"Climb a tree," was the advice of Grace.
"Is he coming? Is it coming after us?" Amy wanted to know.
She glanced over her shoulder as she put the question, and there
nearly followed an accident, for Amy was running, and the look back
caused her to stumble. Betty, who was racing beside her, just managed
to save her chum from a bad fall. All the girls were running--running
as though their lives depended on their speed. Luckily they wore
short, walking skirts, which did not hinder free movement, and they
really made good speed.
[Illustration: THE BEAR STOPPED SHORT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.]
They crossed the road and plunged into the underbrush, crashing through
it in very terror. They clung to their small suitcases instinctively.
Then suddenly, as they ran on, there came the clear notes of a bugle in
an army call. Betty recalled something.
"Stop, girls!" she cried.
"What, with that bear after us?" wailed Grace. "Never!"
"It's all right--I tell you it's all right!" went on Betty.
"Oh, she's lost her mind! She's so frightened she doesn't know what she
is saying!" exclaimed Mollie. "Oh, poor Betty!"
"Silly! Stop, I tell you. That bear--"
Again came the notes of the bugle, and then the girls, looking through
the fringe of trees at the road, saw a man with a red jacket, and wearing
a hat in which was a long feather, come along, and grasp a chain that
dangled from the leather muzzle which they had failed to notice on the
bear's nose.
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