For answer the reckless Giraffe ran up, and placed a foot on the motionless body of the bear.
CHAPTER IV.
BUMPUS TAKES A CHANCE.
“Everybody’s getting bears but me,” Bumpus was saying on the following day, when, a new camp having been selected, further removed from the noise of the rapids, the boys decided to stay over for a little while, and try their luck hunting through the big timber lands around them.
The two runaway pack mules had been recovered. Just as the boys expected, the trailing stakes had become caught fast in the rocks that lay up the stream, and in which direction the panic-stricken pack animals had gone. Both were found before darkness set in, and escorted back in triumph to the camp.
The boys had also discovered that hungry trout lay in schools below the foaming rapids, just anxious to grace the frying-pan of the scouts. And the savory mess they had secured for breakfast that morning was one of the reasons why, upon putting the question to a vote, it was decided to stay over a while.
And after they had located the new camp, with the tents erected, and things looking fairly comfortable, the complaining voice of Bumpus was heard in the land, as he rubbed diligently at the shining barrels of his Marlin with an oiled rag.
“Well, you had your chance, didn’t you?” demanded Step Hen, with a wink and a nod in the direction of Thad, who had paused to listen, while stretching the great skin of the grizzly on a big frame, to start drying.
“I s’pose I did; but he was too far away for my buckshot to bring him down,” declared Bumpus; “but I hit him, didn’t I, Thad?”
“In eight different places by actual count,” replied the other. “Altogether this pelt is shot so full of holes it won’t make the finest rug going; but whenever we look at it on the floor of our armory we’ll all remember the queer kind of fruit the trees out here bear.”
“There is Giraffe, now,” went on Bumpus, still hugging his grievance to his heart; “he got a black bear when we were up in Maine, but I call that just a snap. The old thief was astealin’ honey from the tree we cut down, when Giraffe, he just plunked him. Why, my dandy gun would have knocked that bear over at such close range, the easiest ever.”