“Oh, he’ll come, all right, if he smells that honey,” returned the boy confidently.

“That settles it, then.  We stay a while, at any rate,” declared Frank.

Jerry was secretly pleased.  Perhaps he did have a little streak of envy in his composition, for it galled him to have others succeed in his beloved sport while fortune denied him a fair share of the honors.  But, taken all in all, Jerry was square enough, and would quickly change places with a companion in a boat when it appeared that all the fish were lying at his end.

Frank moved his position a little.  Then they settled down to wait.  Of course, every one of the three boys cast rather frequent and apprehensive glances up into the branches overhead.  Sometimes these panthers hunted in pairs, and how were they to tell but what the mate to Frank’s victim might be even then watching for a chance to leap down upon them?

An hour passed.  Then Jerry heard a grunting sound somewhere close by.  It was accompanied by a rustling in the bushes.

His pulses thrilled, while Joe, who had taken up a position alongside him after the adventure with the panther, put out a hand and nudged Jerry several times.

“Bear!” he said, in the lowest of whispers.

Again and again came the grunting and the swishing of bushes.  Bruin was sniffing the delightful aroma of honey.  It was so strong that his usual caution was apparently thrown to the winds, and he pushed forward straight toward the spot where the broken tree hive had scattered much of its delicious contents over the ground.

Now Jerry could see his bulky figure as he shuffled forward with eager mien.  The repeating rifle began to come up, though Jerry was in no hurry to fire.  He wanted to get a fair view of the animal’s side, so that he could bring Bruin down with a single shot.

They could hear the beast grunting in delight as he started in to devour some of the bees’ rich treasure.  Perhaps he had long cast an envious eye on that same tree hive, and hoped for the time to come when a storm might lay it low.

Frank held his fire generously.  He could have shot the bear several times, and with the buckshot shells that were in his gun had no fear about killing his game with ease; but it was really Jerry’s turn.

Finally came the sharp report.  They saw the bear roll over, try to stagger up again, struggle vehemently, and then gradually grow weaker.

“Hurrah, Jerry!  He’s your bag!” shouted Frank, as genuinely happy as though it had been his own shot that did the business; perhaps more so.

“Oh! what a night!  Bring on your bears and panthers, your crocodiles and tomcats!” cried Jerry.  “We can take care of a whole menagerie.  Talk to me about your hunting preserves!  Did you ever meet up with anything that equals this?”

Realizing that the boys on board the motorboat must be consumed with eagerness to know what the result of these two shots might be, Frank now proposed that they go aboard.