were gone.
Strange to tell, they had not scattered, and Pedro trailed them a mile
or more in the wilderness till he reached another very small box
canon. Here he found the missing flock perched in various places on
boulders and rocky pinnacles as high up as they could get. He was
delighted and worked for half a minute on his bank surplus of prayers,
but was sadly upset to find that nothing would induce the sheep to
come down from the rocks or leave that canon. One or two that he
manoeuvered as far as the outlet sprang back in fear from _something on
the ground_, which, on examination, he found--yes, he swears to
this--to be the deep-worn, fresh-worn pathway of a Grizzly from one
wall across to the other. All the sheep were now back again beyond his
reach. Pedro began to fear for himself, so hastily returned to the
main flock. He was worse off than ever now. The other Grizzly was a
Bear of ordinary size and ate a sheep each night, but the new one,
into whose range he had entered, was a monster, a Bear mountain,
requiring forty or fifty sheep to a meal. The sooner he was out of
this the better.

It was now late, too late, and the sheep were too tired to travel, so
Pedro made unusual preparations for the night: two big fires at the
entrance to the canon, and a platform fifteen feet up in a tree for
his own bed. The dog could look out for himself.

VIII. ROARING IN THE CANON

Pedro knew that the big Bear was coming; for the fifty sheep in the
little canon were not more than an appetizer for such a creature. He
loaded his gun carefully as a matter of habit and went up-stairs to
bed. Whatever defects his dormitory had the ventilation was good, and
Pedro was soon a-shiver. He looked down in envy at his dog curled up
by the fire; then he prayed that the saints might intervene and direct
the steps of the Bear toward the flock of some neighbor, and carefully
specified the neighbor to avoid mistakes. He tried to pray himself to
sleep. It had never failed in church when he was at the Mission, so
why now? But for once it did not succeed. The fearsome hour of
midnight passed, then the gray dawn, the hour of dull despair, was
near. Tampico felt it, and a long groan vibrated through his
chattering teeth. His dog leaped up, barked savagely, the sheep began
to stir, then went backing into the gloom; there was a rushing of
stampeding sheep and a huge, dark form loomed up. Tampico grasped his
gun and would have fired, when it da