HE night his small flock of sheep

THE

came home panting, with a hunted look, and one more of their number missing, was the night Paul Poirier made the resolve which this story is to

trace.

It was in the French part of Canada, and early spring. Paul's family of children was large and his farm poor.

If ends were to meet, nothing must be lost. The winter had been hard, and the supply of hay for the stock had run low. The French Canadian's flock of sheep were the first to take a brave view of the situation. Day by day as the sun stripped the great blue-berry heath of snow, they had ranged farther and farther back towards the heavy woods, some five miles away. Neither Paul nor his wife hindered them, for every bite the sheep got on the heath meant one more for the cows in the barn.

But the flock had suffered severely. Nine had dwindled to five. Both Paul and his wife put their loss down to "the bear." Paul had borne each succeeding diminution in his small flock with strength and evenness; he accepted it as hard fate, and went about his work. But this last loss was too much. It was the best sheep of his flock. Bruin was going too far; so Paul braced himself and vowed vengeance.

"I'll have that bear if it takes a month," he said next morning, as he bade his wife good-bye and set out across the heath. He carried a small axe, his gun and some food. Paul was not superstitious nor timid-he never had been and he was resolved not to be now; still, as he climbed the rear fence of the small farm, he was not sure that he was as free from misgivings as if he had been going to his ordinary work. From the door his wife followed him with her eye till he grew small on the wide, brown heath; then turned to pacify a squalling baby.

"I'd rather someone was with him," she muttered to herself, lifting the child to her breast.

The morning was one of those rare ones that pay up for a whole winter, no matter how severe it may have been. The sun was still low, but it shot warm and sharp over everything. The winter was clean gone. Quick new life was pulsing into everything. The small streams and brooks had slid snake-like from their old covers, and were worming their way between the brown knolls to the river. It was good to be alive that morning, and to be there on the heath.

Paul's strong blood beat warmly through his veins. The morning had braced the misgivings out of him, not one was left. He was already persuaded of victory. What he would gain-furs were high, he had heard— stirred him more now than the thought of what he lost had done the previous night. Then, in addition to this, he would have revenge on his old enemy.

In less than an hour Paul was on the doomed bear's track. It led straight towards the heavy woods. Here, just as he entered, Paul discovered just what he expected, the mangled remains of his latest loss. There were bunches of wool here and there, a number of well-licked bones, and some small remains of flesh. Paul gathered the pieces of flesh quickly and went on. This was just what he had wanted. He now had bait for his "dead-fall." He was a step nearer victory and revenge. The activity of his mind, stirred anew by what he had seen at the edge of the forest, reacted on his body, and he found himself racing viciously along at fully double his former pace.

But the average bear is well up in ethics. He knows right from wrong, and when he commits a wrong he always knows that the safest point for him

is the one farthest away from the place where the wrong may have been done. So it may not after all be incredible that we should find Paul at two o'clock in the afternoon still on the bear's trail, but still without the bear.

But Paul was not in the least discouraged. He munched some more of the food he had brought as he rested for a moment or two; then he hit upon a capital site for his dead-fall and went to work.

What the dead-fall is may be partly understood from its name. When completed it resembles a miniature logcamp. Three sides are securely logged up, and on the other is the entrance. Inside there are three strong stakes skilfully notched and placed as an upright right-angle triangle. The "trip-stick" which forms the hypothenuse of the triangle is fitted to the stick on which the bait is placed. The bait may be reached by the bear going half way into the trap, so that as soon as the trip-stick slips from the notch the huge logs, that have been suspended, fall across the entrance, and the prize is secure.

In three hours from the time he began Paul was placing the bait he had brought upon the place intended for it. He was sure his trap was well built and strong, and that it would "spring" easily. The bear, he knew, was in the woods beyond, and in all probability would return again when hungry for the remains of the sheep he had left, or for another one. Paul sat down for a few minutes on a great fallen log opposite his rude trap, and then, for the first time since last night, lit his short, strong clay pipe. He felt fully satisfied as he looked through the smoke at his finished work. He was not given much to imaginings, but reason how he would he could not help seeing the old enemy of his harmless flock half in the narrow doorway before him, crushed nigh to death with those great suspended logs. Some time next day he would be blowing out the beggar's brains.

