suspect his next door neighbor of reprehensible practices, and talked about sending for the constable.  Upon second thought, he strung barb wire on the top of the stockade and set steel-traps cunningly outside.  Then half a dozen little porkers were spirited away in rapid succession, and when Don Mariano satisfied himself that nobody on the Peco’s had feasted upon roast pig since last Christmas, he concluded that the devil had a hand in the business for sure.

Now, Don Mariano had been heard frequently to say that he was not afraid of the devil, and truly he was no idle braggart, for he loaded up his gun and laid in wait for him inside the old sow’s pen, grimly determined, if the devil swooped down after another pig, to take a shot at him flying.  He felt sure of at least winging the satanic thief, for he had scratched a cross on every buckshot in the load.

It was a moonlight night.  Don Mariano lay upon the clean straw that he had placed in the old sow’s pen and waited for the hour of midnight, at which time, as is well known, churchyards yawn and devils flit about.  He had apologized to the bereaved mother for entertaining unworthy suspicions of her, and they were on amicable terms.  Don Mariano was almost dozing when he was startled broad awake by a familiar grunt.  Peering between two of the posts of the stockade, he saw coming across the clearing, looming huge and distinct in the moonlight, two bears.  They were headed straight for the corral.  Don Mariano knew they could not climb the stockade, and he watched them with languid interest.  But the corral was evidently their objective point, for they lumbered along right toward it.

“Now, look at those infatuated fool bears,” said Don Mariano to himself.  “They’ll get into one of the traps and make a grand row and frighten the devil away, so that I won’t get a shot.  Por Dios!”

But the two fool bears did not get into a trap.  Without delay they clambered up into a large tree beside which the corral was built, and made their way out along a big limb that hung over the corral.  There was no hesitation in their movements; clearly, they had been there before.  One of them, the lighter and more active, went well out toward the end of the limb, and the other advanced slowly until their combined weight bent the limb down over the top of the stockade, when the first swung himself off by his forepaws and dropped into the corral.

“That’s a very smart trick,” muttered Don Mariano.  “You are in, no doubt of that, but how the devil you are going to get back is another story.”