So saying, the bear, with the look of one preparing himself for deep thought, and all unconscious of what he was doing, seated himself upon his haunches. Whereat, Manitou-Echo suddenly quitted his seat, when, with a swift, sleek slide down his charger's back, plump to the ground came Sprigg, still in a sitting posture, his straddled legs as nicely adjusted to the bear's broad rump as spur to heel.
"Bless a body," cried the bear, glancing 'round at our hero, where he sat with his face all crumpled up for a cry; not that he was hurt in the least, but that Manitou-Echo and Will-o'-the-Wisp were laughing at him, as he could see (for he could not hear them) by the fantastic capers of their moccasins and by the lantern bobbing up and down. "Bless a body! But it had quite slipped my mind that the cub was on my back. There, now! Don't rub so hard, and save your brine for your sins."
"He-he-he!" laughed Manitou-Echo, now aloud.
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Will-o'-the-Wisp.
"Ho-ho-ho!" Elfin laughter resounding now from every side. The boy looked quickly about him. To his astonishment, he found the floor of the cave, as far as the light of the bobbing lantern allowed him to see, alive, so to speak, with red moccasins, all dancing about on tip-toe, or kicking gleefully into the air.
"Hush, children, hush!" cried Meg of the Hills, in a voice of gentle remonstrance. "Do you not see how it hurts the poor boy to be laughed at? Hush, I charge you!"
The elfin laughter ceased at once. But straight, the void thus left was filled by a long, calf-like howl from our hero, who, now that he had found there some one capable of understanding what a human boy could suffer, must need give vent to his wounded feelings—laugh who would. His lamentation had not reached the modulating point, when, from the hollow depths around, there came, first, a big buzz, then a hoarse hum, and then a mumbling, rumbling, grumbling sort of a noise, which striking his ear as no empty echo, caused him to cut short his longest howl in the middle, to listen and glance about him.
"It's only a trick," drily observed the bear. "Our old house is in the habit of playing our guests, when they sing or laugh too loud."
"Or, rather a fashion," gently observed the bearess, "our old house has of reminding us when it is time we were putting our weary guests to bed. Here, Will-o'-the-Wisp and Manitou-Echo, show our young guest to bed, and be so courteous as to allow him the choice side, and charge the cubs not to crowd him or hug him, as he is an only child, and not accustomed to our litterish way of sleeping."