that it was a bear! Hays exclaimed, as he spurred his horse, 'Boys, we're lucky! They come down to feed on the snails!" At the same moment the company broke off like madmen. I followed; but having been pre-occupied, and less on the alert, was among the hindmost.

The valiant Doctor had between fifty and eighty rods the start of us. His fiery little pony carried him straight up to the nearest bear, which stood upon its hind feet stupidly snuffing the air, evidently greatly puzzled what to make of these new visitors. The gallant Doctor dashed up to it, and was raising his spear to strike, before the astonished animal had concluded to turn tail, which when it did, it waddled off with great speed. But the Doctor drove away manfully at its shaggy back with his weapon, and in his eagerness he had ridden so close that the pony, too, entering into the spirit of the affair, was biting with great vigor at the bear's haunches.

Such a combination of assailants was too much for Bruin's patience, and it wheeled so suddenly that, before pony could dodge, it had given him a blow with its tremendous paws which brought him to his knees. This unexpected stoppage, of course, sent the Doctor vaulting over the head of his beast. Happily for the Doctor, the pony, as the largest object, distracted the attention of the bear from him for an instant, and gave him time to regain his feet, and make for a low live oak which stood near. Into this he mounted with inconceivable nimbleness, but the bear was close at his heels. He ran out upon a limb, but the inexorable monster still pursued. He finally got out as far as the limb would sustain his weight, and there he stood, swayed to and fro in the air, holding on with one hand to the branches above him, while with the other he was pushing away most vehemently at the bear's nose with his spear, endeavouring to keep it at a respectful distance. This arrangement Bruin did not seem to feel disposed to agree to, but was cautiously and slowly pushing his way out on the limb, for the purpose of making a closer acquaintance.

The whole scene occupied but a few seconds. The foremost of the party, seeing the Doctor mount the tree, had galloped on, laughing, in pursuit of the other bears; while we were so much convulsed with merriment that I verily believe the

creature might have eaten the poor fellow whole before any of us would have recovered sufficiently to shoot, but for the interposition of Hays. He, by a great exertion of his remarkable self-command, so far recovered as to be able to send a ball through its head, which brought it to the ground.

Arrest, stop.
Intensity, force.

Diverge, turn.

Gorge, mountain-pass.

Manoeuvres, movements, tricks.
Paralysis of fright, panic.
Distended, spread.

There were now four bears in sight, which were making for the Knobs; and seeing that the Doctor was safe, without pausing we all swept by in headlong career, to arrest these fellows before they left the plain. The last I saw of the Doctor for many a day, he was dangling from the end of that live oak limb, in the act of driving his spear into the body of the wounded bear, while pony, with his ears laid back, was kicking most violently at its writhing body!

The intensity of individual excitement was all now given to the chase. Our party had broken up into four groups, each of which had selected for pursuit one of the unwieldy brutes, who were getting over the ground with astonishing speed in a direct line for the Knobs. We pushed them so hard, however, that instead of attempting to ascend the ridges, they all diverged into some one of the narrow valleys I have spoken of. It happened that a young Virginian and myself had selected the same animal, and, before we entered the gorge up which he ran, all the others of the party had disappeared into gorges of the same character, which led them to the opposite sides of the ridges. I now began to notice, for the first time, that there was trouble brewing with my horse. He had caught scent of the bear, and seemed to be terribly alarmed, snorting and bouncing up from the ground with a short, stiff spring, that almost jerked me out of my seat. Though his natural action was fully as great as that of the Virginian's horse, yet he, somehow or other, contrived not to get over much ground, and would not keep up. His manœuvres made me feel a little queer, though I am, and was then, a good horseman.

I saw my companion closing upon the bear, which suddenly diverged from the valley, up the hill, and lost sight of both behind an immense oak hung to the very ground with moss. In another instant he had fired two shots in quick succession. The idea of losing my shot entirely made me desperate; and, reining the horse's head with all my strength, I plunged the spurs furiously into his flanks.

Three or four frantic bounds, and he had brushed through the dense moss curtain under the live oak, and came through on the other side within five paces of the object of his terror-the bear, the loins of which had been broken by the two shots, and which was swaying its huge carcass to and fro, and roaring with its great gaping red mouth.

Had my horse been suddenly turned to stone, he would not have been more rigid than he became the instant his feet touched the earth. There was something positively awful in the paralysis of fright which seized him. His skin had been perfectly dry, and in a second, big drops had started, running off to the ground; his legs were set and stiff; his nostrils prodigiously distended, but motionless; his eyes shot out, and fixed, in the fascination of terror, upon the hideous object. I drove my spurs into him with redoubled strength, wrenching at the bit at the same time. His head felt like a rock, and only a slight quiver of the muscles answered the spur. I fairly shouted with rage as I struck him on the head with my gun-barrel. The blow sounded dull and heavy, but there was no motion, not even of an ear. I never felt so strangely in my life. I was frightened.

