o their unrestrained
mirth for several minutes before they could speak so as to be
understood.

Never had a pompous expedition ended more ignobly: they had started out
to attack a fierce black bear, and unexpectedly were overturned by a
large-sized pig, which resented the interference with his slumber.

Some naturalists maintain that many animals possess a sense of the
humorous, and it looked as though the sluggish Bowser enjoyed the joke
as much as did the victims; for, when the latter made their way back to
the camp fire, they saw the hound stretched out close to the warm blaze
with his head between his paws and apparently asleep; but, watching him
closely, he was seen to open one of his eyes, just a little ways, and,
surveying them a minute, he closed it to open again a minute later.

No animal could have said more plainly:

"I've got the joke on you this time, boys, and I'm laughing so hard that
I can't keep my eyes open."

"I tell you there is a good deal more in the heads of brutes than many
of us think," said Nick Ribsam, after he had studied the actions of the
hound; "I believe he wanted to make us believe there was some sort of
game out there so as to play the fool with us."

"Do you think he foresaw the trick of the hog?" asked Herbert, who was
rubbing his bruised elbows and knees.

"That would have been impossible, for we could not have foreseen it
ourselves if we had arranged the joke; he simply meant to mislead us,
and then we acted the fool for _his_ amusement."

It looked very much as if Nick Ribsam was correct in his supposition,
and that Bowser enjoyed even more than they the shrewd trick he had
played on them.

"I suppose there are several hundred hogs wandering through the woods,"
said Nick, "picking up acorns and nuts that have fallen off the trees,
and making a good living at it."

"Yes, lots of them have been running wild for weeks and months," added
Sam, "and when their owners try to gather them in, there will be
trouble, for it doesn't take hogs long to become savage."

"It didn't take that hog very long, I'm sure," observed Herbert, sitting
down with care upon the ground.

"But how was it there was but _one_?" asked Sam.

"There wasn't need of any more than one," said Nick; "he had no trouble
in doing as he pleased with us."

"But hogs go in droves, and you wouldn't be apt to find one of them by
himself in the woods."

"There were others close by, for I am sure I heard them; b