Tom and Jim helped Balser to his feet, and they went over to the spot where the bear was lying stone dead with Balser’s bullet in his brain. The dogs were sniffing at the dead bear, and the monster brute lay upon the snow in the moonlight, and looked like a huge incarnate fiend. After examining him for a moment the boys slowly walked back to the tree. When they had entered they raked the coals together, put on an armful of wood, called in the dogs to share their comfort, hung up the deerskin at the door, drew the bearskins in front of the fire, and sat down to talk and think, since there was no sleep left in their eyes for the rest of that night. After a long silence Jim said, “I told you he’d come back.” “But he didn’t eat us,” replied Tom, determined that Jim should not be right in everything. “He’d have eaten you, Limpy Fox, if Balser hadn’t been the best shot in the world.” “That’s what he would,” answered Tom, half inclined to cry. “Nonsense,” said Balser, “anybody could have done it.” “Well, I reckon not” said Jim. “Me and Tom and the dogs and the bear was as thick as six in a bed; and honest, Balser, I think you had to shoot around a curve to miss us all but the bear.” After a few minutes Jim said: “Golly! wasn’t that an awful fight we had in here before the bear got out?” “Yes, it was,” returned Balser, seriously. “Well, I rather think it was,” continued Jim. “Honestly, fellows, I ran around this here room so fast for a while, that—that I could see my own back most of the time.” Balser and Tom laughed, and Tom said: “Jim, if you keep on improving, you’ll be a bigger liar than that fellow in the Bible before you’re half his age.” Then the boys lapsed into silence, and the dogs lay stretched before the fire till the welcome sun began to climb the hill of the sky and spread his blessed tints of gray and blue and pink and red, followed by the glorious flood of day. After breakfast the boys skinned the bear and cut his carcass into small pieces—that is, such portions of it as they cared to keep. They hung the bearskin and meat upon the branches of their castle beyond the reach of wolves and foxes, and they gave to Tige and Prince each a piece of meat that made their sides stand out with fulness. The saving of the bear meat and skin consumed most of the morning, and at noon the boys took a loin steak from the bear and broiled it upon the coals for dinner. After dinner they began the real work of the expedition by preparing to set the traps. When all was ready they started up the creek, each boy carrying a load of traps over his shoulder. At a distance of a little more than half a mile from the castle they found a beaver dam stretching across the creek, and at the water’s edge near each end of the dam they saw numberless tracks made by the little animals whose precious pelts they were so anxious to obtain.