The Emperor had often addressed himself with severe and even copious condemnation, but this was the first time that he had ever taken S. Strong by the coat-collar and violently faced him about. He could see clearly where the bear had broken through the wet briers on his way down to the flat country. It was a moment of peril, and he gave himself no time for argument. He hurried away in the trail of the bear. It lay before him, unmistakable as the wake of a boat, and would show where the animal was wont to cross the water below. He came soon to a great log lying from shore to shore of that inlet of Rainbow which was called Bushrod Creek. He could see tracks near the end of the log, and there, with a spruce pole for a lever, he set his traps in the sand so that, if the first were not sprung, the second would be sure to take hold. He covered the great, yawning, seven-toothed jaws of steel and fastened heavy clogs upon both trap chains. Then he took the piece of bacon from his pack and hung it on a branch above the traps. Shrewdly the hunter had made his plan. That bear would probably return to the dead buck, and the scent of the bacon would attract him to that particular crossing. He tore two pages from his memorandum-book, and wrote this warning on each: STOP TRAPS AHED S. STRONG. He fastened them to stakes and posted them on two sides of the point of danger. It was then past eleven and too late for the long journey to Lost River camp. He decided to go to Henyon's on the Middle Branch and get the trapper to come and keep watch while he took Sinth and the children to Benson Falls. On his way out of the slash he killed a deer, and dressed and hung him on a tree. Then he set out for the trail to Henyon's. He had walked for an hour or so when his pace began to slacken. "T-y-ty!" he whispered, stopping suddenly. "S. Strong, what's the m-matter? Yer all of a-tremble." Strong felt sick and weary, and took off his pack and sat down to rest on a bed of leaves. Then he discovered that the handkerchief upon his arm was dripping wet. Again he stopped the blood by cording. He lay back on the ground suffering with faintness and acute pain. Soon obeying the instinct of man and beast, which prompts one to hide his weakness and even his death-throes, he crept behind the top of a fallen tree. His heart had been overstrained of late by worry and heavy toil. Now for the first time he could feel it laboring a little as if it missed the blood which had been dripping slowly but steadily from his arm. At last a day was come that had no pleasure in it--a day when the keepers of the house had begun to tremble. Soon the warm sunlight fell through forest branches on the great body of Strong, who had lost command of himself and become the prisoner of sleep.