captive. The act of course revived the lively
monster, but his struggles now wound him up into such a ravel with the
two lines and the net that he was soon unable to get up or jump about,
though still able to make the very earth around him tremble with his
convulsive heaves. It was at once a fine as well as an awful display of
the power of brute force and the strength of raw material!

Little Tim would have admired it with philosophic interest if he had not
been too busy dancing around the writhing creature in a vain effort to
fix his third rope on a hind leg. At last an opportunity offered. A
leg burst one of the meshes of the net. Tim deftly slipped the noose
over it, and made the line fast to the tree. "Now," said he, wiping the
perspiration from his brow, "you're safe, so I'll have a meal."

And Little Tim, sitting down on a stone at a respectful distance,
applied himself with zest to the cold breakfast of which he stood so
very much in need.

He was thus occupied when his son with the prairie chief and his party
found him.

It would take at least another chapter to describe adequately the joy,
surprise, laughter, gratulation, and comment which burst from the rescue
party on discovering the hunter. We therefore leave it to the reader's
imagination. One of the young braves was at once sent off to find the
agent and fetch him to the spot with his cage on wheels. The feat, with
much difficulty, was accomplished. Bruin was forcibly and very
unwillingly thrust into the prison. The balance of the stipulated sum
was honourably paid on the spot, and now that bear is--or, if it is not,
ought to be--in the Zoological Gardens of New York, London, or Paris,
with a printed account of his catching, and a portrait of Little Tim
attached to the front of his cage!

CHAPTER TEN.

SNAKES IN THE GRASS.

It was a sad but interesting council that was held in the little
fortress of "Tim's Folly" the day following that on which the grizzly
bear was captured.

The wounded missionary, lying in Big Tim's bed, presided. Beside him,
with an expression of profound sorrow on his fine face, sat Whitewing,
the prairie chief. Little Tim and his big son sat at his feet. The
other Indians were ranged in a semicircle before him.

In one sense it was a red man's council, but there were none of the
Indian formalities connected with it, for the prairie chief and his
followers had long ago renounced the superstitions and some