amed with blue-jays' wings; here were his few favorite books on the
swinging-shelf; and here, lying upon the couch, the latest copy of
"Punch." Dear Dick! The flour-sack was sometimes empty; but the gentle
satirist seldom missed his weekly visit.

I threw myself on the couch, and tried to read. But I soon exhausted my
interest in my friend's library, and lay there staring through the open
door on the green hillside beyond. The breeze again sprang up; and a
delicious coolness, mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole
through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of bumblebees outside the
canvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the opposite mountain, and
the fatigue of my morning ride, began to droop my eyelids. I pulled the
serape over me, as a precaution against the freshening mountain breeze,
and in a few moments was asleep.

I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been conscious, however,
during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape;
for I awoke once or twice, clutching it with a despairing hand as it was
disappearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly aroused
to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally
persistent force; and, letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it
swiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake;
for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to
emerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging the
serape after it. There was no mistaking it now: it was a baby-bear,--a
mere suckling, it was true, a helpless roll of fat and fur, but
unmistakably a grizzly cub!

I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspect
as it slowly raised its small, wondering eyes to mine. It was so
much taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its forelegs were so
disproportionately small, that, in walking, its hind-feet invariably
took precedence. It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed,
inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary
somersaults with the gravest astonishment. To add to its preposterous
appearance, one of its hind-feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's,
into which it had accidentally and inextricably stepped. As this
somewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and then,
possibly recognizing in the stranger the same species as its master, it
paused. Presently it slowly raised itself on it