lding the three "devils"
in one hand, he took a match from his pocket and lighted them rapidly,
then dropped the blazing things, one after another, upon the dozing
beast beneath him.

If Bruin noticed them at all, he doubtless supposed some twigs had
fallen upon his back; but before long their fizzing and snapping woke
him up, and the next moment they began to warm him well, especially one,
which had caught firmly in the ruff around his neck, and another among
the long hair on his haunches. He rolled over and over, but this only
ground the devils deeper into the fur, while Bimber, aroused by the
rumpus, rushed out to add his clamor to the commotion. Suddenly a
terrific explosion rent the air, and nearly knocked Bob off his perch
with surprise. The bear, in floundering about, had sat down upon the
gun, and, entangling the hammers in his hair, had discharged it; but as
the barrels were bent, of course the gun had burst.

That was the finishing touch. Singed, stung, and panic-stricken by the
powder on his back and the explosion in his rear, the grizzly uttered a
great howl and galloped away at the top of his speed.

KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS.

III.--ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS.

"Arthur must have been tickled to death," said Jack, when his father
told how Sir Ector and Kaye knelt before him and hailed him as King.
"Wouldn't it be fine, Mollie, if somebody should ring our front-door
bell now, and come in and prove that you and I were King and Queen of
somewhere, and that papa was bringing us up for Queen Victoria or
Emperor William, for instance?"

"I don't think so at all," said Mollie. "I don't want to be Queen, and I
don't think you'd make a good King, either. You slide down the banisters
too much to make a very royal King. Kings don't do such things."

"I guess they would if they could," said Jack. "What's the good of being
a King if you can't do whatever you wanted to?"

"I'd rather be a President, though," put in Mollie. "Kings have to wear
solid gold crowns with prongs on 'em all the time, and it must be
dreadfully uncomfortable."

"Very true, my dear," said her father. "A crown is about the most
uncomfortable possession a man can have, and Arthur, I fancy, felt very
much at first as you do. He felt very badly indeed when he learned that
Sir Ector was not his father, and that Kaye was nothing but a chum,
instead of a brother, as he had always thought, for he loved them both
more than he did any one el