For a half hour the situation remained unchanged.  Nick Ribsam kept his perch in the branches of the sapling, and, before the end of the time named, he found the seat becoming so uncomfortable that he was sure he could not bear it much longer.

The narrow limb on which he rested, while he held himself in place by grasping the sapling itself, seemed to grow narrower and sharper, while his own weight increased, until he believed it would be preferable to let go and hang on with his hands.

It was not much better with Nellie, who had awakened to such a sense of her position that she did not dare to do more than peep out from where she stood, at rare intervals, quickly drawing back her head lest the savage animal should see her.

The bear himself showed a patience which was astonishing, and was like that of the Esquimau, who never stirs a muscle for hour after hour, while sitting beside the air-hole in the ice, waiting for the seal to show his nose above the surface.

Bruin moved more slightly now and then, but went no more than a dozen yards from the tree, and seemed never to take his eyes from his victim for more than a second or two.

During these trying minutes, the smoke sometimes filled the air scarcely less than before and the eyes of the brother and sister smarted and stung and shed tears, and their lungs became sore from continual coughing, rendered the more distressing in the case of Nellie, who was obliged to suppress the noise by cramming her handkerchief in her mouth.

But during the same period, the wits of Nick Ribsam were not idle.  He had thought of sending Nellie home to bring her father to his assistance, but he was restrained by the fear that the bear would detect her, and, even if she should get away, he doubted whether she would be able to find her way through the woods to the open country beyond.

Here and there the trees were burning, and the dry limbs lay on the ground, giving out the red glow of smoldering embers, or sending out little twists of smoke to join the enormous mass of vapor which hung like a pall over so many square miles of country.

Nellie, for the twentieth time, leaned her head forward and looked out from behind the tree trunk that sheltered her.  She saw the bear sitting on his haunches some twenty feet away, looking steadily upward, as though he were a charred stump, which could never change its posture or position.  Nick rested uneasily on the narrow limb, when he made a movement which the quick-witted girl knew at once meant that he had resolved on trying to do something for himself.

Carefully freeing his legs from the branch, he lowered himself so that he hung by his hands, within ten feet of the ground.  Hanging only a second or two, he let go and dropped lightly upon his feet.

The whole thing took less than a minute, but the bear had observed it almost as quickly as did Nellie, and the minute the lad struck the ground the beast was lumbering toward him.