“Well, the noon of the day after the second pig had been stolen, Jock Henderson went home the same as usual, but when he got near, he saw that the hut-door was standing wide open. This was curious, being as the men had barred it on the outside so’s the Kid nowise could open it.
“Jock sprang into the hut and looked all around. The Kid wasn’t there! ‘Injuns!’ Jock thought on the instant, but his heart went cold when he saw what the tracks really was. Not Injuns. No, sir; they war bear-tracks! Looked as though a big bear had stood up to scratch his back on the rough bark of that door and had pushed off the bar. Then, of course, the door had opened and Jock Henderson knew the rest. The big bear had gone off with the little Kid, just as it had with the pigs.
“Jock leaped on his horse and followed the bear-tracks. There’d been a rain the night before and the tracks was easy to find. They led up into the hills. Jock knew he was running an awful risk, going right up into the bear’s den, especially if it was a mother-bear with young; but Jock didn’t care anything about his own life if he could only save the Kid. He tied his horse in a pine wood because most horses won’t go anywhere near a bear, and then, taking his gun, he started through the brush and slowly made his way up the hill.
“He lost the bear-tracks when the ground became rocky, and he was just going to change his course when he heard a low growl. Instantly Jock whirled in that direction, and he saw a huge bear rearing up to its full height and ready to attack him. There were no trees around, and Jock knew that his only safety lay in hitting the bear’s heart. If he missed, the enraged critter would plunge on him and tear him to pieces.
“Jock Henderson was a good shot, but his nerve was pretty much shaken. He took aim and fired. The bear stood so still for a second that Jock feared he had missed it entirely, but in another moment the big fellow fell in a heap on the ground.
“Then Jock looked about for some sign of the little Kid, but he didn’t find any. Maybe he’d come too late, he was just thinking, when suddenly he saw something which brought tears of joy into his eyes. He had rounded a heap of rocks, and there, in the doorway of a cave, lay the Kid, with his head on the woolly back of a little brown bear, and they were both sound asleep. The old mother-bear had spared the life of the little child, as bears often do, and a feeling of tenderness came into Jock’s heart for the poor mother-bear, but of course he had to kill her to save his own life.
“Then the lumberman took a strap from around his waist and he made a muzzle, which he put over the nose of the sleeping cub. Then he lifted the boy on one arm and took the tiny cub under the other, and down the hill he went. The small bear was soon awake and struggling for its freedom. Then the Kid woke up, and finding he was safe in his foster-father’s arms, he said: ‘Nice bear took Kiddie. Nice bear didn’t hurt Kiddie.’
“Meanwhile the other men wondered why Jock did not return to the woods that afternoon, and they was all anxious and watching for him when he appeared with the Kid and the little cub bear. When they heard the story, many an eye was wet, and the Kid had to tell over and over how the nice bear took him, but ‘nice bear didn’t hurt Kiddie,’ he would always say with that winnin’ smile of his.
“Right then and there the men made up their minds that there wouldn’t anything get another chance to steal their Kid, and after that they never left him alone again. If it was fair weather, he was taken to the camp, and he liked nothing better; while in bad weather the men took turns staying behind and lookin’ after him, and so the years passed and the little boy and bear grew up together. Then something happened,” said the old man with a far-away look in his eyes. “Well, like as not it was best that it did.”