"Gad! that wasn't cheerful news a little bit. If there's anything in this world I more than don't like, it's a bear--he's so darn big and strong and unreasonable, and unless you catch him sitting, you can pump lead into him until you're black in the face, and it's all one to him. Well, I thought I might as well camp with the herders until Aggy came back. "When he did show up he was rather under the influence of strong drink, and from the looks of the waggon he'd brought with him, I should say he'd bought about everything that was movable in Salmon City. I ain't easily astonished, but I must admit that some of the truck got the best of me. I kept asking, 'What in ---- is this, Ag?' and he always answered, 'Ask the driver.' Well, now, if there was any choice between the two, the driver was drunker than Aggy, so you can imagine what a lot of satisfaction I got. There was one thing that I simply couldn't make head nor tail of, and I stayed with him until I got an answer on that. "'Why, it's an alcohol cooking-stove,' said he, 'great medicine--no trouble to cook now at all. Just light her,' says he, waving his hand, 'and whoop! away she goes! Where's that can of alcohol? Here she is! Have a drink, Hy?' "I took a small swig of it in a little water to please him, but there weren't stimmilants enough in the country to raise my spirits that night. I put all the plunder that I could lift up in the cock-loft, and the rest I left sitting around. "I don't exactly know where you fellers are going to sleep,' says I, trying to be sourcastic. 'Pity you didn't order a folding-bed, Ag.' "'I did,' says he. "'A folding-bed?' I repeats, not believing my ears. "'And a piano,' says he. 'What is home without a piano? Answer: It's a place that can't hold the forte--dam good joke--keno--go up to the head, Jones.' "'Well,' says I, after some other things, 'who's going to pay for all this?' "'God knows!' says he, waving his hand again. 'Good-night!' and with that he fell down between a new bureau and a patent portable blacksmith's forge, and putting his head on a concertina, went sound asleep. "I couldn't follow suit for some time; it's one thing to come home full of budge and animal spirits yourself, and it's quite different to have your pardner work it on you. At last, however, I concluded it would be all the same the next century, and turned in, but I was so rattled that I forgot the bears, and didn't lock up with the usual care.