It was a difficult climb, and Emma was red in the face and panting when she finally rejoined her friends. When Stacy appeared three quarters of an hour later he looked so battered that some of the spectators were sorry for him, some alarmed, even though he did look funny as he struggled to strut up to the Overland group as though nothing had happened. But when one girl remarked mockingly, the while she laughed, “Isn’t he the funny child?” the rest, in spite of themselves, joined the laughter.
“Perhaps you folks think I’m some kind of joke or a baby or—or—”
“A brainless person,” suggested Emma.
“I’m a man,” went on the boy brazenly. “I’m a lion tamer! lean—”
Exclamations and screams interrupted this harangue.
“A bear with cubs, and something or somebody’s disturbed her!” shouted some one.
“Run, everybody! She’s angry!”
Everybody did run, Stacy Brown, the “lion tamer,” in the fore, toward the coach that had brought the hotel guests to the spot, into which most of them climbed in haste.
The bear paused, then, as the menace to her cubs seemed less imminent, turned and led them back toward the woods. Seeing this, Stacy Brown bounced out of the coach and took after the retreating bear.
“Stacy!” called Hippy angrily. “Come back!”