As soon as I could get a chance I thanked them all for their gracious words, and said that as I was in a hurry I must take my leave.  Thereupon arose a hubbub of voices.  “Not at dinner-time!” exclaimed Mr. Larramie.  “We would never listen to such a thing!”

“And you need not trouble yourself about your bear,” cried my young lady, whose Christian name I soon discovered to be Edith.  “He can live on barks and roots until we have time to attend to him.  He is used to that in his native wilds.”

[Illustration:  “A little army had thrown itself upon us.”]

Now everybody wanted to know everything about the bear, and great was the hilarity which my account occasioned.

“Come in!  Come in!” exclaimed Mr. Larramie.  “The bear will be all right if you tied him well.  You have just time to get ready for dinner.”  And noticing a glance I had given to my garments, he continued:  “You need not bother about your clothes.  We are all in field costume.  Oh, I did not see you had a valise.  Now, hurry in, all of you!”

That dinner was a most lively meal.  Everybody seemed to be talking at once, yet they all found time to eat.  The father talked so much that his daughter Edith took the carving-fork from him and served out the mutton-chops herself.  The mother, from the other end of the table, with tears in her eyes, continually asked me if I would not have something or other, and how I could ever screw up my courage to go about with an absolutely strange bear.

There was a young man, apparently the oldest son, with a fine, frank manner and very broad shoulders.  He was so wonderfully developed about the bust that he seemed almost deformed, his breast projecting so far that it gave him the appearance of being round-shouldered in front.  This, my practised eye told me, was the result of undue exercise in the direction of chest-expansion.  He was a good-natured fellow, and overlooked my not answering several of his questions, owing to the evident want of opportunity to do so.

There was a yellow-haired girl with a long plait down her back; there was a half-grown boy, wearing a blue calico shirt with a red cravat; there was a small girl who sat by her mother; and there was a young lady, very upright and slender, who did not seem to belong to the family, for she never used the words “father” and “mother,” which were continually in the mouths of the others.  This young lady talked incessantly, and fired her words after the manner of a Gatling gun, without taking aim at anybody in particular.  Sometimes she may have been talking to me, but, as she did not direct her gaze towards me on such occasions, I did not feel bound to consider any suppositions in regard to the matter.