, as he smiled, and bowed around the half circle. "If you say so,
we will gladly settle his board bill right now, as we have to be off,
too much time having been lost in this hunt. But he refused to do
anything without his bear, and I had to give in."

"That's kind of you; but I guess we don't want to ask any pay for the
little he ate of our food," Thad hastened to say.

"Little, oh, my!" Giraffe burst out with; and then subsided at a frown
from the scout-master.

"And besides," went on Thad, "he happened to do us a service by
frightening away a lot of boys from town who meant to play some trick on
us, perhaps stealing all our eatables; so you see we feel square. But
perhaps you'd like to have a cup of coffee while you're here? We have
plenty, and can fix you up in short order."

Giraffe could only groan. To his mind it seemed that they must be
keeping open house for all the roving creatures at large in that section
of the country. And besides, who could say what manner of men these two
with the trained bear might turn out to be? For his part, the one who
talked so well, looked very suspicious, to say the least; and why should
an educated man be tramping all over the country in company with an
ignorant foreigner and his dancing bear, if he did not have some sly
game back of it?

"That is very kind of you, boy," remarked the man, with a smile that
made Thad forget his soiled face and rather ragged clothes; "and as the
night is cool, and we've still got a long tramp before us if we expect
to make half the distance to Faversham before morning, I'm going to take
you at your word. But I wish you'd let me pay you something for all this
trouble."

Thad of course shook his head, and gave orders for coffee to be put in
the pot, which might be set close enough to the hot camp-fire to soon
start boiling.

The man sat down and began to talk to Davy Jones, who happened to be
next him. He seemed to be asking a few questions, possibly concerning
the road to the town toward which they were bound, and which was really
a good many miles away.

Thad walked over to where the other was still chattering to his
recovered pet. He found, however, that the man could not speak enough
English to answer any question. If the other man was able to communicate
with this fellow at all then he must be educated enough to speak
Russian; for that was what the foreigner's native country seemed to be,
as far as Thad could make out.

When the coff