, they'll fight ya. But ya gotta prove yourself worthy of them fightin' with you first."

"What!" the Big Man roared. "Worthy ta fight! That's...that's...wadda I gotta do?"

"Three things," said the old codger, "and you've already done one of 'em. You gotta drink a whole bottle of whiskey, rape an Esquimo squaw, and wrassle one of them Kodiak brown bears."

"Done!" said the Big Man and he rushed off into the winter twilight.

Some hours later he was back, blood streaming from his body, his clothes ripped to shreds, even his hobnailed boots in fragments that barely kept the snow from his chewed feet.

"Now," he said to the old man, "where's that squaw I gotta wrassle?"