" suggested Paul.

"That's right, lads, I know all about that trap," admitted the old
woodsman, as he grinned at them. "I had an ole bear trap that had
lost its grip and wasn't wuth much. I sot the same in the woods, but
nothin' iver kim nigh it, and so I jest forgets all about the same.
But bless me sowl I niver dramed it'd be afther grippin' a lad by the
leg. All he had to do was to push down on the springs, and he'd been
loose."

"I could see that plainly enough," admitted Jack. "The trouble was Sim
fell into a panic as soon as he found himself caught, and all he could
do was to squirm and pull and shout and groan. It shows the
foolishness of letting a thing scare you out of your seven senses."

"But do you mean to say there are real, live bears around here, Tolly
Tip?" demanded Bobolink, his eyes nearly round with excitement.

"There's one rogue av a bear that I've tried to git for this two year,
but by the same token he's been too smart for the likes av me."

"That interests me a whole lot," remarked Paul; "and I mean to devote
much of my spare time to trying to shoot that same bear with my camera
in order to get a flashlight picture of him in his native haunts!"

CHAPTER XIX

NEWS OF BIG GAME

"Faith and would ye mind tillin' me how that same might be done?"
asked Tolly Tip, showing considerable interest. "I niver knowed that
ye could shoot a bear with a shmall contraption like that black box."

Some of the boys snickered, but Paul frowned on them.

"When we speak that way," he went on to explain, "we mean getting an
object in the proper focus, and then clicking the trigger of the
camera. We are really just taking a picture."

"Oh! now I say what ye mane," admitted the woodsman; "but I niver
owned a camera in all me life, so I'm what ye'd call grane at it. Sure
'tis a harmless way av shootin' anything I should say."

"But it gives a fellow just as much pleasure to get a cracking good
picture of a wild animal at home as it does a hunter to kill," Phil
Towns hastened to remark. Tolly Tip, however, shook his head in the
negative, as though to declare that for the life of him he could not
see it that way.

"If you can show me a place that the black bear is using," Paul
continued, "I'll fix my camera in such a way that when Bruin pulls at
a bait attached to a cord he'll ignite the flashlight cartridge, and
take his own photograph."

At that the woodsman laughed aloud, so novel did the scheme st