"And if we don't think up some way to coax the beast to get out," declared Step-hen, gravely; "why, just as like as not he'll eat up everything we've got, and then go to sleep in our blankets, with us hanging around here like a lot of ripe plums."
"Let Davy do it," remarked Thad; for that was an expression often used among the boys, Davy being such a spry chap, and usually so willing.
But he at once set up a determined protest.
"Now, I would, believe me, boys, if I only knew the gentleman, which I don't, never having been properly introduced. Must have been out of town when he gave his little show the other day. So I respectfully but firmly decline the honor you want to pay me. Now, it's sure up to Smithy to get busy, and make up with his old chum again. Here's his chance to win immortal glory, and the thanks of the whole Silver Fox Patrol as well. Smithy, it's your move."
The delicate boy was pale before, but he turned even whiter now, as he looked in the direction of Thad.
"Perhaps I might coax him to be good; and get a chance to whip the end of that long chain around a tree," he said, in a voice he tried in vain to keep from trembling.
Thad hardly knew what to say. He understood that animals never forget an enemy, or one who has been good to them. An elephant in captivity has been known to bear a grudge for several years, until a good chance came to pay his debt.
Now Smithy said he had fed the traveling bear at the time it danced for his amusement. Doubtless, then, it might recollect him, and would be less inclined to show any vicious temper if he approached, than should a stranger try to take hold of the trailing chain.
"You said you had fed him, didn't you, Smithy?" he asked.
"Yes, with half a loaf of good bread; and I would have gone after more only just at that minute my mother happened to come to the window, and became so frightened at seeing me near the bear, she called to me to come in the house. But I shook hands with him before I went," the last proudly, as though he wanted the boys to know he was not the milksop they sometimes had imagined in the past.