It was not until Mr. Hicks got hold of two washbasins and used them as cymbals that the bears paid any attention. But this sound, added to the pandemonium of screaming women, finally frightened them. Then, scattering in all directions, they started back to the shadows.
Suddenly Mr. Appel let out such a cry as seemed that it must not only split his throat but rend the very heavens. Small wonder! A cinnamon bear weighing in the neighbourhood of eight hundred pounds planted its left hind foot in the pit of his stomach as it went galloping away to the timber.
In the brush where Mr. Penrose had been sleeping tranquilly other things were happening. In the midst of his slumbers, a dream in which he thought he was being dragged to the fire like a calf for branding came to him. The dream grew so real that it awakened him. He received a swift and unpleasant impression that he was moving, then he was startled to find that he was not only moving, but moving so rapidly that the canvas bottom of his tent was scraping on the rocks and brush over which it travelled.
Mr. Penrose was enraged instantly. At best he had little patience with practical jokers and none at all with one who had the impudence to awaken him. He called out angrily.
The tent stopped moving and there was quiet.
Mr. Penrose, who had raised himself on his elbow, laid down and was about to begin where he had left off when his domicile resumed its journey.
Now thoroughly aroused, he sprang up and tore at the flap-fastenings.
"This is going to stop right here!" he cried, furiously. "I do not appreciate this odious Western humour. You have chosen the wrong person to play your jokes on!"
He reached for the pointed fish-pole which was lying in its case in the bottom of the tent and stepped through the opening.
A burly figure in a big overcoat stood in the deep shadow confronting him.
Mr. Penrose was bare-footed and his soles were tender but he advanced far enough to bring the pole down with a thwack upon the head of the intruder.
"Woof! Woof!"
The answer raised his hair and galvanized his whiskers.
"Woof! Woof!" A great paw fanned the air--he could feel the wind from it plainly as it reached out to cuff him--and the claws on the end of it tore the front of the flannel shirt in which he slept to ribbons.
"Woof! Woof!" And then a roar that reverberated through the timber.
Mr. Penrose swore afterward that the hot breath of the brute was in his face, but the statement is open to question since at the first "Woof!" he had fallen into his tent backward.