"But Ralph, you said there were no bears around here any more, so how could that be?" Hugh asked, as he turned on the other.
"Hardly that, Hugh; I told you I had never happened to run across one while trapping up here; but there was a time when they were said to be thick around this section; and who knows but what one may have wandered back, to see what the country promised him in the way of food."
Bud began dancing up and down in new excitement.
"We did leave a lot of grub in there, fellows," he told them; "and chances are that the old black sinner has gone and spoiled what he couldn't eat. That's a habit with bears, I'm told; they're about as bad as hogs that way."
"Well, what are we going to do about it?" asked Hugh, looking around at his two chums.
"We've got a gun!" suggested Bud.
"But we didn't come up here to do any hunting, and besides, scouts as a rule don't go around gunning for game," said Ralph.
"Hugh," said Bud, trying to appear cool and collected, "you've got to decide this for us, because I look at it one way, and here's Ralph saying it wouldn't be right for us to try and plug this old bear. Will we just try to shoo him away, or give him a few cold chunks \ of lead?"
Hugh smiled and nodded to Ralph.
"You lose this time, Bud," he said, "because I'm siding with Ralph here. If we were really hungry and in need of food, of course I'd say we had a right to get fresh meat; but we're on our way home now, and seems to me it would be a shame to spoil all our splendid sport by being cruel to a poor old bear that doesn't know any better than to gobble flour and anything else he finds lying around loose."