Page:Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp.djvu/89

Rh an infinitessimal part of an inch—that's a good word, that 'infinitessimal'; ain't it, Miss? I got it off of a college perfesser what come up here, and he said he got it straight-away out of the dictionary."

"It's a good word, Mr. Todd," laughed Ruth, highly delighted at the man and his story.

"Wal!" chuckled Jerry, "we'll say she missed me. I was so scar't that I didn't know then whether she had missed me or was chawin' of me. I felt I was pretty numb like below my waist. And how I did stretch up that tree! No wonder I growed tall after that day," said Jerry, shaking his head. "I stretched ev'ry muscle in my carcass, Miss—I surely did!

"There was that ol' she b'ar, on her hind legs and a-roarin' at me like the Mr. Bashan's Bull that they tell about, and scratchin' the bark off'n that tree in great strips. She cleaned the pole, as far up as she could reach, as clean as a bald man's head. She jumped as far as she could, gnashed her teeth, and tried her best to climb that sapling. Every time she made a jump, or howled, I tried to climb higher. An', Miss, that was the time I got stretched out so tall, for sure.

"The bear, with wide-open mouth, kept on a-jumpin' an' ev'ry time she jumped I clumb a little higher. I was so busy lookin' down at her that I never looked up to see how fur I was