He could hear him moving, and he seemed to lean forward until his hands were perilously near the small opening at which the nose of the bear was working just as the snout of a hog might be used to move an obstacle.
The champing of teeth, along with the loud sniffing, continued.
“What are you doing, Dick?” asked Roger, finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer.
“Oh!” came the cheery reply, “I have wasted a charge or two of powder, placing it as near the opening as I can, and running a thread this way. Now I have my flint and steel ready, and, as soon as he starts to poking his nose in at the hole again, I’ll strike fire, and explode the powder in his face!”
Roger saw the object of this, and was considerably interested in the outcome.
“I hope he gets the full benefit of the flash,” he observed.
Dick saw his chance just then, and he could be heard striking the flint and steel rapidly together after the manner of one whom long experience in this line had made almost perfect.
There came a little shower of descending sparks, and then a sudden brilliant flash that lit up the interior of the hollow tree as though the sun had found a means of ingress.
“Hurrah!” cried Roger, clapping his hands in glee, “that was the time you gave old Eph the scare of his life! Hear him plunging off, will you, Dick? It seems as if he’d lost all desire to make the acquaintance of his new lodgers. And I don’t think we’ll be bothered any more by Mr. Bear, do you?”