st of his opportunity.

"I thought I had a glimpse of something moving over there back of the
tent, and it might be Bluff. I hope he don't try to shoo the old varmint
off before we get a whack at him. I've only got bird-shot in my gun but
at close quarters that ought to do as well as a bullet, eh, Frank?" asked
Jerry, excited at the prospect.

"Wait I've a notion that you may be surprised yet. I've also a hunch, my
boy, that there will be another claimant for the honors of this
campaign. Sometimes surprises spring out of the very earth. Watch!" said
Frank, laying a hand on the gun of his chum, as though impelling him to
hold his fire.

Suddenly there was a loud bang!

The bear rolled over in a heap regardless of the congregated tinware that
was consequently sent scurrying to the right and to the left.

"Who fired?" shouted the amazed Jerry.

"Look out, fellows, the old rascal's up again, and I guess I'd better get
behind a tree with my camera!" exclaimed Will, suiting the action to the
words with commendable rapidity.

Bang! went a second discharge at this juncture, and the bear now turning
bit savagely at its hindquarters as though its wounds smarted severely.

Immediately a third discharge followed the others. Bruin had by this
time apparently sighted the party from whom all these stinging cuts must
have proceeded. He gave a roar of rage and lumbering awkwardly across
the space started to try and climb a little tree just alongside one of
the tents.

"It's Bluff, and he's up in that tree!" shouted Will, as he peeped around
his own shelter, and took in the picture with another "click."

"But--he's got a gun!" stammered Jerry.

"Of course he has. Didn't he bring one with him? Perhaps a good fairy may
have given him a tip as to where it could be found. There! he has fired
again, and that time he missed, for the range was too close."

Frank, as he was speaking, commenced to advance into the open.

"Looky out, Marse Frank, he chaw yuh up, clean suah!" bawled Uncle
Toby, from the crotch in the tree where his ladder had allowed him to
reach. "Git up heah, honey, whah he can't reach yuh. Dat b'ar am ma-ad
clar t'rough!"

"Four times he's shot--didn't I say he couldn't hit the side of a barn.
Think of him carrying a Gatling gun," said Jerry.

"But he _has_ hit him more than once. Look how the brute is bleeding, and
just to think, Jerry, he's got two more chances. Those pump-guns don't
seem so very bad in an em