gether. "Seems to me I have everything I want except a camera, and I
couldn't buy the kind I want for two dollars."

They were half-way home when a happy thought came to Malcolm. "Keith,"
he cried, excitedly, "if you would put your money with mine, that would
make four dollars, and maybe it would be enough to buy that bear!"

"Let's do it!" exclaimed Keith, turning a handspring in the snow to show
his delight. "Come on, we'll ask the man now."

But the man shook his head, when they dashed into the cabin and told
their errand. "No, sonny, that ain't a tenth of what it's worth to me,"
he said. "I've raised that bear from the time it was a teeny cub. I've
taught it, and fed it, and looked to it for company when I hadn't nobody
in the world to care for me. Couldn't sell that bear for no such sum as
that. Couldn't you raise any more money than that?"

It was Malcolm's turn to shake his head. He turned away, too
disappointed to trust himself to answer any other way. The tears sprang
to Keith's eyes. He had set his heart on having that bear.

"Never mind, brother," said Malcolm, moving toward the door. "Papa will
get us one when he comes home and finds how much we want one."

"Oh, don't be in such a hurry, young gen'lemen," whined the man, when he
saw that they were really going. "I didn't say that I wouldn't sell it
to you for that much. You've been so kind to me that I ought to be
willing to make any sacrifice for you. I happen to need four dollars
very particular just now, and I've a mind to sell him to you on your own
terms." He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at a crack in the
floor, as he stood by the fire with his hands in his pockets. "Yes," he
said, at last, "you can have him for four dollars, if you'll keep mum
about us being here for one more day. You can leave the bear here
till we go."

"No! No!" cried Keith, throwing his arms around the animal's neck. "He
is ours now, and we must take him with us. We can hide him away in the
barn. It is so dark out-doors now that nobody will see us. It wouldn't
seem like he is really ours if we couldn't take him with us."

After some grumbling the man consented, and pocketed the four dollars,
first asking very particularly the exact spot in the barn where they
expected to hide their huge pet.

Unc' Henry, coming up from the carriage-house through the twilight,
thought he saw some one stealing along by the clump of cedars by the
spring-house. "Who's prowlin' roun' d