to the almost breathless couple a splendid spectacle. A magnificent creature was the great elk of the time of the cave men, the Irish elk, as those who study the past have named it, because its bones have been found so frequently in what are now the preserving peat bogs of Ireland. But the elk passed beyond the sight of the watchers, and so their bright hopes fell. The crispness of full autumn had come, one morning, when Ab and Oak met as usual and looked out across the valley to learn if anything had happened in the vicinity of the pitfall. The hoar frost, lying heavily on the herbage, made the valley resemble a sea of silver, checkered and spotted all over darkly. These dark spots and lines were the traces of such animals as had been in the valley during the night or toward early morning. Leading everywhere were heavy trails and light ones, telling the story of the night. But very little heed to these things was paid by the ardent boys. They were too full of their own affairs. As they swung into place together upon their favorite limb and looked across the valley, they uttered a simultaneous and joyous shout. Something had taken place at the pitfall! All about the trap the surface of the ground was dark and the area of darkness extended even to the little bank of the swamp on the riverside. Careless of danger, the boys dropped to the ground and, spears in hand, ran like deer toward the scene of their weeks of labor. Side by side they bounded to the edge of the excavation, which now yawned open to the sky. They had triumphed at last! As they saw what the pitfall held, they yelled in unison, and danced wildly around the opening, in the very height of boyish triumph. The exultation was fully justified, for the pitfall held a young rhinoceros, a creature only a few months old, but so huge already that it nearly filled the excavation. It was utterly helpless in the position it occupied. It was wedged in, incapable of moving more than slightly in any direction. Its long snout, with its sprouting pair of horns, was almost level with the surface of the ground and its small bright eyes leered wickedly at its noisy enemies. It struggled clumsily upon their approach, but nothing could relieve the hopelessness of its plight.