"It's part o' my business," said Sandboys. "I told you once before about how the bears come down from the mountains in winter and sleep here in the hotel rooms, an' lead a reg'lar hotel life among 'emselves, until the snow melts, when we have to drive 'em out. They climb in the windows of the cupola generally, burrowin' down to it through the snow, an' divide up the best rooms in the house, an' enjoy life out o' the wind an' storm, snug 's bugs in rugs. Last June there must ha' been a hundred of 'em here when I got here, an' one by one I got rid of 'em. Some I smoked out; some I deceived, gettin' 'em to chase me out through the winders, an' then doublin' back on my tracks an lockin' 'em out. Others I gets rid of in other ways; but it's pretty hard work, an' when night comes I'm generally pretty well tired out. "By actual tally this June I shood a hundred an' three bears off into the mountains. When the hundred an' third was gone I searched the house from top to bottom to see if there was any more to be got rid of; every blessed one of the five hundred rooms I went through, and not a bear was left that I could see. I tell you, I was glad, because there was a partickerlarly ugly run of 'em this year, an' they gave me a pile o' trouble. They hadn't found much to eat in the hotel, an' they was disapp'inted an' cross. As a matter of fact, the only things they found in the place they could eat was three sofy cushions an' the hotel register, which don't make a very hearty meal for a hundred an' three bears. [Illustration] "All this time I was sufferin' like hooky with bad spasms of whoopin'-cough, an' that made my work all the harder. So, as you can guess, when I found there warn't another bear left in the house, I just threw myself down anywhere and slept. My! how I slept! I don't suppose anything ever slept the way I did. And then what do you suppose happened? As I was a-lyin' there unconscious, a great big black hungry bruin that had been hidin' in the bread-oven in the bake-kitchen, where I didn't think of lookin' for him, came saunterin' up, lickin' his chops with delight at the idee of havin' me raw for his dinner. I lay on, unconscious of my danger, until he got right up close, an' then I waked up, an' openin' my eyes, saw this great black savage thing gloatin' over me. He was sniffin' my bang when I caught sight of him." "Mercy!" cried Bob. "There was no use o' askin' for mercy from him," retorted Sandboys, with a convincing shake of his head. "He was too hungry to think o' bein' merciful."