large black bear engaged in a desperate struggle with the pack
basket. The bear had forced his great head into the top of it and its
hoop had got a firm hold on his neck. He was sniffing and growling and
shaking his head and striking with both fore paws to free himself. Sambo
had laid hold of his stub tail and the bear was trying in vain to reach
him, with the dog dodging as he held on. The movements of both were so
lively that Samson had to step like a dancer to keep clear of them. The
bear, in sore trouble, leaped toward him and the swaying basket touched
the side of the man. Back into the bushes and out again they struggled,
Sambo keeping his hold. A more curious and ludicrous sight never
gladdened the eye of a hunter. Samson had found it hard to get a chance
to shoot at the noisy, swift torrent of fur. Suddenly the bear rose on
his hind legs and let out an angry woof and gave the basket a terrific
shaking. In this brief pause a ball from the rifle went to his heart and
he fell. Samson jumped forward, seized the dog's collar and pulled him
away while the bear struggled in his death throes. Then the man started
for camp, while his great laugh woke distant echoes in the forest.

"Bear steak for dinner!" he shouted to Sarah and the children, who stood
shivering with fright on the bridge.

Again his laughter filled the woods with sound.

"Gracious Peter! What in the world was it?" Sarah asked.

"Well, ye see, ol' Uncle Bear came to steal our bacon an' the bacon kind
o' stole him," said Samson, between peals of laughter, the infection of
which went to the heart and lips of every member of the family. "Shoved
his head into the pack basket and the pack basket wouldn't let go. It
said: 'This is the first time I ever swallered a bear, an' if you don't
mind I'll stay on the outside. I kind o' like you.' But the bear did
mind. He didn't want to be et up by a basket. He'd always done the
swallerin' himself an' he hollered an' swore at the basket an' tried to
scare it off. Oh, I tell ye he was awful sassy and impudent to that old
thing, but it hung on and the way he flounced around, with Sambo clingin'
to his tail, and the bear thinkin' that he was bein' swallered at both
ends, was awful. Come an' see him."

They went to the bear, now dead. Sambo ran ahead of them and laid hold of
the bear's stump of a tail and shook it savagely, as if inclined to take
too much credit upon himself. The hoop of the pack basket had so tight a
h