Rogers had bolted from his bunk and was crouching in the farthest corner. A large flake of wood chipped from a log above him had fallen on his pillow, and lay there to show what had awakened him to the dangers of the situation. The sheet-iron stove-pipe which carried off the smoke through the roof hung limply in two, a shot having undermined the strength of the joint at the elbow, and, as Bantling was taking in all this, a tiny looking-glass that one of them had hung on the wall fell in a tinkling shower of splinters from another shot, while Fox muttered wildly:-- "Mind that bear! Don't let him get away on you. I've hit him once in the shoulder." To be shut up in a shack fourteen feet by ten with a man afflicted by nightmare in the form of imaginary bears to be shot is not an enviable situation, and for Rogers it was an extremely dangerous one, as Fox was shooting straight at him. Bantling slipped from his bunk and, striding across the hut, seized the dreamer's wrist in a paralyzing grip. With the touch Fox's eyes, which had been wide open all the time, lost their unseeing stare. He turned a bewildered gaze from the hand on his wrist to the angry face above him. "There was a bear," he explained, mildly. "Did I get him?" "Get him!" said Bantling, wrathfully. "You fool! You nearly got Rogers! And look at the damage you've done!" As the situation dawned on Fox his dismay knew no bounds. [Illustration: THE HUT WHERE THE NIGHTMARE INCIDENT HAPPENED, WITH ROGERS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. _From a Photograph._ ] "I'm real sorry, you fellows," he said. "I guess I've had a touch of the worst kind of nightmare. Bantling, you'd better take charge of my six-shooter." "You bet your life!" replied Bantling, briefly, but with immense feeling, as he took possession. "I'm real sorry," said Fox again, turning to Rogers, "to have given you such a time. It appears it isn't me who ought to tell folks not to dream about bears, and I guess it'll be as well for the health of you fellows, if not my own, that I shouldn't eat quite such a hearty meal in future just before turnin' in." The Life of a Steeplejack. BY WILL LARKINS. In this impressive article, =Mr. W. Larkins=, the well-known steeplejack, of Bow, London, sets forth some of his most exciting experiences in the way of felling chimneys and repairing steeples--a form of "high art" which has perils peculiarly its own. The striking photographs which accompany the text lend additional realism to a straightforward narrative. I come of a race of steeplejacks. My father earned his living at the business, and met his death at it, falling from a church spire at Dumbarton, in Scotland.