the West.

He sat up to begin his story, pressing tobacco into his pipe. "Oh, it's
not so much of a story, Sylvie. It was last spring when the river was
high and I'd been out with my traps. I was coming home along the river
edge, pretty tired, a big load on my back. I came around a bend of the
river, and not far below me a little black bear, round as a barrel, was
trying to scramble over the flood on a very shaky log. The mother was
on the other side, but I didn't know that then. Well, there's nothing in
God's world, Sylvie, so beguiling as a baby bear. This little fellow was
scared by what he was doing, but he was bound he'd get across the river.
He'd make a few steps; then he'd back up and half rise on his hind legs.
I watched him a long time. Then he made up his mind he'd better make a
dash for it. He began scrambling like a frantic kitten, and it was just
in the most ticklish spot that he heard me and jumped and went rolling
off into the river. I tell you, my heart came right up into my mouth."

"Oh, _was_ he drowned?" wailed Sylvie.

Hugh rose and stood with his back to the fire, dominating the room even
more convincingly, with his vivid ugliness. Sylvie's face turned up to
him like a white flower to the sun it lives by, without seeing. It was
strange to watch the adoration, the worship on that small face, and at
the same time to behold the grotesqueness toward which it was directed.
Bella was listening with her lowered eyes and tightened lips. She was
interested in spite of herself; and Pete's inscrutable face followed the
story with absorption.

"Well, in he rolled with a splash and went rattling down the current,
turning over and over. Like a fool, I threw away my hides, ran down the
bank and jumped in after him--that is, I meant to hold on to a branch
and stand out in the water and catch him as he went by. But the nymph
I told you about had her own plans. She wrapped her arms round me, and
away we went, bear all. Oh, yes, I'd caught the cub all right, and he
was about half drowned by that time--no fight left in him.

"Well, for a bit it was a question whether the world wouldn't be quickly
and well rid of us both, but we tumbled up against a root and scrambled
out, and when I'd rested, I picked up limp and trembling Master Bear and
went back for my hides. And while I was collecting them, I heard a sort
of grumpy, grumbling sound, and I looked up--and, by Jove, Mother Bear
was coming across that log with the