So they would all go away together to pick strawberries, or blackberries, or gooseberries. After a while, they went for chestnuts, and that was the most fun of all.
But Mother Bear taught Footsteps Upon the Water and the little cubs to run always when they saw a man with a bow and arrows. One day, a man came very close to the Bear’s house, but Mother Bear chased him with a forked stick, and he went away.
The next day, the man came again, just as the family was starting out for chestnuts. Mother Bear threw a bag of feathers at the man so that he was not able to see, and he ran away.
The third day, the man came again. Mother Bear was starting out for a neighbor’s house with a bundle upon her back. She chased the man with her forked stick, she threw some more feathers at him, but it did no good. The man shot an arrow at Mother Bear, and she fell to the ground.
“Oh, good Mother Bear,” cried little Footsteps Upon the Water, running out to help her, “such a cruel man to hurt my good Mother Bear!”
But the arrow had stuck fast in Mother Bear’s bundle, and she was not hurt at all. And the man ran up to little Footsteps Upon the Water, crying:
“My little lost boy, my little lost boy,” for it was Footsteps Upon the Water’s own father.
Then he told Mother Bear how sorry he was that he had tried to hurt her, and he invited her and all the cubs to come for a visit to the wigwam.
And little Footsteps Upon the Water went home, but he never forgot how good old Mother Bear had been to him.