chances are they'll quit quizzing you on your eating ability. Doctor
Philander said that the only danger lay in your putting to great a
strain on your digestive powers."

"Well, Doctor Philander ain't here, and we seem to be getting along O.
K. without a regular scout-master, too," remarked Davy Jones. "I
wouldn't care if business kept on chaining him to town whenever the
Silver Fox Patrol has a chance to camp out. Thad, here, keeps us subdued
just about right."

The bear had not been forgotten at meal times. Thad saw to it that there
was enough food given to the animal to satisfy its hunger; though
Giraffe always complained that it was just ruinous the way that animal
did eat into their supplies.

"Lucky you laid in an extra amount, Thad," he remarked that same
evening, as he saw the captive make way with all that was placed before
him. "Guess you must have had an idea we'd have company up here."

"Why, no, the boys warned me that the fresh air might sharpen up some of
our appetites," replied Thad; "and I guess it has."

"That's just it," said Giraffe, quickly; "and I can't be held
responsible for what this ozone does, can I, Thad? Why, ever since we
started, I've just got an empty feeling down there, like the bottom had
dropped out. Half an hour after I fill up, I'm hungry again. It's an
awful feeling, let me tell you."

"I was just wondering," said Thad, "if those two foreigners who own this
beast will ever show up to reclaim him."

"My stars! I hope so," remarked the other, looking horrified at the very
thought of keeping Bruin much longer. "But what can we do to let 'em
know we've got their old hairy exhibit eating us out of house and home?"

"Nothing that I know of," laughed Thad, "No use advertising, because
papers don't circulate through the wilderness; and those ignorant
foreigners couldn't read the notice if we put one in. And we can't find
where to stick the message even if we printed one in picture writing, as
Allan had shown us the Indians do. Guess after all we'll just have to
take pot luck, Giraffe."

"That means, I reckon, that we'll just have to keep on stuffing our good
grub down the throat of this silly old bear, until his owners happen
along. Tough luck, Thad! Why, oh! why did the beast ever smell us out in
the beginning?"

"Oh! the odor of our supper cooking must have done that," Thad went on
to say. "If you were almost starved, and got on the track of onions
frying, wouldn't you make a