Nathan nodded a doubtful assent, and then, reminded of dinner-getting by the mention of pork, caught Martha’s hand and hurried homeward, while the Indians resumed their way upstream. When the children entered the open door, they were for a moment dumb with amazement at the confusion that had in so short a time usurped the tidiness whereof they had left the room possessed. The coverlets and blankets of one bed were dragged from their place, two or three chairs were overturned, and the meal barrel was upset and half its contents strewn across the floor. “What in tunket,” cried Nathan, when speech came to his gaping mouth. “Has that old sow got outen the pen?” Then he saw in the scattered meal some broad tracks that a former adventure had made him familiar with, and he heard a sound of something moving about in the cellar. “It’s a bear,” he cried, “and he’s down cellar.” As quick as the thought and words, he sprang to the open hatch, and heaved it upright on the hinges, to close it. But just as it hung in midway poise, the bear, alarmed by the noise overhead, gave a startled “whoof,” and came scrambling up the ladder. His tawny muzzle was above the floor, when Nathan, with desperate strength, slammed down the hatch, and its edge caught the bear fairly on the neck, pressing his throat against the edge of the hatchway. The trap door had scarcely fallen when the quick-witted boy mounted it and called to his frightened sister to mount beside him, and with their united weight, slight as it was, they kept him from forcing his way upward, till in his frantic struggles he dislodged the ladder and hung by the neck helpless, without foothold. The children held bravely to their post, hand in hand, while to the gasping moans of the angry brute succeeded cries of anger, that were in turn succeeded by silence and loss of all visible motion but such as was imparted to the head by the huge body still slowly vibrating from the final struggle. When this had quite ceased they ventured off the trap door, and, pale and panting, they stood before the ghastly head as frightful now in death, with grinning, foam-flecked jaws, protruding tongue, and staring, bloodshot eyes, as it had been in living rage. Nathan caught his sister in his arms and hugged her, shouting: “We’ve killed him. We’ve killed a bear,” while she, in the same breath, laughed and cried, till they both bethought themselves of the dinner-getting not yet begun. “I can’t get down cellar,” said Nathan, “for I dasn’t open that door. What be we goin’ to do?” A grunt of surprise caught his attention, and, looking up, he saw the two Indians at the door, staring with puzzled faces on the strange scene. Then one, with a hatchet half uplifted, cautiously approached the grim head, which, after an instant’s scrutiny, he touched with his hatchet and then with his finger.