"Kick up, and rear up and cut capers, like a horse? No! Spur me, if I do!" And this time, so far from growling, the monster actually chuckled--so funny could he be when he tried. "And now, having felt around on every side, you have, I hope, succeeded at last in finding out on which side of your mug your nose is, and are ready to come up and take me at my offer. And Sprigg, my boy, for once and for all--of this be assured--that so far as you trust me, so far are you safe. Perfect your trust--perfect your safety." Sprigg was by no means of a confiding nature; people prone to lose sight of the truth never are. But on receiving this reassurance of good faith, he walked up boldly enough to the bear, who, as his young rider drew near, swayed his back to enable him, with the greatest ease, to mount. "But I have nothing to hold myself on by," said our hero, now fairly astraddle of his strange steed, though pressing as lightly upon it as possible. "Take a lock of my hair! If a lock of hair is good for keeping one's mind on a friend, why not as good for keeping his body there, too?" Here he chuckled a little again, then added: "But the young human thing, brave as he is, may not have as much faith in a lock of hair as some people have, or pretend to have. So, up with you, Manitou-Echo, and give him a lock of your arms." Whereat, fetching first a nimble flounce, the red moccasins, as if their wearer made a pivot of his head in the air, described a circular flourish aloft, and in a twinkle, there they were at the bear's flanks, each with a toe at one of our hero's naked heels. In another twinkle Sprigg felt himself clasped tightly around the waist, by what seemed to be a pair of small arms; small, but, bless me! how strong, as the boy was but too glad to discover the moment after. "All right?" To which, receiving an affirmative kick from the moccasins, the bear, to Sprigg's dismay, made directly for the brink of that horrible steep, where the bull, the cat and the wolf had vanished. Here, on the dizzy verge, bear-like, he wheeled about, that his tail might take the lead in the descent, which he evidently meditated. The boy glanced fearfully over his shoulder. The top of the tallest trees which grew at the foot of the hill were hundreds of feet beneath him, and so directly beneath him, it seemed to him that were he to fall from the bear's back he would drop like a stone into their branches. In one long, smooth, unbroken slide, down they swept, from summit to base of that tremendous steep. Well it was for Sprigg that the little arms which held him on were so firm and strong, else must he inevitably have slipped from the bear's back and found his way to the world below by his own natural gravity, instead of by somebody else's super-natural power.