While they were wondering how they would cross the desert, they suddenly heard a loud "Bang! Bang!" and the little Cub Bear ran to the mouth of the cave.
He said, "I see some very strange animals. They have the funniest necks—almost as long as the giraffe's, but curved instead of straight, and their heads are very different from the giraffe. The animals have long hair on their necks, and on their backs they have two hills—small ones of course; and they walk very quietly; you can scarcely hear the animals when they place their feet on the ground."
Just then the old owl said, "Who-o-o-o? who-o-o?"
But the animals did not answer. The Circus Bear said that he knew what the animals were; they were camels.
"How many of them are there?" asked the Circus Bear.
And the little Cub Bear began to count, "One, two, three, four," and so on, until he had counted twelve camels.
When the camels came to the cave, the Circus Bear told the little Cub Bear to tell them to come in. The camels came in, but they said they were not in the habit of living in caves. They lived on the desert.
"How can you live on the desert, when there is no water to drink, and nothing to eat there?" asked the little Cub Bear.
The oldest of the camels replied that the camel was a very strange and peculiar animal, and they were made so that they could live on the desert, where there was nothing to drink and nothing to eat.
Of course, the little Cub Bear wanted to know how it was possible for an animal to live without anything to eat, and with nothing to drink. But the camel told him that they had a place to carry water and a place to carry food. He had ten stomachs for water, and four stomachs for food.