Grenfell bought a cub, and in the winter-time gave him a barrel, to see if he would know what to do, having no mother to guide him.
The bear knew by instinct how to make himself a warm and cosy nest for his long winter sleep.
He found grass and moss, put them in the barrel, and trampled them down to make a padded lining such as a human being could hardly have bettered.
We all know the story of General Israel Putnam,—how he crawled into the wolf-den at Pomfret and shot a wolf "by the light of its own eyes." A trapper in Labrador, instead of crawling into a den where an animal lay, entered an empty lair, under a cliff. It seemed to have been made on purpose for campers.
He lit his small lantern, ate his supper, and then curled up as tidily as any four-footed tenant and fell asleep.
Like the bears in the fairy tale, who came back to find Goldilocks in the chair and then in the bed of one of them, the real owners of the cave appeared in the night.
The hunter was awakened suddenly by a noise like rolling thunder in the narrow entrance. He turned up his lamp, and the flare showed him a bear, so huge that it blocked the passage-way.
Nimbly the hunter reached for his gun, and before the animal could do anything more than growl and threaten, a shot had tumbled him flat.
Shoving aside the body, the trapper went out into the cold starlight, for he knew that the mate of the slain beast might appear at any moment.
Sure enough, presently over the brow of the hill there shambled in black silhouette two more bears.