Miss Edith looked as if she would like to go, but she did not say so; and, as for me, I agreed to every proposition.  It would certainly be great fun to do things with this lively household.

We started off without the boy, but it was not long before he came running after us, and to my horror I perceived that he carried a rifle.

“What are you going to do with that, Percy?” exclaimed his father.

“I don’t expect to do anything with it,” the boy replied, “but I thought it would be a good thing to bring it along—­especially as Genevieve is with us.  Nobody knows what might happen.”

“That’s true,” exclaimed Walter, “and the fact that Genevieve is along is the best reason in the world for your not bringing a gun.  You better go take it back.”

To this Percy strongly objected.  He was going out on a sort of a bear-hunt, and to him half the pleasure would be lost if he did not carry a gun.  I am not a coward, but a boy with a gun is a terror to me.  My expression may have intimated my state of mind, for Mr. Larramie said to me that we had now gone so far that it would be a pity to send Percy back, and that he did not think there would be any danger, for his boy had been taught how to carry a gun properly.

“We are all out-of-door people and sportsmen,” he said, “and we begin early.  But I suppose what you are thinking about is the danger of some of us ending soon.  But we need not be afraid of that.  Walk in front, Percy, and keep the barrel pointed downward.”

When we came in sight of the house of the three McKennas, Walter proposed that we make a detour towards the woods.  “For,” said he, “if those good women see a party like this with a gun among them, they will be sure to think it is a case of escaped criminal, or something of that kind, and be frightened out of their wits.”

We skirted the edge of the trees until we came to the opening of the wood road, which I recognized immediately, and, asking Percy and the others to keep back, I went on by myself.

“I don’t think people would frighten that sort of a bear,” I heard Genevieve say.  “He must be used to crowds around him when he’s dancing.”

I presently reached the place where I had turned from the road.  It was a natural break in the woods.  There was the tree to which I had tied the bear, but there was no bear.

I stood aghast, and in a moment the rest of the party were clustered around me.  “Is this where you left him?” they cried.  “And is he gone?  Are you sure this is the place?”

Yes, I was sure of it.  I have an excellent eye for locality, and I knew that I had chained the bear to the small oak in front of me.  At that moment there was a scream from Genevieve.  “Look!  Look!” she cried.  “There he is, just ready to spring!”

We all looked up, and, sure enough, on the lower branch of the oak, half enveloped in foliage, we saw the bear extended at full length and blinking down at us.  I gave a shout of delight.