“They must be!” said her husband again. “Wild bears would run at the sight of us—not come nearer. Some lumberman must have caught these two when they were small, and he’s tamed them. They aren’t much more yet than two-year-old cubs. I believe they’re coming to see if they can find something to eat.”
“Oh, if they’re tame bears maybe they’ll do tricks!” cried Ted.
“Maybe they’ll eat peanuts like nellifunts!” added Trouble.
“Well, you aren’t going to feed these bears peanuts!” decided his mother, catching the little fellow up in her arms and stepping back toward the auto with him.
“Oh, look! They’re eating!” suddenly cried Ted, pointing.
Surely enough, the two bears that had been shuffling along in the peculiar way bears have, had now come to a stop some little distance away from the campfire and began sniffing along the ground.
Suddenly one of them seemed to find some dainty, for he picked it up. And an instant later the other, with a sort of squealing growl, tried to knock whatever it was from the mouth of the first bear.
“They’re quarreling, just like two boys! Oh, they must be tame bears!” decided Mrs. Martin, for the shaggy chaps seemed to have no interest except in each other or in what they could find on the ground.
“What is it, Daddy, they’re fighting about?” asked Janet, for now the two bears were wrestling, standing up on their hind legs, and each trying to throw the other. Whatever the first bear had found had been knocked from him by the second bear and had fallen to the ground. Now they were struggling to see which should have it.
“It’s my snandwich that I dropped,” explained Trouble. “I was over by there and I dropped a snandwich (he always called them that) and the bears are eating my snandwich.”