"What was that?" came from several of the others.
"I was cleaning the dishes after breakfast, and I went outdoors to throw some scraps in a heap behind some bushes. Just as I got there with my panful of stuff, up jumped—what do you think?—a great big bear!"
"A bear!" shrieked the girls.
"Did you shoot him?" broke in Shadow.
"Shoot him? What with—a frying-pan?"
"Then the bear got away?" asked Roger.
"I don't know whether the bear got away or I got away. I dropped that frying-pan, and I legged it for the cabin for all I was worth. In the meantime the bear disappeared among the trees just back of the cabin. I got my uncle's rifle and went out to look for him, but it was no use."
"O dear, a bear!" murmured Jessie. "Suppose he comes down here?" and she gave a slight shiver.
"Why, that would be fun!" declared Belle. "I'd like to see that bear, and get a shot at him, too," went on the girl from Star Ranch.
"If that bear is anywhere in this vicinity we might organize a hunt for him," suggested Luke, who, on the day previous, had gone out with Ben and Shadow and brought down a partridge.