All these precautions were necessary, for a bear can exert tremendous strength if he once makes up his mind to do it; and David had repeatedly declared that if they should chance to capture an animal as large as the one that had been killed on that very island years before, the pen would not prove half strong enough to hold him.

But it was quite strong enough to hold Don if he got into it, and the only way his companions could have released him would have been by cutting the roof in pieces with their axes.
The work was all done now, and the boys were ready to start for home.
While Bert and David were gathering up the tools and stowing them away in the canoe, Don scattered a few ears of corn around, so that the bear would be sure to find them the next time he visited the island, and threw a dozen or so more into the trap close about the trigger.

The rest of the corn he hung up out of reach on a sapling which he knew was too small for the bear to climb.
Assisted by the current the canoe made good time down the bayou.

Bert and David lay back in the stern-sheets and said they were tired, while Don, who was seated at the oars, declared that his day's work had relieved his stiff joints, and that he began to feel like himself again.

He was fresh enough to assist in building another trap without an hour's rest; and in order to work off a little of his surplus energy, he thought when he reached home he would take a turn through the fields in company with his pointer, and see if he could bag quails enough for his next morning's breakfast.