MEETING OF THE WILD MEN 201 



" It took so much exercise to get so little water that I thought 

 I'd die of thirst while I was tryin' to drink me fill. When the 

 bear caught on to what we was doin', it just made him madder 

 an' madder; an' he lights out after us at such a breathless clip 

 that we had to fairly gallop up them pines, an' slide down the 

 birch faster than ever. It wasn't long before nearly every 

 button was wore off, an' our clothes was so ripped up an' torn 

 down that I'd blush every time I'd ketch the bear lookin' at me. 

 An' every time we ran 'long the groun' from one tree to another, 

 me an' me pardner had to use both hands on our garments in 

 order to keep up our — er — respectability. However, the bear 

 didn't have the laff on us altogether, for he had gone up an' 

 down them trees so often an' so fast that he had worn all the 

 hair off his stomach. 



"After a while we all gets tuckered out agen; an' while 

 we rests in the trees me an' me pardner talks about the weather, 

 lettin' on that there ain't no bear anywheres nigh. So the time 

 passed. As we didn't recollect just how much grub we had at 

 the start, or how much water there was in the pool first off, we 

 couldn't for the life of us reckon just how long we'd been there. 

 Neither me nor Old-pot-head's son would care to take our oaths 

 whether we'd been there a night an' half a day, or half a dozen 

 nights an' days; the night time an' the day time was so mixed up 

 together that we hadn't time to separate 'em. We were sure, 

 tho', that our grub was givin' out, the water was dryin' up, an' 

 death was get tin' good an' ready for us. 



"We was in such a terrible tight place that I begins to think 

 o' takin' off me shirt an' flyin' it from the top o' the tallest pine 

 as a signal o' distress; for we was worse off than if we'd been 

 shipwrecked. Talk about bein' cast adrift on a raft! Why, it 

 wasn't in it with bein' fixed the way we was. We just stayed 

 in one spot with no chance of ever driftin' to'rds help. As 

 long as the bear kept tab on us there wasn't no sign of our ever 

 gettin' a wink o' sleep. And more, besides starvin' to death, 



