went back to we got there were all tired and hungry and camp to get dinner. When we found the camp in possession of three large cinnamon bears. Two of them ran away when they saw us approaching, but the largest one was more brave and stood his ground. We had our provisions in a large chest but did not have it locked. The big bear had raised the cover and was helping himself to our dinner. None of our party were brave enough to attempt to drive him away. After eating for a while he seized a strip of bacon and carried it across the road and laid it down. Then he returned and got a few cans of corn, tomatoes and evaporated cream. These he also took across the road and deposited beside the bacon. Then he stopped for a moment and glanced at us. Again he returned to our provision chest, and gathering up four loaves of bread he walked with them in his arms to where he had left the bacon and canned goods. Then he lay down by them and coolly began to devour his plunder. The men then went to the wagons and got some tin pans and began to beat them as we had been told that it would frighten the bears away, but Mr. Bruin paid no attention whatever to their racket. After he had devoured the meat and bread, he attempted to open the cans-by pounding them with his paw, but in this he was defeated. And there floats o'er my mind, And I hear the rich notes of the wood-thrush So I'm going to leave all this turmoil, A CAMP ADVENTURE. HAVING traveled from South Dakota to some distance beyond the border line of Canada, in covered wagons or "Prairie Schooners," as they are sometimes termed, I could tell you some queer and interesting stories of camp life. or While traveling we had what is called a sheep wagon "Cooster." This vehicle is used by the sheep herders of Wyoming. We were all frightened for fear he would attempt to loot our camp again, but after looking at us for a moment he gave a grunt just like a hog and slowly larger. Inside is a bed, table, seats and a stove. walked down to the river and swam across. THE CALL OF THE FOREST. BY FRANCES LUBBE ROSS (AGE 15) I AM tired of the clash and clamor It is about the same as a covered wagon, but much Beside the "Cooster" we had two other covered wagons. The incident of which I am going to tell occurred in Yellowstone National Park. We (there were four in the party - my father and mother, my brother and myself) camped one evening about four o'clock at "Canyon Junction," near the great falls of the Yellowstone. As soon as the chores about the camp were finished, we must, of course, go and see the falls. These we viewed from Point Lookout, and very beautiful they were. On returning to camp what was my surprise at find. ing a deer nibbling about the wagons. I hastily brought a piece of bread and tried to feed the pretty creature. I could get within two or three feet of it, then it would walk slowly away, never allowing me to touch the sleek hair with my hands. That night before retiring we carefully gathered up all the loose articles about camp, for we had been informed that quadruped marauders nightly visited this camp ground. The wagon I slept in was drawn up some little dis tance from the other two. About half-past ten I heard a sniffling sound between the wagons. I evidently was not the only one that heard it, for our old dog growled fiercely. Papa hearing this, came to the "Cooster" door, and mamma looked out of the window just in time to see three bears shamble away into the woods. The next morning we examined the tracks, and some of them proved that a bear of extraordinary size had been one of our visitors. THE MAGIC FOREST. BY MARGARET DOUGLASS GORDON (AGE 14). (Honor Member.) BEYOND the tides of Euxine, Where yellow rippling Phasis Where the white peak Caucasus Gleams in eternal snow, There lies a forest by Colchis, The wood where the poisons grow. Beneath its mighty beeches The golden serpent sleeps; With her mad hounds onward sweeps; There cries the soul of Phrixus, Through the long night, for peace,- Dim forms flit through the shadows; Clear through the silent woodland, A CAMP ADVENTURE. BY JESSIE MACLAREN (AGE 15). It seems to me that most adventures have bears in them. This one has, anyway. I don't remember exactly the number of people, but there must have been thirteen, as many unlucky accidents happened while we were there; as for instance the cook being nearly drowned; one guest getting a wasp in her mouth; and various other little mishaps. But the one I want to tell you of is this: One afternoon my two cousins, who were about six VOL. XXXIII.- 144. it. and eight years of age, went off exploring, as they called When they came back they told my mother that they had seen two such nice little puppies. Later on a bear with two cubs passed right through our camp. You may be sure nobody chased them. A short time after we had gone to bed, my mother, who was next the wall, heard something scratching at the side of the tent. At first she thought it was our dog, so she put down her hand, and something cold sniffed at it. Then she said to her friend: "Is Joubert in the tent!" "Oh! yes," was the reply, "he is at the foot of my bed." (The friend had seen her boots and thought they were the dog.) "Alex! there is a bear coming right into the tent," mother called out. My father got up and went out to chase the bear; when he got around to the side the animal shoved right in. There were two shrieks. In the midst of this wild excitement the bear turned out to be the poor dog. In the morning everybody had a good laugh over the bear episode, and I don't believe my father has ever allowed mother to