[#] Did not I ask you.
Sam looked so whimsical throughout the whole of this eloquent appeal, that Robert's face relaxed from its stern and angry expression, and at the last words he caught Harold's eye, and burst into a laugh.
"Come, Harold," said he, "let us save his fat; I know his mouth waters for it."
The quarrel was over. Indeed it could not properly be called a quarrel, for it was all on one side, and no one can quarrel alone. They caught the floating carcass, tied it behind the raft, then pulling into the current, floated rapidly home, and reached the prairie about the middle of the afternoon.
For the rest of the day their hands were full; and it was not until late at night that they were able to retire. The young bears were first stowed away in the same pen with the goats and deer, but Harold was scarcely able to remove them in time to save their lives; for Nanny, after running from them as far as the limits of the pen allowed, rose upon her hind legs with a desperate baa! and bringing her stony forehead against the head of the nearest, laid it senseless on the ground, and was preparing to serve the other in the same way.
What to do with them Harold did not know. He dared not put them in the poultry house, and he was unwilling either to shelter them in the tent or to tie them outside the palisade. So, until some other arrangement could be devised, he fastened them to a stake inside the enclosure round the tent, where he supplied them with water, honey, and a piece of venison.
The adventure, however, was not quite over. Late in the night Sam was awaked by feeling something move upon his bed, and put its cold nose upon his face. Thinking it was some one walking in his sleep, he called out, "Who dah?" and putting out his hand, felt to his dismay the rough head and shaggy skin of a bear. Sam was a firm believer in ghosts, both human and brute. He gave one groan, and cried out, "O massy!" expecting the next moment to be overpowered, if not torn to pieces; then jumping from bed in the greatest hurry, he hunted tremulously for some weapon of defence, exclaiming all the while,
"Mas Harrol! Mas Robbut! O massy! Here de ole bear, or else he ghost, come after us."
The taper was brought from Mary's room, and disclosed the secret. One of the cubs feeling in the chill, night air the want of its mother's warmth, had loosed the insecure fastening, and come to seek more comfortable quarters in the tent. "It is your countryman's baby, Sam," said Robert, after the excitement had subsided. "You killed its mother, and it has come, poor little orphan, to ask that you shall be its daddy now."
CHAPTER XXXIII