"My forefathers lived in this region from the time that the forests first sprang up. From them I inherited hunting grounds and pastures, lairs and retreats. In the beginning I wasn't much troubled by the human kind. They dug in the mountains and picked up a little ore down here by the rapids. They had a forge and a furnace, but the hammer sounded only a few hours each day, and the furnace was not fired more than two moons at a stretch.
"But these last years, since they have built this noise-shop, there is racket day and night. I thought I should have to move away, but now I have discovered a better way."
Father Bear took Nils up again and lumbered down the hill. He walked fearlessly between the workshops, and climbed to the top of a slag heap. There he sat up on his haunches and held the boy up high between his paws.
"Try to look into the shop," he said.
The boy saw a workman take a short, thick bar of iron at white heat from a furnace opening, and place it under a roller that flattened and extended it. Immediately another workman seized it and placed it beneath a heavier roller. Thus it was passed from roller to roller until, finally, it curled along the floor like a long red thread. Continuously fresh threads followed it like hissing snakes.
"I call that real man's work!" the boy said to himself.
Father Bear then let him have a peep at the forge, and he became more and more astonished as he saw how the blacksmiths handled iron and fire.
"Those men have no fear of heat and flames," he thought.
"They keep this up day after day," Father Bear said as he dropped wearily on the ground. "One gets tired of that kind of thing. I'm glad that at last I can put an end to it."
The boy was all of a shiver now.