“Why were you gone so long?”
“Where ’s your pail?”
“I left the pail.”
“Left the pail! What for?”
“A bear wanted it.”
“Oh, nonsense!”
“Well, the last I saw of it, a bear had it.”
“Oh, come! You did n’t really see a bear?”
“Yes, but I did really see a real bear.”
“Did he run?”
“Yes; he ran after me.”
“I don't believe a word of it. What did you do?”
“Oh! nothing particular—except kill the bear.”
Cries of “Gammon!” “Don’t believe it!” “Where ’s the bear?”
“If you want to see the bear, you must go up into the woods. I could n’t bring him down alone.”
Having satisfied the household that something extraordinary had occurred, and excited the posthumous fear of some of them for my own safety, I went down into the valley to get help. The great bear-hunter, who keeps one of the summer boarding-houses, received my story with a smile of incredulity; and the incredulity spread to the other inhabitants and to the boarders as soon as the story was known. However, as I insisted in all soberness, and offered to lead them to the bear, a party of forty or fifty people at last started off with me to bring the bear in. Nobody believed there was any bear in the case; but everybody who could get a gun carried one; and we went into the woods armed with guns, pistols, pitchforks, and sticks, against all contingencies or surprises,—a crowd made up mostly of scoffers and jeerers.
But when I led the way to the fatal spot, and
