It was not easy for either Nancy or Olaf to give any connected account afterward of their adventure with the bear. Nancy could never describe it clearly at all, and Olaf, when questioned, gave a very simple version of the rescue.
“I saw the bear striking at them when I came near, so I just whanged her over the head with the milk-bucket, and she beat it.”
Dabney Mills, who had no knowledge at the time of what was happening, was able, perhaps, to give the most picturesque story of the three. Not even he, however, was able to deny that it was the milk-pail that saved the day. Olaf had been carrying it on his arm when he heard Nancy’s frantic cry for help, and he had never thought of setting it down, nor did he spill quite all of the contents as he ran to help her. He had come panting up the slope, just in time to see the bear’s blow graze the girl’s shoulder and rip away her sleeve. Being still out of reach, he had hurled the unwieldy tin bucket with all his might and with most successful aim. The clanging blow with which it struck startled Nancy, and the unexpected spectacle of a stream of white milk pouring over those black, furry shoulders made her feel that she had been bereft of her senses.
“And I have seen,” she said when she was trying to relate the tale to Beatrice, “what nobody else ever saw; I have seen a bear look surprised.”
Astonishment and horror seemed, indeed, to take instant possession of Mrs. Bruin, for she dropped from the ledge and made off through the bushes. The milk-pail, dislodged from where it had caught among the stones, rolled clanging and banging after her with a noise that lent even greater speed to her flight.
Olaf and Nancy stared at each other for a moment while his anxious face relaxed slowly into a broad grin and she burst out into irrepressible giggles. The strain of the terrible minutes that had just passed broke down suddenly into uncontrollable mirth so that gale after gale of laughter swept over them both. Nancy was so breathless from her desperate climb that laughing was painful, yet she could not check it and was forced to sit down upon the grass and lean against the rock wall in her helplessness. Olaf recovered first, rubbed his eyes, wet with laughter, on the sleeve of his coat, and was able to speak quite soberly.