enjoyed from the very start, we should have looked upon this as a reckless piece of business not to be countenanced, for in those days the loss of the animals would have put our lives in peril. It was about ten o'clock when we fastened the door of the cabin and flung ourselves down on the bunk. I looked out and saw the stars shining brightly, and the heavens without a cloud, and counted on a fair day for making our

start.

About half an hour before daylight next morning, we were aroused by queer noises about the cabin, and we tumbled out to find that some animal seemed bent on forcing an entrance. After listening to his growls, sniffs, and efforts for a few minutes, Skinner said the stranger was a grizzly bear. It was well for us that our cabin was stoutly built, for the bear actually shook the whole structure as he sought to force the door. The door and corners were pierced with loopholes, and as the bear sniffed and growled at one of these apertures, I thrust out the muzzle of my revolver and gave him a shot. The bullet must have hit, for he set up a terrible roar and went into a rage. He made several efforts to reach the roof, and could he have succeeded, he would have torn it down over our heads. By and by he recognized the uselessness of his efforts and lay down in front of the door and licked his wound, but kept up a continuous growling.

No further move on our part was made until daylight. Then when we could see our enemy and make sure of our aim, we put three more bullets into him. He was the largest grizzly I ever saw, standing as high as a two-year-old steer, and weighing nine or ten hundred pounds. His claws, teeth, and general appearance proved him an old settler. Up to daylight we had rather enjoyed the idea of such game hunting us out and asking us to kill him and take his head and claws for trophies, but after we had fired the four bullets into him without effect, except to increase his rage, strength and cunning, the situation assumed a different aspect. He retreated to the north side of the cabin, out of range of any of the

loop holes, and there stood sentry over our movements. The sound of our voices and footsteps provoked him to rage, and we were forced to the conclusion that our situation was serious. Our cabin was situated about two hundred feet back from the valley, under an overhanging ledge, and as the morning began to wear on, we became anxious about the horses. If there was one grizzly in the neighborhood, there might be two or three. The sight of one would be sufficient to send our animals helter-skelter, and there was no guessing where they would bring up.

We cooked and ate our breakfast, and then determined to bring the affair with the bear to a climax. The hunter stood at a loophole in the door with his heavy rifle ready to shoot, and I kicked at the slabs and rattled the bar, as if we were throwing it open. Old grizzly came rushing around the corner with a roar of defiance, and before he could get away another chunk of lead was added to his stock. He dropped to the ground, rolled over and over, and then retreated out of range. We couldn't play that game on him again. He would roar and growl in a way to make the chills run over us when we kicked on the door, but he had learned by experience. I finally opened the door and tossed an old coat out. He rushed and seized it, and Skinner's bullet clipped his ear only. Noon came, and the bear was still there. The forenoon had been sunshiny and pleasant, but as the sun climbed to meridian a change set in. The sky became overcast, the wind breezed up, and there was every indication of a storm setting in with night.

"He may tire out and go away by night," said Skinner, "but I hardly think So. While he is severely wounded he doesn't seem to have lost much blood or strength, and his rage is rather increasing. If we get out of this before to-morrow we shall have to try a bolder game with him."

"Dare we face him?”

"I have a plan. Thirty feet from the door is a tree which I can climb like a squirrel. I'll buckle on both revolvers, take some extra cartridges, and make a

bolt for it. I can be safe out of his reach before he is half way there. He may retreat behind the cabin to escape my fire. Therefore, after you have secured the door you had best climb up the chimney and get a position from which you can blaze away."

