"Oh! Oh!" cried Bunny. "It is a bear! It's a big, black bear! I didn't dream it! It's real! a real, big, black bear!"

Mrs. Brown heard what her little boy said.

"Oh, Walter!" she cried to her husband. "Throw something at it. Here's my shoe—throw that. I've got two shoes, but I can only find one. Throw that at the bear and make him go away!"

Mrs. Brown threw over the curtain, that divided the tent into two parts, one of her shoes.

She really had two shoes, but when she felt under her cot in the dark, she could only find one. You know how it is when you try to find anything in the dark, even if it's a drink of water in the chair at the head of our bed. You move your hand all over, and you think some one must have come in and taken the water away. And when you get a light you find that, all the while, your hand was about an inch away from the glass. It was that way with Mrs. Brown's other shoe.

But she threw one over the curtain, calling out again:

"Hit him with that, Walter! Hit the bear with my shoe!"

But there was no need for Mr. Brown to do anything. The shoe thrown by Bunny's mother sailed through the tent. Straight at the bear it went, and before the shaggy creature could get out of the way, the shoe hit him on the end of the nose.

"Bunk!" went the shoe.

"Wuff!" grunted the bear.