At the nearest ranch on the western side of the mountains, there lives a German who was the first pioneer to bring cattle in among these valleys. The encounters that he has had with all the various animals that live in the forest are very interesting. Not long ago, this old fellow built a new cabin for himself at the foot of a mountain. Before his house was finished, he went out one day and killed a fine fat deer. Bringing the carcass home at night, he hung it up against the back of his house, and then hanging a blanket over the doorway which was still without a door, he went to bed. He slept soundly, but there dimly seemed to him to be some disturbance about the house during the night; and when he went out in the morning, every bit of his fine deer was gone, and the bear tracks up and down the mountain-side showed what had become of it. But game was plentiful, and it was not long before his deer was replaced by a big-horned sheep, which is the most tender and juicy meat that ever was eaten. This time he was more careful, and lay awake half the night, fearing that he should lose his stock of fresh meat. When it was very late and he was about to give up watching, he at last heard a sound at the back of the house. Something was at work on his wild mutton. There was a noise of scratching and tearing. It seemed as if several bears were making short work with his meat. He seized his loaded rifle and jumped out of bed with very scanty clothing on. Going to the doorway and drawing aside the blanket, he saw that the night was cloudy and as dark as Egypt. He stopped and thought for a moment that it would be impossible to kill a bear in such darkness, even if he should be able to hit it, for these beasts are so tough that they will carry a dozen bullets about in their bodies without much inconvenience, if they are not wounded in the heart or the brain. So our friend laid down his rifle and took instead a loaded shot-gun. “This is the thing for them,” he said to himself; “it will pepper them all over and scare them so they never will come again.” Then, with gun in hand he silently climbed the projecting logs at the nearest corner of the cabin, and creeping across the roof, peeped over the edge above the place where the sheep was hung. Something appeared to be moving below in the darkness. Taking a random aim, he blazed away. The shot scattered and evidently took effect; for there arose a chorus of growls and howls and yells that would have made the bravest man’s hair stand on end; there was a scampering and shuffling of many feet up and down, and around the cabin; even in the thick darkness he could see many great fat creatures running and sniffing angrily about to find who had attacked them. He saw that he was besieged on his own roof by at least a dozen furious, hungry bears. “They didn’t scare worth a cent,” he said. It was not long before they discovered whence the shot had come,