o her surprise he did not
pay the least attention to the berries or the bear. He just caught up
Dot herself in his strong arms, and ran away with her.

"Bob, did you lose your pail?"

"Boys! Betsy! Molly!" shouted Bob, "run! run!"

They did run; but they were not like Bob, for every one of them kept
tight hold of their berry pails. They could not run fast among so many
rocks and bushes, but they could scramble, and they had not gone far
before they heard a great rough voice near them shouting,

"Hullo! What's arter ye all? Did ye git skeered?"

"Joe--Joe Mix!" exclaimed Bob. "The biggest bear you ever saw in your
life. Ain't I glad you've got your gun along!"

"Bar? Whar?"

"Up among the blackberries."

"And I haven't a bullet nor a buckshot; nothin' but small shot. Tell ye
what, Bob. Drap that little one. The bar won't foller ye. You jest run
for the house and git yer gun, and tell yer father, and have him come
along, and bring some buckshot and slugs for me. Bars is fat now, and
we'll jest gather this one."

Bob was putting Dot on the ground, when she said to him,

"Make the bear div back the pails, too."

While Bob was gone, Joe Mix made Dot tell him all about it, but he said,

"I guess I won't go ahead and scare him off; he'll stay and pick
around."

"He'll pick all our berries."

"Now, Dot, there's berries enough. We'll pick him. It won't do to have
him come and pick some of your father's pigs."

"Would he pick me?"

"Not unless the berries were all gone, and the nuts too, and the pigs.
But I'm glad Bob got away with ye. He might have mistaken ye for a
berry."

"I wasn't in a pail; I got behind a tree."

Dot had been pretty well scared, but Bruin had behaved very well, except
about the berries, and she was not half so much frightened as the older
children were. Molly and Betsy came and hugged her ever so hard, and
Johnny Coyne exclaimed,

"Tell you what, Joe, if I'd had a gun!"

"Oh, don't I wish I'd had a gun!" echoed Pen Burke; and then they both
said they'd bring guns with them the next time they came after berries.

Bob Calliper must have been a good runner, and his father too, for it
was wonderful how soon the noise they made among the bushes below told
that they were coming.

That was not all, either, for a little distance behind them was Mrs.
Calliper herself, all out of breath, with the baby in her arms, and she
was not nearly so careful as usual in handing the baby to Molly, sh