We talked the matter over for a few minutes, and the plan seemed an excellent one. Skinner could reach the tree in half a dozen jumps, and its low hanging branches offered him certain means of ascent. When we were both in position the bear must either retreat or be killed. When all was ready I opened the door and Skinner started. He was only clear of the threshold when I closed and barred the door and heard the roar of the bear as he made pursuit. My hands were not yet off the bar when a shot rang out, there was a cry from Skinner, and I flung the door open to see him and the bear struggling on the ground, midway between the cabin and the tree. The man had stumbled and fallen in his haste, and the bear had overhauled him before he could get to his feet again. It is hard to recall exactly what followed. I know I grabbed for my revolver and rushed out of the cabin, and I remember that bruin left Skinner and made for me. I kept dodging and firing, but he finally struck me, and then all was blank. When I opened my eyes again Skinner was beside me, and the bear lay dead a few feet away. He had given me a cuff on the head with his open paw, and, though the blow was hard enough to stun me, I had fortunately escaped his terrible claws. poor Skinner, however. The bear had first seized him by the left shoulder, tearing the flesh in an awful way, and had then inflicted bites on his leg and hip. His claws had also been called into play, and the hunter's skin was in shreds, and his clothes torn to strings. I forgot the pain of my hurt as I looked

him

"It

over.

It was different with

may not be so very bad, Colonel," he said, trying hard to smile. "But for that unfortunate stumble I'd have come out all right. I struck on my head as I pitched forward, and hadn't recovered

He tried to, but sank back with a groan. I was the larger and stouter man, and after getting my hands under him I had little trouble in raising him up and carrying him in doors. He gritted his teeth with pain, but not another groan escaped him. I had to remove his clothes, and the only way I could do it was to cut them off piece by piece. I then brought water and washed away the blood, and when I could see the wounds I knew that the poor fellow would be helpless for many long weeks. The teeth of the grizzly must have struck the bone wherever he bit. It did not take long to look over and roughdress his injuries, and when I was through he said:

"Now, Colonel, don't lose any time looking up the horses. There's certainly going to be a storm, and you must bring them here in the shelter of the timber."

I realized the importance of this step fully as much as he did, and, catching up my rifle and bidding him good-by, I hurried off. The wind was coming in gusts and hurling the leaves and twigs about, and it had grown fifteen or twenty degrees cooler inside of an hour. I left the cabin on a lope and kept up the pace until I reached the spot where the animals had been staked out. A horse and a mule lay there dead, each body being half eaten, while the others were nowhere to be seen. Both stake pins had been pulled up, and after a little further investigation I discovered that the animals had run off up the valley to the north. This valley, as we knew, extended seven or eight miles, and was intersected by several others. The animals must have gone away in a terrible fright, and the chances of my overhauling them at all were very slim. The two at my feet had been killed by grizzlies, and it was likely that the one which had visited us was one out of three or four which had descended on

the locality. The sky was growing blacker every minute, while the winds began to howl in a menacing way, and I turned and hurried back to the cabin, feeling that my situation was desperate. I found Skinner as I had left him, suffering terrible pain, but bearing it with the stoicism of an Indian brave. His injuries were so distributed that I could not even put a shirt on him. The best that could be done was to roll him in a blanket. We had two quarts of whiskey, a bottle of liniment, a box of salve, and some cottage bandages, and again I wiped off the fresh blood and fixed him up as well as possible under the circumstances. When I reported the fate of our animals he replied:

"It's a very unfortunate thing all round. There isn't much hope of ever seeing any of the horses alive again, and I know the signs of the weather well enough to understand that winter is about to set in. I'm thinking we are in for a two day's storm. To-morrow we'll have a talk about what had best be done."

Night swooped down on us like a hawk. After I had dressed Skinner's wounds anew I went to the door and found the air full of snowflakes. Our wood was entirely out, and I pricked up the light and set about cutting and carrying a new store, and worked at this for an hour or more, and then quit because the storm had grown so fierce that I could no longer face it, and the thermometer had dropped from sixtyfive degrees above in the forenoon to zero. This was an appalling change, and I knew that a severe and long continued storm was at hand. That night was a terribly long one. Skinner did not keep me awake, though he never closed his own eyes. It was the sudden and desperate change in our prospects. I could not expect that he would be able to move for three weeks at least, let his injuries improve ever so fast. Our animals were gone, and the idea of a sixty-mile tramp through such a country in winter, with a man just able to crawl, was enough to bring the hair on end. To remain meant what? We

had provisions to last us five or six days. After that we must depend on my rifle, and we would be lucky to keep actual want from the door. The thought of putting in the time there, until the sun and rains of May had opened the way out, was enough to keep one awake, let alone the screeching, roaring and bellowing of a Rocky Mountain gale.

