Black Bruin: The Biography of a Bear

by Clarence Hawkes

HE DISCOVERED ANOTHER BEAR WATCHING THE STREAM

He did not have long to wait, for a gust of wind soon dropped a bit of bark upon the stream near the crouching bear. There was a spray of water, and a flash of the silver sides of the salmon as it darted to the surface. Then the bear on the rock reached down with her paw and, with a lightning-like motion, batted the fish out of the water and well up on the bank.

Black Bruin, during his year of wild life, had found several dead fish, which he had eaten with great relish. So, without waiting to consider that the prize did not belong to him, he started out of the bushes for it.

But the real fisherman rushed at him with such ferocity that he quickly retreated to cover and sat watching while she killed the fish.

When it had been dispatched, the lucky fisherman took it in her mouth and went away into the woods with the prize. Black Bruin followed at a distance, smelling of the bushes, where the fish brushed in passing, leaving a tantalizing scent.

Finally, the bear with the fish stopped under some spruces and began eating it.

Soon two fuzzy shuffling little creatures joined her. What they were or where they came from Black Bruin did not know. They seemed not to care much for the fish which the old bear offered them, but preferred to romp and tumble about in the jolliest kind of frolic.

In the old days there had been a litter of puppies at the farmhouse. These queer little creatures were about the size of puppies, but Black Bruin did not think they were small dogs.

When the fish had been eaten, the three went away farther into the woods, the two small creatures following in the footsteps of their mother.

Then Black Bruin went up and smelled of their tracks and his good nose told him that they were small bears.

After that Black Bruin saw the old bear and her two cubs often, but she would not let him come near them, and did not evince much friendliness for him. But he had learned one valuable lesson and the following day was upon the flat rock watching for fish.

He did not get one that day or the next, but he had patience, which all fishermen must have, and the third day got his fish.

It was much larger than the one he had seen the strange bear take and it made him a fine meal. After that he was a tireless fisherman.

One morning Black Bruin discovered a little dappled fawn following its mother gleefully through the fragrant breeze-haunted forest, and remembering his calf-killing episode, just before the bear-hunt, he approached cautiously. This was not a calf, for the habitation of man had been left far behind. Calves he had made the acquaintance of when he was the farmhouse pet, in those far-off days. This was a wilderness creature and it belonged to him if he could kill it, as did all the wild creatures that he could master.

This is the universal cry of the woods,—food, food, food; and it is the cry of civilization as well. There is no dingle dell, where the harebell and the anemone grow, where the pine and the spruce stand darkling and sweet peace seems to fold her wings and sit brooding, but danger is there. Danger that crawls and creeps and runs with great bounds. Danger upon velvety paws, that fall on the mosses of the forest carpet as lightly as an autumn leaf; danger that slinks in gray protectively colored forms which pass like shadows; danger upon wings, as sure and speedy as the hunter's arrow,—wings fringed with down, that their coming may be noiseless and fatal.

The tiny wood-mouse scampers gleefully in the dead leaves, but above him and about him are a dozen dangers. The nervous cottontail sits erect upon his haunches, his nose twitches and his large trumpet-like ears are turned this way and that to catch the slightest sound. His whole attitude is one of intense watching and listening, and well he may, for his enemies are legion and in every thicket, bush and tree-top a dark danger is lurking.

This is the war of the woods. The old, old story of carnage, life that takes life that the breath of life may not go out of the nostrils. Cruel as fate is the law of the woods, but it is also the law of the shambles and carnivorous man.

Black Bruin was not as well versed in hunting as most of his wild kindred, so he did not take the precaution to get upon the windward side of his game. The ever-watchful mother scented danger long before he got within striking distance. Her white flag went up and she led her offspring at a breakneck pace from the place, but Black Bruin had marked them for his own and it was only a matter of patience.

For several days he watched their coming and going, until at last he discovered where the mother left her offspring while she went to a distant lake to feed upon lily-pads.

The little dappled deer was hidden under a fallen tree-top and one day, while the doe was gone, he fell upon the helpless fawn, which, according to the unwritten law of the forest, was his legitimate meat.

With a swift sure rush and a savage snarl, he brought the little deer from hiding. There was a short, swift chase, an agonized bleat or two, and Black Bruin had a breakfast that well repaid him for all his watching and waiting.

The same afternoon he saw the mother, wild-eyed and bleating, racing wildly up and down the forest, asking, by terrified looks and actions, "Have you seen my little dappled fawn? He is gone and there is strong bear-scent about the tree-top where I hid him." For several days she haunted the region and her anxiety and heedlessness of her own safety nearly caused her to fall a victim to the wary hunter, but she finally disappeared altogether.

It was not until the full glory of mid-summer was over the land that Black Bruin met White Nose in a blueberry patch upon a barren hillside. At first she would have nothing to do with him, but he followed her so persistently that she was at last obliged to take notice.

For a long time something in earth and air had been calling to Black Bruin,—something that he craved above all other things; but what it was he never knew until he rubbed muzzles with White Nose and felt her warm breath in his face. Then he knew that he had found what he wanted and that the old loneliness would not haunt him again.

But there was one thing about him that made his mate most suspicious and it took much patient coaxing upon Black Bruin's part to overcome her misgivings. This was the strong leather collar that the former dancing-bear still wore about his neck.

It was the collar into which Pedro had fastened the chain during the latter part of the bear's captivity. This White Nose could not understand. In all her experience she had never seen a bear wearing such a thing as this. The man-scent about it, too, made it still more alarming. But at last her prejudice was overcome, and the two came and went together during the rest of the summer and the early autumn.

From her Black Bruin learned many of the secrets of the woods that had hitherto been hidden from him. White Nose had been reared in the wild, so all her senses were keen and the woods and waters were her hunting-ground.

Together they caught salmon at a shallow point in the stream where all they had to do was to sit upon a rock and knock them out on the bank as they passed. Together, in the early autumn, they raided a beaver colony, breaking into the houses and killing several of the members. Black Bruin thought he had never tasted anything in his life quite so delicious as beaver-meat.

White Nose also taught him how to lie in wait for the deer in a clump of bushes by some pathway that they were in the habit of following, or by the lick, or perhaps by a spring where they often came to drink, and then, before they suspected their presence, to make a sudden rush.

She showed him a hollow birch-stub, in which a family of raccoons dwelt, and together they set to work to destroy the household of their own smaller brother. They dug and tore at the base of the stub until they had undermined it, and then together pushed it over.

At first the raccoon family were much astonished and terrified at the commotion outside their dwelling, and when finally the house came down, three sleek raccoons fled in as many directions. White Nose secured one and Black Bruin another, while the third escaped.

The last thing in the autumn, before they denned up, the two bears made a long journey of several days to the nearest settlement, where they killed several sheep, and also carried off two small pigs. In this stealing, Black Bruin took the lead, for he knew much better the ways of man, and the danger from his thunder and lightning than did his companion.

