Suddenly there was a blinding flash. It was all over in a second, but the boys could hear the bear scrambling on the hearth. Perhaps the coals burned his feet again, and forced him to abandon any idea of trying to escape by the same means he had employed in reaching the interior of the shack.
"Light up again!" ordered Phil; "it's all over!"
So X-Ray again turned up the wick of the lantern. The bear was standing there, growling, and looking more belligerent than before. Evidently he did not altogether like this sort of treatment. That dazzling flash had blinded him. It may have made him think of the lightning that went with a storm; and there was now no friendly hollow tree into which he could creep; only those strange, two-legged creatures whom instinct told him were enemies of his race.
"Looks almost ready to tackle us, don't he, Phil?" chirped Lub, from the security of the second-story bunk.
Ethan was swinging that shining hatchet wickedly back and forth.
"He'd better not, if he knows what's good for him," he was saying, with determination written upon his set jaws and flashing eyes; "I'd just like to get one good belt at him square between those wicked little eyes of his. We'd have bear steak for breakfast, let me tell you."
"But remember that the law is on bears yet, and if we killed him we might run up against a game warden and be arrested!" Lub warned him; for Lub was always well posted on all matter that pertained to the law, as became the son and heir of a well-known judge.
"We don't want to fight except there's no other way," said Phil; who wished to restrain both Ethan and X-Ray; for he knew they were apt to be impulsive, and it would not take much to precipitate a battle royal with the four-legged visitor.
"But what's the answer, then?" demanded the latter chum, indignantly; "do we sit down and watch him gobble all our fine grub without lifting a hand to stop him? Say, I'd be ashamed to tell the story afterwards; and him only a half-grown bear in the bargain."
"He don't seem to like that smoke you made, Phil?" remarked Lub, who had an unusually fine place for observation, being elevated above the heads of his crouching chums. "Couldn't you keep that going, and just force him to climb up the chimney again?"