He gathered up his few tools and

started away.

But he had gone only

a few yards when it occurred to him to return. He remembered once how a bear had come, pulled the bait from the stick, and left the trap unsprung. Perhaps the bait had better be looked to. He flung his right leg over the one log that formed the sill of the entrance to the dead-fall, and began to secure the bait. He had almost finished-was, indeed, drawing himself out -when, oh, horror! the giant trap sprang.

For an instant Paul was stunned, but it was for a second only. Like a flash, and with a rush, there came to the habitant a sense of the awfulness of his situation. Close on this followed the sharp, stinging pain from the bones of his right arm and leg. His body had been outside the trap, and he had thus escaped instant and awful death. But he was pinned as in the jaws of a vice of steel. The log that supported half-a-dozen others crossed his leg between the ankle and the knee, and his arm between the elbow and shoulder.

For some moments Paul made no attempt to free himself. He had been caught face downward, and to attempt to move, he knew, was useless. But his thoughts were not bound. They flashed back, then forward. Back to the small home away over the woods and the heath; then forward to the awful future. Had he battled through life this far, to end all thus? this his desert? He was miles in the woods. The trap was massively strong. Hate, revenge and hope of gain had mixed to make it so; and now of a sudden everything had recoiled. With this thought came another, the most horrible yet. What if the bear

should come now!

Was

The trap was in

its track. A few minutes ago, he was hoping-he was sure-it would return by this way. He knew it had done so before. But now-oh, if it should come now! Paul felt his arm and leg begin to numb and his face to burn. He put his free hand to the ground, and pushed himself up as far as he could. It

was not far, but the little liberty he had encouraged him. He felt his heart, which had stood still for a moment or two, thump strongly under his coat. Then the blood came warmly into his veins. With it came his resolution not to despair. It was cowardly to give up; he would not — not without a struggle, anyway. He put the gloomy thought away. He would free himself.

The axe with which he had worked was, alas! beyond his reach. He had put it down few feet away as he had come back to the trap. He could have used it some with his free hand. His gun was nearer. With his left leg he drew it carefully towards him. It might be of great service, he thought. He felt for his strong pocket knife, and found it. With the thought of the knife had come another thin ray of hope. It would be of service in case the gun should fail. His most awful fear was that of the return of the bear. And then, too, perhaps, but only perhaps, he might be able to cut away the one log that would give him freedom.

He braced and nerved himself for one great test of strength before he should begin. With his free arm and leg firmly on the ground, and his body pressed close to the log above, he pushed and strained till his muscles stood out hard, and the blood seemed ready to burst from his face. But nothing

gave or moved. The pains came sharply again as he relaxed his efforts. He sank with a groan and remained for a moment with his hot face on the cold ground.

It was with great difficulty he opened the knife and began. It was a monster task-a three-inch blade and a ten-inch log-but hope and fear make men attempt wondrous things. His position, too, was such that the knife could be used only to the poorest advantage. Slowly, however, and bravely with the pain of the crushed bones shooting through him, he began his slow deliverance or rather what he hoped would end in that.

Now and then he stopped and glanced off among the trees. The slanting

beams of sunlight through them had become almost horizontal. It was coming on night. Was there anyone watching the sun draw down to the woods over the heath-he knew how it set from home-and expecting him? Would he be free before it again lit all the tops around, or would he—but he refused to think more. He turned again to his work.

But the difficulty of reaching the log where it must be cut tired his arm and made steady work impossible. Once as he rested he took some of the food from the pouch he had luckily not taken from his back and ate it. He was surprised to see how little there was. He had eaten more before than he had thought.

