Probably we fell asleep after a while; for my next recollection is of coughing chaff, and then noticing that it had grown slightly light. The wind appeared to have lulled. John, who was in the middle, felt warm as a kitten. I was but half awake, and so cold that I selfishly crept over between him and Willis. That waked John; he began to crawl back over me into the warm spot, but bumped his head against a sleeper of the barn floor and landed on Willis, who waked in a bad temper. "What you doing!" he snarled. "Getting the warm chaff all away from my back!" John thrust out a hand and grasped what he supposed to be Willis's hair. "Where is your old head, anyway!" he exclaimed. "Is that it? Your mouth isn't with it, is it?" Willis did not reply; he was falling asleep again. "Say, Willis, has your mouth got strayed away from your head?" said John. "Is that your head?" he exclaimed a moment after, speaking to me. "Keep still, can't you?" I growled. "You've been in the middle all night! I want to go to sleep now." "Well, by gummy, it isn't his head either!" cried John. "Whose head is that over there?" "You lie down, John," said Willis. "But there's somebody else here!" cried John, with a queer note in his voice; and with that, he scrambled back over us both. The space was all too narrow for such a maneuvre, and his knees felt hard. "Now look here," said Willis. "You quit that!" But John was climbing through the hole to the barn floor above. "You must get out of there!" he cried. "There is something down there." By this time Willis was fully waked up. He reached over with his hand, on the side where John had been, and then he, too, gave a spring and climbed out on the floor! That alarmed me in turn, and I followed them, bumping my head in my haste. "What is it?" I exclaimed. "I don't know," said Willis, his voice shaking from excitement. "He's got an awful thick head of hair," said John; "but he felt warm! Seemed to be all hair!" "I'll bet it's a bear!" cried Willis. "Denned up, under the floor!" With that John and I made for the door; but Willis said he did not believe it would come out, if it was asleep for the winter. For some time we stood near the door, prepared for flight. It was growing light, and with the daylight our courage revived. First Willis, then John and I, went back to the hole in the floor and peeped down; but it was too dark to distinguish any object. Growing bolder, Willis ventured slowly to lift another floor plank over where our hairy bed-fellow lay; and even now I seem to see John's dilated eyes, as we looked down on a great round mat of shaggy black hair! We had now no doubt that it was, indeed, a bear. Willis lowered the plank gently into its place; and going outside, we discovered that there was a hole at the far end of the barn where the old stone work under the sill had fallen out.