Pod looked at me and I looked at Pod; I hadn't anything to say on the subject; it didn't interest me as much as it did Coonskin. Pod went fishing that afternoon with a gun, and took the whole arsenal along with him, including the axe.
Somewhere about five o'clock Pod came into camp with a good mess of trout. After cleaning the fish, he took off his guns, and laid down on the grass, and wondered if that crazy valet had run across any more bear tracks. He wasn't there long when, suddenly, I heard yells issuing from the canyon down stream round the bend. The shouting sounded nearer every second, and I soon distinguished Coonskin's voice. Pod got up from the ground excitedly.
"Coonskin's in trouble, plain enough," said Pod aloud to himself, "I must run to his aid." So he started on a trot down stream to the bend, and then quickly turned, falling all over himself, and ran toward the cabins faster than I ever saw him run before or since. And immediately Coonskin came flying into view with the biggest bear at his heels I ever want to see.
That sight paralyzed me; I couldn't get on to my feet for a minute or two, then I broke the rope and kited up the canyon a hundred yards, where behind a tree I waited to see the interesting finish.
[CHAPTER XL.]
Treed by a silvertip bear
BY PYE POD.
Who dared touch the wild bear's skin
Ye slumbered on while life was in?
How fast a man can run when he knows he's got to win a race! There was one time in my life when "can't" was an obsolete word in my vocabulary. It was when that silvertip granted Coonskin's chief desire in the field of adventure.