But sooner than Jim or Tom suspected the moment came when the laugh was "on the other side of the mouth."
Bob Budd played the part of pendulum to the bear for perhaps ten minutes or less, during which he kept up his outcries, and Tom and Jim laughed till they were in danger of falling from their perch in the tree.
"If Bob had only known what was coming," said Tom, "he could have had his trousers lined with sheet iron, and then he might have joined in the laugh too."
"Why don't he give the bear a kick with his foot and knock him over? He ought to have knowed enough to climb a big tree like us."
Without any apparent reason bruin at this moment dropped down on all fours, and, leaving Bob Budd to himself, lumbered over under the refuge of the other two fugitives.
They felt no special fear, for it seemed impossible that the animal could do them harm.
Bob's experience was not lost upon him. He realized the mistake he made when he took refuge in the sapling, and he now repaired it before the opportunity passed.
Letting go, he dropped lightly on his feet and ran for another tree double the size of the hickory, up which he hurriedly climbed to where the limbs put out a dozen feet above the ground.
Here, as he flung one leg over the strong support, he felt that at last he was safe against a regiment of bears.
Meanwhile, bruin was giving attention to Messrs. James McGovern and Thomas Wagstaff.
He first walked deliberately around the tree several times, as if searching for some vulnerable point, occasionally looking up at the grinning youngsters and snuffing like one impatient to secure his dinner.
"I wonder what he means by _that_" said Jim, with a vague feeling of alarm.
"He wants us to see what a big fellow he is."
"He is a bouncer and no mistake," was the truthful comment of Jim.
"I wouldn't care if he was ten times as large--good gracious! look at _that_!"
Well might the boys start in alarm, for at that moment the brute began climbing the tree!
They had lost sight of the fact, if indeed they ever knew it, that the black bear is a famous climber when the trunks are big enough to be grasped without his paws interfering.
While Tom and Jim were congratulating themselves on being safe beyond all possible harm, they discovered they were not safe at all.