noon
Ultimately we worked round to the neighborhood of our home , and went to see if all was right there , and to spend one day in the familiar place . It was in the very middle of the day -- a sultry day , when the sun was blazing hot -- that we were awakened by the sound of somebody coming through the bushes . The wind was blowing towards us , so that long before he came in sight we knew that it was a bear like ourselves . But what was a bear doing abroad at high noon of such a day , and crashing through the bushes in that headlong fashion ? Something extraordinary must have happened to him , and we soon learned that indeed something had . Coming plunging downhill with the wind behind him , he was right on us before he knew we were there . He was one of our cousins -- a cinnamon -- and we saw at once that he was hurt , for he was going on three legs , holding his left fore-paw off the ground .