But the McKenna sister paid no attention to these remarks. She kept her eyes closed; she moaned and wailed. So long as that horrible demon was under the bed she would not have put as much as one of her toes over the edge for all the money in the world!
In every way I tried to induce the bear to come out, but he paid no attention to me. He had been frightened, and he was now in darkness and security. Suddenly a happy thought struck me. I glanced around the room, and then I rushed into the hall. Genevieve followed me. "What do you want?" she said.
"I am looking for some overshoes!" I cried. "India-rubber ones!"
Instantly Genevieve began to dash around. In a few moments she had opened a little closet which I had not noticed. "Here is one!" she cried, "but it's torn—the heel is nearly off! Perhaps the other one—"
"Give me that!" I exclaimed. "It doesn't matter about its being torn!" With the old overshoe in my hand I ran back into the room, where Mr. Larramie was still imploring the McKenna sister to get down from the bed. I stooped and thrust the shoe under as far as I could reach. Almost immediately I saw a movement in the shaggy mass in the corner. I wriggled the shoe, and a paw was slightly extended. Then I drew it away slowly from under the bed.
Now, Miss Susan McKenna rose in the air higher than she had yet gone. A maddening wail went up, and for a moment she tottered on the apex of an elevation like a wooden idol upheaved by an earthquake. Before she had time to tumble over she sank again with a thump. The great hairy bear, looking twice as large in that room as he appeared in the open air, came out from under the foot of the bed, and as I dangled the old rubber shoe in front of his nose he would have seized upon it if his jaws had not been strapped together. I got hold of the chain and conducted him quietly outside, amid the cheers and hand-clapping of Percy and Genevieve.
I chained Orso to a post of the fence, and, removing his muzzle, I gave him the old rubber shoe.
"Shall I bring him some more?" cried Genevieve, full of zeal in good works. But I assured her that one would do for the present.
I now hurried into the house to find out what had happened to the persons and property of the McKenna sisters.
"Where are the other two?" cried Genevieve, who was darting from one room to another; "the bear can't have swallowed them."