“He stopped and tried to figger out his bearin’s, but it was no use. It was a second growth, hard wood country, with a lot o’ scrub stuff mixed in; and he’d been fallin’ over roots, and duckin’ branches till his notions o’ north and south was twisted as a corkscrew. Looked like he was in for a night in the brush, but to keep from freezin’ he wrapped an old blanket shawl--he always carried one--around his head, and kept goin’. ’Twa’n’t no pleasure trip, believe me! He shivered when he told about it, but he owned up he shivered wuss that night when he thought he heard something pantin’ off to the right. What with the old shawl over his ears he wa’n’t quite sure; but, anyhow, he stepped out livelier’n ever, and then plunk! he bust through a bush and into a clearin’. And in the clearin’ was a big black spot that meant a house o’ some sort. “Wallowby made for that house same’s a woodchuck makes for his hole when there’s a dog after him. He went round the corner of it so fast that he couldn’t stop, when, all of a sudden, he saw waddlin’ ’round the other corner something big and black, and loomin’ like a mountain. And he heard that pantin’ so loud it sounded like a steam engine. And then, not bein’ able to clap on the brakes quick enough, he butted fair into the thing. His hands hit the thing’s body, and he could feel thick fur. He tried to yell, but all that’d come out of his throat was a hoarse growl. And then what was like a big claw raked his arm, and laid open three-four deep gashes across the back of his hand. “’Twas a mutual surprise party all right. Wallowby turned, and headed for the bush, as if he was more like a scared jack-rabbit than a woodchuck. But he didn’t go far. He fell over a root, and before he got up it broke on him that the bear was makin’ for cover on the other side o’ the house. “Wallowby told me he didn’t lose sight of the argyment that, if he didn’t get into that house, he’d freeze. With the blood tricklin’ from his hand he wa’n’t anxious to risk old Bruin changin’ his mind and comin’ back, so he sneaked round to the back o’ the place. He had no weapon but a jack-knife with a broken blade, but he got it out. “‘And would you believe it?’ he says to me. ‘It was like Tophet for darkness, but, jest as I got to the house, that miserable critter came pantin’ at me! He let drive with that murderin’ claw of hisn, and I dug into him with the knife. And then, somehow, each of us was reminded of his own business, and done accordin’. I got back into the brush, and sot there thinkin’. I was all of a sweat, and freezin’ at the same time; for the chill was gettin’ into the very marrow of my bones. And, pooty soon, studyin’ that lump of a house like it was a chicken pie Thanksgivin’ mornin’, I managed to make out the chimney against the sky. It was a whoppin’ big chimney, big enough for a man to drop through. And the roof sloped ’most to the ground.