NOTE.—The author, fearing that the account of fire springing from the earth, given in the following story, may be considered by the reader too improbable for any book but one of Arabian fables, wishes to say that the fire and the explosion occurred in the place and manner described. The Fire Bear had never before been seen in the Blue River neighbourhood. His former appearances had been at or near the mouth of Conn’s Creek, where that stream flows into Flatrock, five or six miles southeast of Balser’s home. Flatrock River takes its name from the fact that it flows over layers of broad flat rocks. The soil in its vicinity is underlaid at a depth of a few feet by a formation of stratified limestone, which crops out on the hillsides and precipices, and in many places forms deep, cañon-like crevasses, through which the river flows. In these cliffs and miniature cañons are many caves, and branching off from the river’s course are many small side-cañons, or gullies, which at night are black and repellent, and in many instances are quite difficult to explore. One of these side-cañons was so dark and forbidding that it was called by the settlers “The Black Gully.” The conformation of the rocks composing its precipitous sides was grotesque in the extreme; and the overhanging trees, thickly covered with vines, cast so deep a shadow upon the ravine that even at midday its dark recesses bore a cast of gloom like that of night untimely fallen. How Balser happened to visit the Black Gully, and the circumstances under which he saw it—sufficiently terrible and awe-inspiring to cause the bravest man to tremble—I shall soon tell you. The country in the vicinity of Flatrock was full of hiding-places, and that was supposed to be the home of the Fire Bear. The morning after Polly and Balser had seen the Fire Bear, they went forth bright and early to follow the tracks of their fiery enemy, and if possible to learn where he had gone after his unwelcome visit. They took up the spoor at the point where the bear had crossed the river the night before, and easily followed his path three or four miles down the stream. There they found the place where he had crossed the river to the east bank. The tracks, which were plainly visible in the new-fallen snow, there turned southeast toward his reputed home among the caves and gullies of Flatrock and Conn’s Creek.