“After all, it isn’t so funny,” he observed. He leaned far out over the precipice and looked down. “I thought you would go over before I got there.”
“We must look after Dabney Mills,” Nancy reminded him suddenly. “Suppose he had been killed!”
“If he had it would be by no fault of his,” Olaf muttered as he helped her to her feet and walked with her to where the reporter was sitting up, looking about him with a dazed expression.
“You were mighty slow coming,” he said morosely to Olaf. “That brute could have knocked us into kingdom come.”
He was feeling about vaguely, first in his pockets, then among the weeds and stones about him. A great blue bruise was spreading slowly over his face and neck.
“Have you lost something?” Nancy inquired.
“Just my note-book. I—I wanted to put something down in it.”
He seemed still to be somewhat stunned, but he got up and went with them down the hill. For some time he was silent, an unusual condition for him, but before they were halfway home he began to talk again, evidently composing a proper account of his adventure.
“A very dangerous, vicious animal!” he observed. “It was quite touch and go for a time, a very narrow escape! Of course, if I had been carrying any sort of weapon—” Nancy interrupted with an exclamation, and Olaf with a covert chuckle. She was about to declare very frankly that if Olaf had been unarmed and Dabney possessed of the milk-bucket, the affair would not have been very different. Olaf, however, dropped behind and spoke to her in an undertone:
“Please let him go on. He will talk himself into believing he was quite a hero, and I want to hear him do it.”
Aunt Anna was given a very mild account of the affair when they reached home, with little emphasis on the danger and a great deal on how absurd the bear had looked. Yet her eyes fell upon the deep scratches on Nancy’s arm and her torn sleeve, and then turned to Olaf with a look that made him suddenly glow with embarrassment and pride, but also made him bid them a panic-stricken good night. When Aunt Anna’s glance traveled to Dabney Mills who was beginning to relate his version of the story quite fluently, he paused, stammered, and declared that he, too, must be going. There was no one present who pressed him to stay.