When morning came the ground was covered with ten inches of snow, and it was still coming down, while the thermometer had fallen to five degrees below zero. Skinner tried to look and speak cheerfully, but I was satisfied in my own mind that his case was going to be.a serious one. The wounds showed signs of inflammation, and if fever came the chances were that he would be rubbed out. I had some flour, salt meat, and coffee, and it could not be hoped that he would relish anything I could prepare for him from this stock. He, however, sipped a little coffee and nibbled at a flour cake I mixed and baked, and when we were through with the gloomy meal he said:

"Colonel, we must look this case dead between the eyes. I was powerfully hurt by that bear, and if I had the best care in the world I could not get up for a month. As it is, I haven't one chance in fifty. I'm sure a fever is setting in, and inside of ten days I'll be a dead man. Now, then, I want you to do me a favor―a great favor."

"Of course I will."

"There's no use looking for the horses, for you won't find 'em. After the storm breaks I want you to start for Denver. It may take you a week to get there, but I think you'll pull through." "And desert you?"

"That's it. It will be closing the cabin on a dead man. I am certain that I have no show to get well, and to keep you here won't make me last a day longer, while it will peril your own life. When December comes the cold here will be beyond endurance,and any storm may leave you without shelter."

I felt hurt at his request, though I knew he was honest in making it. Telling him simply that his fate would be my

fate, I plunged out into the storm and attacked the carcass of the bear with axe and knife. If not very palatable it was still something in the shape of meat, and I felt quite exultant when I had the seven or eight huge pieces piled up in a corner of the cabin. The day passed slowly, and was full of gloom. The storm never let up for a moment, and when night fell I ploughed my way down to the valley, where the snow lay on a level, and found it twenty-five inches deep. That meant I was snowed under. A man could not breast that depth of snow and make five miles a day, nor could anything but the larger game move about. Nightfall also put an end to all doubts about Skinner's condition. Inflammation had set in, and he was feverish and lightheaded, and at least once every half hour through the night he called to me for water. When morning came again, the storm was breaking, but the snow was fully three feet deep, and the roof of our cabin was covered until one would have passed the structure ten feet away without seeing it. Skinner was entirely out of his head, and fought me savagely when I wanted to dress his wounds.

The only change in the situation for the next four days was a great improvement in the weather and a constant decline of my hopes regarding Skinner. The teeth and claws of the bear must have poisoned the flesh as well as torn it, for the wounds inflamed beyond any expectation, and the fever increased until it seemed as if the poor fellow was burning up. On the evening of the seventh day after his injuries were inflicted

he died. Half an hour before he drew his last breath the fever seemed to go away, and full consciousness returned. He took my hand and made some last requests, and then, in a clear, even voice, he gave me some directions to enable me to reach Denver by the shortest route, and warned me to set out next morning and take advantage of the improved weather. Death brought him peace from this world's calamities.