Upon this good supply of mutton and pork they laid on the final layers of fat, and then returned to their wilderness and denned up for the winter.

CHAPTER XII

THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN

The following spring, when Black Bruin came forth from hibernation, he went one day's journey nearer to the settlements and took up headquarters in a rugged and heavily timbered series of mountains, which were admirably adapted to his purpose.

Whenever he awoke during his winter nap he still tasted pork and mutton from the autumn raid. Henceforth he must have more of that diet. So the reason for his changing his base of operations will be readily seen. One day's journey would carry him back into the wilderness, with its fine resources for fishing and hunting, while a day's travel in the opposite direction would bring him to the outskirts of the settlements, within easy striking distance of plunder.

At his first meeting with White Nose, he found her most unresponsive to his advances, considering the fact that they had come and gone together all through the autumn. The reason for her indifference was soon discovered, for Black Bruin saw that she had two little fuzzy cubs in tow;—one with a smutty white nose like her own, and the other with a dark muzzle like Black Bruin's. If Black Bruin knew that these were his offspring, he did not evince much interest in them, while White Nose would hardly let him go near them. Perhaps she was afraid that he might eat them, or maybe it was only maternal jealousy, which is always strong in wild mothers.

For several days after taking up his abode in the mountains, Black Bruin contented himself with a vegetarian diet, varied with fish and small game, but the blood-lust soon came upon him and he began prowling about the settlements.

At first, his reconnoitering was unsuccessful; but one day he discovered an animal four or five times as large as a deer, feeding in an open field near the woods. This would not have interested him much had not the large creature been followed by a little animal of the same kind. He never would have thought of attacking the mother, but the calf was easily within his scope and he began shadowing them with the persistence of a good hunter.

Black Bruin knew that these creatures were the property of men. He had often watched the cattle feeding when he lived near the scene of the great bear-hunt, but with the exception of the calf he had killed upon that eventful morning, he had never molested them.

Even now, he associated the killing of the calf with the baying of hounds and danger, but he was now much wiser and stronger. He felt that he could get away to the mountains long before men would discover their loss. He could even fight if need be.

Of all the bears in the region he was easily the strongest and heaviest and his life with White Nose the fall before had taught him many things.

One morning the young heifer hid her little red calf in a thicket just as the doe had her fawn and went to feed in the open near by.

This was Black Bruin's opportunity, and swift and sure like the good hunter he had now become, he approached. The deer mother had not offered to attack him and he did not think this one would, so he did not pay much attention to her.

He crept as near as he could without scaring the game and then with a swift pounce was upon it. He struck the calf a blow that should have broken its neck, but the calf moved at just the critical moment and received a glancing stroke. With a bleat of pain and fear it sprang up and fled toward its mother. It took only two jumps, for a second blow laid it low, with just enough life left to kick.

Black Bruin seized the prize by the head and began dragging it into the bushes. But he had not gone far when the heifer was upon him like a whirlwind. He aimed a blow at her head which deprived her of one horn, but this did not stop her charge. She caught him fairly in the chest and sent him sprawling.

Her remaining horn ploughed a deep wound in his shoulder and the force of the contact knocked the breath out of him, but it also aroused his fighting blood and put him upon his guard.

When the heifer came for him the second time, he ripped open her nose and eluded her charge, but in no way dampened her fighting ardor.

Ordinarily she would have fled from the bear like the wind, but her maternal affection had been aroused and wounded and no matter how timid the wild mother, it will usually fight desperately when its young are assailed.

Now that the bear was upon his guard, the heifer was hardly a match for him, for he could usually elude her charges and punish her sorely at each rush; but one thing was certain: It would be no easy matter to carry off the dead calf, and carry on such a fight as this at the same time.

In five minutes the cow was covered with blood and her hide had been deeply lacerated in many places, while Black Bruin still had but one wound, that in his shoulder.

Little by little the heifer's frenzy was worn out, until at last she retired to a distance and pawed the ground and bellowed. But when Black Bruin sought to carry off the calf, she was back again fighting every inch of the ground and often causing him to abandon the carcass for a time.

When she stood over the dead calf, licking the blood from its wounds and caressing and nosing it, trying in her dumb way to bring it back to life, she was a pathetic picture of wild motherhood, fighting and ready to fight to the end if need be for its offspring.

Finally toward night she seemed to understand that the calf was dead and no longer of value to her, so, after driving Black Bruin far from the spot, she abandoned the fight and left him conqueror and in full possession of the field.

When he had made sure that she had returned to the pasture, he dragged the calf far up the mountainside into his fastness and gorged upon it as long as it lasted.

As the pasture in which Black Bruin had committed his depredation was a mile from the settler's house and not often visited except to salt the young stock kept in it, the real offender was not discovered, although it was apparent to the farmer that the heifer had been attacked by some wild beast. The rains, however, had so obliterated the signs that it is doubtful if he could have read them rightly, even had he discovered the scene of the battle.

About a week later Black Bruin was climbing the mountainside on the way to his fastness when the wind brought him a new scent that he had sometimes smelled before, but what to attribute it to he had never known. The scent was very strong and Black Bruin knew that the intruder of his domain was near at hand. At last he made out a dim gray shape, near the trunk of a tree. Its color so blended with its surroundings that he might not have noticed it at all, had it not been for two yellow phosphorus eyes that glowed full at him.

The creature was about the size of a large raccoon, but it was no raccoon. Its head was large and round, and surmounted by long ears with hairy tassels at the end. Its forearm was longer and stronger than that of a raccoon and the tail was short and not much of an ornament.

Whatever the animal was, it was small and possibly good to eat, so Black Bruin made a rush at it; but quick as he was, he was not half as quick as the lynx, which with a snarl and a spit scratched up the tree in a manner that made the bear's own accomplishments at tree-climbing look mean indeed. So the stranger could climb trees? Well, so could Black Bruin. Up he scratched after it. He would follow it to the top and then bat it off with his paw.

When the cat had nearly reached the top of the tree, it turned around and looked back. Its enemy was close upon it and something heroic must be done.

The cat measured the distance to a tree-top forty or fifty feet farther down the mountainside; then the top of the tree in which it squatted sprang back and the gray form shot through the air and alighted gracefully in the distant tree-top.

It was a great jump, and so astonished Black Bruin that he forgot to be furious at seeing his game escape.

This was his first experience with a Canadian lynx, but he saw them often, once he had learned their ways. He discovered that they too were fishermen, and hunters of small game. He often found them hunting upon his preserves, but their broad paws fell so lightly upon the forest carpet and their gray forms were so unobtrusive in the woods that he did not often come to close quarters with them.

A few days later, one evening, just at twilight, when Black Bruin was prowling cautiously after a deer family, consisting of a buck, two does, and three fawns, he made the acquaintance of another cat, much larger and more supple than the lynx.

