"Huh! I ain't afraid of no bear," put in Skinny, drawing himself up and looking fierce. "I tracked one once on Bob's Hill. It went up to Peck's Falls and hid in our cave. We smoked it out. I didn't have a gun or knife or anything, but I hit it with a snowball." You could have hung a hat on Mary's eyes when Skinny told them that. "Was it a really and truly bear?" she asked. "And did it stand on its hind legs like in the circus pictures over at the Hook?" "It stood on its hind legs, all right," he told her, "but it wasn't really a bear. We thought it was. It made tracks in the snow just like bear's tracks, but when we had smoked it out we found that it wasn't anything but a man." "It was Jake Yost, a foolish feller," he explained, turning to Mr. Richmond. "He had his boots on the wrong feet and wouldn't change them back for fear of changing his luck. That was what made his tracks look like bear's tracks." It tickled them to hear about that, but it didn't tickle us boys much when it happened. It was too scary. "If you will stop here on your way back to-morrow," said Mary's grandma, "we'll give you a nice dinner. I think you will be wanting one about that time. Mary may walk with you as far as the Hook, if you like, and show you the road." "I think maybe I'd better go along, too, with my gun," said Mr. Richmond, "on account of the bears." "Don't you mind his nonsense," she said. "You run along." So off they went together, Skinny with his rope and tomahawk and Mary with her red sunbonnet, but they kept away from the pasture. From Pumpkin Hook Skinny went on alone, up the mountain road, whirling his tomahawk around his head and every little while pretending to lasso the enemy, because he knew that Mary was watching him from below. Then pretty soon he came to a bend in the road. He turned and waved to her, and in a minute was out of sight. CHAPTER XI TREED BY A BEAR I AM writing what happened to Skinny as if we found out all about it at once, which we didn't. He told us some of it the first time, with Bill sitting up and listening and Mr. Norton asking questions whenever Skinny began to run down. But every time we saw him after that for several days he would think of something more to tell, or something a little different, so that it took a long time before we felt sure that we knew all about it. For instance, he didn't say much at first about Mary Richmond, the Holyoke girl, except the rescue part. He was afraid that the boys would make fun of him for walking down the mountain with a girl--but I haven't told about that yet. I am going to put everything in just when it happened, so that you can understand it better. There didn't much happen, anyhow, while he was going up to Savoy. The road was steep and winding, and climbing it kept Skinny busy and made him wish more than once that he had gone in some other direction.