Deliberation, thought, reflection.
Bedizened, decked, ornamented.
Lariat, lasso, rope with a noose
at the end.

Protract, lengthen, extend. Unmanned, weakened, deprived of strength.

At this instant-for all had passed in an instant-just as the Virginian was levelling his pistol for a third shot, our attention was arrested by a quick succession of firing, like a platoon. It came from the other side of the ridge, and was followed up by the clamor which has only to be heard once to be remembered for ever-of the Comanche war-whoop; and then, above us, the

heavy tramp and rush of a troop descending the hill directly towards us. There was no time for deliberation. "The Indians! take care of yourself, friend!” hastily exclaimed my companion, as he wheeled his horse and dashed down the hill for the valley. Cold comfort that, "Take care of yourself," indeed.

I made one more desperate and unavailing effort to break the trance of the vile brute I strode, then sprang from his back, ran under the drooping moss, stepped up into the live oak, the forks of which were not over three feet from the ground, and ran along one of its massive limbs. I had barely time to conceal myself behind a dense cluster of the moss, when, with deafening whooping, a bronzed and feather-bedizened crew of some twenty Comanches swept into the valley just beneath me. They paused for an instant on seeing my horse, which was standing as I left him, and one of them took the lariat from the saddle-bow; but just then they caught sight of the flying Virginian, and, with a yell that made the very leaves shiver, dashed on in pursuit of him.

This broke the spell upon my horse; and, with a sudden start and shrill neigh, he plunged wildly through the crowd, dragging the warrior who held the lariat from his seat, and nearly unhorsing two or three others; then, as if the very fiends were lashing him with red-hot steel, he flew, rather than ran, out of the valley into the plains, neighing louder than the savages howled, till he was out of sight. In a little while, they, too, had disappeared; a gun or two followed at momentary intervals, and then the echoes faded into pulseless and oppressive silence, broken only by the sobbing moans of the wounded bear beneath me.

I was stupefied. These events were so strange, and had followed each other so rapidly, that I was dizzy and utterly confounded. Was it enchanted land? Here was I, three hundred miles beyond the remotest outskirts of civilisation, perched in a tree, my horse gone, friends scattered or scalped, this dead silence weighing upon my lungs. No! There is the dismal moan again! I must go down and stop that, or it'll run me crazy, sure enough. Ha! ha! this is a good joke. What a laugh I'll have with the fellows when we all get together again! Oh, they have all hid as I have done, and we will all meet out there at the mouth of the gorge after a while.

Pshaw! the fellows will be here directly, and what will they say to find I have been so unmanned by a little silence that I could not finish a wounded bear, when I came all this way to hunt it? So down I went. The great monster, I found, was too far gone to be savage. I went close up to him. I wanted him to show fight, and excite me. It looked like cold-blooded murder to kill him so, and we the only live things near; but he wouldn't notice me.

His back was broken, and he had enough to occupy him. Wouldn't it be merciful to put him out of pain? Yes; but who's going to be merciful to me when I'm starving, after my ammunition gives out? For the awful conviction was settling about my mind that the party had been scattered, and that I was left alone, with no experience to guide me back, and no hope of getting back on foot if I had possessed experience. But it wouldn't do to let this feeling gain the ascendant. I must have something to employ me. They might come yet.

So I killed the bear with my bowie-knife, and went to work to cut him up for food. I managed to protract this operation to such a length, that, when I looked up, I was surprised to find that the sun was setting. But I had no longer to complain of the stillness. Silence was the signal for the voices of the wilderness to break forth.

A long, screeching cry, that seemed right at my ear, made my blood curdle. I looked around. The limbs of a live oak near were rustling and swaying, as under some great weight. The head of a panther peered out from between two bunches of moss. We looked at each other. He stretched his white throat from the covert, turned up his nose, and snuffed towards me. He smelt the blood. His eyes were large and gleaming, but he looked innocent enough.

He stretched his jaws to scream again, and I saw his long white fangs; the cat tribe are well furnished about the jaws. But, horror! his cry has a dozen echoes all around, far away and near! and it is said they like man's meat the best. What shall I do? Shoot that meek-looking panther in the eyes? panthers tell no tales!

Dead

No; the Indians will hear the gun. That won't do. What then? Why, I'll climb to the top of this oak, so that these