The deer were moving slowly from point to point, browsing as they went, when suddenly from the tree-tops, fell a long lithe figure.

So swift and terrible was its coming that the doe upon whom it sprang was borne to the ground. The great cat did not wait for it to recover, but with claw and fang soon throttled it, while the rest of the herd fled at a breakneck pace, their white flags up.

Here was game already killed. The great cat was not over a third as heavy as Black Bruin. It would doubtless run away at his approach as did everything else.

So thought the bear as he rushed in to take the kill from the cougar, but he had reckoned without his host.

The panther was so intent upon its own game that it did not notice the approach of the bear until the rival hunter was within thirty feet of the prize. Then it wheeled about and was instantly transformed into a demon. Its tail lashed its sides, its fangs were bared in the ugliest snarl that Black Bruin had ever faced and its eyes fairly blazed.

Black Bruin backed off a few feet to get a better look at the terrible stranger. He had not expected opposition and such effrontery was new to him.

But the panther continued to lash her sides with her tail and to glare and snarl, so the bear circled about and about, trying to get behind his adversary. Finally, seeing that the panther had no notion of giving up the kill, the bear went in search of other game.

But he was not afraid of the great cat, only astonished and curious. He knew quite well that the deer did not belong to him and this may have kept him from picking a quarrel.

If he had met the cat in any of the forest highways and it had disputed his right to any of the privileges of the ancient woods, he would have given battle. So he was still the king of the mountain, although he had left the cat in full possession of the deer.

Spring and summer came and went. The blueberries ripened in the pastures and scant clearings, and the blackberries along the edge of the woods. All the native roots that Black Bruin knew so well grew in abundance.

Occasionally he stole from the distant settlements, as the king of the mountain had a right to do, or went farther into the wilderness where the hunting and fishing were better. Several times he ran across White Nose and her two fuzzy cubs, but they did not have much to do with each other until autumn came around.

Finally the first frosts came, and the waiting forest shook out its scarlet and crimson and golden banners, and many water-grasses and weeds took on quite bright colors, for such humble plants.

One moonlight night in October, when the air had begun to be clear and crisp, and the sky was so studded with stars that it seemed as if there was not room for even one more, a strange and lordly company came stalking into the land of the king of the mountain. They were gray, dim, spectral shapes and new to the region.

They may have been looking for feeding grounds, or perhaps the autumn restlessness was upon their leader, who was a giant of his kind,—a broad-antlered belligerent bull moose, ready at this season of the year to fight anything and everything that crossed his path.

The first time Black Bruin saw the newcomers he was digging roots along the edge of a shallow pond. He was also keeping a sharp lookout for frogs, clams, or almost any small crustaceans.

Presently he noticed a commotion out in the middle of the pond, which was only about an acre in extent. Then a great head, surmounted by a massive set of horns, came up out of the water and Black Bruin saw that the strange creature had his mouth full of lily-bulbs and water-grasses. Soon the huge head disappeared again, and after a few seconds reappeared, bringing up more lily-pads.

For half an hour Black Bruin watched the stranger diving and reappearing. Then the great beast swam ashore, shook himself and went crashing off through the woods, his hoofs keeping time in a rhythmic clack, a-clack, clack.

When he had disappeared Black Bruin advanced to the spot where he had come ashore and smelled his track. It was not like anything that he had ever smelled before, and somehow the scent made him angry. This lordly monster was invading his preserves. No one but him had a right to hunt or fish, or to eat roots in this region. So Black Bruin followed the trail of the moose, half curious and half angry.

He had not gone a quarter of a mile when he came up with the bull, who was rubbing his antlers upon the branches of a low tree.

Black Bruin watched him for several moments, until a puff of wind carried the telltale scent to the moose, who is most wary and watchful.

The moose threw up his head, gave a loud snort and blew his breath through his nose with a whistling sound, then crashed off through the forest. This fact led Black Bruin to surmise that he was afraid of him, and nearly resulted in his undoing.

The following day, he discovered the broad-antlered stranger browsing upon a small tree that was bent down under his foreleg. There were two other tall, gaunt creatures, also feeding near, and two small animals of the same kind. These were two cow-moose and their calves. Altogether it was quite an imposing family party.

Black Bruin watched them curiously for a time, until finally the bull scented him, and came charging through the bushes.

This both astonished and angered the bear, but seeing how large and formidable the stranger was, and how fearlessly he came on, Black Bruin sneaked away through the bushes into some very thick cover and bided his time.

It came a few days later. He was poking under the dead leaves for beechnuts, when he noticed the herd passing at a distance. The two cows and the calves were apparently alone, and one of the calves was straggling far behind the rest. For several days the blood-lust had been strong upon Black Bruin, and here was his opportunity. So he began stalking the calf warily. The wind was in his favor and in half an hour he had worked around within striking distance.

He first peered all about to see that the bull was not in sight, and then made a sudden rush upon the calf. But awkward as it looked, the calf was agile, and nearly eluded him, merely receiving a raking blow across the shoulder, where Black Bruin had intended to break its neck. Terrified and stung with excruciating pain, it ran hither and thither, bleating and making a great outcry.

But Black Bruin was not the hunter to let his prey get away if he could help it, so he pursued the calf hotly and soon landed another blow that stretched it upon the ground. He was so intent upon his own game, that he did not notice the cyclone bearing down upon him.

Suddenly the broad-antlered monster was above him, striking with terrible cutting hoofs, which ploughed deep furrows in his shaggy coat and cut deeper gashes. Almost before he knew it, he had been knocked down and was rapidly being trampled to death.

The only thing that protected him was his fat. He was so rotund and so covered with thick layers of fat, that he slipped about under the fearful cutting hoofs.

He struck out viciously, laying open one of the bull's forelegs, but without avail. In another minute his fate would have been sealed, had not a deliverer come at the right second.

Suddenly, from out the bushes near at hand, charged another bull moose, bellowing frightfully as he came. He was not coming primarily to Black Bruin's assistance, but to do battle with the first bull. One of the cows by right was his, and he proposed to claim his rights, and battle for them like the knights of old.

Hearing the challenge and seeing a rival near at hand, the moose left his victim and charged furiously at the newcomer, while Black Bruin limped painfully into the bushes, feeling that he had found out something about the genus moose that it was well to remember.

He did not fully recover from his mauling until he went into winter quarters.

The following spring when Black Bruin came forth from hibernation, he made a trip to a distant lake where the moose were often to be found. He had no mind to molest them, but he did want a certain root which grew only there.

He went directly to the little pond where he had first seen the bull moose, and had arrived within a few rods of the shore when his keen ear caught a slight sound. It was a sound of pain, half-groan and half-moan. Something was in distress. Distress in the wilderness usually means a good dinner for some one, so Black Bruin crept cautiously forward. Soon the wind brought moose-scent to the bear's nostrils and he was filled with fear and tempted to flee, but still he could hear deep groans and sighs. Coming to the edge of the water he peered out through the bushes and discovered the mighty moose helpless and impotent, mired in a treacherous spring bog. His legs were entirely buried in the mud, which came up on his sides. He was covered with foam and sweat, and so weak with thrashing and wrenching, that he could hardly hold up his great head.

