Snowball gave a baa of surprise and relief. With a little effort he managed to jerk his tail from under the stone. Then he sprang to his feet. And since there was no knowing where the bear was, Snowball made all haste to get on the other side of the stone wall and join the flock of sheep once more.
When Aunt Nancy saw him she did not act half as pleased as he had expected she would.
"You got us into a pickle, young man!" she greeted him.
"It seems to me," he replied, "that you are the one that made all the trouble. If you hadn't made me jump the wall——"
"If I hadn't made you——" Aunt Nancy interrupted. And turning to her companions she cried, "Did you ever hear anything like that in all your days?"
And everybody said, "No!"
And then somebody asked, "Where's the bear?"
But nobody could answer that question.
The only one that could have answered it was Cuffy Bear himself. And he was way up under the mountain—and still running.
There wasn't a sheep in the flock that had been more frightened than he.