ly and noiselessly as he
could; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting two
cartridges into his Winchester.

Royal's snoring ceased. Doc's eager question, "What's up now, boys?"
reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broad
moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.

"A bear!" yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
together.

Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.

Then with a mad "Halloo!" the guide seized a flaming stick from the
fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black
animal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly
as, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across
the moonlit _brulee_.

Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed
his trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that
followed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted
stick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while
he ran like a buck at Joe's side.

"Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!" now rang from one tent
to another.

In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen
from his bed, was tearing across the _brulee_ in the wake of Bruin,
yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.

It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched
dreams, had never pictured,--the white moonlight glimmering on the
black stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear
plunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the
heavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.

Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide
and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as
he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that
littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe
unerringly in the bear's wake, even when that bulky shape was not
distinguishable.

"What's this?" screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled upon
something at his feet. "By gracious! it's our keg of m'lasses. He made
off with that, and has dropped it out o' sheer fright, or because he's
weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he's not hurt too
badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters.
Like as not 'twill be a narrow squeak wit