bad as hogs that way."

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" asked Hugh, looking
around at his two chums.

"We've got a gun!" suggested Bud.

"But we didn't come up here to do any hunting, and besides, scouts
as a rule don't go around gunning for game," said Ralph.

"Hugh," said Bud, trying to appear cool and collected, "you've got to
decide this for us, because I look at it one way, and here's Ralph
saying it wouldn't be right for us to try and plug this old bear.
Will we just try to shoo him away, or give him a few cold chunks \
of lead?"

Hugh smiled and nodded to Ralph.

"You lose this time, Bud," he said, "because I'm siding with Ralph
here. If we were really hungry and in need of food, of course I'd
say we had a right to get fresh meat; but we're on our way home now,
and seems to me it would be a shame to spoil all our splendid sport
by being cruel to a poor old bear that doesn't know any better than
to gobble flour and anything else he finds lying around loose."

Now Bud was a good loser. Perhaps after all he did not really feel
as ferocious as he pretended; and to tell the truth might have been
sorry if Hugh had sided with him, so that war was declared upon the
hairy invader of the shack.

"How'll we get him out of there?" he proceeded to ask. "If he knows
a good thing when he tastes it you bet he won't be in any hurry to
leave."

"How about you going in and telling him his room is better than his
company?" asked Hugh.

"You'll have to excuse me this time, I'm afraid," Bud quickly announced.
"I pass it up to Ralph here; he knows more about the way of animals in
a minute than I do in a year."

"Can you fix him up, Ralph?" questioned Hugh, turning to the boy who
had studied animals so long that he might be looked on as an authority.

Ralph was always willing to oblige.

"To be sure I can, and will, Hugh," he hastened to say, with one of
his rare smiles. "The rest of you stay back here, and when he once
gets clear of the door start to shouting as loud as you can."

"Which is to add to his alarm, I suppose?" suggested Hugh.

"Just about what it is," and saying no more, Ralph started for the
cabin.

They noticed that he did not approach from the front, and this
explained that Ralph had no intention of trying to enter the place
while it had a hairy occupant.

He had first gathered up something and made a bundle of it under one
of his arms.

Bud, looking closely, believed that he knew