e back. After I hadn't seen it fer a half-hour,
I began to think maybe it had _really_ gone away; but I knew how foxy
a bear could be, an' thought jest as like as not he was waitin',
patient as a cat, on the other side o' the rock fer me to look round
so's he could git a swipe at me that would jest wipe my face clean
off. I didn't try to look round. But I kept yellin' every little
while; an' all at once a voice answered right over my head. I tell you
it sounded good, if _'twasn't_ much of a voice. It was Steevens, my
packer, lookin' down at me.

"'Hello, what in h---- are ye doin' down there, Job?' he demanded.

"'Waiting fer you to git a rope an' hoist me up!' says I. 'But look
out fer the bear!'

"'Bear nothin'!' says he.

"'Chuck an eye down the other side,' says I.

"He disappeared, but came right back. 'Bear nothin',' says he agin,
havin' no originality.

"'Well, he _was_ there, 'an' he stayed all the afternoon,' says I.

"'Reckon he must 'a' heard ye was an animal trainer, an' got skeered!'
says Steevens. But I wasn't jokin' jest then.

"'You cut fer camp, an' bring a rope, an' git me out o' this, _quick_,
d'ye hear?' says I. 'There's a rattler lives here, an' he's comin'
back presently, an' I don't want to meet him. Slide!'

"Well, boys, that's all. That bear _wasn't_ jest what I'd wanted; but
feelin' ugly about him, I decided to take him an' break him in. We
trailed him, an' after a lot o' trouble we trapped him. He was a sight
more trouble after we'd got him, I tell you. But afterwards, when I
set myself to tryin' to train him, why, I might jest as well have
tried to train an earthquake. Do you suppose that grizzly was goin' to
be afraid o' _me?_ He'd seen me afraid o' _him_, all right. He'd seen
it in my eyes! An' what's more, _I_ couldn't forgit it; but when I'd
look at him I'd _feel_, every time, the nightmare o' that great wicked
face hangin' there over the cliff, close to mine. So, he don't
perform. What'll ye take, boys? It's hot milk, this time, fer mine."

THE DUEL ON THE TRAIL

THE DUEL ON THE TRAIL

White and soft over the wide, sloping upland lay the snow, marked
across with the zigzag gray lines of the fences, and spotted here and
there with little clumps of woods or patches of bushy pasture. The sky
above was white as the earth below, being mantled with snow-laden
cloud not yet ready to spill its feathery burden on the world. One
little farm-house, far down the valley,