have helped a brother miner or mountaineer, although he knew that it could only have been drink or bravado that brought him into the gorge in a snowstorm, but it was very evident that these were “greenhorns,” or eastern tourists, and it served their stupidity and arrogance right!  He remembered also how he, having once helped an Eastern visitor catch the mustang that had “bucked” him, had been called “my man,” and presented with five dollars; he recalled how he had once spread the humble resources of his cabin before some straying members of the San Francisco party who were “opening” the new railroad, and heard the audible wonder of a lady that a civilized being could live so “coarsely”?  With these recollections in his mind, he managed to survey the distant struggling horses with a fine sense of humor, not unmixed with self-righteousness.  There was no real danger in the situation; it meant at the worst a delay and a camping in the snow till morning, when he would go down to their assistance.  They had a spacious traveling equipage, and were, no doubt, well supplied with furs, robes, and provisions for a several hours’ journey; his own pork barrel was quite empty, and his blankets worn.  He half smiled, extended his long arms in a decided yawn, and turned back into his cabin to go to bed.  Then he cast a final glance around the interior.  Everything was all right; his loaded rifle stood against the wall; he had just raked ashes over the embers of his fire to keep it intact till morning.  Only one thing slightly troubled him; a grizzly bear, two-thirds grown, but only half tamed, which had been given to him by a young lady named “Miggles,” when that charming and historic girl had decided to accompany her paralytic lover to the San Francisco hospital, was missing that evening.  It had been its regular habit to come to the door every night for some sweet biscuit or sugar before going to its lair in the underbrush behind the cabin.  Everybody knew it along the length and breadth of Hemlock Ridge, as well as the fact of its being a legacy from the fair exile.  No rifle had ever yet been raised against its lazy bulk or the stupid, small-eyed head and ruff of circling hairs made more erect by its well-worn leather collar.  Consoling himself with the thought that the storm had probably delayed its return, Jack took off his coat and threw it on his bunk.  But from thinking of the storm his thoughts naturally returned again to the impeded travelers below him, and he half mechanically stepped out in his shirt-sleeves for a final look at them.

But here something occurred that changed his resolution entirely.  He had previously noticed only the three foreshortened, crawling figures around the now stationary wagon bulk.  They were now apparently making arrangements to camp for the night.  But another figure had been added to the group, and as it stood perched upon a wagon seat laid on the snow Jack could see that its outline was not bifurcated