"sleep with those dum things wandering
about! Not much." And the preacher rebuilt his fire, climbed upon a
log, and roosted there, with cocked carbine, until daybreak, while the
Lieutenant slept and snored.

The "other story" is about Private McNamara, a Grizzly, and some gray
squirrels. McNamara got leave to go hunting, and went over to Devil's
Gulch, the roughest canyon in the country and the best hiding place for
big game. McNamara had good luck, and killed about a dozen gray
squirrels, which he slung to his belt. He had turned homeward, and was
picking his way through the fallen timber, when a Grizzly arose from
behind a log about fifty yards away. McNamara raised his carbine and
fired. The bear howled and started for him, and McNamara felt in his
belt for another cartridge, but none was there. He had fired his last
shot.

McNamara realized that he had to trust to his legs to get him out of
that scrape, and he turned and ran faster than he ever sprinted in his
life. But the bear was the better runner, and gained rapidly. The
dangling squirrels impeded McNamara's action, and as he ran he tried to
get rid of them. He pulled two loose and dropped them, and the Grizzly
stopped to investigate. Bruin found them good, and he ate them in two
gulps and resumed the chase.

McNamara dropped some more squirrels and gained a good lead, and then
he unhooked his belt and dropped all that were left, and when the
Grizzly finished the lot McNamara was out of sight across the river and
getting his second wind for a long run home.

CHAPTER XI.

THE RIGHT OF WAY.

"It was pretty late in the season," said my friend, the prospector,
"when I took a notion that I'd like to see what sort of a country lies
north of the Umpqua River, in Oregon, and I struck into the mountains
from Drain Station with my prospecting outfit and as much grub as I
could pack upon my horse. After leaving Elk Creek I followed a hunting
trail for a day, but after that it was rough scrambling up and down
mountain sides and through gulches, and the horse and I had a pretty
tough time. The Umpqua Mountains are terribly steep and wild and it's
no fool of a job to cross them.

"There is any amount of game in those mountains, and where I went it
never is hunted, and, therefore, not hard to find. If I had cared to
shoot much, I could have killed a great many bears, but I wasn't in
there for fun so much as for business, and I didn't shoot but on