“We’ll shovel this garbage into the pit to lead him on,” Greenleaf said. “Now where is the brush you cut when you built this camp? He won’t be as apt to suspect that as he would fresh cutting.”
“There’s a pile of it up there by the bull pen,” said Pat.
They brought down two or three loads of it and built a weak cover over the pit, strong around the edges but exceedingly weak in the center. This was accomplished by placing many small limbs with the heavy ends resting on one side and the tips on the other, using enough of them for the butts to make a fairly strong thatch all around the edge.
“Now,” Greenleaf said, “where is something we can use for bait?”
“I thought you put the garbage in there for bait,” Scott suggested.
“No, that was just to prevent him from making a meal off of it without getting near the pit at all. Besides, he’s been smelling that every night for a week. We want something real tempting.”
They canvassed the resources of the cook tent and finally decided on the lid of a pork barrel with a piece of bacon on it. This Greenleaf placed carefully in the center of the brush covering.
“There,” he exclaimed, “that ought to get him if anything will. Now let’s make all those things in the cook tent safe so that he cannot get a meal in there.”
Everything was made shipshape for the night and they went to bed—for it was already much later than the men had intended to sit up.
“Gee,” Greenleaf whispered to Scott as he wriggled into his blanket, “isn’t this great? It beats fighting fire, and I’ll bet you tomorrow’s breakfast we have that bear before morning.”