Sol's stood in a corner far from reach.

The bear, blind with rage, fright, and astonishment, whirled around
ripping into the air with his long claws. The man and the boy not able to
reach the door, hopped about like jumping jacks, and the cold air poured
down upon them from the huge hole in their damaged roof. The bear suddenly
ran into Jim Hart's furnace and uttered a roar of pain. He stopped for a
moment to lick his singed flank, and Shif'less Sol, seizing the
opportunity, leaped for his rifle. He grasped it, and the next instant the
cabin roared with the rifle shot. The great bear uttered a whining cry,
plucked once or twice at his breast, and then stretched himself out in
front of Jim Hart's furnace, quite dead. Paul stopped dancing to and fro,
and uttered a gasp of relief.

"You got that rifle just in time, Sol," he said.

"We shorely did need a gun," Shif'less Sol said. "I guess nobody ever had
a more sudden or unwelcome visitor than you an' me did, Paul. But I
believe that thar b'ar wuz ez bad skeered ez we wuz."

"And just look at our house," said Paul ruefully. "Half the roof smashed
in, our furs and our food supplies thrown in every direction, and a big
bear stretched out in front of our fire."

They heard the patter of swift footsteps outside, and the three fishing at
the lake, who had heard the shot, came in, running.

"It's nothin', boys," said Shif'less Sol carelessly. "A gentleman livin'
in these parts, but a stranger to us, came into our house uninvited. He
wouldn't go away when we axed him to, most earnest, so we've jest put him
to sleep."

Ross pushed the bear with his foot.

"He's fat yet," he said, "an' he ought to be in winter quarters right now.
Somethin' must have driv him out uv his hole an' have sent him wanderin'
across the lake on the ice an' snow. That's what anybody gits fur not
stayin' whar he belongs."

"An' ef Jim Hart had stayed whar he belongs--that is, right here in this
house, cookin'--he'd have got that b'ar on his back, an' not me," said
Shif'less Sol, rubbing the bruised place.

"That's once I wuz luckier than you wuz, Sol Hyde," said Jim Hart,
chuckling.

"We've got a lot of fresh bear steak," said Henry Ware, "but we'll have to
clean up all this mess, and rebuild our house, just as soon as we can."

They set to work at once. All, through forest life, had become skillful in
such tasks, and it did not take them long to rethatch the roof. But they
made it stronger tha