y sound--
not even a knot-hole was visible either in its trunk or limbs. It was
not in a cavity that Bruin had been able to conceal himself.

There was no mystery whatever about their not seeing him: for as soon as
the hunters got fairly under the tree, and looked up, they perceived,
amidst its topmost branches, the dark object already mentioned; and as
the bear could be seen nowhere else in the tree, this object accounted
for his being invisible.

You will be wondering what it was; and so wondered our young hunters
when they first raised their eyes to it. It looked more like a stack of
faggots than aught else; and, indeed, very good faggots would it have
made: since it consisted of a large mass of dry sticks and branches,
resting in an elevated fork of the tree, and matted together into a
solid mass. There were enough to have made a load for an ordinary cart,
and so densely packed together, that only around the edges could the sky
be seen through them; towards the centre, and for a diameter as large as
a millstone, the mass appeared quite solid and black, not a ray of light
passing through the interwoven sticks.

"The nest of a lammergeyer!" exclaimed the izzard-hunter, the moment his
eye glanced up to it. "Just so!--my dogs are right: the bear has taken
shelter in the nest of the birds!"

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE LAMMERGEYERS.

This was evident to all. Bruin had climbed the tree, and was now snugly
ensconced in the great nest of the vulture-eagles, though not a hair of
his shaggy hide could be visible from below.

The hunters had no doubt about his being there. The _chasseur_ was too
confident in the instinct of his well-trained dogs to doubt them for a
moment, and his companions had no reason to question a fact so very
probable. Had there been any doubt, it would soon have been set aside,
by an incident that occurred the moment after their arrival under the
tree. As they stood looking upward, two great birds were seen upon the
wing, rapidly swooping downward from on high. They were _lammergeyers_,
and evidently the owners of the invaded nest. That the intruder was not
welcome there, became apparent in the next moment; for both the birds
were seen shooting in quick curves around the top branches of the tree,
flapping their wings over the nest, and screaming with all the
concentrated rage of creatures in the act of being plundered. Whether
Bruin, in addition to his unwelcome presence, had also co