At the sight, hate glowed hot in the small red eyes of Black Bruin. It was this monster who had so beaten and humiliated him. Now he would punish him, so he crept cautiously forward.

But the strong wind blew the moose-scent in his nostrils and fear kept him at bay. Finally the moose also scented the bear and made frantic efforts to free himself, feeling that he was now helpless and at the mercy of all; but his efforts were futile and he laid his head wearily down in the mud when he had ceased struggling.

For a whole day Black Bruin watched him, before he could overcome his fear; then he crept cautiously out and sprang upon the bull's rear. The great brute was by that time so spent that he hardly moved while Black Bruin lacerated his flanks. The only sign of pain that he gave was expressed in deep groans and sighs which seemed fairly to come from his breaking heart.

Soon the conqueror crept along the back to his neck, and biting and striking at the vertebrae, quickly extinguished the strong life in the great frame and the huge head gradually sank in the mire. For several days Black Bruin came and gorged himself upon the carcass and did not desist until it had entirely disappeared in the bog.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BEAR WITH A COLLAR

It may interest the reader to know just how Black Bruin looked in this, his seventh year, when he had acquired his full stature, which was enormous for a black bear.

The California grizzly occasionally reaches a thousand pounds, while the enormous brown Kadiak bears, the largest carnivorous animals in the world, reach two thousand pounds; but the black bear usually averages about two hundred. Black Bruin had far outstripped all his contemporaries in size and prowess. In the fall of his seventh year he weighed upon the scales four hundred and two pounds, which fairly earned him the title of King.

His coat was long, thick, and glossy and black in color.

He was not as high upon the shoulders as one might expect for so large a beast. A wolf that stands thirty or thirty-two inches at the shoulder will weigh one hundred and twenty-five pounds and is a large wolf. Black Bruin was probably thirty-five or forty inches high at the shoulder, but considerably higher in the middle of the back, which also sloped off at the rear, where he was quite rotund. His tail was so insignificant as to be hardly noticed at all at a distance. His head was rather small for so large an animal. His eyes were also small and looked weak. His claws, which were non-retractile, were not rakishly long as are the grizzly's, but protruded slightly beyond the long hair upon his feet.

So altogether Black Bruin was most imposing for an eastern bear. He was sleek and well-groomed, with the exception of two or three months in the early summer when he shed his coat.

Living as he now did within easy reach of the abode of man, he went more and more often to the farmhouses and took toll of the farmers. His wariness in regard to men, which he had learned partly of White Nose and partly from sad experience, gradually wore away and his old life with Pedro helped him to forget how strange and fearful a creature man is, when dealing with wild beasts.

So while he came and went much more recklessly than he would otherwise have done, yet his knowledge of man's ways stood him in good stead.

He knew that man was a creature of the day, doing his work in broad daylight, while the bear is a night prowler. He knew that at morning and evening man came and went from the fields to his den, where he always stayed at night.

He knew at just what hours the man-beast would be sleeping, and when he would come forth and tend his creatures. He had often followed his own master in the old cubhood days at the farmhouse, from outbuilding to outbuilding, watching him do the morning chores.

Man's thunder and lightning he also knew and feared more than all his other powers. Dogs he despised and he also hated them, for they often interrupted him in his thieving.

One Sunday morning early in June Black Bruin had been prowling about a little Canadian village and had satisfied his appetite with a hen-turkey, which he had happened to discover sitting far from home. He was returning to his mountain, when, in crossing one of those broad paths in which men always traveled, he so far forgot his usual precautions as nearly to run into a team carrying a half-witted French boy to early mass, that was being celebrated in the little French Catholic church near by.

Upon seeing the enormous black bear at such close quarters, the boy's hair fairly stood up with fright and whipping up his horse he was soon at the church. Throwing the lines upon the horse's back, he bolted into the sanctuary, although mass was in progress, crying, "I see one deevil bar, as beeg as a mountain, I deed."

Just as the boy entered the church, a large Newfoundland dog, which had followed one of the worshipers to mass and was waiting for his master upon the steps, like a good Catholic, became excited at the boy's frantic manner and bounded into the church after him.

Seeing the great shaggy dog appear at the same instant that the boy announced his "deevil bar," in the dimly lighted church, the worshipers at once jumped to the conclusion that this was the "deevil bar" who had come to eat them all up, like the wolf in "Red Riding Hood."

Women and children screamed and rushed for a farther corner of the church, while the more hysterical fainted. Even strong men were for a second startled.

But from his eminence at the altar Father Gaspard saw their mistake and soon reassured them.

Meanwhile, the innocent cause of all the disturbance had been as much scared by the team as had the half-witted boy by him, and was making for the deep woods at his best pace.

One night, early in July, Alec Pierre, a wood-chopper, came to the village with a startling story. He had been chopping two or three miles back in the heavy timber. His own home was closer to the primeval forest than any other of the many straggling farmhouses.

He had taken his dinner, going and coming at morning and evening. Each noon he went to a cool spring which he knew of, to eat his lunch.

This noon he had gone as usual, only to discover that some one had gotten ahead of him. There by the spring, sitting upon his haunches, was an enormous black bear. In his paws he was holding the coffee-bottle, looking at it intently, while his countenance plainly bespoke satisfaction with the discovery.

While the woodsman was wondering what was the best thing to do, the bear raised the bottle to his mouth, and biting upon the cork with his teeth, pulled it out. Then he put the nose of the bottle in his mouth and drank the contents with as much ease as if he had been the real owner.

"I so scart I jes' stan' there an' say nutting. He eat my doughnut, he eat my pie. He act jes' like folks. Pretty soon I keep on looking some more an' I see down in his har, round hees neck one peeg collar, jes' like a dog.

"Heem one beeg deevil. I so scart when he drink out uv de bottle, I no say nutting. He eat my pie, I no say nutting. I 'fraid he take my gun by the tree an' shoot me. By gar.

"By and by he go way and I go up an' look. Perhaps I t'ink I been dreaming. So I pinch my lage an' it hurt, an' then I look aroun' an' there bar-track beeg as snow-shoe.

"Eet so queer I t'ink heaps an' heaps. Then pretty soon I t'ink he some puddy tame bar run away. He break he chain. That why heem collar. I say to myself, no chain, no collar.

"Heem one tame bar run away. He know how do treeks. I catch heem in one small log-house I beeld. When circus come round next week, or two, I seel heem get pig money."

