Once the chain and collar, together with the bear's uneasiness, nearly cost the cub's life. He would climb up the tree to which he was tied as far as the chain would allow him to go, and, while playing various antics on the lower limbs of the tree, he fell. The chain was on one side of the limb and he was on the other, where he dangled like a culprit on the gallows.
He kicked and choked and tried desperately to catch the limb with his fore-paws, but it was just out of reach and there seemed nothing for him to do but strangle.
The tighter the collar grew and the shorter became his breath the more he kicked and thrashed, until finally the collar broke, and the half-strangled bear fell to the ground with a great thud. Feeling that he had been cruelly treated and insulted, he picked himself up with a groan and a growl, and making for the woods, was not seen again for two days.
Finally Black Bruin returned to his friends, having had enough of wild life for that time. He seemed delighted to see them again and wanted to be petted more than ever, and, as if to make amends for his recent bad behavior, was very good for a couple of weeks.
One day the farmer took a super of honey from one of the hives in the back yard, and, as a sort of reward of merit, gave Black Bruin a pound for his share.
This was an imprudent act upon the part of the bear's master, for honey to the bear is what whisky is to the drunkard. Not that it intoxicated him, but he craved it with an almost insatiate desire.
This pound was but a taste, so he fell to watching the hives again and perhaps plotting as to how he might get at their contents. But the hives seemed quite safe. They were surrounded by a barbed wire fence six feet high. They were located under a broad spreading apple-tree, however, and this fact gave Black Bruin his chance.
He waited until the farmer had gone to a distant field to work, then climbed into the tree, and out on a long limb that overhung the hives.
The limb bent lower and lower until it nearly touched the barbed wire fence, but it was just strong enough for him to make the spring and land in the midst of the hives.
The good housewife heard the humming and buzzing as the bees swarmed out to punish the intruder, and looking out of the back window, discovered the thief.