“Oh, six feet, make it six!” Joe laughed.
“Well, six, and he was ten feet tall, and growling like anything, or sort of snarling, and I said, ‘Go ’way, you spoiled my dream’—just like that, and he went, and then Joe said he wouldn’t stay there any more, ’cause he didn’t like to be disturbed that way, so——”
“I said it! Well, I like that!” Joe cried.
Bob grinned. “Well, anyhow, you wouldn’t stay after I went, you know you wouldn’t,” he said. “So we beat it for the hotel, and slept in the hammocks on the porch till four, and then we got a boat and I caught a four pound trout——”
“How do you know it was a four pounder?” his father asked.
“Weighed him by his own scales,” Bob replied. “And then Joe cooked him, and we had some breakfast. Thank you all for your kind attention, ladies and gents. This concludes our portion of the entertainment.”
Everybody laughed but Mrs. Jones. She couldn’t get over the idea that her son had really “been exposed to a bear,” as she put it.
“Was Bob as gay as this last night?” Lucy asked Joe, as the party headed toward the dining-room.
“He was not!” Joe answered. “Made me promise not to tell a soul that we’d been scared back to the hotel.”
“Aw, well,” Bob laughed, “I got more fun out of telling than keeping an old secret. Besides, I don’t care who knows you were afraid! Come on down and see the motor boats, while they’re eating their whisk brooms.”