e camp a chaos of
blackened twigs and ashes.

"Well, we turned him out," said Maurice, who had hastened in to help.
"Did you hit him, do you think?"

"I wish I'd killed him!" said Fred. "He's ruined our camp. But I
don't believe I touched him. He was going too fast."

Peter had raked the camp-fire together and thrown on fresh wood. A
bright blaze sprang up, and by its light they took off their stockings
and looked for the dead white of frozen toes. But it was only Maurice
who had suffered the least frost-bite, and this yielded to a little
snow-rubbing. The heavy woolen stockings, and perhaps the depth of the
snow itself had protected the rest of them.

Putting on his moccasins Fred then went to look for results from his
shots, but came back reporting not a drop of blood on the snow. The
bullets had missed cleanly, and the animal was probably miles away by
that time.

"What do you suppose he'll do for the rest of the winter?" Maurice
asked.

"Oh, he'll find some hole to crawl into, or perhaps he'll just creep
under a log and let the snow bury him," said Peter. "He'll have to
look a long time to find another snug nest like this one, though."

The big log was hollow, as they had thought, and the fire had burned
well into the cavity. They could see the nest where the bear had lain,
soft with rotted wood and strewn with black hairs. It seemed a pity to
have turned him out of so cozy a sleeping-place.

The boys' own sleeping-place was in a complete state of wreck. The
cedar roofing had fallen in, and everything was littered with snow and
burned brush. The fire had been too light and too quickly extinguished
to do any damage to the stores, however, and they were relieved to find
that the bear had eaten none of the bacon or bread. Probably the
animal had been merely cowering there for shelter, afraid to come out.

They did not attempt to rebuild the shelter roof, but cleared away the
snow and ashes, and sat in their sleeping-bags by the fire. After all
the excitement none of them felt like sleeping. They were hungry,
though, and finally they boiled tea and cooked a pan of bacon and dried
eggs. Even after this they lay talking for a long time, and it was
between midnight and dawn when they finally fell asleep.

This was the reason why it was long after sunrise when they awoke,
feeling rather as if they had had a bad night. It was another clear,
bright day, though still very cold, and they felt it imp