After feasting, he took a snooze on the sofa, intending to take his leave the way he came at an early hour before the family was up, but he had drunken more of the good wine than he ought, and he slept soundly. He was awakened by voices, which told him that it was high time and past for him to make his exit, and he scooted up the chimney in great haste, but not a whit too quickly, for by the time he had raised himself up out of sight, several persons entered the room. He did not dare continue his ascent or move for fear of making a noise. He waited there, breathless, for a more favorable opportunity to climb out. It so happened that an ingenious Yankee neighbor of the English gentlefolk had suggested a more expeditious way of cleaning the chimney than by sweeping it out in the old British fashion. He said that all that was necessary was to throw several pounds of black gunpowder into the fire, which, flashing, would blow the soot out of the chimney. Of course, the genius had never tried the experiment himself, but as such geniuses are usually cocksure, he was so confident of success that he did not feel the need to make any preliminary experiments. Therefore, just as the tramp had mounted above the line of vision into the chimney, the genius, entering the room, threw the gunpowder into the fire, which instantly exploded with a great flash and smoke, blowing cinders and embers all over the room and filling it with dense, black, sulphurous smoke, burning the face and hands of the genius considerably, and frightening the elderly people out of their wits. But what frightened them all still more, was the appearance of the thoroughly singed and scared tramp, who fell from his perch in the chimney, down into the fireplace, and rolled out into the room, sneezing, coughing and saying things, all at once. The terrified tramp was easily secured, and when the master's gold watch--a gift from royalty and a family heirloom--was found upon his person, the genius was not only forgiven for his miscalculated experiment, but also thanked for his good offices. LO, THE POOR INDIAN! Dave King, editor of the _Morris County Press_, Morristown, New Jersey, was reared a lariat man in the Wild and Woolly, in the days before civilization, rum and guns had subdued the Cheyennes, the Comanches and the Sioux to extinction or to the more uncongenial fate of enforced good behavior. In all of Dave's hair-ruffling experiences--corralling stampeding long-horns, lassoing and riding a bull-buffalo bare-back, hunting, with Rex Beach, the great Kadiak bear in Alaska, whose enormous bulk and Ivan-the-Terrible disposition would by comparison make the grizzly of the Rocky Mountains a gentle companion--his most intimately interesting, close-to-nature adventure was when he was ten years old, and dwelt upon the upper waters of the Arkansas.