minute and hurried into our riding
clothes while Dick and William went to saddle our horses. All the
time we kept fairly _pelting_ Virginia with questions. _Where were
the traps? What did they look like? Did she really think we'd get a
bear?_ She wouldn't tell us much of anything, except that bears were
not uncommon at all, and that the men liked to get them, because they
were a nuisance to the cattle. I think we were all seized with
different feelings as we got ready. Vivian's came out and sat upon
her face. You just knew she was hoping every bear in the Rockies had
been safe at home for a week; Mary kept saying the trip up the trail
would be so beautiful, but something told you she was secretly hoping
for a greater adventure; and I--well, I couldn't decide between the
triumph of bringing a real bear home, and the awfulness of seeing one
caught and killed.

"'In half an hour we were off. Hannah had given us each some
sandwiches in a bundle, which we rolled in our slickers and tied on
our saddles. Dick carried the big gun in a holster, and William a
coil of rope. Instead of turning off on the Lone Mountain trail we
went farther up the canyon, past the little school-house where
Virginia used to go, and on toward where the canyon walls were great
cliffs instead of foot-hills. It certainly was the _beariest-looking_
place I have ever seen. You could just imagine hundreds of them
taking sun-baths on the rocks, surrounded by their devoted families.

"'By and by we turned into a rocky, precipitous trail, and went
higher and higher. It was much steeper than on the getting-acquainted
trip. Sometimes it just seemed as though the horses couldn't make it,
but they did. My horse is a perfect wonder! He never hesitates at
anything. His name is Cyclone!'"

"I trust it has nothing to do with his disposition," interrupted Mrs.
Winthrop.

"'At noon we were in a perfect wilderness of huge trees, great jagged
rocks, and thickets almost as bad as the one Theseus went through to
reach Ariadne. William insisted on building a tiny fire to cook
bacon, so we rustled some dry sticks and made a little one on a flat
rock. I never in all my life tasted anything so good as that bacon
and Hannah's sandwiches and some ice-cold water from a little creek
that was tearing down the mountain-side.

"'Dick said as we rested for a moment that it would take us fifteen
minutes to rea