forget it. 1009 VERSE 1. Clement R. Wood L. Evelyn Slocum Jean M. Williams VERSE 2. Edna Harm Hilda Maud Blazey Helen E. Masher Francis M. Barranco Katharine Rutan Neu mann Margaret Hull Primrose Laurence Louise E. Grant PROSE 1. Anna Eveleth Holman Lucia E. Halstead Alice Cone Elizabeth Black Garnett Elizabeth Nash Catharine H. Straker Harriet E. Webster man Lena Wilson Hendricks Frances Woodworth Wright PROSE 2. Gladys Alison Leslie Rowland Mildred A. Yates E. Winnifred Campbell Tevis Florence E. Miller Blanche Ross Margaret B. Ussher William R. Deeble Gertrude Earnshaw Martha Hilpert Elizabeth R. Hirsh Anna Leise Roane Earl R. K. Daniels Sarah Tobin Jeannette Griffin Ethel Crane Ethel Maud Stoodley Helen McCargo Harriet Dey Ruth White Elizabeth Bowles Elizabeth Carpenter Eugene Powdermaker Molly Thayer Marian Hart Nannie Bartlett Elizabeth Chapin William Bodenstein John D. Butler Charlotte Waugh Charles E. Mansfield Bessie B. Styron PHOTOGRAPHS 1. Gertrude M. Howland Godwin Emerson PHOTOGRAPHS 2. Sarah P. Mendinhall John Struthers Dunn Richard M. Anderson Carleton B. Swift DRAWINGS 1. Ella Stein Katharine Thompson Rachel Swartz DRAWINGS 2. Courtlar.d Christiani Laurence B. Siegfried William Fleming Leo Chapman Constance Richardson Mary Singleton Harry Minarsky Eleanor B. Southworth PUZZLES 1. E Adelaide Hahn mann Anita Bradford Willie Wynn Robert Clifton Allene Crane Florence Lowenhaupt H. G. Hodgkins Charles Russell Henry Courtenay Fenn James F. O'Connor James A. Block DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Although the time for me to part from the League came on the 9th of January, I want to write now and bid you good-bye. I suppose you hear the same story from every departing member, but I want to add mine and tell you how much I thank you for all you 've been to me. What I have learned in the League has started me well on the road to success, I know, as nothing else could have done. Since January I have been studying art in Philadelphia, and some of my work was accepted by a magazine. I hope for still " greater and higher achievements," but I shall always remember what I owe to the League. I am going to send my work to the other part of ST. NICHOLAS and if it is found worthy I will feel I have n't left it entirely after all. I have the deepest affection for the League and all that it is doing, and shall always be interested in it, tho' I can share it no more. Wishing you a long life and success always, I am one of your loyal graduates, ELIZABETH OTIS. BROOKLYN, N. Y. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS LEAGUE: I am writing you now, in the last few days, before my eighteenth birthday, to thank you for all the help and encouragement you have given me in the past. The very first impetus to my art studies came through the League, and I feel that I owe all I have in that line to the endeavors I made in securing your prize. Another thing I must thank you for is a friendship-the dearest one I own-which would never have come to me had not you, dear St. Nicholas League, existed. All in all, I feel that I owe much that is happy and inspiring to you. May you have a long life for the sake of the children. Most sincerely, your old member, RUTH E. CROMBIE. LONDON, ENGLAND. MY DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Accept my best thanks for the Gold Badge received this morning. I cannot but feel that the reward is far greater than the merit of my verses, but be that as it may, the whole credit must rest with the League, for without its instruction and influence, I could never have become even what I am. The fact of having realized my nearest ambition-the winning of the Gold Badge-at the present time, has a great and peculiar significance to me. Firstly, that my dear father, who had been a terrible sufferer for many years, only lived long enough to hear of my success, and express his pleasure, before he was taken from us: and secondly, that it should be within the same year as the death of my valued friend (for I think that every League member who has experienced the benefit of her magazine, feels her claim to that title), Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, the Editress. It is, therefore, with the strangely mingled feelings of great sorrow, and joy, of pride, and a deep but humble hope that the future may show that the little seeds of help and encouragement that the League has scattered have not fallen on the rocks, that I subscribe myself, Your grateful and interested member, FREDA. M. HARRISON. Other valued letters have been received from John M. Libby, Jane, Louise, and Laurie Easton, Simon Cohen, Ruth Conkey, Marguerite Hunt, Miriam Alexander, Adelaide Moffat, Caroline B Schenck, Janet Jacobi, Jeannette Covert, Eva M. Gray, Hester Margetson, Hattie English, Margaret Coover, Muriel von Tunzelmann, Emily Tucker, Lena Duncan, Helen Bell, Neva E. Andrews, Josephine Freund, J. Faxon Passmore, Lois Treadwell, The St. Gabriel's Chapter, Harriet Scofield, Carolyn L. Palmer, Clement R. Wood (with report), Elizabeth R. Marvin, Ethel L. Sullivan, Mary W. Ball, Elizabeth N. McKim, Elizabeth Keenan, James E. Read, Caroline Brown Sarmiento, Frances S. Marden, Jr., Margaret Carver, Joseph Copeland. Competition No. 84 will close October 20 (for foreign members October 25). The awards will be announced and prize contributions published in ST. NICHOLAS for February. Verse. To contain not more than twenty-four lines. Title, "The Star." Prose. Story or article of not more than four hundred words. Subject, "The Story of the Stars." Must be true. Photograph. Any size, interior