NEW VERSION OF THE BEAR STORY. 339 



turned our faces homeward, invigorated in strength and 

 buoyant in spirits, 10 begin again a round of toil, from which 

 we, at least, could claim no further exemption. 



"H ," said a friend of mine, as he stalked into my 



sanctum, a few days after my return, and seated himself 

 at my elbow, as if for a private and confidential talk, 

 "did Smith really shoot the bear, the skin of which he 

 brought home, and which he exhibits with such triumph. 

 Tell me, honestly, as between you and me, did he in fact 

 shoot him ?" 



" Smith certainly did shoot that bear," I replied. 



" But is the marvellous story he tells about the manner 

 of killing him really true ?" 



" That, of course, I cannot tell," I replied, " as I have 

 never heard the story." 



" Why," said my friend, " he tells about a beautiful lake, 

 lying away back in the northern wilderness, above which 

 Mount Marcy, and Mount Seward, and other nameless peaks 

 of the Adirondacks, rear their tall heads to the clouds, 

 throwing back the sunlight in a blaze of glory ; on which 

 the moonbeams lie like a mantle of silver, while away down 

 in its fathomless depths the stars glow and sparkle, like the 

 sheen of a million of diamonds. Of the old forests and 

 trees of fabulous growth, stretching away and away on 

 every hand, throwing their sombre shadows far out over 

 the water, in whose tangled recesses countless deer and 

 moose, and panthers, and bears range, and among whose 

 branches birds of unknown melody carol. That one side 



