The question was a serious one indeed, and while the lad was trying hard to determine what was best to do, he heard Nellie calling to him.  She, too, was becoming impatient over the long separation and was coming to find out what it meant.

Nick shouted back for her not to approach, explaining that he was up a tree with a bear watching him, and that if she came any nearer the animal would be sure to change his attention to her.

This was enough to keep any one at a respectful distance, but, when Nellie Ribsam heard the alarming announcement, she was determined on one thing:  she would see for herself what sort of a picture was made by a boy up a tree with a black bear watching him as the one watched her two years before.

Nick having warned her against coming any nigher, it followed that the temptation to do so was irresistible.

The lifting of the smoke had let in some sunlight, and it did not take her long to reach a position from which she could look on the interesting scene.

“Nick!  Nick!” she called, in a guarded voice, not intended for the ears of the bear.

The boy, alarmed for his sister’s safety, turned toward the quarter whence it came, and saw the white face peering from behind the trunk of a tree no more than a hundred feet distant.  He instantly gesticulated for her to keep out of sight.

“You have done a silly thing, Nellie,” said he, impatiently; “the bear is sure to see you, and if he does, it will be the last of you.”

“But I don’t mean he shall see me,” said the brave but not very prudent girl; “if he looks around, why I’ll dodge my head back—­My gracious! he’s looking now!”

And Nellie threw her head so far from the side around which she was peeping, that, if the bear had looked sharp, he would have detected the somewhat bedraggled hat on the other side of the charred trunk.

Nick called to her to be more careful, as he plainly discerned her hat, and the head-gear vanished.

The lad’s fear was now on account of his sister, for he knew that so long as he himself could maintain his position in the tree, so long was he safe.  The bear species cannot climb trees whose trunks are so small that their claws meet around them, and although this brute scratched at the sapling as though he meditated an attempt, yet he made none, but sat still, looking wistfully upward, and probably hopeful that the boy perched there would soon come down.

“Keep yourself out of sight!” called Nick to Nellie, “for you can’t do anything to help me.”

The girl understood this, and she began to believe, with Nick, that she had done an exceedingly foolish thing in venturing into the bear’s field of vision in this fashion.

And what was to be the end of this singular and most uncomfortable condition of affairs?

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CONCLUSION.