"Please, Mr. Bear, I hope I didn’t disturb you. But, you see, I’ve sprained my ankle badly, and I was shouting for some one to come and help me." "Ho, ho! you are hurt, are you?" was the reply, in rather a gentler tone. "Well, I’ll look after you." And so saying, the bear picked the big boy up in his arms as though he had been a little baby, and marched off with him through the woods at a rapid rate. Wilby knew resistance was vain, so he just made up his mind to take things as quietly as possible; which, under the circumstances, was a very wise thing to do. After about five minutes’ walking, his captor came to a large tree which had been torn up by the roots. Under this he quickly dodged, and entered what seemed to be a long, dark passage. In spite of his good resolution, Wilby could not help a kind of groan at this. "Shut up!" growled the bear, giving him a by no means gentle cuff on the side of the head. Wilby did shut up, and for a time nothing was to be heard save the soft thump, thump, thump of the bear’s broad feet on the hard floor of the passage. At last they stopped. The bear gave something a kick, a door flew open inward, and then there burst upon the bewildered Wilby such a sight as he had never even dreamed of in his life before. He found himself in a large room, flooded with light and warmth from a glorious wood fire that was crackling away in a huge fireplace at one end. At first he thought the whole place had just been newly whitewashed, but soon discovered his mistake. Everything in and about that room was marble—white marble—pure and glistening as the snow outside. Floor, walls, ceiling, tables—they were all marble alike, and they looked wonderfully fine, with the firelight flashing upon them. But before Wilby had time to take much more in, he heard a deep bass voice asking,— "Hallo, Major! what have you got there?" And turning his head, he saw a splendid white bear, a good deal bigger than his rescuer, coming toward them from the far end of the room. "Some farmer’s son, Max," answered the Major, at the same time gently depositing his load on a couch near the fire. "I found him ’most frozen to death in a snow-drift.. I guess we can make him all right again." "Of course we can," exclaimed another voice, much livelier in tone than the first speaker’s, and a third bear, quite as white but not so tall as either of the others, emerged into the firelight from a dark corner, where he had been attending to some household duty. "Of course we can, if you say so, Minor," growled the one called Max, good-humouredly. "We’ll begin by giving him a good dinner, at all events." By the way, I forgot to mention that the full names of Wilby’s new friends were Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, and Ursa Maximus, but for convenience’ sake they called one another simply Minor, Major, and Max.