nd quarrelling finally awakened Hicks and McGonnigle,
who started up in their blankets, yelling. Their whoops aroused
everybody except old Mr. Penrose, who was sleeping with his deaf ear
uppermost and would not have heard a Big Bertha.

Mr. Stott slipped on his brass knuckles and stood with his head out of
the tent opening, adding his shouts to those of Hicks and McGonnigle,
who, by now, were hurling such missiles as they could lay their hands
on. Instead of having hysterics as might have been expected, Aunt Lizzie
Philbrick astonished herself and others by standing out in the open with
her petticoat over her nightgown, prepared to give battle with the heel
of her slipper to the first bear that attacked her.

It was not until Mr. Hicks got hold of two washbasins and used them as
cymbals that the bears paid any attention. But this sound, added to the
pandemonium of screaming women, finally frightened them. Then,
scattering in all directions, they started back to the shadows.

Suddenly Mr. Appel let out such a cry as seemed that it must not only
split his throat but rend the very heavens. Small wonder! A cinnamon
bear weighing in the neighbourhood of eight hundred pounds planted its
left hind foot in the pit of his stomach as it went galloping away to
the timber.

In the brush where Mr. Penrose had been sleeping tranquilly other things
were happening. In the midst of his slumbers, a dream in which he
thought he was being dragged to the fire like a calf for branding came
to him. The dream grew so real that it awakened him. He received a swift
and unpleasant impression that he was moving, then he was startled to
find that he was not only moving, but moving so rapidly that the canvas
bottom of his tent was scraping on the rocks and brush over which it
travelled.

Mr. Penrose was enraged instantly. At best he had little patience with
practical jokers and none at all with one who had the impudence to
awaken him. He called out angrily.

The tent stopped moving and there was quiet.

Mr. Penrose, who had raised himself on his elbow, laid down and was
about to begin where he had left off when his domicile resumed its
journey.

Now thoroughly aroused, he sprang up and tore at the flap-fastenings.

"This is going to stop right here!" he cried, furiously. "I do not
appreciate this odious Western humour. You have chosen the wrong person
to play your jokes on!"

He reached for the pointed fish-pole which was lying in its ca