they stand there to keep the river from overflowing Iowa; and stern, silent, trusty sentinels they are. It was at their grassy feet that the big, painted warriors of the Omahas and the Kickapoos, the Sioux and the Pottawottomies, the Arapahoes and the Pawnees, used to gather in council many years ago. Well, those very bluffs — it was the red men who gave them the name Council Bluffs - fell to gossiping, one wild March night, with the East Wind about the way the River was carrying on. Very old people like to talk, and that East Wind is a great gossip anyway, especially in the spring. Of course, as soon as the East Wind knew of it, you might say everybody knew of it; and even the little brown owls in the Bad Lands smiled when they heard that the impetuous old Missouri had twisted itself into such a kink down at Omaha.

But how the river foamed! and oh, so mighty it is! How do you suppose it cut off that big bend?

Do you see on the map that row of little stars running across the river? Just above that point the river began throwing driftwood out on its margins and across the shallow sand-bars that shift uneasily over its bed. Little flakes of snow-frosty whispers of the north windfroze like muddy nightcaps on the bars. Big cakes of ice swiftly plunging on the yellow current were lodged warily in that bend, just where they would lay hold of others whirling by. All night, with tireless anger, that river worked, until at daylight, when the bluffs rubbed the snow out of their eyes, all they could see was a bristling field of ice, with only a strip of water like a black thread through the middle, where the current seethed and foamed in a fury. Even while they stared in amazement, the river, dragging down a tremendous ice-floe torn from some mountain stream, hurled it straight into the boiling gap. Just a minute it tossed and crashed there, then a million ragged sheets of ice piled on it like a shower of rocks and sank it. Into that snapping, grinding funnel the river poured anchorice, big and little, so fast that suddenly it choked, and presto! a vast ice-jam, glittering,

heaving, crashing, groaning, rose far above the banks, and for an instant stopped the mighty Missouri. Behind the stubborn barrier the river churned and swelled in a dreadful rage, until at last, rearing above its banks, it poured a flood of tiny rivulets like wriggling snakes over the valley. One of them, following the path shown by the group of four arrows on the map, found the river-bed again away down stream, and the great lake that had formed above the ice-jam, coursing after that little stream, cut, little by little, then tore, with awful wrenches, a new channel right through that neck of land; and there the river has flowed ever since, leaving an old river-bed several miles long and full of all sorts of crabs and turtlés-just fancy!-to be sold for the taxes.

But imagine how that night's work tangled up the Iowa-Nebraska boundary line! There was a big piece of Iowa torn right off — all that tract within the great bend. Lying close to Omaha, it was very valuable. It is nearly all dry land now and covered with a network of railroad tracks. Being on the Nebraska side after that night, Nebraska claimed it; but Iowa insisted it still belonged to her, and went right on taxing the property just as before. The people who lived on the disputed strip never could tell in which State they lived. It was absurd. One day they were asked to vote for somebody in Iowa, and the next for somebody in Nebraska. Of course there came a clash of authority before long, and into court went the two States, dragging the river after them, so to speak. Nebraska's lawyers reminded the court of all it had said about accretion; but Iowa's lawyers-just see now what it is to be clever-said the court would please distinguish between accretion and avulsion. Look up the difference between these two words in "The Century Dictionary" right away; for Iowa retained the title to that land by precisely that difference.

That is how Iowa happens to reach across the Missouri River at that point, and at no other.

Now, ST. NICHOLAS class in Geography, bound the State of Iowa!

[Begun in the November number.]

CHAPTER XII.

HOW THE BEAR DISGRACED HIMSELF.

At last the long winter came to an end. By the middle of March the warm sun and soft south winds begin to thaw the February snows. On such a day, when the afternoon sun beat with unusual warmth on the northern face of the mountain, the three soldiers stood together in front of the house, noting everywhere the joyful signs of the approach of spring. The snow, where it lay thickest in the hollows of the plateau, was soft and porous and grimy with dirt. There were bare spaces here and there on the ground, and where a stick or a stone showed through the thin crust the snow had retired around it as if it gave out a heat of its own. The melting icicles pendent from the eaves glittered in the sun and dripped into the channels alongside the walls.

They had a great longing to see the grass and the leaves again and welcome the early birds of spring. As they looked about on these hopeful signs in the midst of the great stillness to which they had become used, a sudden deafening crash rang in their startled ears. The sound was like the explosion of a mine or the dull roar of a siege-mortar at a little distance away. It came from the Cove to the north, and the first crash was followed by lesser reports, and each sound was echoed back from the mountains beyond.

The first thought of the three soldiers was of the opening of a battle. Their first fear was that a great mass of earth and rock had fallen from the edge of the plateau to the base of the mountain. They made their way cautiously in the direction of the sound, almost distrusting the ground under their feet. The gnarled chestnuts on the edge of the cliff were as firmly

rooted as ever. When they had advanced to where Philip's sharp eyes caught the first view of the postmaster's cabin through the twisted tree-trunks, he remembered the words of Andy, the guide, on the night when they had waited for the moon to go down. He quickly caught the arms of his companions.

"It's the avalanche," he said: "the icicles and the ice falling into the Cove from the face of the great boulder."

They could see tiny figures standing about the cabin, and they shrank back lest they, too, might be seen by the people, who were evidently gazing with all their eyes at the top of the mountain.

Just then there was another deafening crash, and at intervals all day long they heard the falling of the ice.

"They are the opening guns of spring," said Lieutenant Coleman; and now that they knew what the sound was, they listened eagerly for each report.

Late on that very afternoon, as they sat together outside the house, they saw "Tumbler," the bear, shamling down the hillside in front of the house, and they had no doubt he had been awakened from his winter's nap by the roar of the avalanche. He was thin of flesh and ragged of fur, and so weak on his clumsy legs that he sat down at short intervals to rest. He made his way first to the branch, where he refreshed himself with a drink, and then came on with renewed vigor toward the house. He was such a very disreputable-looking bear, and had been gone so long, and must be so dangerously hungry, that the men stood up doubtfully at his approach until they saw a weak movement of his stumpy tail and the mild look in his brown eyes as he seated himself on the chips and lolled out his red tongue.

Philip brought him a handful of roast potatoes, which he devoured with a relish, and