“Well, it’s part way open right now, you can see for yourself if it isn’t,” Bud asserted strenuously.

“That’s right, it is, Bud.”

“I wonder if the wind could have done it,” the other mused.  “It does play some queer pranks, I happen to know from past experiences.  Guess that fastening is a bad one, and don’t hold worth a cent.”

“It’s too late for us to bother fixing anything now, Bud,” said Ralph; “though to tell you the truth I always thought the door held as tight as anything.”

“Then what opened it, do you think?” demanded Bud, as they continued to approach the shack, the soldier who was accompanying them to take back the horse interested in what they were saying.

“I don’t know, if you ask me point blank,” Ralph admitted, frankly.  “It might have been that you didn’t fasten it the right way.  Then again p’raps some one has passed along here, and stepped in to see if there was anything worth taking.”

“Whee!  I hope that last isn’t the right answer,” was what Bud hastened to observe; “I’ve got a few little things there I’d hate to lose, let me tell you.  Now, if you come right down to—–­oh!  Hugh!”

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the one whose name had been uttered so wildly.

“Didn’t you see that—–­where were your eyes that you didn’t see what poked out of the open door just then?” cried Bud, coming to a complete standstill in his astonishment and perplexity.

“I’m sorry to say that I didn’t happen to be looking that way just when you spoke,” Hugh admitted.  “But tell us what it was you saw, Bud!”

“A head!  A bear’s head!” exclaimed Bud.

“That begins to sound interesting,” said Ralph, as his face lighted up.

“But Ralph, you said there were no bears around here any more, so how could that be?” Hugh asked, as he turned on the other.

“Hardly that, Hugh; I told you I had never happened to run across one while trapping up here; but there was a time when they were said to be thick around this section; and who knows but what one may have wandered back, to see what the country promised him in the way of food.”

Bud began dancing up and down in new excitement.

“We did leave a lot of grub in there, fellows,” he told them; “and chances are that the old black sinner has gone and spoiled what he couldn’t eat.  That’s a habit with bears, I’m told; they’re about as bad as hogs that way.”

“Well, what are we going to do about it?” asked Hugh, looking around at his two chums.

“We’ve got a gun!” suggested Bud.

“But we didn’t come up here to do any hunting, and besides, scouts as a rule don’t go around gunning for game,” said Ralph.

“Hugh,” said Bud, trying to appear cool and collected, “you’ve got to decide this for us, because I look at it one way, and here’s Ralph saying it wouldn’t be right for us to try and plug this old bear.  Will we just try to shoo him away, or give him a few cold chunks \ of lead?”