the report of his gun.  I jumped to one side and gave the bear a shot.  I got in two shots and Fiske four.  After receiving this amount of lead the bear ran but a short distance and dropped dead.  All of the shots were near the bear’s heart.  We dressed him and started home and we had bear meat enough to last for some time to come.  In the mean time Mr. Fiske had told me about a man four miles from, his place who had a ranch for sale, consisting of three hundred and twenty acres of deeded land, one hundred acres in cultivation, eighty bearing fruit trees and two acres of a vineyard.  He said the place could be bought cheap, and he also told me that there was a vacant quarter section adjoining this land that I could take up, and I would have the finest goat ranch in the country.  Mr. Fiske and I took a trip down and found the owner very anxious to sell.  After looking the ranch over and getting his figures, I made him an offer of four thousand dollars for everything, which offer he accepted, he reserving nothing but one span of horses, his bed and clothing.  We then went to Santa Rosa, the county seat, to get an abstract of title and a deed to the property, and now I am once more an honest rancher.  While in Santa Rosa I hired a man and his wife by the name of Benson, by the year.  Mr. Benson proved to be a good man and his wife a splendid housekeeper.  All went well for about five months, and having filed on the quarter of vacant land adjoining me, of course I had to move over there.  I had noticed a change in Benson’s appearance, but had not thought much about it till one Saturday I sent him to haul some pickets over to my preemption claim.  That night, having company, I did not go to the cabin on the claim, but stayed on the other place.  Benson was not at supper that evening, but I paid no attention to it nor thought it strange, supposing he was just a little late getting home.  The next morning I noticed that he was not at the breakfast table, and I asked Mrs. Benson why Mr. Bensen didn’t come to his breakfast.  She asked if I had not told him to stay on the preemption claim that night.  I told her that I had not and that I had the key and he could not get into the house, and besides there was no feed there for the mules.  She commenced to feel uneasy then.  So as soon as breakfast was over I took one of my hired men and started out to hunt for him.  We struck the wagon trail and tracked him around for some time.  He had traveled in a terribly round about way.  We finally came to him where he had run his team against a tree, and when we came upon him he was down in front of the mules whipping them around the fore legs trying to make them get down and pray.  He did not notice us until I spoke to him and told him to quit whipping the mules.  When he looked at me I could see that he was perfectly wild.  It took us both three hours to get him back to the house.  I sent for the constable, who took him to Santa Rosa and from there he was taken to the insane asylum.  His wife went East to her folks, and I was told afterwards that he got all right.