"You'll not get me to destroy the ironworks," defied the boy. "The iron is so great a blessing that it will never do to harm it."
"Then of course you don't expect to be allowed to live very long," said the bear.
"No, I don't expect it," replied the boy, looking the bear straight in the eye.
Father Bear gripped him still harder. It hurt so that the boy could not keep the tears back, but he did not cry out or say a word.
"Very well, then," said Father Bear, raising his paw very slowly, hoping that the boy would give in at the last moment.
But just then the boy heard something click very close to them, and saw the muzzle of a rifle two paces away.
"Father Bear! Don't you hear the clicking of a trigger?" cried the boy. "Run, or you will be shot!"
Father Bear grew terribly hurried. He gave himself time, though, to pick up the boy and carry him along. As he ran, a couple of shots sounded; the bullets grazed his ears, but he escaped.
When Father Bear had run some distance into the woods, he paused and set Nils down on the ground.
"Thank you, little one," he said. "I dare say those bullets would have caught me if you hadn't been there. Now I want to do you a service in return. If you should ever meet with another bear, just say to him this—which I shall whisper to you—and he won't touch you."