Those villagers who listened to Alec's tale agreed that his reasoning was good, but most of them characterized the story as one big lie, and thought no more of it. But not so Alec. He had seen that day in the wood the most wonderful sight of his life, a bear eating like folks, and he could not get out of his head the idea that the capture of that bear meant a fortune to the trapper who should accomplish the feat.

Perhaps, there was also some superstition linked with his curiosity, for nearly all Canucks are superstitious; but at any rate the very next day he set about building the trap that should capture the "deevil bar," and make him a rich man.

The trap upon which Alec relied for the capture of Black Bruin was a pen-trap. It was made in the following manner:

Alec looked about until he discovered four trees, growing in two pairs ten or twelve feet apart. These sets of pillars were to be the four corners of the trap. He then set to work to cut small logs eight or ten inches in diameter. These were a couple of feet longer than the pen was to be and were built up one above another on the inside of the pillars, being held in place against the trees by strong stakes driven deep into the ground.

In this manner the two sides and the back end of the pen-trap were formed. The top was covered with poles, weighted down with stones. The trap-door, which was at the front, was made of plank and slid up and down in a groove. When it was raised, it was held in place by a cord which passed over the top of the pen-trap and down on the back side, finally attaching to a trigger connecting with a spindle inside the pen, at the farther end. The bait was to be placed on this spindle and a tug upon it would let go the trap-door. As this was weighted with stones, it came down with a bang and anything unfortunate enough to be inside was caught in a prison of great strength.

It took Alec two days to build the trap, and when it was finished he carefully removed all chips and traces of his carpentering.

Usually a bear will not go near anything so new and apparently man-made as a green pen-trap. So Alec did not expect success for several days. In the meantime he took pains to bait Black Bruin and keep him in the vicinity by placing near the spring meat and other food, that his woodsman's instinct told him would be appreciated by a hungry bear. He did not forget an occasional bottle of coffee. Although he did not see the bear again for several days, yet the meat and the coffee always disappeared, which was pretty good evidence that he was near by.

Black Bruin heard Alec hacking and hewing at the trap, but did not consider it anything out of the ordinary. This queer creature was always hacking and hewing at the trees. He had often seen his handiwork piled up in long straight piles. Once for mere amusement he had scattered a pile in every direction.

When he at last came suddenly upon the pen-trap one day, after it had been baited for some time, he gave a surprised grunt and backed off a few feet to get a better view. It looked very queer and very suspicious. He was quite sure that it had not been there a week ago, for he was well acquainted with the region.

It was made of trees, but trees usually grew upright, and they always had limbs upon them. The ends of the logs were hacked and green like the sticks in the wood-pile.

Black Bruin circled around and around the pen-trap, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to it. Finally he came close enough to peep in at the doorway. Inside it was rather dark, but at last he both saw and smelled the calf's head that hung from the spindle. Meat had also been rubbed about the doorway, which was most tantalizing, especially as Black Bruin had not had any for three days.

He licked the particles of meat that still stuck to the logs about the doorway and then started to go in, but it seemed dark and suspicious; beside there was a very faint suggestion of man-scent inside. Outside the rain and the wind had obliterated all foreign scents. Man-scent meant danger. Man was no friend of the wild creatures, so Black Bruin backed out and very reluctantly went away.

When Alec visited his trap the next day, he did not go near enough to see the bear-tracks in the fresh dirt about the door, for he did not care to leave fresh man-scent in its vicinity; so he was rather discouraged with the failure of his efforts. The trap had now been set for a week and nothing apparently had been near it.

The next day Black Bruin again visited the trap, but his suspicions were still keen and as he had killed a wood-chuck that morning, his appetite was not ravenous, so he again left the bait untasted.

The third time that he came near the spot, which somehow had a fascination for him, he smelled a new and bewitching odor, one that a bear is almost powerless to resist. It brought back to his mind that old tantalizing picture of the row of white beehives in the back yard of the farmhouse.

The scent made his mouth drip saliva, and his manner, which a moment before had been suspicious and guarded, was now eager and full of curiosity and impatience.

He went at once to the doorway of the pen-trap and thrust in his head. It was as he had thought,—the ravishing scent came from inside.

He sniffed several times and with each whiff of the honey became more impatient. There, dangling from the spindle, was a section of the coveted sweet.

Black Bruin stepped inside and stretched out his muzzle toward the honey; then he detected a man-scent about the frame that he had not noticed before. He backed out and the hair rose on his neck.

He then smelled all about the sides of the pen. There was no suggestion of man-scent there. Again he returned to the honey.

The taint about that was certain, but the honey almost drove him frantic. So with a sudden motion he snatched the coveted prize in his mouth and gave a hard tug at it. He would seize it before the man-scent had power to injure him and then flee.

But quick as were the motions of Black Bruin, the trap was quicker, for the moment the trigger was loosed, the cord let go the drop-door and down it came with a great bang. The bear was suddenly in darkness.

With a loud "Uff" he dropped the honey and turned in the pen, but the doorway by which he had entered was closed. He sprang upon it with a growl and pushed with all his might, but he was pushing against the pillars, which were two trees nearly a foot in diameter, and he might as well have pushed against the side of a cliff.

Then he whirled about and, seizing the spindle in his mouth, pulled violently upon it, but it availed him nothing.

Then he assailed first one wall and then another in rapid succession. He tore the bark and also great pieces from the logs with his teeth, but the logs were thick and he merely strewed the inside of the trap with bark and splinters, leaving it still as strong as ever. Then he braced crosswise upon the trap and tried to push the logs from their places. They gave a very little when he put forth his giant strength, but the effort was futile.

Then he stood upon his hind legs and tried to reach the poles overhead with his paw, but the trap was too high for this.

For hours he raged and tore at the logs which held him so effectively. He stripped the inside of the pen entirely free of bark, and littered the floor with a bushel of splinters; but all his tearing and biting, pushing and straining, prying and growling, availed him nothing.

At last his great strength was worn out and in the place of rage at being restrained fear came over him. It was man that had done this thing. The scent on the honey-frame plainly said as much. He was again in the clutches of that dread creature.

Now his fear grew tenfold. The giant lay down in a corner, as far as possible away from the honey that had cost him his freedom, and cowered like a whipped dog, with his head between his paws and fear clutching him like an awful force that he was powerless to resist.

The following morning when Alec visited his trap, he found to his great joy that it was sprung. Going up cautiously, he peeped through a crack between the logs. There was the gigantic black bear cowering inside.

When Alec's eyes became accustomed to the gloom of the pen, he saw that the bear wore the heavy collar about his neck, although it was deeply imbedded in the fur, and at this assurance, Alec gave a shout of delight.

"Heem, my deevil bar, sure enough," he exclaimed, and at the hated man-sound Black Bruin drew farther into his corner.

That afternoon an ox-cart, bearing a mammoth crate made of two by four timbers, came creaking into the woods and was backed up to the pen-trap. For an hour or so there was a sound of hammering while a plank-covered gangway was being built from the pen-trap to the strong crate.

