“Why! Mr. Perker! how are you?”
Perker limply took his hand, looked at him, and answered:
“Hello! Smith!”
Then he shook Smith’s hand heartily, for Smith was the identical man he was going to see. With Smith was the boy to whom Mr. Perker was taking the lasso. The boy had stood gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the lassoed bear, at Perker, and at Smart, with which sagacious beast he had already struck up a treaty of amity and mutual admiration.
Smith noticed the rope and drew it from the neck of the dead bear.
“Was a tame critter, eh?” he asked.
Perker answered with unnecessary heat: “Tame! not by a blamed sight!”
“You wasn’t trying to lead a wild bear into town with a rope, was you?” asked Smith, grinning.
“That’s what I started to do,” said Perker, seeing that honest confession was best, “but he came near leading me into his camp.”
Then Perker told the whole story, and Smith sat down and laughed till exhausted. Finally he slapped Perker on the shoulder and said, with vast soberness: