The mountaineer picked up his cap and pulled it over his eyes, with a sidelong look at the stranger; then he bent toward the fisherman and said in a low, stern tone: “Silence!”
The fisherman shook his head several times.
“Brother Kennybol, the fish may be silent, but it falls into the net all the same.”
There was a short pause. The two brothers exchanged meaning glances; the children picked the feathers from the ptarmigan as it lay on the table; the good wife listened, and hoped to guess more than was actually said; and Ordener studied them all.
“If you have but meagre fare to-day,” suddenly observed the hunter, evidently anxious to change the subject, “it shall not be so to-morrow. Brother Braal, catch the king of fish, if you can, for I promise you plenty of bear’s grease to dress it.”
“Bear’s grease!” cried Maase. “Has any one seen a bear in the neighborhood? Patrick, Regner, my boys, I forbid you to leave the house. A bear!”
“Make yourself easy, sister; you will have nothing to fear from him after to-morrow. Yes, it was really a bear that I saw about two miles away from Surb,—a white bear. He seemed to be carrying off a man, or rather an animal. But no, it may have been a goatherd, for goatherds dress in the skins of animals; however, I was not near enough to tell. What amazed me, was that he carried his prey on his back, and not in his teeth.”
“Really, brother?”
“Yes; and the creature must have been dead, for it made no attempt to defend itself.”
“But,” sagely inquired the fisherman, “if it were dead, how did it stay on the bear’s back?”