," said Doctor
Tom, but he offered no more explanation. When asked how he broke his
arm, he replied, "Fall down." Evidently he had fallen down, but there
were five odd-looking marks on his throat, and Boston thought of that
cry in the night and wondered if the whispering firs could tell of
another mystery hidden in the forest; of a menacing shadow dogging the
footsteps of a man and grappling with him in the dark.

Boston and Doctor Tom broke camp and started back over the mountain on
the Hood River trail. Boston was in the lead, and as he walked along
he looked closely for the tracks of the stranger's boots, as he had
said he was going to Hood River. There were no tracks. The stranger
had not gone over that trail.

CHAPTER XV.

A CAMPFIRE SYMPOSIUM.

"Speaking of bears, Joe," said one of a party of hunters sitting around
a campfire at old Fort Tejon, "Old Ari Hopper has had more queer
experiences with bears than anybody. He has given up hunting now, but
he used to be the greatest bear-killer in the mountains. Ari has a
voice like a steam, fog-horn--the effects of drinking a bottle of lye
one night by mistake for something else, and when he speaks in an
ordinary tone you can hear him several blocks away. You can always
tell when Ari comes to town as soon as he strikes the blacksmith's shop
up at the cross-roads and says, 'Holloa' to the smith. Ari was out on
the Alamo mountain one day and got treed by a big black bear--"

"A black bear on the Alamo?" interrupted Dad. "There ain't nothing but
Grizzlies and Cinnamons over there. I was over there once--"

"Hold on, Dad, it's my turn yet. You never heard of a Grizzly climbing
a tree, did you?"

"Oh, well, if you've got to have your bear go up a tree, all right.
We'll call it a black bear. Besides, if it's one of Ari's bear
stories, anything goes."

"The bear treed Ari," resumed the other, "and just climbed up after him
in a hurry. Ari went up as high as he could and then shinned out on a
long limb. The bear followed, and Art kept inching out until he got as
far as he dared trust his weight. The bear was climbing out after him
and the limb was bending too much for safety when Ari yelled at the
bear: 'Go back, you d----d fool. You'll break this limb and kill both
of us. Want to break your cussed neck, goldarn ye?'

"Well, sir, that bear stopped, looked at Ari, and then down to the
ground, and then he just backed along the limb to the trunk,