was so out of breath he could scarcely speak.

"Oh! the way he ran! I never would have believed a bear could run so!"
panted Karsten.

"Oh!--oh!--oh!" shrieked some one outside the barn. "Help! oh, help!"

It was Petter's voice, and we heard also an animal breathing quickly and
then something like a growl.

As with one impulse Andrine, Karsten, and I sprang into a stall behind a
cow. The bear would surely take the cow first before it took us. How
unspeakably frightened I was! Karsten wanted to get behind Andrine and
me too, and puffed and pushed himself in, and we got to fighting there
in the stall just from sheer fright.

There came a horrible thump against the barn-door, it burst open and
Petter Kloed tumbled into the barn on all fours; and leaping on his
back was a big black beast.

How Petter howled I could never give you any idea, for such a howl must
be heard if you are to know what it was like. Karsten and I shrieked
with him; and all the cows got up, rattled their chains, and bellowed.

"Ha ha! Ha ha!" laughed Augusta from the barn-door. "Did any one ever
see such doings! Oh, I really must laugh! I was pretty sure it was the
dog, old Burmann. There hasn't been a bear on this mountain the whole
year. Shame on you, Burmann, to frighten folk this way!"

"How you did howl, Petter!" said Karsten, coming out of the stall.

"Perhaps you didn't scream," said Petter Kloed.

They quarreled and disputed till the sparks flew, as to which had been
the most scared. But my knees trembled so I had to sit down on a
milking-stool, and Andrine cried and sobbed, she had been so
frightened.

Karsten got braver and braver.

"I was no more scared out of my wits than I ever am," said he. "I
screamed only because--because--well, just so that Petter could hear
where I was!"

"Such a horrid dog!" said Petter, reaching after Burmann.

"You could just have scratched his back as you do to bears in
menageries," said I. Augusta laughed so that her laughter echoed through
the whole place, and I teased them as much as I could. When I really
make a point of it, I'm awful at teasing--it is such fun.

"Ugh! Girls are nothing but rubbish," said Karsten.

"To think that you didn't strangle the bear with such muscles as you
have," I said.

"If you don't keep still!" said Karsten threateningly.

It was such fun! I laughed till my cheeks ached.

My! but that was an awfully jolly and delightful visit to the saeter.
But at night An