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Tale of Muley Cow

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<h3>VIII</h3><h3>IT WAS A BEAR</h3> When the bear rose out of the bushes and looked at him—and said "Woof!" too—Johnnie Green did not bellow as the Muley Cow had. But he turned and ran. Once he tripped on a root and fell headlong. But he was on his feet again in a jiffy and running faster than ever. And though he had only half as many legs as the Muley Cow, he reached the pasture fence not far behind her. It was the first time Johnnie Green had known the Muley Cow to jump the fence back into the pasture, after jumping out of it. Before, she had always made him[Pg 36] let down the bars for her, quite as if she had never done such a giddy thing as to leap over a fence. Now, however, she was in too great a hurry to bother with bars. So she topped the fence like a deer, while Johnnie slipped through it like a pig a few seconds later, and old Spot wriggled under it like a weasel soon afterward. Once in the pasture they all three went slipping and sliding down the steep hillside, tore through the prickly raspberry patch, splashed through the brook, and never stopped until they saw Johnnie Green's father raking hay in a field nearby. As they came to a halt at last they looked at one another somewhat foolishly. "You were scared," Johnnie Green accused Spot. "You made a loud enough racket; but you took good care to keep out of the bear's reach." The old dog barked his denial. He had[Pg 37] been the last to run away. And he thought that proved he was the bravest of the three. "You were the scaredest," Johnnie told the Muley Cow. And she didn't deny it. How could she know that the most frightened of all was young Cuffy Bear, and that even then he was scrambling up the steep side of Blue Mountain? He was still putting as much ground as he could between himself and the three odd folk he had met by accident in the back pasture. Old Spot, too, never guessed how he had scared the bear. And Johnnie wouldn't have known it, either, except for what Farmer Green said when he heard about the adventure. "That bear is probably running yet," he said as he threw back his head and laughed. "He'll never stop this side of[Pg 38] the mountain. He must have come down to pick blackberries. But he lost his taste for them when he saw you." "Ho!" Johnnie Green exclaimed all at once. "I might have lassoed that bear—if I had thought in time." <hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 39] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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