“While he’s so busy with the bread I’ll try and see if I can get hold of that rope and fix him again,” remarked the patrol leader, not believing it would prove a very difficult task.
“Be careful, Hugh. He’s got wicked-looking teeth! I can see ’em!” Billy warned his chum anxiously.
“And his claws haven’t been trimmed this long while, seems like,” added Arthur.
“I’ll look out, make your minds easy on that question,” Hugh told them. “Both of you stand where you are, and keep moving your arms so as to sort of hold his attention. I think I can see how the job is going to be done.”
“A good idea, sure it is!” Billy declared and immediately began to swing both of his arms as though they were parts of some windmill with a twenty-mile-an-hour gale blowing.
“Easy now, not quite so hard, Billy!” Hugh admonished as he started to pass to the rear of the munching brute, where he had discovered the broken end of the rope lying on the ground.
The others continued to move their arms and talk as they watched Hugh work. In the first place he bent down and secured the rope. He found that by advancing closer to the bear he would be able to pass it around a stout little sapling and knot the end securely. What if the munching beast did growl more or less as he became conscious of Hugh’s presence. That was just the way any dog would do when disturbed while crunching a bone between his teeth; and the scout master did not mean to let it deter him from the task he had set out to perform.
“All done, Hugh?” burst out the admiring Billy when he saw the other starting to move back.
“Yes, and if the rope only holds this time he’ll stay there till his master shows up to take him in charge,” came from the other.
“You did it in first-class style, and that’s a fact, Chief!” asserted the relieved Arthur.