He backed up with a rush, bumped into the door, and had a
sense, at least, of peril. He turned over with an effort and attacked
the door, but it was strong. He examined the pen; went all around the
logs where their rounded sides seemed easiest to tear at with his
teeth. But they yielded nothing. He tried them all; he tore at the
roof, the floor; but all were heavy, hard logs, spiked and pinned as
one.
The sun came up as he raged, and shone through the little cracks of
the door, and so he turned all his power on that. The door was flat,
gave little hold, but he battered with his paws and tore with his
teeth till plank after plank gave way. With a final crash be drove the
wreck before him and Jack was free again.
The men read the story as though in print; yes, better, for bits of
plank can tell no lies, and the track to the pen and from the pen was
the track of a big Bear with a cut on the hind foot and a curious
round peg-like scar on the front paw, while the logs inside, where
little torn, gave proof of a broken tooth.
"We had him that time, but he knew too much for us. Never mind, we'll
see."
So they kept on and caught him again, for honey he could not resist.
But the wreckage of the trap was all they found in the morning.
Pedro's brother knew a man who had trapped Bears, and the sheep-herder
remembered that it is necessary to have the door quite _light-tight_
rather than very strong, so they battened all with tar-paper outside.
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