Then they knew at once what was the matter.
“Heavens, the French Parley Voo is gone up. We can’t never git a crack at the varmint, an’ the mounseer is bound to be caught, ’less he jumps off, an’ that’s certain death. Look thar; did ye ever see the beat o’ that fur coolness. The cuss is a-straddlin’ the limb, an’ workin’ his way out, a-holdin’ the umbrella above his head, to keep the sun off. I’d go my bottom dollar on him fur pluck.”
It was indeed true. Monsieur Tierney was sitting on the half-dead limb, and edging his way out toward the end of it.
Above his head he held his huge umbrella, as if to keep shady.
In the eyes of the three friends it was the very essence of pluck.
The bear was creeping slowly and cautiously after him, stopping now and then to look around it. Once, it tried to go back, but it found it was no go, and that it was easier to go forward, so it kept on, thinking, probably, that it could go where the naturalist could.
It was a strange and fearful sight.
They were about eighty feet above the earth, and as it seemed, only a piece of rotten wood between the Frenchman and eternity.
The three men thought that their comrade was only showing his recklessness, when he raised his umbrella, as if to keep the sun off.
They did not think that he was following out a brilliant idea, which at the last moment had flashed into his mind.