It was certainly a bear, a small one to be sure, but genuine enough, and not such as can be seen with wandering foreigners, taught to dance, or wield a pole as a soldier would his musket.
Just when the scouts glimpsed the hairy denizen of Sassafras Swamp, he was engaged in sitting on his haunches and gathering in the bushes with his sturdy forelegs. To Lil Artha, it looked as though Bruin might be making a lunch from the luscious, big blueberries that grew in such abundance here and there through the swamp.
Up to the moment when Lil Artha thus called attention to the presence of the black native, the bear must have been in ignorance of their being so near at hand. When he did notice them, he simply gave a disgusted grunt, and ambled away through the brush. Lil Artha always declared the bear glanced back at them as he ran, and even put out his tongue, just as if he knew it was the close season, and that a kind game law protected him from all harm.
"Say, let me tell you this old Sassy swamp isn't such a bad place for a game preserve after all," said Toby; "I think some of us could enjoy having a week up here, after the law on bears and all such was up. But it's too far from home during the school session, for us to come."
"Oh! I don't know about that," remarked the tall scout, meditatively; "we could borrow a car, and start in the middle of the night when there was a moon. That'd give us a whole day up here. Take it at Thanksgiving and we could make it three, with Friday and Saturday thrown in. Elmer, think it over, won't you?"
"Plenty of time for that," he was assured; "We've got our hands full as it is, without borrowing trouble."
"And perwaps before we're done with it," Ted croaked, "you'll be that tired of seeing nothing but thwamp all around, that you'll vow never again for yourth."
"I'm going to make a proposition, Elmer," said Landy; "and I hope you'll agree. Suppose we go ashore and tackle some of those elegant blueberries ourselves? It's a shame that bears should be the only ones to enjoy such a feast. And it's tough sitting here so long!"
At that Lil Artha grunted, and looking almost savagely at the speaker nodded his head while he muttered:
"That settles it, my boy; I see your finish. You're going to earn your salt after this, no matter what happens!"