erno esta suelto!' he yells. 'Santiago!
Santiago! Ten quidado conmigo! Madre mia! Salvame! Salvame pronto!'
Lord, I can see him now, scuttling over the fair face of the Territory
of Idaho in the bright moonlight like a little bird--chest out; hands
up; head back; black hair snapping in the breeze; long legs waving like
the spokes of a flywheel, and yelling for Santiago to keep an eye on
him, and for his mother to save him quick, as long as he was in sight.
And when he passed, he passed out. He took a different direction from
his horse, so it ain't likely they met, but neither one of 'em was seen
no more around our part of the country."

[Illustration: Miguel could run when he put his mind to it.]

"Still, by and by there floated back to us a story of how a greaser had
been chased by a horrible white devil that stood twenty foot high, with
teeth a foot long, horns, hoofs, claws, and a spiked tail; which
travelled at a rate of speed that made a streak of lightning seem like
a way-freight, scattering red fire and brimstone as it ran; which
chased said greaser forty mile over hill and dale and gulch and
mountain top and Bad-Land district, after polishing off his horse in
one bite, and finally sank into the ground with a report like a ton of
giant powder.

"And I've often wondered what really become of that bear."

The Little Bear who Grew

I was standing at the door of the office one afternoon in August. The
office was on Main Street,--a thoroughfare fronting railroad tracks and
a long strip of fenced grass, dotted with newly planted trees, called
the "park,"--in a North Dakota town. It was hot. I mean, hot. Down
that long thin street the shadows of false-fronted stores lay like blue
slag on molten iron. Nothing moved: this particular metropolis-to-be
of the Northwest was given over to heat and silence. Yet it wasn't
muggy, sea-coast heat that turns bone and muscle into jelly--it was a
passion of sun-power, light and heat together.

Just to be on a horse out in it over the prairie swells was to taste
the flavour of adventure. But no such thing for me. I had to take
care of the office. A thermometer inside that office marked one
hundred and fourteen degrees. Had it been inside of me it would have
marked three hundred and fourteen degrees.

I shall not tell the series of injustices that obliged me to stay in
that hencoop, while the rest of the force went gleefully up the line to
attend a ball gam