While feeding the cattle one morning, Slim is shocked by an incredibly strange sight — a bear running across the road. Although Hank initially brushes it off, a report from Deputy Kile confirms the fact. Then, just as a cold front descends on the ranch and Loper and his family have taken off for a ski trip, the bear appears. Can the bachelor cowboy and the ranch's Security Division survive the incredible threat?
This book contains the ballads "Be Careful When You Drink from the Pot" and "The Thank You Song".
This book contains examples of the following tropes:
- Cassandra Truth: Hank doesn't initially believe Slim's report because bears aren't common in the area.
- The Cavalry: After Hank, Slim, and Drover have been chased out to a pickup truck and the bear has wandered off again, Deputy Kile and his coworkers arrive. They had luckily been looking for the bear.
- Chicken Joke: Drover asks why a burro would be crossing the road. Hank brings up the traditional chicken version of this and tells Drover to use that to figure it out. When he can't, Hank says exasperatedly that it's extremely simple...but never explains what the answer is.
- Cowardly Lion: Drover runs out to protect an injured Slim from the black bear even before Hank can bring himself to do so. When Hank arrives, he expresses relief, saying that he can faint now that help has arrived. However, with some sharp admonishment from Hank, he stays conscious, stands his ground, and distracts the bear with barks.
- Duct Tape for Everything: After the bear is removed, Slim "repairs" the damage it did to his door with duct tape, which Hank describes as one of a cowboy's best friends.
- Humiliating Wager: Wallace bets Hank that he can't guess what the buzzards saw that morning. If Hank loses, he has to say, "buzzards is beautiful" sixty times. However, Hank gets him to agree to say "thank you" fifty times if he loses and guesses correctly that what Wallace saw was the bear. Wallace furiously accuses him of cheating somehow and has to be pushed into fulfilling the bet.
- Men Can't Keep House: Slim usually doesn't do anything as fancy as cooking or cleaning, but he makes an exception during the events of the book. He decides to leave his toilet to soak with Bab-O after noticing a ring around it. Unfortunately, this gets the dogs a dose of cleaner.
- Mondegreen Gag: When Slim says he saw a bear, Drover initially mishears this as "berry."
- No Object Permanence: Luckily, the bear doesn't have it. When it has the trio cornered in a non-functional pickup truck, it prowls around, breathing on the windows. This fogs them up. Once the bear can't see them anymore, it loses interest and wanders off, attracted by the fish scent from Slim's dinner.
- Punched Across the Room: When the bear catches Hank with the back of its paw, it knocks him several feet in one blow. Hank is just grateful that he didn't get the clawed side of the limb.
- Shout-Out: When the dogs conclude that Slim saw a burro, not a bear, they name the burro "Donkey Hodey".
- Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: When Slim sees the bear, he slams on the brakes from shock. This throws the sleeping Hank to the floor and wakes him rudely.
- That Poor Plant: When Wallace upchucks at him, Hank dodges and says that the plants in the area wilted.
- Tranquilizer Dart: The deputies looking for the bear are equipped with tranquilizer darts. While the bear is occupied licking out a can, Deputy Kile nails it from behind. The bear takes a few minutes and then keels over.
- Vomit Discretion Shot:
- After drinking toilet water tainted with cleaner, Hank gets sick and crawls under Slim's bed to remove it from his system. Thankfully, the actual result is not described.
- Angry at Hank about being forced to say "thank you", Wallace tries to upchuck on him. Luckily, Hank again leaves it mostly to the imagination.
- Would Rather Suffer: Wallace the Buzzard says he'd rather sit on a cactus than say "thank you."
