"They's time to change afore night. Ef he's goin' to Perrysburg----" "Perrysburg? They ain't no talk uv Perrysburg," said Zeke. "They may be," answered Bob. "Un ef Perrysburg's the place, you put the candle at the leetle winder on the north side uv the chimbley. Un when I shoot you put out the candle, un then I'll know it's you, un you'll know 't I understan'. You see, 't won't do fer me to stop any nearder 'n the hill, un I'll wait there till I see your candle. Then you go weth Jake." Here Bob got up and strained his longsighted eyes at some object in the bushes on the other side of the brook. "Is yon hoss yourn, on t' other side of the branch?" "I don't see no hoss," said Zeke. "Well, you watch out a minute un you'll ketch sight uv 'im. He's gone in there to git shed of the flies." "That's our clay-bank, I believe," said Zeke, getting up and carefully scanning the now half-visible horse. "Mine! you hain't seen nor heern tell of me, un you b'long to Jake's crowd weth all your might." With these words Bob set out again for his bear-hunt, while the barefoot Zeke waded through the stream, which was knee-deep, and set himself to beguile Britton's clay-bank horse into standing still and forfeiting his liberty. XIII A BEAR HUNT Bob McCord had that quick, sympathetic appreciation of brute impulses which is the mark of a great hunter. Given a bear or a deer in a certain place, at a certain hour of the day, and Bob would conjecture, without much chance of missing, in which direction he would go and what he would be about. In a two-hours' beating-up the ravine he found no traces of bears. He then faced almost about and bent his course to where the illimitable western prairie set into the woods in a kind of bay. Why he thought that on a hot day like this a bear might be taking a sunning in the open grass I cannot tell; he probably suspected Bruin of an excursion to the corn-fields for "roas'in' ears." At any rate his conjecture was correct. Pup, beating forward in great leaps, with his head above the grass, caught sight of a female bear making her way to a point of timber farther down the run known as Horseshoe Neck. When the bear saw the dogs she quickened her leisurely pace into a lumbering gallop. Pup's long legs were stretched to their utmost in eager leaps which presently brought him in front of her; Joe, when he came up, annoyed her at the side; and stout little Seizer, watching the chance whenever she was making an angry lunge at Pup, would bravely nip her heels and so make her turn about. Before she could get her head fairly around the fiste would turn tail and run for his life. Bob tried to get within range before the bear should disappear in the forest, but as soon as she saw herself near the timber she charged straight for it, refusing to strike at Pup, and wholly disregarding the barking of bob-tail Joe, or the proximity to her heels of Seizer. She quickly disappeared from