sat after
our meal, enjoying our pipes, "what say you to selling out your
interest in that bear? If you're open for a bargain, I'll make you a
proposition."

"Why," the Doctor replied, "there'll be nothing left but the skin,
and that will be of no special value except as a trophy."

"Not exactly," resumed Smith. "I'll deal frankly with you, gentlemen.
There'll be a good many stories to be told about the killing of that
bear, and my object is to appropriate the glory of the achievement.
Now it wont be a matter to boast of, to say that we three fired into
one bear, and that none of the largest."

"Oh! as to that," said the Doctor, "I intend to enlarge upon the
subject, exaggerating the size of the bear, describing the terrible
conflict I had with him, how I happened to save myself by remembering
my double-barrelled pistol; how I made the three ball holes in him,
while you and Spalding were running away, and how he bit me in the
arm, and almost hugged me to death, while I was trying to get at the
pistol. I shall shine in that bear story! Yes! yes! I shall shine!"

"Hear the cormorant!" exclaimed Smith. "Hear him! And he'll do
precisely as he says he will, only a great deal worse. We must buy him
out, Spalding. We must purchase his silence for our own credit."

"Well, gentlemen," replied Spalding, "settle it between you--you are
welcome to my share of the achievement. The scream of mortal agony
which that bear sent up when our three balls went crashing through its
body rings in my ears yet. I don't feel quite so proud of the shot as
I otherwise should have done. You are welcome to my share of the
glory."

"Spoken like a liberal and free-hearted gentleman," said
Smith. "Well, Doctor, name the amount and nature of the blackmail you
intend to levy upon me. But have a conscience, man! have a
conscience!"

"It will be making a great sacrifice on my part," the Doctor replied,
"but out of friendship for you, I'll make you a proposition. We'll
toss op a dollar, and the one that wins shall have the honour of
having killed the bear, and of telling the story in his own way, and
the others shall indorse it."

"Agreed," said Smith, "but if you win, I shall have to borrow a
conscience of Spalding, or some other lawyer, for there'll be need of
a pretty elastic one."

"Yours will answer, I think," drily remarked Spalding.

"It appears to me, gentlemen," said I "that I've something to say
about the killing of that bear."

"Y