All, all returned?"

To which the bearess answered:

"Yes all returned to Manitou den,

Save those who walk by night with men.

To bring the deeds in darkness done,

To the dread light of the tell-tale sun."

Then suddenly assuming a tone of voice as different from the former as fiddle from violin, and with a particular eye to our hero, where he still kept his seat on his charger's back, or rather was kept there by the unlocked arms of Manitou-Echo, the bearess added:

"And you did find the little runaway, sure enough, Nick?"

"Aye, that did I, and a stiff-necked, strong-backed, hard-muzzled cub of a human thing do I find him, too! Tough! Tough!"

"Then all the accounts we have heard of him are but too true," sadly observed the bearess, whom the bear called "Meg."