necting the gold-fields of California with the pastoral settlements away to the north in Oregon.

But a railroad has now taken the place of that winding old pack-trail, and you can whisk through these wild and woody mountains, and away on down through Oregon and up through Washington, Montana, Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and on to Chicago without even once getting out of your car, if you like. Yet such a persistent ride is not probable, for fish, pheasants, deer, elk, and bear still abound here in their ancient haunts, and the temptation to get out and fish or hunt is too great to be resisted.

This place where the baby bears were found was first owned by three men, or, rather, by two men and a boy. One of the men was known as Mountain Joe. He had once been a guide in the service of General Frémont, but he was now a drunken fellow and spent most of his time at the trading-post, twenty miles down the river. He is now an old man, almost blind, and lives in Oregon City, on a pension as a soldier of the Mexican war. The other man's name was Sil Reese. He, also, is living and famously rich-as rich as he is stingy, and that is saying that he is very rich indeed.

The boy preferred the trees to the house, partly because it was more pleasant and partly because Sil Reese, who had a large nose and used it to talk with constantly, kept grumbling because the boy, who had been wounded in defending the ranch, was not able to

work—wash the dishes, make fires and so on, and help in a general and particular way about the so-called "Soda Springs Hotel." This Sil Reese was certainly a mean man, as has, perhaps, been set down in this story before.

The baby bears were found asleep, and alone. How they came to be there, and, above all, how they came to be left long enough alone by their mother for a feeble boy to rush forward at sight of them, catch them up in his arms, and escape with them, will always be a wonder. But this one thing is certain, you had about as well take up two rattlesnakes in your arms as two baby bears, and hope to get off unharmed, if the mother of the young bears is within a mile of you.

This boy, however, had not yet learned caution, and he probably was not born with much fear in his makeup. And then he was so lonesome, and this man Reese was so cruel and so cross, with his big nose like a sounding fog-horn, that the boy was glad to get even a bear to play with and to love.

They, so far from being frightened or cross, began to root around under his arms and against his breast, like little pigs, for something to eat. Possibly their mother had been killed by hunters, for they were nearly starved. When he got them home, how they did eat! This also made Sil Reese mad. For, although the boy, wounded as he was, managed to shoot down a deer not too far from the house almost every day, and

so kept the "hotel" in meat, still it made Reese miserable and envious to see the boy so happy with his woolly little friends. Reese was simply mean!

Before a month the little black boys began to walk erect, carry stick muskets, wear paper caps, march up and down before the door of the big log "hotel" like soldiers.

But the cutest trick they learned was that of waiting on the table. With little round caps and short white aprons, the little black boys would stand behind the long bench on which the guests sat at the pine board table and pretend to take orders with all the precision and solemnity of Southern negroes.

Of course, it is to be confessed that they often dropped things, especially if the least bit hot; but remember we had only tin plates and tin or iron dishes of all sorts, so that little damage was done if a dish did happen to fall and rattle down on the earthen floor.

Men came from far and near and often lingered all day to see these cunning and intelligent creatures perform.

About this time Mountain Joe fought a duel with another mountaineer down at the trading-post, and this duel, a bloodless and foolish affair, was all the talk. Why not have the little black fellows fight a duel also? They were surely civilized enough to fight now!

And so, with a very few days' training, they fought

a duel exactly like the one in which poor drunken old Mountain Joe was engaged; even to the detail of one of them suddenly dropping his stick gun and running away and falling headlong into a hole.

When Joe came home and saw this duel and saw what a fool he had made of himself, he was at first furiously angry. But it made him sober, and he kept sober for half a year. Meantime Reese was mad as ever-more mad, in fact, than ever before. For he could not endure to see the boy have any friends of any kind. Above all, he did not want Mountain Joe to stay at home or keep sober. He wanted to handle all the money and answer no questions. A drunken man and a boy he could bully suited him best. Ah, but this man Reese was a mean fellow, as has been said before.

As winter came on the two blacks were as fat as pigs and fully half grown. Their appetites increased daily, and so did the anger and envy of Mr. Sil Reese.

There was a big,

"They'll eat us out o' house and hum," said the big, towering nose one day, as the snow began to descend and close up the pack-trails. And then the stingy man proposed that the blacks should be made to hibernate, as others of their kind. hollow log that had been sawed off in joints to make bee gums; and the stingy man insisted that they should be put in there with a tight head, and a pack of hay for a bed, and nailed up till spring in order to save provisions.

Soon there was an Indian outbreak. Some one from the ranch, or "hotel," must go with the company of volunteers that was forming down at the post for a winter campaign. Of course Reese would not go. He wanted Mountain Joe to go and get killed. But Joe was sober now, and he wanted to stay and watch Reese.

And that is how it came about that the two black baby bears were tumbled headlong into a big, black bee gum, or short, hollow log, on a heap of hay, and nailed up for the winter. The boy had to go to the

war.

It was late in the spring when the boy, having neglected to get himself killed, to the great disgust of Mr. Sil Reese, rode down and went straight up to