urther back
in the woods. The two cries answered each other at intervals for a
couple of minutes, rapidly nearing. And then they were silent.

The Child heaved a sigh of relief.

"I'm so glad he found his mother again!" he murmured. "It must be
terrible to be lost in the woods--to be _quite_ alone, and not know,
when you cried, whether it would be your mother or a bear that would
come running to you from under the black trees!"

"I agree with you," said Uncle Andy, with unwonted heartiness. It was
not too often that he was able to agree completely with the Child's
suggestions in regard to the affairs of the wild. "Yes, indeed," he
added reminiscently; "I tried it myself once, when I was about your
age, away down in the Lower Ottanoonsis Valley, when the country
thereabouts was not settled like it is now. And I didn't like it at
all, let me tell you."

"What came ?" demanded the Child breathlessly. "Was it your mother, or
a bear?"

"Neither!" responded Uncle Andy. "It was Old Tom Saunders, Bill's
uncle--only he wasn't old, or Bill's uncle, at that time, as you may
imagine if you think about it."

"Oh!" said the Child, a little disappointed. He had rather hoped it
was the bear, since he felt assured of his uncle's ultimate safety.

"And I knew a little Jersey calf once," continued Uncle Andy, being now
fairly started in his reminiscences and unwilling to disappoint the
Child's unfailing thirst for a story, "in the same woods, who thought
she was lost when she wasn't, and made just as much noise over it as if
she had been. That, you see, was what made all the trouble. She was a
good deal of a fool at that time--which was not altogether to be
wondered at, seeing that she was only one day old; and when her mother
left her sleeping under a bush for a few minutes, while she went down
through the swamp to get a drink at the brook a couple of hundred feet
away, the little fool woke up and thought herself deserted. She set up
such a bleating as was bound to cause something to happen in that wild
neighborhood."

"Yes!" said the Child, almost in a whisper. "And which came _this_
time--her mother or the bear?"

"Both!" replied Uncle Andy, most unexpectedly.

"Oh!" gasped the Child, opening his mouth till it was as round as his
eyes. And for once he had not a single question ready.

"You see, it was this way," went on Uncle Andy, prudently giving him no
time to think one up. "When the bear heard that nois