Then, to the great astonishment of Black Bruin, the door of the pen-trap slowly lifted, and the way to freedom seemed plain.

With a sudden rush he scrambled up the gang-plank into the crate, and a second trap-door, as strong as that in the pen-trap, closed behind him and he was a prisoner in a new house.

For a long time Black Bruin could not realize that he was still a prisoner. The light streamed in between the strong bars. He could see his captors all about him. They were three excited, gesticulating men, all dark, and to Black Bruin's eyes, sinister-looking like Pedro.

He put his paws between the bars and strained with all his might.

They pounded his paws and prodded him to make him desist, but he did not mind their blows any more than he would those of a child. Freedom was so near at hand. The green woods, the sweet wild woods, his woods were all about him. The blue sky was above him. The fragrant wind blew fresh through his prison-bars.

It could not be that he was helpless so near to freedom. Presently these strong bars would break and he would rush into the wilderness and flee far from the haunts of men.

Then the slow and curious procession started. One of the men drove the cattle and the other two walked by the side of the crate, prodding and beating Black Bruin whenever he strained too frantically at the prison-bars.

Slowly they drew out of the woods with its long dark shadows and its aroma of pine and balsam. Gradually the forest with its dells and its thickets, its ferns and witch-hazel, its bird-song and its chattering squirrels, its sense of freedom and peace, was left behind and they emerged into dusty roadways bordered by fields of grass and grain.

This was the habitat of man, his world, with which Black Bruin associated a chain and a collar, a sharp stick and curses and endless tricks.

At last he ceased to struggle and strain and stood with his head at the rear of his cage, looking back at his vanishing world. Slowly the green plumes of the forest faded. Even the outline of the distant mountains was at last lost and the flat farmlands, dotted with farmhouses and carpeted with grain-fields, took its place.

The old world and the old life were left far behind, and when the last blue hilltop faded, the heart went out of Black Bruin. He no longer exulted in his strength and his cunning, for man had again undone him.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WRECK

For weary hours the ox-cart plodded along the country road, and at last the long shadows deepened into twilight and the stars came out and it was night, but still they journeyed on.

The soft night-winds quickened into being the fragrance of many a flower that had not been noticed in the full heat of day. But wind and fragrance, night and daylight were all the same to Black Bruin, for that which made the world beautiful, and his strong free life worth living, was gone. Freedom was no longer his, and he cowered upon the floor of his prison, laid his head between his paws, and acted more like a whipped puppy than the great strong brute that he was.

Finally the ox-team drew up at a long, low building, and the men unloaded the crate upon a narrow platform.

Here they were soon joined by another man who came from the building.

"How long before the night freight ter H—— comes along, Bill?" drawled one of the men in charge of Black Bruin. "Alec, here, has got a bar as big as a cow that he is a-takin' to the circus which'll be at H—— to-morrow. He don't want to miss it."

"It's due now," replied the station-agent, and even as he spoke, the shrill whistle of the freight sounded in the distance.

A little later Black Bruin heard a distant rumbling and clanging which was like nothing that he had ever heard before. Then there was a vibration of the solid floor under him, and the long, heavily loaded freight thundered down upon the little station.

As the hideous, clanging, shrieking, hissing monster rushed down upon them, coming seemingly straight for the wooden crate, Black Bruin sprang against the bars with such violence that he nearly tipped it over, and gave his captors a great scare.

In a very few minutes, however, the crate, together with the other freight, was hustled into an empty car, and the train pulled out and went thundering away into the darkness.

At first the motion made Black Bruin very uneasy, and he walked to and fro continually; but finally this was succeeded by his being car-sick, and he was soon glad to lie down and keep very still for the rest of the journey.

This was his first night upon a freight train, but it was not his last, for ahead of him was a strange and turbulent existence. He was going to the great city to join the circus, to be a part of that astonishing procession which annually parades the streets of our large cities, and which draws crowds, such as does no other entertainment.

Toward morning, after having made several stops, the car in which Black Bruin was a passenger was side-tracked, and a large, gilded wagon, known to the small boy as a circus-van, was backed up to it. Then the crate was placed against the cage on the van, and both doors were opened.

The new prison looked much more fragile than that in which Black Bruin was. The bars were very small and might be easily broken. It was lighter, too, than his present abode, so after a little poking and punching, the captive went into the other prison, and a moment later, when he turned about to look for the doorway by which he had entered, it was closed and the wooden crate was being taken away. Man had again outwitted him, but the manner in which he was now confined seemed very insecure to Black Bruin. He would soon either find a way out, or else make one. With this in view, he went about the cage several times, sniffing and poking his nose between the bars. He put his powerful arms between two of the bars and strained upon them with all his enormous strength, but they did not seem to give at all. Then he sought to grind one to splinters between his teeth, but instead he broke a tooth, and the effort made him see stars.

What new and amazing substance was this, which could not be bent or broken, or even bitten into? The more Black Bruin pushed at the iron bars of his cage, the fainter grew that spark of hope which is the mainspring of all life, until at last he ceased to hope altogether, and bowing to the inevitable, no longer sought to be free. Sullenly he glared at the gaping crowds that passed his cage daily, and the only thing to which he looked forward was his food. This he received each day at about noon.

What it all meant, he could not imagine. The great crowds, the blare of bands, the gala dress and the babel of voices all reminded him of the country fairs that he had often attended with Pedro, in the old dancing-bear days.

The long journeys by rail he soon got used to, so that he was no longer sick, but it was a weary existence. The snap and rattle of car-wheels was continually in his ears, and if it was not that, it was the rattle and the rumble of heavy wheels over paving-stones, the noise of the brazen-throated circus-band, or the high and insistent calliope. Noise, noise, noise everywhere.

When the animals were fed, there was the roaring of the lions, the snapping and snarling of wolves, jaguars, pumas, and the hideous laugh of the hyena; the chattering of the monkeys, and the piping and croaking of strange, tropical birds. And, more insistent than any of these, the bellowing of the sacred cattle from India, and the belling and bleating of strange deer, not to mention the cavernous trumpeting of elephants when their keepers prodded them into obedience.

There is but one law in the circus, and that is the law of fear. All the wild beasts are ruled by it alone. The tricks that the great cats do are clubbed into them, and the elephants' ears are often so torn by the trainer's iron that they hang in ribbons.

It is only with the domestic animals, like the horses and the trick-dogs, that the trainer can exercise gentle persuasion. So in this great arena, this bedlam of wild beasts, were often heard the blows of club and lash, and the sharp report of pistols fired in the faces of unruly big cats.

How the two mammoth tents, covering many acres, and a dozen smaller ones came and went was a mystery to the general circus-goer. In the forenoon they went up like white mountains, and in the evening, almost before the last spectator had left his seat, they began to come down. Sometimes in half an hour after the last whistle had sounded, the tents and all the circus paraphernalia were packed in wagons and rumbling off to the depot. It was a life of hustle and bustle, jostle and push, here to-day, and a hundred miles away tomorrow.

