of him
a shaggy form rose up out of the tangle and glared straight at him.

It was a bear!

VIII

IT WAS A BEAR

When the bear rose out of the bushes and looked at him--and said "Woof!"
too--Johnnie Green did not bellow as the Muley Cow had. But he turned
and ran. Once he tripped on a root and fell headlong. But he was on his
feet again in a jiffy and running faster than ever. And though he had
only half as many legs as the Muley Cow, he reached the pasture fence
not far behind her.

It was the first time Johnnie Green had known the Muley Cow to jump the
fence _back into_ the pasture, after jumping out of it. Before, she had
always made him let down the bars for her, quite as if she had never
done such a giddy thing as to leap over a fence. Now, however, she was
in too great a hurry to bother with bars. So she topped the fence like a
deer, while Johnnie slipped through it like a pig a few seconds later,
and old Spot wriggled under it like a weasel soon afterward.

Once in the pasture they all three went slipping and sliding down the
steep hillside, tore through the prickly raspberry patch, splashed
through the brook, and never stopped until they saw Johnnie Green's
father raking hay in a field nearby. As they came to a halt at last they
looked at one another somewhat foolishly.

"You were scared," Johnnie Green accused Spot. "You made a loud enough
racket; but you took good care to keep out of the bear's reach."

The old dog barked his denial. He had been the last to run away. And he
thought that proved he was the bravest of the three.

"You were the scaredest," Johnnie told the Muley Cow.

And she didn't deny it. How could she know that the most frightened of
all was young Cuffy Bear, and that even then he was scrambling up the
steep side of Blue Mountain? He was still putting as much ground as he
could between himself and the three odd folk he had met by accident in
the back pasture.

Old Spot, too, never guessed how he had scared the bear. And Johnnie
wouldn't have known it, either, except for what Farmer Green said when
he heard about the adventure.

"That bear is probably running yet," he said as he threw back his head
and laughed. "He'll never stop this side of the mountain. He must have
come down to pick blackberries. But he lost his taste for them when he
saw you."

"Ho!" Johnnie Green exclaimed all at once. "I might have lassoed that
bear--if I had thought in time."

IX

WEAR