"What is the matter?" said Nellie.
"Hush, hush!" said Bessie, softly, "don't speak for a minute till I see! It's an animal!"
"A bear?" exclaimed Nellie, in some alarm, quite unmindful of Bessie's request for silence, for Nelly was a little bit of a coward, and had a firm belief in all woods being full of wild animals. As she spoke, the noise seemed to startle whatever the creature was that Bessie was watching, for it ran quickly among the dried leaves that strewed the grass, and bounded on a high rock not far distant.
"There!" said Bessie, in a vexed tone, "you've frightened him away. We might have tracked him to his hole if you had kept still."
"I was afraid it was a bear," said Nelly, half ashamed.
"A bear!" cried Bessie, in great scorn; "I'd like to see a bear in these woods."
"Would you? I wouldn't," said Nelly.
"I mean—well—I mean there isn't a bear around here for hundreds of miles. That was a squirrel you frightened away. Didn't he look funny springing up there?"
"He's there now, looking at us. Don't you see his head sticking out of that bush? What bright eyes he has."