94 TRUE BEAR STORIES.

and looked out over the stockade; and then
he shouted and shook his hat and laughed
as I had never heard him laugh before. For
there, breathless, coatless, hatless, came
William Cross, Esq., two small wolves and
a very small black bear! They were all
making good time, anywhere, anyway, to
escape the frantic cattle. Father used to
say afterwards, when telling about this lit-
tle incident, that “it was nip and tuck be-
tween the four, and hard to say which was
ahead.” The cattle had made quite a
“round-up.”

They all four straggled in at the narrow
little gate at about the same time, the
great big, lazy sailor in a hurry, for the
first time in his life.

But think of the coolness of the man, as
he turned to us children with his first gasp
of breath, and said, “Bo— bo— boys, I’ve
bro— bro— brought you a little bear!” ;

The wolves were the little chicken
thieves known as coyotes, quite harmless,
as a rule, so far as man is concerned, but