yin' for all he was
worth to play dead.

"Thinks I, I'll make me old friend laff. So I starts in to guy him,
an' he begins to snicker, an' that makes the bear mad, an' he begins to
roll the Injun. Then, you bet, I couldn't make him laff no more; for,
what with shammin' dead, an' bein' frightened to death into the
bargain, I don't think there was much laff left in him.

"You know how bears will act when they sometimes comes across a handy
log? Well, that's just what the beast was doin' with Old-pot-head's
son--it was rollin' him over an' over. The very next second it rolls
his feet into the fire. Down the tree I slid, like snow down a
mountain, an' stood at the foot of it an' pelted the bear with stones.
The Injun's blanket began to smoke. It was no laffin' matter, for I
knowed if I didn't drive the brute off in a jiffy Old-pot-head's son
would be a comin' out of his trance mighty sudden an' that meant a
catch-as-catch-can with a great, big, crazy black bear.

"As good luck would have it, the next time I threw a stone, it landed
on the tip of the bear's snout, an' with a snarl he comes for me. I
waits as long as I dares, then up the tree I skips, with the brute
follerin' me. About half ways up I thinks I hears a human bein'
laffin' in the east pine. So I looks over, an' sure enuff, I sees me
old pardner settin' on a limb an' fairly roarin'. All the same, I was
feelin' mighty squeemish, for the bear was comin' up lickety splinter
after me.

"Just then I spies a good stout branch that reaches out close against a
big limb of the birch, an' I crawls over. As the bear follers me, I
slides down the trunk o' the birch, an' lights out for the east pine
where me pardner was doin' the laffin'. On its way down the bear
rammed itself right smack against the mail-bag; and when the beast
struck ground, it smelt the man smell on the packet, an' began to gnaw
it.

"Now me an' Old-pot-head's son knowed well enuff we had to save the
mail-sack, so I slips down the east pine a ways, an' breaks off dead
branches, an' pelts them at the bear while the Injun crosses over into
the top o' the west pine. Then we both at once slides down as low as
we dares, an' I begins to lamm the brute with a shower o' sticks. Up
the tree it comes for me, while me pardner slips down, grabs the
mail-sack, an' sails up the west pine again.

"That was a mighty clever move, thinks I, but a bag is an orkad thing
to portage when you're meanderin'