two young bears had upset,
the boys, keeping their faces to the fierce, savage brutes, slowly
retreated. The bears, at first only seeing the boys, came rushing
toward them, but when they reached their young ones they stopped for a
time, and then came on to attack the boys.

To the ledge of rocks Mustagan had carried the now happy children. They
had nearly smothered "dear old Mustagan," as they loved to call him,
with their kisses. Wild, indeed, were they with joy as father and
mother rushed forward and received them as from the dead. They could
only lie clinging to them while they wept out their bliss.

From it they were startled, as out rang a volley from the guns, and two
great, fierce bears rolled over each other, each shot through more than
one vital spot.

"Capture the little fellows alive!" was the cry.

And soon, after a lively chase and some sharp struggling, two four
months' old cubs were so tied up as to be unable to do any injury either
with teeth or claws.

Very anxious had the boys been during the search for the lost children.
Their only regret was that they were so powerless as to be unable to
join in the search. Very proud, however, were they to have had some
share in the exciting events of the last hours of their strange
deliverance. Tears were in their eyes and dimmed their vision as they
first saw them in the company of the wild beasts, showing by their
appearance what they must have suffered during the long days and nights
of such hardships.

The story of the children's account of their adventures and hardships
will be given in another chapter. Suffice here to say that very quickly
was the march taken up, after the half-famished little ones had been
fed, for they had had nothing but berries to eat, and, as Roderick put
it:

"Naughty bears, they kept me all the time picking berries for them."

The return to the camp on the banks at Sea River Falls, and then to
Sagasta-weekee, was soon made.

Great were the rejoicings there as well as at the mission, and at the
Hudson's Bay Company's fort, when the news of the finding of the lost
ones reached them. A special thanksgiving service was held the next
Sabbath at the mission church, at which whites and Indians from near and
far gathered, and entered heartily into the spirit of the service.

Three Boys in the Wild North Land--by Egerton Ryerson Young

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

WENONAH'S STORY OF THEIR MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES WITH AND DELI