etting me straight, giving me a gentle
thrust before leaving me quite at peace. All at once I was thoroughly
aroused by a terrific yell, and I started up, but only to be knocked
over. There was a rush of feet, followed by a rustling, and crackling
of bushes, and this sound grew fainter and fainter till it died away.

"What is it? Who shouted?" cried Gunson, jumping up.

"It was me," cried Esau.

"What for? Who was it ran away? Here; where is Gordon?"

"I'm here," I said. "What's the matter?"

"That's what I want to know," said Gunson. "Was it an Indian, Dean?"

"No; it was a great pig as big as a bullock; he'd got one hoof on my
chest, and was smelling me with his wet snout touching my face when I
woke up and shouted, and he ran off."

"Pig, eh?" said Gunson. "It must have been a bear."

"A bear! What, touching me like that?" cried Esau, excitedly.

"No doubt about it. But it does not matter. You frightened it more
than it frightened you, and it has gone."

"Ugh!" cried Esau, with a shudder. "Was it going to eat me?"

"Probably," replied Gunson.

"What!"

"Well, it might have been. You are not bitten?"

"I dunno," cried Esau, excitedly. "P'r'aps I am."

"Are you scratched or clawed?"

"Can't say, sir; very likely. Oh dear, oh dear, what a place to come
to! I can't go to sleep again after this. But do you really think it
was a pig, sir--I mean a bear?"

"It must have been. The only other creature possible would be a bison
or a deer, and it is not likely to have been one of them."

Gunson took his rifle, and I heard the click of the lock as he cocked
it, to step out of the shelter, and look round, but he stopped directly.

"Where is Quong?" he cried.

"Me velly safe up here," came in a high-pitched voice from somewhere
over our heads in the darkness.

"Did you see anything?" cried Gunson. "Was it a bear?"

"Too dalk see anything," he replied. "Only hear velly much wood
bleaking."

All was quite still now, save Gunson's footsteps as he walked about our
camp, and the roar of the falling waters down toward the river where the
stream near us dropped in a cascade; and he was soon back.

"I shall break my neck in the darkness," he said, as he joined us. "I
can hear nothing, and I have nearly gone headlong twice."

"Do you think it will come back?" I said, feeling no little
trepidation.

"No; Dean's yell was enough to scare a whole zoological garden. But lie
down, lads, and