Then, while he was gazing at the dying camp fire he suddenly made a discovery that gave him quite a start.
Some moving object caught his eye, not upon the ground as might have been expected, but up in the branches of a wide-spreading oak tree.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CHASE
Paul looked again, and more closely.
The light from the fire was becoming fickle. Once in a while the flame would start up, and give quite some little illumination. Then dying down lower than ever, it allowed a condition of half darkness to prevail.
Of course it had been during one of these former periods that Paul made his startling discovery; and he waited in considerable suspense until the flame took a notion to feed upon another little stock of tinder.
Could it really be a bear up there in that big oak, the branches of which reached out, and shook hands with those of other trees? Paul chuckled at the idea; it was so absurd. Save for an occasional traveling Italian with a trained bear, no such animal had been known to exist in all this section for many years.