Then I began to rage. I remember taking the meat in my mouth and, without eating a morsel, rending it into small bits. I found the stick to which it had been tied and broke it with my jaws into a hundred pieces. I attacked the walls and the door furiously, beating them with my paws blow after blow that would have broken a bear’s neck, and tearing at the logs with my teeth till my gums were cut so that my mouth ran blood. And outside, as they heard me raging within, not the cubs only but Wooffa also whimpered and tore the ground with teeth and claws.
We might as well have stormed at the sky or the mountains. The house stood, none the worse, and I was as far from freedom as ever. By this time the night had passed and dawn had come. I could smell it, and see through the chinks that the air was lightening outside. And then outside I heard a new sound, a sound that filled me with rage and fear—the barking of a dog.
Nearer it came and nearer, and I heard the voice of a man calling; but the dog was much nearer than the man, evidently running ahead of him, and evidently also coming straight for the trap. In another minute the dog had caught sight of the bears outside, for I heard the snarling rush of an angry dog, and with it Wahka growling as the dog attacked him. The shouting of the man’s voice grew nearer, and then, mingled with the noise of the fight between Wahka and the dog, I heard the angry ‘wooffing’ of Wooffa’s voice. The dog’s voice changed as it turned to attack this more formidable enemy, but suddenly its barking ended in a yelp, followed by another and another, which slowly faded away into what I knew were its death-cries. What could any dog expect who dared to face such a bear as Wooffa fighting for her children?
But the last of the dog’s death-cries were drowned by the most awful of all sounds, the voice of the thunder-stick; and my heart leaped as I heard Wahka cry out in what I knew was mortal agony. Then came Wooffa’s voice again, and in such tones that I pitied anyone who stood before her. Again the thunder-stick spoke, and I heard what I knew was Wooffa charging. I heard her growling in her throat in what was almost a roar, and the crashing of bushes and the shouts of the man’s voice, and more crashing of bushes, which died away in the distance down the hillside. Then all was silent except where somewhere in the rear of the house, little Kahwa whimpered miserably to herself.
All this I heard, and most of it I understood, standing motionless and helpless inside the trap, powerless to help my wife and children when in such desperate straits within a few yards of me. As the silence fell and the tension was relaxed, I fell to raging again, with a fury tenfold greater than before, tearing and beating at the walls, rending great lumps of fur out of myself with my claws, biting my paws till the blood ran, and filling the air with my cries of helpless anger. At last through the noise that I was making I heard Wooffa’s voice. She had returned, and was speaking to me from outside. Brokenly—for she was out of breath, and in pain—she told me the story.
Wahka was dead, and the dog. The latter she had killed with her paw; the former had been slain by the first stroke of the thunder-stick. Then she had charged at the man, who, however, was a long way off. The thunder-stick had spoken again, and had broken her leg. As she fell, the man had turned to run; she had followed, but he had a start, and, with her broken leg, she could not have caught him without chasing him right up to his house. But he had thrown the thunder-stick away as he ran, and that she had found and chewed into small pieces before returning to me. And now her leg was utterly useless, here was Kahwa a helpless cub: what was she to do?
There was only one thing for her to do: to make good her own escape with Kahwa if possible. But how about me? she asked. I must remain. There was no alternative, and she could do no good by staying. With her broken leg, she could not help me against the men, who would undoubtedly return in force, and she would only be sacrificing Kahwa’s life and her own. She must go, and at once.
She knew in her heart that it was the only thing, and very reluctantly, for Kahwa’s sake, she consented. There was no time for long farewells; and there was no need of them, for we knew that we loved each other, and, whatever came, each knew that the other would carry himself or herself staunchly as a bear should.
So she went, and I heard her stumbling along with her broken leg, and Kahwa whining as she trotted by her mother’s side. I knew that, even if they escaped with their lives, I should in all probability never hear of it. I listened till the last sound had died away and it was so still outside that it seemed as if everything in the forest must be dead. My rage had passed away, and in its place was an unspeakable loneliness and despair; and I sat myself up in the furthest corner of the narrow house, with my back against the wall and my face to the door, and, with my muzzle buried in my chest, awaited the return of the enemy.