"Never mind," soothed Hippy. "You can practice your nature reading stunt on him. Who knows but that you may learn the bear language, so that by the time we finish our work up here you will be able to go out in the forest and tell the bears your life history, and listen to them telling you theirs. Of course they might eat you, but that would not matter."
"Huh!" grunted Miss Dean, elevating her nose and turning her back on him.
"Mount!" ordered Hippy, after each girl had saddled her pony and stood waiting for the start. They swung into their saddles with agility, and jogged out into the road with Hindenburg racing ahead and darting back, barking joyously. He was already feeling the call of the wild.
"There's Joe," called Emma, as they rounded a bend in the road.
"I do not see the bear," wondered Tom.
"Perhaps she decided to leave him at home to shift for himself. I hope so."
Grace said she hoped not, for the bear would make life interesting for them.
Joe was sitting on the back of one of her pack mules jogging along, leading the second mule behind, but, though she must have heard the Overlanders shout to her, she neither replied nor looked back. Hindenburg, however, darted ahead and began barking at the mules, dodging their heels successfully for several minutes, much to the amusement of the party following. At last, however, he caught a glancing blow from a mule foot that sent him rolling into the bushes. In a few moments he was out again, circling mules and rider, barking his angry protests, then dodging off the trail into the bushes where they heard him barking with a different note in his voice.
"There comes the bear!" cried Nora. "Look at him!"
"Yes, and there comes Hindenburg bucking the line," added Hippy.