The small boy, who was up before the first pale streak of light appeared in the east, and off to the freight-yards to see the four or five long circus trains come in, could have told you something about the marvelous way in which circus-men handle their strange caravan. There was always a crowd of these enterprising urchins standing wide-eyed and with gaping mouths, while the circus wonders were being unloaded.

They could have told you that the great gaudy vans were loaded on a train of flat cars, and that a single horse working a rope and pulley-block trundled the vans from the train nearly as fast as their respective teamsters could hitch horses to them and drive away. These boys knew that the stake and chain wagon was always the first to leave the train. Some of them usually fell in behind it and followed to the circus grounds, for it was good sport to see men with heavy sledge-hammers drive the many stakes and stretch the long chain which formed the perimeter of the mammoth tent, and behind which all the vans would ultimately take their places.

After the stake and chain wagon, came wagons bearing the cooking and dining tents, for breakfast is a most important matter when you have five hundred hungry people to feed. By nine o'clock the vast concourse were all on the circus ground, breakfast was over and preparations for the great parade were on foot. Nearly everything in the circus, with the exception of the side-shows, had to take part in the parade.

Only the small boy, who stands upon the pavement, holding to lamp-post or iron hitching-post to steady himself in the wild excitement, can tell you how his heart races and his blood leaps as the first gilded chariot swings around the corner into the main street. Thoughts of this moment have been in the boy's mind for weeks, and the realization is always greater than his anticipation. No matter if it is a small one-horse show, the hallucination of paint and tinsel, and gleam and glitter are there, and what a concourse it is! To get together this strange medley of men and women, beasts, birds and reptiles, the ends of the earth have been scoured. All Asia, from Siberia to India is there. Africa is represented from the Nile to Cape Town. The steppes of Russia and every out-of-the-way corner of Europe have been visited by the agents of the showman, and the result is legion. South America, with the wonders of the Amazon and the pampas and the high fauna of the Andes, is there. Our own continent also contributes largely, for the Rockies and the Selkirks still hold wonders for the eyes of youth. Even if we could contribute no wild beasts, there would still be ample reward for the boy in viewing our Indians, cow-punchers and real live scouts, such as our border-life alone can furnish.

It was as a feature of such a motley procession as this that Black Bruin's van was daily rattled over the paving-stones and finally took its place each day in the mammoth tent behind the chain, in readiness for the noon feeding. His van always followed that of a den of gray timber wolves and was in turn followed by the great white polar bear.

Black Bruin often wondered why his large cousin from the Arctic Circle spent so much of his time swaying to and fro. It was a queer trick that he had, whenever he was not in his tank of water, of forever swaying back and forth, back and forth. Black Bruin often felt fairly frantic himself, and would pace to and fro for hours, but he could see no relief in this continual swaying.

Although he had been sold to the circus-agent as a trick-bear, who could take stoppers out of bottles and do other marvelous tricks, yet he was so morose during the first summer of his circus life that the keeper could do nothing with him as a trick-bear; so he merely paraded as one of the wild beasts.

Men, women and little children came and went in front of his cage by the thousands and ten thousands. Often the keeper would reach in with a stick and poke Black Bruin to make him growl, for this amused the children. He soon learned what was expected of him, and would growl almost before the stick touched him.

In the hot, stifling summer days, when his cage seemed so cramped and unendurable, how Black Bruin thirsted for the woods, he alone knew. Sometimes he would fall asleep and dream of the old free life, only to wake to the torment of his prison-bars.

There was but one incident during the first year of Black Bruin's circus life that is worth mentioning. The circus was showing in a fair-sized city in Northern New York, in St. Lawrence River County. The day was exceptionally warm, the crowd was unusually large and the torment of captivity was unusually galling to the wild beasts.

Black Bruin was restless and paced to and fro in his cage, and sniffed its bars more often than usual.

Suddenly from out the babel about him a voice spoke that fell pleasantly on his ear and in the sound was something that he remembered. When the voice ceased speaking, some psychological reaction slipped a slide in the brute mind, the impression of which had been gained many years before, and the great bear saw, as plainly as he had seen it then, the farmhouse with the chicken-coops in the front yard, and ducks, geese, turkeys and hens all moving about over the green turf. There was the barn and the outbuildings and the long low hen-house where he had so often robbed the hens' nests. Then the scene shifted slightly and the dreamer saw the orchard at the back of the farmhouse with its gnarled and twisted trees and the row of little white houses in the shade near by. "Hum, hum, zip—hum," went the bees flying in from their long quest afield in search of the heart secret of the floral world. But whether it was the droning of bees or the hum of many voices that he heard Black Bruin could not tell.

At this point in his reverie he looked through his bars at three of the circus-goers who were evincing peculiar interest in him. These were a man, a woman, and a boy of about nine years.

"What a fine bear," the man was saying; "much larger than the old female that I shot on that——" But the man did not finish the sentence, for noticing the pallor that crept into his wife's face at his words and the shiver that ran through her frame, he desisted.

"Look here, sonny," he continued to the boy, "if we had been able to have kept Black Bruin until now he would probably have looked just about like this old chap. What do you think of that?"

"Whew," whistled the boy. "Ain't he a monster? Our bear wasn't more than a quarter as big."

"No," replied the man. "That was because he was not grown, but he was a fine cub when we let the peddler have him. I have often wondered what became of him."

"Wasn't Bar-bar cunning," exclaimed the boy, "when he was a little fuzzy fellow and I used to roll about with him on the floor and pull his ears, just like the photograph you had taken of us."

"Come, John, let's look at some of the other animals," said the boy's mother. "Bar-bar was all right, but it gives me the shivers to look at a full-grown black bear like this." So the three moved on to the wolf-den.

Black Bruin sniffed the bars of his cage where the man's hand had rested upon it for a moment, as the three moved away. The man-scent too awoke strange memories which he could not understand. It was like coming upon a well-remembered spot in a stream where he had once captured a large salmon, or some burrow under a stump where he had dug out a luckless rabbit. But soon even the remembrance of the pleasant voices, that in some strange way suggested something dim and distant, was forgotten, the man-scent on the bars of his cage was obliterated, and Black Bruin was back in the old rut, bumping and thumping over paving-stones and seeing his van continually being rolled on or off the flat car which carried it.

Finally the long hard trips were over for that season and the circus went into winter quarters.

This winter Black Bruin did not hibernate as he usually did, but spent the time in a series of short naps. Each day he came forth from his improvised den to stretch and to eat. Toward spring, by dint of much coaxing and liberal rewards of sugar and honey, the keeper got upon good terms with him and finally discovered most of his tricks.

When the next season opened, the prisoner found that he was to have a little more freedom and a rather more varied existence than that of the year before.

