a wounded deer. More for the sake of seeing if he could find the place
again than in hope of solving the sheep mystery, he renewed his search,
and, at the end of a day's riding over the spurs of the mountain and up
and down ravines, he recognized the slope down which he had chased the
wounded deer, and saw upon it the hoof prints of sheep not quite
obliterated by wind and rain.

At the bottom of the slope was a small flat seemingly hemmed in on
three sides by steep walls. At the upper end, however, behind a thick
grove of pines, was a break in one of the side walls leading to an
enclosed _cienega_, an emerald gem set deep in the mountain, as though
a few acres of ground had sunk bodily some fifty feet, forming a pit in
which water had collected and remained impounded until it broke an
outlet through the lower wall.

When the superintendent reached the entrance to this sunken meadow, an
opening perhaps thirty yards wide, he noticed a well worn path across
it from wall to wall, and a glance told him that the path had been
beaten by a bear pacing to and fro. Looking closely at this beaten
trail, he saw that the footprints were large and that one paw of the
bear was malformed. Old Clubfoot without doubt.

Huddled in silent terror close to the farther wall of the little valley
were about forty sheep, and near the beaten path were the remains of
ten or a dozen carcases. A little study of the situation and the sign
told the story to the old mountaineer. The frightened band of sheep,
fleeing blindly before the bear, had been driven by chance or by design
into this natural trap, and the wily old bear had mounted guard at the
entrance and paced his beat until the sheep were thoroughly cured of
any tendency to wander down toward the lower end of the meadow. When