“Can’t say, sir; very likely. Oh dear, oh dear, what a place to come to! I can’t go to sleep again after this. But do you really think it was a pig, sir—I mean a bear?”
“It must have been. The only other creature possible would be a bison or a deer, and it is not likely to have been one of them.”
Gunson took his rifle, and I heard the click of the lock as he cocked it, to step out of the shelter, and look round, but he stopped directly.
“Where is Quong?” he cried.
“Me velly safe up here,” came in a high-pitched voice from somewhere over our heads in the darkness.
“Did you see anything?” cried Gunson. “Was it a bear?”
“Too dalk see anything,” he replied. “Only hear velly much wood bleaking.”
All was quite still now, save Gunson’s footsteps as he walked about our camp, and the roar of the falling waters down toward the river where the stream near us dropped in a cascade; and he was soon back.
“I shall break my neck in the darkness,” he said, as he joined us. “I can hear nothing, and I have nearly gone headlong twice.”
“Do you think it will come back?” I said, feeling no little trepidation.