Page:A-Hunting of Deer-1906.djvu/38

28 &ldquo;Why were you gone so long?&rdquo; &ldquo;Where &rsquo;s your pail?&rdquo; &ldquo;I left the pail.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Left the pail! What for?&rdquo;

&ldquo;A bear wanted it.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Oh, nonsense!&rdquo;

&ldquo;Well, the last I saw of it, a bear had it.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Oh, come! You did n&rsquo;t really see a bear?&rdquo;

&ldquo;Yes, but I did really see a real bear.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Did he run?&rdquo;

&ldquo;Yes; he ran after me.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I don't believe a word of it. What did you do?&rdquo;

&ldquo;Oh! nothing particular&mdash;except kill the bear.&rdquo;

Cries of &ldquo;Gammon!&rdquo; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t believe it!&rdquo; &ldquo;Where &rsquo;s the bear?&rdquo;

&ldquo;If you want to see the bear, you must go up into the woods. I could n&rsquo;t bring him down alone.&rdquo;

Having satisfied the household that something extraordinary had occurred, and excited the posthumous fear of some of them for my own safety, I went down into the valley to get help. The great bear-hunter, who keeps one of the summer boarding-houses, received my story with a smile of incredulity; and the incredulity spread to the other inhabitants and to the boarders as soon as the story was known. However, as I insisted in all soberness, and offered to lead them to the bear, a party of forty or fifty people at last started off with me to bring the bear in. Nobody believed there was any bear in the case; but everybody who could get a gun carried one; and we went into the woods armed with guns, pistols, pitchforks, and sticks, against all contingencies or surprises,&mdash;a crowd made up mostly of scoffers and jeerers.

But when I led the way to the fatal spot, and