farmers discussing the crop prospects, the bears inspected the pigs in clover.  One of them presently lifted a hind foot and placed it upon the bottom rail, and Don Mariano was about to break forth with a yell, when he saw that the bear was only getting into a more lazily comfortable position.  Then the bear cocked his head to one side and thoughtfully scratched his ear.  The hogs were nosing around in the clover, and the whole drove was in full view of the bears.  The hogs were still lean and athletic.

[Illustration:  The Bears Inspected the Pigs in Clover.]

After contemplating the drove for about ten minutes, one of the bears turned about, walked two or three steps upright, came down to all fours, and, with a grunt, shambled slowly away.  The other leisurely followed, and they disappeared in the woods.  Now, Don Mariano didn’t understand at the time, but he learned later that those bears were sizing up his hogs, and after inspection they had decided that there wasn’t one in the lot fat enough to kill.

During the next month Don Mariano saw bears loafing about the edge of the woods or lolling over his fence at least a dozen times, and he couldn’t at all make out what they were at, as they did not molest his hogs.  One day he noticed with satisfaction that the hogs were improving and that one youngster, who had attended strictly to his feed, was actually growing fat.  The bears must have caught on at about the same time, for that pig was missing the next morning.

From that time on the alfalfa field was raided nearly every night, and the fattest pig was taken every time.  A five-string barb-wire fence proved to be no protection, and the bears wouldn’t go near a spring gun, and so, to save the remnant of his drove Senor Ortiz set about building a stockade corral, so high that no bear could climb over it.  It was slow work cutting, hauling and setting the logs, and when the corral was finished there was only an old sow left to be put into it.

The sow soon had a litter of a dozen pigs, and Don Mariano fed them and saw them grow with satisfaction and certainty that the bears would not get them.  When they were about roasting size Don Mariano looked into the corral one morning and counted only eleven little pigs.  The missing pig could not have got out, as there was no hole in the corral, and Don Mariano eyed the old sow with suspicion.  Still he was inclined, like all good Mexican people, to explain inexplicable things by the simple formula:  “It is the will of God,” and with a shrug he dismissed the mystery from his mind.

But when he missed a second and a third little pig from the litter, he openly and violently accused the old sow of devouring her offspring, and talked of sending down to El Macho for the Padre.  He did better than that, however, for he isolated the old sow in a board pen and gave the youngsters the run of the corral.  A day or two later another pig mysteriously disappeared, and Don Mariano began to