"'Well,' says I, after some other things, 'who's going to pay for all this?'
"'God knows!' says he, waving his hand again. 'Good-night!' and with that he fell down between a new bureau and a patent portable blacksmith's forge, and putting his head on a concertina, went sound asleep.
"I couldn't follow suit for some time; it's one thing to come home full of budge and animal spirits yourself, and it's quite different to have your pardner work it on you. At last, however, I concluded it would be all the same the next century, and turned in, but I was so rattled that I forgot the bears, and didn't lock up with the usual care.
"It must have been about two in the morning when I woke all in a tremble. I had the feeling that things were away off, but I couldn't place what was the matter, until I looked at the square of moonlight on the floor that came through the window, and I was near to screech like a tomcat, for there was a monstrous black shadow bobbing back and forth in the patch of light. I drew on my bank for all the sand I had and raised my eyes. My heart fairly knocked my ribs loose. Nicely framed in the window was the head of a grizzly, and I'll take my oath it wasn't over a size smaller than a beer-barrel!
"'Now,' thinks I, 'if I can only get that gun before he sees me, and if the cussed thing will only do the right thing by me this once!'
"So out I steps, and the first rattle out of the box I stumbled on a few dozen of the purchases Ag had brought home, and down them and me came like an earthquake. It scart the bear so he drew back; no use trying to work a sneak now. I jumped for the holster, unlimbered, and turned the gun loose for general results. I guess every load went off, from the noise, and she flew out of my hand and vanished behind me. The place was full of smoke and the plunder that was scattered around; you could neither see nor walk, and that bear was swatting the door in a fashion that showed he was going to give us a call any old how, and I was plumb distracted--for the life of me I didn't know what to do.
"'Don't make such a damn noise!' growls Aggy.
"'You'd better get out of that!' I yells. 'You'll get noise enough in a minute!' But he didn't pay the least attention.