Having placed his helpless companion in a comfortable position in the bow of the canoe, Bob went back after the guns and Lester’s hat, which had been left on the battle field, and then he picked up one of the paddles and pushed off into the stream.
“Luck is against us—that is plain enough to be seen,” said he. “We fail in everything we undertake, and if I should slip up on that mail business it would not surprise me at all. Don will blow this exploit of his all over the settlement, and that will place us in a most ridiculous position.”
“But can’t we talk as fast as he can?” asked Lester. “Here are you and me on one side, and Don and Bert on the other. Our word is just as good as theirs. I couldn’t shoot at the bear because my gun was foul,” added Lester, who had just discovered that the muzzle of his weapon was choked with mud. “But you shot her, and the wound proved fatal—not immediately, but in a few minutes. After the bear was dead, up came this Don Gordon and fired a bullet and two loads of buckshot into her, and claiming to have killed her, carried off the old bear and both the cubs. How’s that?”
“Good enough!” exclaimed Bob, who saw at once what his companion was trying to get at. “To add weight to the story—I have been in a dozen bear fights, and Don was never in one before to-day.”
“But I don’t know how to account for my injuries,” said Lester, taking hold of his left leg with both hands, and moving it into a little easier position.
“I do,” said Bob. “Which part of you hurts the most?”
“My left hip.”
“All right. There’s where the bear hit you with her paw when she first came out of the cane.”
“But how did I get my lame shoulder?”
“She knocked you against a tree.”