Part 22 (2/2)
The man was good-natured and made no complaint.
”Guess it's all right,” he said. ”'Course, if you hadn't got a fish I'd had to charge you more.”
”I suppose if we'd got two fish you'd have given us the boat free,” Bob laughed.
They carried their stuff back to the stable, where the rest of the packs were, and had returned to the hotel lobby and were busily writing souvenir postcards to all their friends back at home when the party came down to breakfast.
”Hullo, boys!” everybody said. ”Where's that fish?”
Bob rubbed his stomach.
”Did you really get one?” Lucy demanded. ”And you've eaten it all yourselves? Oh, you mean, greedy things!”
”Well,” Bob declared, ”you folks wouldn't camp with us. Go in and eat your old canned peaches and hunks of whisk broom and condensed cream.
Gee, Joe 'n' I have had some night, all right! Old Big Ben woke us up----”
”Careful!” Joe cautioned.
”What do you mean--Big Ben?” asked Bob's mother.
”Oh, just our name for a pet bear we've acquired,” Bob laughed, ignoring Joe's caution. ”A dear, pretty, tame old silver tip who came right into camp and tried to kiss old Joe, but Joe slapped his face and said, 'Naughty, naughty,' and he got real cross.”
”What _do_ you mean? Did a bear come into your camp? Oh, how lovely!”
Alice cried.
”Lovely! Well, I must say----” Mrs. Jones began.
”What _really_ happened?” Bob's father demanded.
”Yes, tell the truth, Bob, now you've put your foot in it,” Joe laughed.
”Oh, gosh, I can't keep an old secret,” said the boy. ”Me and Joe--Joe and me----”
”Joe and _I_----” said his mother.
”Well, Joe and I were snoring away like a couple o' buzz saws, when snap went a stick, and woke me up, and Joe was sitting up already, and gosh all hemlock, but it was dark! And then the fire flickered, and we saw old Big Ben on his hind legs not two feet away----”
”Oh, six feet, make it six!” Joe laughed.
”Well, six, and he was ten feet tall, and growling like anything, or sort of snarling, and I said, 'Go 'way, you spoiled my dream'--just like that, and he went, and then Joe said he wouldn't stay there any more, 'cause he didn't like to be disturbed that way, so----”
”_I_ said it! Well, I like that!” Joe cried.
Bob grinned. ”Well, anyhow, you wouldn't stay after I went, you know you wouldn't,” he said. ”So we beat it for the hotel, and slept in the hammocks on the porch till four, and then we got a boat and I caught a four pound trout----”
”How do you know it was a four pounder?” his father asked.
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