ught) dressed exactly like a
minister, only I knew he was not, he used such profane language. Well
what does he do but begin making love to Polly, which made me very
angry."

"'Never mind, Andy,' said Polly. 'You know I don't care for him or
anybody else but you. I am only trying to see how bad he will feel when
we are married.'

"'Go ahead then,' I said, 'if that is your game,' and sure enough she
did go ahead, as I soon found out. When I was up round Lake Superior,
the winter before, trapping with father, we got one night by mistake,
into a grizzly bear's den, intending to spend the night. We soon found
out our mistake, when we saw some cubs, and got ourselves out of the
scrape as soon as we got in; but, as the cubs were such pretty things,
I thought what a nice keepsake one of them would make Polly. So I hid
one under my jacket unbeknown to father, until the old bear came
snarling about us, after we had built a fire and laid down to sleep.'

"'Wonder what's the matter with the beast,' said father, 'guess she has
tracked us from her den.'

"'Guess she misses her cub,' said I.

"'By George, Andy, you have got us in a fine scrape. However, my lady,'
said the old man to the bear, 'you can't have that cub now: we never
give up to anybody;' and, with that, he fired a ball between her eyes.
But instead of dying, she attacked us, and we had a desperate fight.
She got the worst of it though, for we carried off both her skin and
cub. You ought to have seen the cub, it was a beauty, and when I gave
it to Polly, she pretended that she thought it the nicest keepsake she
ever saw. The other was, the skin of a snake. It was nearly six feet
long, and very wide, spotted all over its back with white, brown, and
black spots, and its sides were striped with brown, so that, when I
split it open in the middle, it looked like a ribbon. I made it as
soft, smooth and pretty as anything you ever saw.

"I did really think Polly was trying to deceive him, until he was going
away, when I saw that pretty snake skin tied around his plunder, and as
if that was not enough with a string in hand, he was leading away the
cub of the grizzly bear that I had brought all the way from Superior
for her."

"My brother's squaw's tongue was forked--the antelope's tongue is not
forked, she cannot lie," said the chief.

"Look here, chief; they are all alike. When they say they will have
you, they mean they will if they don't get out of the notion of it.