"Shoot him! Shoot him!" cried the angler, as he fairly flew past me, headed for the first cabin.
But I had neither time nor gun to shoot; when I heard bruin at my heels I switched off to the left and ran three times around the second cabin before I realized the bear had taken a stronger fancy to my comrade. It seems he had chased Coonskin around the cabin several times, until the man dived in the door and head first out of the window. Bruin followed in, but remained. He smelled the fragrant peaches.
Coonskin, however, under the impression that bruin was still after him, ran twice around the cabin before he climbed a tree.
Meanwhile, I, having climbed a tree close to the cabin, descended to the cabin roof. I knew silvertips couldn't climb trees, so I felt safe. The sudden shuffle of my feet on the gravel-covered roof disturbed the peace of the present incumbent, and out he came, rose on his haunches and looked about to see what was up. I was immovable. Back into the cabin went brother Bruin, and began to break up things, generally.
Then followed a few moments of dreadful silence. Not a sound issued from Coonskin's tree; he was probably trying to recover his breath and reason. Night soon fell upon us; it gets dark early in the canyons, and the mercury falls fast. I was chilly, for I shivered frightfully. The blankets and guns were on the ground just outside the cabin.
"Let's flip a coin to see which of us goes down for a gun," suggested Coonskin from his tree. But I did not take him seriously.
"Don't you wish you had taken the fish-line off your rod?" he added; "you could fish up a blanket and keep from freezing."
"By jingo!" I exclaimed, "I have my line, and I'll try it."
At once I fashioned a fish-pole out of a pine bough, and after much patience secured the only blanket within reach. Then winding it around myself, I lay as snug as possible, but couldn't go to sleep. That was the longest night I ever experienced. How long we should be kept off the earth, was an unpleasant speculation. Once I called to Coonskin not to go to sleep and tumble out of the tree, but he answered that he was so stuck up with pitch he couldn't fall.
Our hopes were low, when, suddenly, about seven o'clock, from the canyon below appeared a man in the rough garb of a mountaineer, with a rifle across his shoulder and a hunting knife in his belt. As he was about to pass I hailed him.