What he left had been carefully put aside, when a slight noise among the leaves startled him. A small, red, bushy squirrel was taking jerky leaps towards him; but as Paul moved his head it turned and suddenly raced almost to the top of a giant fir, pouring out as it went a torrent of indignation at the invasion of its exclusive territory. A moment later a woodpecker drummed vigorously on a hollow beech, then swooped down and off with a cry. A stray crow or two circled and cawed excitedly up above.

By and by sounds like these became less and less frequent. A cool air drew down through the forest heavy with chilling damp. Then the night began to settle quietly.

Paul turned again to his task; as he did so the hopelessness of it came to him as never before. He had done little or nothing, but of a sudden he hit upon something else. Indeed, several suggestions came to him at once. He had matches; could he not burn a part of the trap? He had a little powder and a few bullets; could he not shoot or blow one of the logs away? He brightened at the thought; then of his many plans he attempted. to fix upon the best.

First he thought of setting fire, but this to be effective would have to be

done under the log that held him, and between his leg and arm. He gathered what brush and chips he could reach and placed them in position. Then he hesitated. What if the brush in parts beyond his reach caught, and from that some of the dryer wood? The log that held him was green and would burn last. The trap was a camp, and small though it was, if it burned at all, would burn fiercely.

Paul held the match in readiness for a time, but he did not strike it. Το die by fire! What could be worse than that? He must try something else.

He imagined that by squeezing his leather powder bag between the logs that held him, and then igniting it, the cruel jaws that held him might be wrenched apart. His heart bounded when this thought first came, but it sank away, and the blood came cold again in his veins when he reasoned a moment.

He now turned his attention to his gun. It occurred to him that he might be able to deepen the notch he had already made in the log with his knife. He knew from the distance his gun carried that it would send a bullet through, or well into, the log above him. He attempted to bring the gun's muzzle to the place where the bullet would be most effective. It was not till then that he realized that to hold and fire the gun would be almost impossible, held as he was, in the trap. But after a time he found that this could be done.

The gun was a long-barrelled oldfashioned rifle. He had only one free hand, and with that he must hold the muzzle a little distance from and below the bottom of the notch.

How, though, was the trigger to be reached in order that the gun might be discharged?

The solution of this difficulty came by accident. In one of his movements he noticed he could reach to the lock of the gun with his foot. It came to him of a sudden, he could strip his foot and discharge the gun with his toe. He worked his boot off with difficulty, then

brought the muzzle almost to the log. He placed his toe on the trigger and prepared to push it. But he again hesitated. He could fire the gun, but could he re-load it?

He had looked upon the gun as his chief defence in case the bear should return. This thought-the worst of all-though he put it away, was ever before him. He must not run the awful risk of being unprepared for that. He pushed the gun from him with a groan. Then his head sank

to the cold moist ground. None of his plans-and he felt that any of them might free him-dare be worked. This was what undid him. It was the cruel irony of it all that came home to him now, as never before.

He lay for sometime breathing hard against the ground. Before, he had put the awfulness of his situation away from him, but that was no longer possible. It was now dark. He had only a little food. The slightest movement on his part and there shot through him the most stinging pains. The chill was giving way to cold, for it was still early May. In addition to all these, there were the things behind and before-the things he must leave and the things he must meet. There were the little home and the children, and by this time the expectant anxious wife; that behind, then before him-oh, horror! before him, what? to be torn by the bear that might now come any moment? to die of the flaming thirst within him, or, after long-drawn out days of suffering, from pain and hunger? This was the future. Hope, that had helped before, was gone. He stared it all stolidly in the face; it was too horrible-far. His breath came short and dry. Pain from his crushed limbs swept his nerves and iced his blood. He was on the edge of madness.

Quivering in a tempest of pain, he raised his head. Then, he pushed his weak arm into the dark. His hand found the rifle's cold muzzle. There was one plan still, by which he might be free. The future, no matter