But Ed did not tell him, for he had not yet got his foot from the bear's mouth, and was now too busy to do anything else but yell and cry "Oh, Moses!" Then my brother and I shouted out to Ed at the same time. This gave him great courage. He said something like "Confound you!" to the bear, and getting his foot loose without losing the boot he kicked the bear right on the nose. This brought things to a standstill. Ed hitched along a little higher up, and as the leaning trunk of the tree was already bending under his own and the bear's weight, the infuriated brute did not seem disposed to go further. Besides, as he had been mortally wounded, he was probably growing too weak to do much now. My brother got to the bottom of the canyon and brought Ed's gun to where I stood. But, as we had no powder or bullets, and as Ed could not get them to us, even if he would have been willing to risk our shooting at the bear, it was hard to decide what to do. It was already dusk and we could not stay there all night. "Boys," shouted Ed, at last, as he steadied himself in the forks of a leaning and overhanging bough, "I'm going to come down on my laz rope. There, take that end of it, tie your laz ropes to it and scramble up the hill." We obeyed him to the letter, and as we did so, he fastened his lasso firmly to the leaning bough and descended like a spider to where we had stood a moment before. We all scrambled up out of the canyon together and as quickly as possible. When we went back next day to get our ropes we found the bear dead near the root of the old mossy maple. The skin was a splendid one, and Ed insisted that my brother and I should have it, and we gladly accepted it. My brother, who was older and wiser than I, said that he made us take the skin so that we would not be disposed to tell how he had "treed a bear." But I trust not, for he was a very generous-hearted fellow. Anyhow, we never told the story while he lived. VIII. BILL CROSS AND HIS PET BEAR. When my father settled down at the foot of the Oregon Sierras with his little family, long, long years ago, it was about forty miles from our place to the nearest civilized settlement. People were very scarce in those days, and bears, as said before, were very plenty. We also had wolves, wild-cats, wild cattle, wild hogs, and a good many long-tailed and big-headed yellow Californian lions. The wild cattle, brought there from Spanish Mexico, next to the bear, were most to be feared. They had long, sharp horns and keen, sharp hoofs. Nature had gradually helped them out in these weapons of defense. They had grown to be slim and trim in body, and were as supple and swift as deer. They were the deadly enemies of all wild beasts; because all wild beasts devoured their young.