led with anguish that it was impossible to tell where one left
off and the other began.

Sliding down the snow-covered side of a mountain in a frying-pan was
fraught with all the sensations Hicks had described and some he had
omitted.

When they had reached the particular spot which he had recommended for
the sport, in lieu of a frying-pan, Hicks gave Mr. Stott a well-worn
gold-pan that he had found somewhere.

Starting at the top with the party as spectators, Mr. Stott shot down
the side like the proverbial bullet, but midway his whoops of ecstasy
changed to cries of acute distress, owing to the fact that the friction
wore a hole through the pan to the size of a dollar, and Mr. Stott,
unable to stop his unique toboggan or endure the torture longer, turned
over and finished the trip on his stomach.

Mr. Stott's eyes often rested upon Hicks afterward with a questioning
look in them, but the cook's solicitude had been so genuine that cynical
as his legal training had made him, he was obliged to think that it was
purely an accident which might not happen one time in a million.

No point in the Park had been anticipated more than the camp at the
Canon where Mr. Hicks averred that the bears came in swarms to regale
themselves upon the hotel garbage. Their tour thus far had been a
disappointment in that the wild animals, with which they had been
informed the Park teemed, were nowhere in evidence.

A deer had crossed the road ahead of them and they had gazed at a band
of elk through Mr. Penrose's field-glasses, but otherwise they had seen
nothing that they could not have seen in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Hicks' tales of the bears had aroused their interest to such a point
that as soon as the camp site was selected they loaded their cameras and
kodaks and set off immediately to get pictures while the light was
favourable.

It chanced to be one of the days, however, when the bears had no taste
for garbage and although they waited until nearly supper-time not a bear
put in its appearance. Mr. Penrose, in particular, was disappointed and
vexed about it, and while it was unreasonable to hold Hicks in any way
accountable for their absence, he could not refrain from saying
disagreeably:

"I think you have exaggerated this bear business, Hicks. I have no doubt
that a bear or two may come down occasionally, I have the word of others
for it, but as for droves of bears--swarms--I think you have
overstated."

Mr. Hicks cringed under