Next morning I found a south wind and a warm sun. Winter was giving me one last chance. I laid poor Skinner's body out on the floor, covered his face with a handkerchief and the body with a blanket, and I fastened the door from the outside so securely, that only a human being could break in. Before I reached Denver there was a change for the worse in the weather, and I had been almost ready a dozen times to fall down and die without another effort. I was ill in bed for a month, and it was twice that time before I fully recovered my strength. In early summer, when the snow had disappeared and the grass was springing up, I returned to the cabin, having the company of three or four prospectors. Nothing had disturbed it, and the dead body had been wonderfully preserved. We gave it Christian burial and marked his grave with the first stone set up in memory of man, among those mighty peaks and gloomy cañons. The horse and mule which had gone up the valley escaped the bears after all. Some time during the winter they returned to the cabin, but only to meet death by cold and starvation. Their bodies lay almost against the door.- The Sun.

bridge between the first Christmas and the last Fourth of July, but I shall not say so. Yet, if you will keep the first Germany, you will be interested to go to Detmold. On the summit of the Grotenberg, the culminating point of the Teutoburger Alps, you may see a great statue of hammered copper, forty-five feet high, standing on a circular pedestal of stone ninety feet high, erected by the Princes of Germany to the memory of Hermann.

Christmas and the last Fourth of July in mind, it will help you to remember the story. The first Christmas was the day on which our Savior was born. It seems as if it ought to have been the year ONE, but the almanac-makers have made a mistake in some way, and we cannot tell in what year the great event occurred. It was probably earlier than the almanac would have us think.

However, at the time when the angels sang their song of good-will to men, on the plains of Palestine, there was a little boy in the city of Rome who had been taken from the wild woods of Germany by the Roman army, and was getting his education as a citizen of the great nation. The Romans called him Arminius, but he had been named Hermann by his mother, and he did not let the fact, that the conquerors of his people gave him a new name, cause him to forget that he was a German and not a Roman. We can imagine him, as he studied his Latin lessons, thinking of the language of his mother, and of his old home and life of freedom, where the liberty-loving people dwelt to whom he was proud to belong. He was not alone in Rome, for one of his brothers was there also, and the Romans were trying to make both of them forget they were Germans. With the brother they succeeded. He took a Roman name, and would have nothing to do with Hermann in planning to get freedom for the German people. Years afterwards, the two brothers at the head of great armies, were often opposed in battle.

Hermann studied history in Rome. I think there can be no doubt of that. He learned how the Romans had conquered many nations, how, in spite of the bravery of the people there, they had obtained the mastery in Gaul, as the territory which is now France was then called. He knew it was the great Julius Cæsar who had conquered Gaul; but as he read further, he found that Cæsar was one of a "triumvirate," or government of three men, of whom one was Crassus, whose experience in trying to conquer other peoples was not like Cæsar's. It strikes me that Hermann

found some comfort in reading the story of how Crassus tried to overcome the Parthians on the plains of Mesopotamia, and how he was himself overthrown and killed, and his whole great army lost. This had happened when Hermann's father was a boy; and there must have been old men in Rome able to repeat the stories of the deeds of Crassus, who was the richest man in the city, and perhaps some who told Hermann all about the terrible defeat of the army by the "barbarians."

Perhaps he looked on some rough map and found that Parthia was way off among the mountains on the Caspian Sea. He knew that his people had been the most successful in resisting the encroachments of the Romans, and that when they had fought it had been for their freedom. I imagine that he said to himself: "What has been done can be done! The Parthians have overcome the Romans, why cannot the Germans do the same?" On the other hand, doubtless, he weighed the odds against him as he recalled the success of the other triumvirs, and especially the story of Pompey's conquest of the great King of Pontus, Mithridates. He must have thought of the failure of Hannibal, as well as of the long line of opponents of Rome who had fallen by turn before her victorious chariot wheels.

Hermann was not the sort of person who unthinkingly rushes to a conclusion. But he thought long of how much his people loved freedom, how they had once been free, and at last he made up his mind that they should be free again. The patriotic young student saw too the great difference between the Germans and the Romans. The one lived in cities, surrounded with every sort of luxurythey were gay and pleasure-loving. Every kind of dissipation abounded, and it was plain that the Roman people were not growing stronger, and that they would only grow weaker, unless they dropped some of their bad habits. He looked to the green woods of his home. He saw a people active, full of bounding health, who loved liberty so much as to be unwilling to live in cities or even