s' rooms opened.

Such an uproar had never been heard at peaceful San Leon since its
foundation stone was laid; and the sounds carrying clearly in that night
air, out from the Barracks rushed a horde of cowboys and workmen with
Captain Lem in lead.

"A bear!"

"The Grizzly! The Grizzly!"

A grizzly it was sure enough. All the feminine portion of the household
retreated to the empty chamber of Miss Milliken, slammed down its window
and locked themselves within; then from curiosity opened the door a
little way, to peek through the crack.

"Oh! Oh! It's coming this way--why doesn't somebody shoot it!" cried
Helena, running back to look through the window panes.

The great animal had now dropped from its upright position at Dolly's
window and was crawling on all fours back along the wide porch. It
certainly was coming that way but--it couldn't get in!

"Could it? Can bears--open--open--things?" gasped Molly, retreating to a
wardrobe and hiding within it, whence she demanded in a torrent of
questions information of all sorts concerning bears and why nobody
killed it before it killed them!

Oddly enough, nobody had interfered with the creature's movements thus
far, though some of the men had run back to the Barracks for firearms,
and just then unlucky Wun Sing came round the corner of the building and
met it face to face. He had run at top speed in the opposite direction
from that the beast seemed taking when he had first espied it, issuing
from his room beyond the kitchen. Seeing it headed that way he had
instinctively chosen the other, not reckoning that even bears can change
routes.

Then the yell that rose belittled all which had gone before.

Grizzly uprose on his hind feet and rushed to meet poor Wunny, squeezing
him in a terrible embrace that checked the Chinaman's yell instantly.
Until a touch of Bruin's teeth upon his thinly clad shoulder and a bite
of sharp teeth awoke it again. A clutch of his queue from the great paw
brought forth greater shrieks and seemed to give the victim an
extraordinary strength. By some means he wrenched himself free and
escaped, the grizzly pursuing on all fours again--and both headed toward
the lake.

Whether Wun Sing's purpose was to throw himself within it he didn't know
himself, but the road toward it was the clearest and offered his best
chance. Half way to the water his feet caught in his long night blouse
and he tripped. Instantly the grizzly was upon him. The great fu