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The National Geographic Magazine 



was one o'clock in the morning when I 

 finished my amateur surgery. Thoroughly 

 distracted by the sight of "their brother's 

 suffering, Senator Penrose and Spencer 

 withdrew to another tent, and I lay 

 down near Dr Penrose to wait for dawn. 



My life on the frontier has been full of 

 trying episodes, but oh, that night ! How 

 would we get Dr Penrose out of the 

 mountains? I dare not guess how many 

 times I asked myself that question. As 

 the gloomy hours dragged by I listened 

 to the heavy breathing of the man whose 

 nerve and fortitude I had already come to 

 admire, now asleep and groggy with the 

 morphine injected to stop his unbearable 

 suffering. 



To go back the way we came up would 

 mean two days and a 600-foot climb on 

 foot. He could not last. By the second 

 day we would be packing out a ' dead 

 body. Yet there was no other route. 

 The situation was desperate. In the 

 lonely flickering of that camp-fire I medi- 

 tated, and my sympathies went out to that 

 wounded man. As the case presented 

 itself at that moment success in guiding 

 the party to the railroad meant the doc- 

 tor's life, if not his comfort ; failure meant 

 death, simply. Before that welcome 

 dawn had come I decided to run a haz- 

 ard. We would take Dr Penrose to the 

 railroad by an unheard of route. Provi- 

 dence might point the way. 



At dawn the little caravan started. 

 Again the big black horse carried the 



almost helpless doctor, Senator Penrose 

 and Spencer walking on either side to 

 steady their brother through the tight 

 places. The faithful guide, Bill Hague, 

 lead the extra "packs," and two young 

 men from the Survey party, Malcolm 

 Force, of Montclair, New Jersey, and 

 Billy Kemeys, of Washington, D. C. r 

 worked as axemen. Thus, for eleven 

 hours, we climbed down, down, down, 

 five miles through the forest and jungle, 

 cutting our way as we went. At dark we 

 dropped through to the railroad, com- 

 pletely exhausted, but safe. Our route 

 had proved successful. I could not have 

 cut another tree or broken another brush, 

 and my two Survey boys had stood by 

 me like men. 



Quickly we conducted Dr Penrose to a 

 lonely section-house two miles down the 

 track, where the Great Northern Limited 

 was flagged, and he was taken away to 

 Minnesota, where, three days later, he 

 was operated upon by the surgeons at 

 the Mayo Hospital. Since then he has 

 retired to his country home near Phila- 

 delphia. Though his recovery is not yet 

 complete, his progress has been- very re- 

 markable. 



As a memento of the encounter with 

 the bear, Dr Penrose has presented the 

 writer with a beautiful Mauser rifle, im- 

 ported from the Krupp works at Essen, 

 Germany. In the stock of the rifle is set 

 a little silver nameplate which bears the 

 simple inscription : "Arthur Stiles, from 

 C. B. Penrose." 



