“Oh, don’t be a cry-baby!” said Neddie. “Come on!”
“Oh, but it’s dark!” objected Beckie.
“The moon will soon be up,” said her brother.
On and on through the woods they went, and soon the moon did come up. Then it was lighter. On and on went the two bear children; when, all of a sudden, they heard a noise in the bushes.
“What’s that?” asked Beckie, sliding close up to her brother.
“I—I don’t know,” he whispered. And just then, through the woods, they heard a sound like this:
“Ta-ra! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Toot! Toot!”
“Come on!” cried Neddie, joyfully. “There is the trained bear man. Now we are all right,” and holding tightly to Beckie’s paw he raced on through the woods toward the bugle sound.
And what happened next, and what Neddie and Beckie did when they found the trained bear and his master, I’ll tell you on the next page, when the story will be about Neddie and Beckie up a pole—that is I will if the letter-carrier doesn’t put a clothespin on our little doggie’s tail and mail him away off where he can’t go to the moving picture show in our cellar.