“Yes, I would. I’d fire a bullet into his right eye and{60} then I’d fire another right into his left eye, and then he couldn’t see to chase us.”
“That would be good enough if we had a rifle,” said Julius; “but we haven’t. S’pose we land on the other side of the pond, and run for the fence.”
“Don’t yer do it!” exclaimed Teddy, in terror. “He’d catch us before we got halfway there.”
“Do bears run fast, Tom?” asked Julius, deferring to the superior knowledge of his comrade, who had had the great privilege of reading the instructive story of “Pathfinder Pete.”
“Don’t they? They can go twenty miles an hour without hurtin’ ’em.”
“They don’t look like it,” said Julius, surveying the clumsy form of the bear. “I’ll bet that bear can’t keep up with me.”
“Maybe he don’t look it, but he can run like lightnin’. ‘Pathfinder Pete’ was chased by a bear, when his rifle wasn’t loaded, an’ the only way he got off was to hide behind a tree till he’d loaded his gun, an’ then he blazed away, and keeled him over on his back.”
“Then I wish ‘Pathfinder Pete’ would happen around this afternoon. Teddy, jist sing a bit. Maybe that’ll frighten him.”
“I don’t feel like singin’,” said Teddy. “Oh, boys, how will we get home?”
“I move,” said Julius, who was least disturbed of the{61} three, “that we pitch out Teddy. While the bear’s eatin’ him, we’ll run away.”