The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-11-14

help, they said, and tried the best he knew how to get away from the em- brace of the rollieking bsar, all of which added to the bears sense of the fun he was having, and he snort ed and howled the louder, and stum- lbled and staggered aroun1 with his new partner tight in his hug
 Seems to me they told me that it must have been all of three minutes that Farmer Woolcott stood looking on at this performance, the rest of the family having rereated hastily tc other parts of the house, before he recovered sufficiently from his sa1- prise to pitch in and give the hired man hand. But he pitched in at last and after 6 wrestling match, whlch seemed to enhance the Joy Of brain, and there being two against on2, the hilarious intruder was at last bound with e clothesline and rolled out If doors to sleep off his drunk in the yard. Then Farmer Woolcott aud the hired man went back to bed, only to find when they got up in the course cr a couple of hours or so, that Mc. Bear had somehow rid himself of his bonds and was nowhere to be found.
 The bear was gone, owing for three weeks board, leaving a bill for damages as big as $20 and his Italian sponsor was evidently an ahsconler as we'll So FalVaer Woolcott was all het up over 1t they said, and talked loud. Even when his hired man came in, toward noon, and said he had seen, and would declare 1t to his dying day, that bear peeldng over the stone wall and looking all tore up with remorse, Farmer Woolcott, they told me, cuss- ed all the louder.
 "But what was it that Engineer Jack Wood of the Peanut Express saw. early the next morning as he was ap- preaching the station, three miles east of Farmer Woolcotts? Engineer Jack Wood wasn't present to answer, and all I could do was to tell them I didn't know.
 Well then, as he was approaching the station he saw something on the track a few yards ahead, and soon made out that 1t was bear, they told me. A bear, standing up as straight as drill master, plump in the mid dle of the track, and leaning on a fence stake that he was evidently us- ing as a staff.
 I seen the bear, they said Jack said, and what could I do? ! was Spinnin along too fast to stop, and I hated like snakes to muss up the front of old 63 by spreadin' bear all over it, but the bear never moved even when 1 opened up and made old 6S holler enough to scare a panther.
 "I1l have to muss the old gal up with bear" says I, and give her an eXtry shove. The pilot went ploughin' hetwixe the hind legs O the bear and up he went in the air higher yit than the smokestacl1. He come down as fast as he went up and lit on the lot. 11u
 "The contemptuous critter is tougher than gum boots," says I, "and I'm glad of it, for I've made nm give up the ghost without mussin' up old sixty-three." 9t
 " But he didn't roll off O the pilot, and couldn't see what could be keepin' dead bear hanging there, so slowed down to get off and see. But most tainted in my cab when I seen the injy rubber critter straddlin' the pilot and lookin' at me the reproach- 1 ln'est kind, and then wrenchin' one of the fiagstaffs off O the front, steppin' off as cool as cowcumber and stridin' away into the woods, flagstaff, red ] flag and all
 That's what they told me Engineer Jack Wood had said, and, moreover, they told me that to prove 1t he had brought in the very fence stake on which the bear was leaning when he was discovered standing on the track.
 "Well, of course, when this news got around there could be no doubt as to the identity of the bear that had thus stolen the flagstaff with the red | flag from Jack Woods old 63, and since then, they said, he has been holding up trains every little while, and the railroad boys had taken to carrying rifles, prepared to fill him with lead If he didn't quit annoying and endangering them in the per formance of their duty Since then, they told me, that bear had shown how smart he was by lying low.
 But they'll git him, dodscatter hinl' they said. You wait and seep
 'I waited quite while. but didn't see, for the bear seemed to be still lying low. made up my mind, though, that I'd find out what the fate of the bear had been next time went up in the coal regions, and I got up there not long ago. The first thing I asked, almost, was what had become of that bear. Did the railroad boys fill him with lead? They looked at me a little vacant thought and said:
 Bear? What bear?
 "I began to tell them, and then they remembered.
 Did the railroad boys fill him with ! Head 2 said L
 |" Not rnuchH they said. And glad they are, for they'd have felt like fill- ing themselves with lead if they had! Then they went on to tell me how Farmer Woolcott had put up a great holler about the damage the bear had done, the keep he had dished up to it and the barrel of cider the bear had tapped and emptied, for all of which no Italian showed up to pay and the bear was gone out of his jurisdiction
 Then they had taken to noticing that the train hold-ups of the bear were generally of the work train that took the Italian laborers to and fro. And the way, he would inspect that train! Scanning every man on it and soaring | tl a1~ to ro,,L