Out in the open, Mr. Appel was enjoying the novelty tremendously, though he was a little too warm for comfort in his fleece-lined bag. But after the last candle had been extinguished he called to his wife cheerily: "Are you all right, dearie?"
Mrs. Appel was not to be so easily propitiated and did not answer, so he called again: "This is great--simply great! I wish you were with me."
Only Mr. Appel and his Maker knew that he screwed up his cheek and winked at the fabrication.
Sleep came quickly to the tired tourists, and soon there was no sound save the distant tinkle of the bell on one of the horses and the faint rumble of Mr. Penrose's slumbers.
It was eleven o'clock or thereabouts, and the clouds had rifted letting through the starlight, when dark forms began to lumber from the surrounding woods and pad around the camp, sniffing at various objects and breathing heavily.
There were bears of all sizes and ages, ranging from yearlings to grandfathers whose birthdays were lost in antiquity. Mr. Appel, who was a light sleeper and the first to discover them, would have sworn on a monument of Bibles that there were at least fifty of them--the size of mastodons.
Palpitating in his sleeping bag in the midst of them, he may be excused for exaggeration, although, exactly, there were only eight of them.
The cold sweat broke out on Mr. Appel and he thought that surely the thumping of his heart must attract their attention. In such mortal terror as he never had experienced or imagined he quaked while he speculated as to whether the bear that first discovered him would disembowel him with one stroke of his mighty paw, and leave him, or would scrunch his head between his paws and sit down and eat on him?
But once the bears had located the supply-wagon, they went about their business like trained burglars. Standing on their hind legs, they crowded about it, tearing open sacks, scattering food, tossing things hither and thither, jostling each other and grunting when they found something to their liking.
Their grunting and quarrelling finally awakened Hicks and McGonnigle, who started up in their blankets, yelling. Their whoops aroused everybody except old Mr. Penrose, who was sleeping with his deaf ear uppermost and would not have heard a Big Bertha.
Mr. Stott slipped on his brass knuckles and stood with his head out of the tent opening, adding his shouts to those of Hicks and McGonnigle, who, by now, were hurling such missiles as they could lay their hands on. Instead of having hysterics as might have been expected, Aunt Lizzie Philbrick astonished herself and others by standing out in the open with her petticoat over her nightgown, prepared to give battle with the heel of her slipper to the first bear that attacked her.