Upon the circus bills he appeared as Napoleon Bonaparte, the wonderful trick-bear; and there was a striking and astonishing picture of him in the act of opening a bottle and drinking from it.

Small boys stood spellbound before this picture, and they were still more astonished when the real live bear was led into the ring and marched up and down with a wooden gun upon his shoulder, while the performance of his bottle-trick always created a rustle all over the tent. This was the surest sign of a great hit.

So now each day, in addition to appearing in the grand cavalcade and the street-parade, Black Bruin had to come into the ring each afternoon and evening and go through his senseless tricks.

The only thing that kept him good-natured and up to the mark, was the fact that his bottle was always filled with some pleasing drink, so he had that to look forward to after each performance of the trick. There were also sweets in waiting for him when he came out of the ring.

Thus went the endless round. Here to-day and there to-morrow. In the evening a magic city of white tents would be seen upon the grounds, but by midnight all had been stowed away in four or five long trains, which soon were thundering over the rails to a distant city, where for the past three weeks posters had announced the coming of the circus.

Thus the days and weeks of Black Bruin's second year in the circus passed and they concluded the season at Nashville, Tennessee. Then all the paraphernalia was loaded with even more care than usual, for they were off for the long trip northward, to their winter quarters.

That night when they loaded the elephants and the trick-ponies, some of them hung back and refused to board the train, a tendency most unusual on their part; but they finally obeyed the goad and lash and all were stowed away in their customary places.

It was about midnight when the train bearing Black Bruin's van pulled out. One by one the cars bumped over the switch and the long train got under way. At first the locomotive puffed and panted as though the load were too great for it, but finally the train got up momentum and the car-wheels sang their old song of rat-a-clat-rat-a-clat-rat-a-tat-tat, while the engine assumed its familiar song of

"Rushing, pulling, snatch the train along,
Tugging, pulling, locomotive strong."

This is the song that a locomotive always sings when it is off for a long, hard pull.

On, on through the darkness the train sped, the engine sending forth showers of sparks that twinkled in the gloom like fireflies, and then went out.

But the most conspicuous thing about the train was the headlight, which threw its long cylindrical shaft of light far ahead, like a mighty auger of fire boring into the darkness. No matter how hard the engine puffed and panted or how fast the drivers thundered over the rails, this bright cylinder of light was always just so far ahead, illuminating the gleaming rails, flashing into deep cuts, lighting up cliffs and forest, and long stretches of open fields.

Black Bruin was not asleep in his cage, as he usually was on long journeys like this. Somehow, he felt restless and ill at ease. He sniffed his bars often, but the heavy shutters were down and no sign of freedom was at hand. Yet in some unaccountable manner, the wind sucking through the cracks between the shutters blew fresher and sweeter than usual. It tasted of pine-woods and deep tangles of swamp-land, where all the roots that a bear likes grow.

The train had left the low-lying lands far behind and was coming into the foothills—those friendly steps by which tired feet climb to the mountains above. It was rushing down a steep grade, traveling by its own momentum, upon a rather precipitous pathway cut in a side hill, when something happened. Perhaps it was a broken rail, or maybe a great boulder had toppled down the mountainside and lay upon the track; but the important thing was that suddenly, without a second's warning, the engine bucked like a balky broncho, and after one or two mad plunges along the roadbed, toppled over the bank and rolled into the gulley below. At the first impact of the locomotive with the long train behind it, the freight arched its back and writhed and twisted like a mighty serpent. Three of the cars went over the bank still attached to the engine and the rest piled up on one another or rolled down into the gulley, as fate willed. There was crash upon crash and thunder upon thunder as the heavy cars piled in a frightful heap. There was the groan of iron and steel being bent and broken, and the crash and creak and crackle of breaking, grinding car-floors.

When we add to this the roar of lions, the shrieking of horses, the trumpeting of elephants, the snarling and snapping of wolves, jaguars, hyenas and a chorus of other cries from the circus bedlam, the roar of steam as it escaped through an open valve in the locomotive, and the shriek of the whistle which blew continually, we can get some idea of the wreck, as the gorgeous splendor of the barbaric show was piled in ruins.

It was such sights and sounds as these that greeted Black Bruin as he squeezed through the battered, broken door of his cage into freedom. He had felt himself rolling over and over. First he was upon the bottom of his cage and then standing upon the inverted roof. Three times he bumped from the top to the bottom and back again in rapid succession. What did it mean? His van had never acted like this.

It was all so quick that he merely emitted a frightened bawl or two and lay still, cowering in the corner of his cage. Then in some unaccountable way he became aware that his cage-door was open. His back was to it, but the wind that blew in upon him, was the wind of the woods and the waters, and not the stifling, filtered wind of his prison.

As this sense was borne in upon him, Black Bruin lost no time in scrambling out through the opening.

His first act on coming forth into the open air with the moon and the stars and the free sky above him, was to stretch. He then looked about him as though uncertain what was coming next.

As he stood irresolute, looking first at the wreck and then away to the outline of a great mountain that stretched above him, seeming to reach up into the very heavens, the long, lithe form of a panther slipped by him and melted into the darkness. A moment later a jaguar followed it; they were going back to freedom.

Then Black Bruin stretched his nose high in air and sniffed the fresh untamed winds. They were sweet with the scent of the southern pine. Suggestions of the persimmon fruit were also there and the tantalizing odor of witch-hazel and other sweet scents that the bear knew not. There was a clump of underbrush just ahead and into it Black Bruin crashed.

Weeds swished as he passed and the brush whipped his face. With bushes parting and grasses and weeds bending at his coming, the old sense of freedom came surging back to the escaped prisoner and he stretched out his strong muscles, which had been so long cramped in the cage, and shuffled up the side of the mountain at his best pace. Through thickets and brambles he crashed with a wild exultation; up precipitate crags he labored with feverish excitement and frenzy that grew with each moment. He sniffed at the rustling fronds and mosses as he passed, with wild delight. How fresh, how new, how satisfying the wilderness was!

Now racing through deep gulches, and now scrambling up steep bluffs with sheer delight of motion, he fled.

At last the moon set and the stars faded and from the heart of the Cumberland Mountains, near the top of one of its most jagged and unfrequented spurs, Black Bruin beheld his first sunrise in southern skies.

Slowly the east warmed and glowed until at last the golden disk mounted over the top of a twin peak and gilded the mountain upon which Black Bruin stood with a flood of golden sunlight. Birds began to twitter strange songs in the tree-tops and thickets and the high peak sang for joy at the sun's coming.

At this auspicious moment, Black Bruin reared upon his hind legs and placing his forepaws high upon the trunk of a sentinel pine, raked a deep scar in the bark. This was his hall-mark;—the sign by which he took possession of the mountain and the surrounding lowlands, just as the discoverers did of old.

This land was to be his, where he would dwell and seek his meat and mate, and live the life of a wild beast to the end of his days.