Black Bruin | Page 9

and occasionally jogging the cradle, when he entered and, without a word of explanation, dropped the live cub in her lap.
"O John," she cried, "what a dear little dog he is. Where did you get him?"
"Under an old tree-top in the woods," he replied. "It isn't a puppy, it is a bear-cub.
"Here is his brother," and he held up the dead cub for her inspection. "I guess the old bear came round and stole your baby to take the place of her dead cub. There are tracks behind the house where she came up to the window and stood upon her hind legs and looked in. Sort of taking inventory, as you might say."
The woman went to the north kitchen window and to her great astonishment saw that her husband had not been joking. There were bear-tracks, and also two large paw-prints upon the window-sill that told of a silent watcher of their domestic fireside.
A box was brought from the wood-shed and lined with an old blanket, and milk was warmed for the little wilderness baby, that had found its way so strangely into the farmhouse.
It was ravenously hungry and the man held it, while the wife poured warm milk, a few drops at a time, into its mouth. At first the process was rather laborious, but after a few hours the young bear would gulp down the warm milk gladly.
Thus the bear-cub began his life at the farmhouse, lying in a warm box behind the stove and drinking milk from a saucer. Most of his days and nights he spent in sleeping, as is the wont of young animals, and this was nature's sure way of making him strong and sleek.
The following Saturday the farmer went to town, where he was much lionized as a bear-hunter and the whole story had to be told over and over to each one he met. That night at the supper-table he remarked to his wife that he had seen Dave Holcome, a famous trapper and bear-hunter in his day, and had asked him what he thought about the bear's stealing the baby.
"What did he say?" inquired the wife, all interest.
"Wal," drawled her husband, in exact imitation of Dave, "bars are durned curus critters, almost as curus as women. You can hunt and trap 'um all your life an' think you know all about 'um, then along will come a bar that will teach you difrunt. There ain't no use in makin' rules about bar ettyket, cuz ef you do, some miserable pig-headed bar will break 'um all ter smash, jest like this 'ere one did. But I think there is a good deal surer way uv accountin' for the critter's action than what you say. It's my idee that he mistook the baby for a young pig."
"The wretch," exclaimed the indignant wife, but her husband only laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.
"You didn't get any mail, did you?" she asked, when his mirth had subsided.
"Yes, I did," he answered. "Here is a letter. I had forgotten all about it." The letter proved to be from a town thirty or forty miles to the north, and was as follows:
"DEAR SIR: I have been much interested in reading in our local paper the account of a strange visitor that you had at your house early in the week. I think I may be able to shed some light on that extraordinary event.
"About eight years ago I secured a bear-cub when it was still small and brought it up in my household. There was at the same time in my family a baby to which the cub became much attached. No dog was ever more devoted to a child, than was the bear-cub as the two grew up together. They were constant companions and were inseparable.
"Finally the bear became so strong a partisan of the child that she was really jealous of the rest of the family. She seemed to think that the child belonged to her. The second summer on several occasions the two strayed far from home. The bear seemed to like to toll the child away, where she could have it all to herself.
"One day when the boy refused to follow where its shaggy companion led, the bear fastened her teeth in the man-cub's clothes and carried her small master, kicking and protesting, to the woods, where both were found some hours later.
"I interfered at this point and shipped the bear away to a summer hotel, where they wanted something to amuse the visitors. She soon tired of the company and escaped to the wild.
"Now I am confident that our old Blackie and your bear are one and the same, but the matter is easily settled. Our bear had lost a toe on her left hind leg, the consequence of