First he let down his rope and found that it would reach the ground. Then he fixed the noose up in good shape, tied the other end around a limb and waited.
By and by the bear came smelling around that rope to see what it was, and that was exactly what Skinny had been waiting for. He leaned down and tried to swing the noose over the cub's head. The bear didn't know what to make of it and every time the rope would hit his nose he would growl and strike it away with his paw.
Skinny saw that he would have to get closer. He climbed down to a lower limb; then held on with one hand, swung out over the bear, and tried to lasso him with the other.
He almost did it, too, but just as he leaned still farther down, all of a sudden there was a cracking noise and the limb broke.
With an awful scream of despair, Skinny fell.
CHAPTER XII
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BEAR
THE Band, I mean the Ravens, don't know so very much about bears. That was the only bear we ever had come across and we had been berrying all over those mountains, although mostly on the Greylock side. Pa says that they usually keep away from the road, the few that are left, because they are afraid of folks.