Addison had turned to stare at the dark cellar doorway, when we heard it yet again—a wild staccato yelp, prolonged and quavering.
"There must be a wolf or a fox down there!" Addison muttered and picked up a loose brick from the fireplace.
He started to throw it down the cellar stairs, when three or four yelps burst forth at once, followed by a rumble and clatter below, as if a number of animals were running madly round, and then by the ugliest, most savage growl that ever came to my ears!
Addison stopped short. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "That's some big beast. Sounds like a bear! He'll be up here in a minute! Quick, help me stand this wardrobe in front of the doorway!"
He seized it on one side, I on the other, and between us we quickly stood that heavy piece of furniture up against the dark opening. Then, while I held it in place, Addison propped it fast with the door from the foot of the chamber stairs, which with one wrench he tore from its hinges.
It was evidently foxes, or bears, or both; but how they had got into the cellar was not clear. We started the fire blazing again and, standing in front of it, listened to the uproar. At times we heard yelps in the storm outside, at the back of the house, and decided that there must be some other way than the stairs of getting into the cellar.
After a while it began to grow light. Snow was still falling, but not so fast. The commotion below had quieted, but we heard a fox barking outside and from the back window caught sight of the animal moving about in the snow, holding up first one foot then another. Farther away, among the bushes of the clearing, stood another fox; and, still farther off in the woods, a third was barking querulously. Tracks in the snow led to a large hole under the sill of the house where a part of the cellar wall had caved in.
"But there's a bear or some other large animal down cellar," Addison said. "You watch here at the window."
He got a brick and, pulling the old wardrobe aside, flung it down the stairs and yelled. Instantly there was a clatter below, and out from the hole under the sill bounded a big black animal, evidently a bear, and loped away through the snow.
We could now pretty well account for the nocturnal uproar. Bears hibernate in winter, but are often out until the first snows come. The storm had probably surprised this one while he was still roaming about, and he had hastily searched for a den.