feet.

"My dear boy!" he cried, his face aflame with anxious love, as he clasped
Frank passionately in his arms, "are you hurt at all? Did he touch you?"

What between his previous exertions and the big man's mighty embrace,
poor Frank had hardly enough breath left in him to reply, but he managed
to gasp out,--

"Not a bit. He never touched me."

"Are you quite sure now?" persisted Johnston, whose anxiety could not be
at once relieved. "O my lad! my heart stood still when you fell down
right in front of the brute."

"I'm quite sure, Mr. Johnston," said Frank. "See!" And to prove his words
he gave a jump into the air, threw up his arms, and shouted, "Hip! hip!
hurrah!" with the full force of his lungs.

"God be praised!" exclaimed the foreman. "What a wonderful escape! Let
us kneel down right here, and give Him thanks," he added, suiting his
action to his words. Frank at once followed his example; so too did
Laberge and Booth; and there in the midst of the forest-wilds this
strange praise-meeting was held over the body of the fierce creature from
whose murderous rage Frank had been so happily delivered.

Johnston sent Laberge back to the tent for the toboggan, and before
darkness set in the bear was dragged thither, where the two men skilfully
skinned him by the light of the camp fire, and stretched the pelt out to
dry.