The news of the capture had spread rapidly around the campus. Two or three of the boys met them a mile down the road, the others were all assembled near the library, students, professors’ families, visitors, workmen and all, awaiting the arrival of the mighty hunters. Some were awaiting the further development of what they considered a joke; others were prompted by genuine curiosity to see a real, live, wild bear.
Greenleaf looked a little anxious at the waiting crowd and then at the cage. “I wish he’d perk up a little,” he said, riding as near the cage as the horse would consent to go. “Can’t you twist his tail a little, Scotty? Bill Price will be saying he was dying when we found him.”
“He hasn’t a great deal of tail to twist, so far as I can make out,” Scott answered doubtfully, “and nothing seems to arouse him at all. I wonder if he is going to die after all?”
The crowd cheered loudly as the wagon pulled slowly into the yard and pushed close around the wagon to inspect the prize.
“You need not be afraid,” Greenleaf assured the ladies, “Dan had to knock him on the head with the flat of an ax and it has dazed him a little. He’ll be all right in a little while.”
“What did he hit him for? To loosen him from the ground?” Bill Price drawled. “You must have had a hard time dragging him into the cage, Greeny.”
“Never you mind,” Scott retorted, “if you had seen him trying to get out of that pit and ripping Greenleaf’s trousers nearly off, you’d have thought he was a pretty lively corpse.”
“In a pit, was he?” Bill asked quietly. “I supposed he was dead but why do you suppose they tried to bury him?”
“Never mind, Greeny,” Scott consoled him, “Bill would not have had the nerve to catch a dead one.”
“Cheer up, fellows,” Greenleaf grinned as he helped carry the cage over to a shady spot, “we’ve got the first bear ever caught in the park, if he is a dead one, but if you all live to grow up you may catch one yourselves some day. Who can tell? Bears are dumb brutes.”