The horse was steadier, and all might have ended well, but for certain dark objects that had appeared at this moment from behind the last bend and were dimly visible far up the pass. As they drew near, the ears of the recruit stiffened higher and higher, and a few short, wild snorts gave further signal of danger. In the oncoming group was a tall and sinewy mountaineer, bronze of face and shock-headed, who led a monkey with one hand and with the other held the chain of a large cinnamon bear. By his side, a little behind, tramped his wife in picturesque rags and tinsel. She carried a brown baby, and half dragged along a toddling boy with a tambourine. When only a dozen rods separated them from the carriage, the mountebank, obeying business instinct, commanded the bear to rise on his hind paws. With clumsy alacrity the beast did so, while the master doffed his hat, and with the others of the vagabond troop stood lined on the roadside ready to receive Carolina’s bounty. The huge brown shape risen so suddenly in his path was more than the overwrought nerves of the lordling could stand, and away he shot, bit and reins a cipher, bent upon turning out and flying past the mysterious terror. The hubs of the victoria struck against the low stone parapet, kept bumping hard and rapidly from one jagged projection to another, and do his best the driver could not steer the maddened animal clear of the rude masonry. Carolina’s first thought was to leap into the road rather than be popped over the wall to sure destruction. She did not wait for a second thought, but sprang, and landed by a miracle clear of the wheels, at the feet of the astonished bear. Another instant and the inquiring beast would have scratched her face or combed her hair, but his master jerked him back with a mighty tug at the chain, while the wife, setting down her baby, leaped to Carolina’s aid. They carried her to the herbage that fringed the highway. Then the mountebank set off at a run for the victoria, which had come to a standstill at a point where the road assumed an abrupt steepness. Horse, driver, and vehicle were faintly discernible through the powdery clouds thrown up by hoof and wheel. [Illustration: The bear-tamer’s wife.] “_Presto!_ To Cardinali!” cried the bear-tamer, coming up with the carriage, which the recruit was striving to back over the parapet. “A doctor! The signora has broken her leg!” “To Cardinali!” sneered the _cocchiere_. “Bah! The beast--woo-ah, woo!--he will mount no higher--woo-ah, woo!--and by San Giorgio, I blame him not.--There, now, ugly one, quiet, quiet.--No; if I go for a doctor it must be downhill. And you and your bear!” he added with a scowl at the showman. “A fine day’s work you have done. It is men and bears like you two that I would send to prison. Look at those hubs. Who will pay the damage? Not such as you, I warrant. Body of a whale! Why did I ever come here?”