ought I had been monkeying with a mountain lion."

"Ye-es, I recollect the circumstances, but I never heard about the bear
and bull episode before. I seem to have sort of a dim notion that you
were packing a deer home on your back and fell into a barranca with it
and lost it in a mud slough, but perhaps I'm mistaken. You forgot to
tell me the facts, I guess."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Dad; "Joe does sometimes forget to tell the
facts, but he wouldn't lie about a bear."

"I haven't forgotten the facts about your bear trap in Sonoma,"
retorted Joe.

"I allow that little accident never lost anything by your telling.
'Taint worth telling nohow. You'd better turn in and go to sleep and
not be telling durn lies about folks that's old enough to be your
great-grandfather, but ain't too old yet to give ye a licking, b'gosh!
Don't ye go to fergittin' that I'm a constable, and can arrest people
who use language cal'lated to provoke a breach of the peace."

"Dad was a devil of a bear catcher," continued Joe, "and once he built
a big trap up in Sonoma. The door weighed about three hundred pounds,
and it took two men and a crowbar to lift it. Dad had fixed it so that
no bear in Sonoma could raise it from the inside. It was a bully trap,
and when it was all finished Dad set the trigger and went inside to tie
the bait on. He forgot to prop the door, and as soon as he monkeyed
with the trigger he set it off and down came the door with a bang. It
worked beautifully.

"When Dad realized that he had caught himself he was sorry he had made
such a solid door. He couldn't think of any way of getting out, and
there wasn't nobody within five miles. Dad yelled for about an hour
and then quit. After a while he heard something coming, and thinking
it might be a neighbor riding along the trail, he shouted again.
Peering out between' the logs he saw two bears in the moonlight making
straight for the trap, and he stopped his noise. The bears came up,
sniffed all around, smelt Dad and the bait and began clawing at the
logs to get inside. Then Dad was sorry he hadn't built the trap
stronger and used heavier logs. He tried to scare the bears by
yelling, but the more he yelled, the harder they dug to get at him, and
it wasn't long before he heard a mountain lion answering his shout and
coming nearer every minute. The lion came down off the mountain,
jumped on top of the trap and began tearing at the log's up there. He
got his paw d