or exterior, mounted or unmounted; no blue prints or negatives. "A Busy Street." Subject, Drawing. India ink, very black writing-ink, or wash (not color). Two subjects, Apple Time" (from life) and an October Heading or Tailpiece for the League, Books and Reading, or any ST. NICHOLAS department. Puzzle. Any sort, but must be accompanied by the answer in full, and must be indorsed. Puzzle-answers. Best, neatest, and most complete set of answers to puzzles in this issue of ST. NICHOLAS. Must be indorsed. Wild Animal or Bird Photograph. To encourage the pursuing of game with a camera instead of a gun. For the best photograph of a wild animal or bird taken in its natural home: First Prize, five dollars and League gold badge. Second Prize, three dollars and League Third Prise, League gold badge. gold badge. RULES. ANY reader of ST. NICHOLAS, whether a subscriber or not, is entitled to League membership, and a League badge and leaflet, which will be sent free. Every contribution, of whatever kind, must bear the name, age, and address of the sender, and be indorsed as 66 original" by parent, teacher, or guardian, who must be convinced beyond doubt that the contribution is not copied, but wholly the work and idea of the sender. If prose, the number of words should also be added. These things must not be on a separate sheet, but on the contribution itself-if a manuscript, on the upper margin; if a picture, on the margin or back. Write or draw on one side of the paper only. A contributor may send but one contribution a month -not one of each kind, but one only. Address: The St. Nicholas League, Union Square, New York. AN INTERESTING BOOKS AND READING. A PAINSTAKING American DISCOVERY. in London, Professor Wallace, in looking over some old papers, found the name of "William Shakspere" in an old bill of complaint. So few are the documents in which Shakspere's name appears that this discovery is a very welcome one, although it serves no greater purpose, apparently, than to tell us a little about the ownership of a certain house in London known as "The Blackfriars House," which, shortly before his leaving London, Shakspere bought. There is another very recent discovery of some Shakspere's name in certain household accounts of the Earl Rutland's for 1613, preserved at Belvoir Castle. An English antiquary, W. H. Stevenson, found in these accounts an entry of the payment to "Mr. Shakspere of forty-four shillings in gold "about my lord's impreso." There were many Shakspere families not far from Avon, and there is no proof that this is the William Shakspere. It may well be, because in the same entry "Richard Burbage," Shakspere's friend and fellow-actor, is spoken of. An "impreso " is a design with a motto formerly used by people of position somewhat as a coat-of-arms might be used. It is thought Shakspere might have suggested the design, or written the inscription for it. AS TO "STYLE." ONE dislikes in writing an item for young readers to use a word about which there has been so much dispute as the word "style; " but leaving the older critics to settle its final meanings, it will be enough for our purposes to remember that style in literature means 66 way of writing" and is an expression of character, just as appearance and manner express character in the living person. You in your school-books on rhetoric will have plenty of advice about reading the works of such men as Addison and De Quincey for their style, but you must not forget that our great American writers, each in his own way, deserves careful study. Washington Irving, for exam ple, possessed a style that can hardly be bettered, a style that ranks him with the few great masters of English prose, and there are even among these masters very few to whom he might have to yield the palm. This item is written because, owing to the ease and simplicity of his method, one is likely to be unconscious how faultless is his rhetoric, how charming his personality-in short, how perfect his style. We might say much the same thing about Nathaniel Hawthorne; and another notable master of style, though his method is totally dif ferent, is Edgar Allan Poe. If you will select a paragraph from any of these three and attempt to better it, you will learn in the best method what good writing is, and how good theirs is. READING A WATCH. In looking over the pages of an old magazine, one published just a generation ago, I came upon a quotation from a book entitled "Jottings from the West." The quotation was a description of a watch, the writer calling it a set of "plain facts and statements bound up in a cover of gold." Of course his idea was that a likeness existed between a book and a watch. It may be that not all of you will see wherein the two are alike. Both, you know, have a front and a back cover; both can be read, in a sense, since each tells us something; the book telling the author's thoughts, and the watch telling the time. But in each case there is something lying deeper than the mere facts told on the face of the watch or in the pages of the book. In reading history we find that every now and then a living book comes forth from the press, and by means of what it puts into people's minds produces an effect even greater than that due to a great statesman or a victorious general. Indeed, so evident is this fact, that it has given rise to the proverb about the pen and the sword. It is therefore easy for us to see what deeper meaning may lie behind the pages of a book, and in the quotation with which this item begins the author suggests that the watch expresses certain facts other than the |