Dusty Star had not decided upon doing anything, and he let Goshmeelee understand that his mind was open to any fresh ideas. As Goshmeelee didn't happen to have any fresh ones at the moment, she hadn't any to pass on. Dusty Star looked away across the swamp. It was growing dark, and the black pools were even blacker than before. Unless you knew a path, it would be impossible to find your way across, now that the dusk had fallen. Goshmeelee, could have done it, of course, but then she was at home. Goshmeelee, however, had no intention of doing any such thing. If persons chose to visit at awkward times, she really couldn't be expected to see them safely home.
Blackness was in the swamp now: all its pools and bogs and rotting logs seemed breathing out a damp dusk of their own, heavy with decay.
Dusty Star looked at Goshmeelee and shivered. She looked dark enough in her black fur, but also warm and dry. There was an air of large comfortableness about Goshmeelee which was very pleasant to contemplate on a damp night. Dusty Star contemplated, and had an idea. When the bear turned into her lair, he had made up his mind. He gave her time to settle herself comfortably, and arrange the cubs to her liking, and then boldly crept in after her.
To say that Goshmeelee was surprised, is putting it very mildly. Goshmeelee was thunderstruck. In all her great experience, extending over many moons, such an utterly amazing happening had never before taken place. If any other creature—beast, bird or human-being—had attempted to approach her precious cubs, Goshmeelee would have barely given it time to wish it had never been born. But when this small Indian boy fearlessly did the quite impossibly monstrous thing—actually pushing himself in beside her as if he were another cub—she had every claw and tooth ready to tear him into little strips, but—she hadn't the heart!
What it was in Dusty Star that made him different from every other creature she had ever come across, she didn't in the least know. Only she felt that the difference was there. Also, she felt quite certain, that, whatever he was, or did, he wouldn't damage the cubs.
It was very cosy in the lair, not to say stuffy. Also, there was very little room. If you wanted to be thoroughly comfortable, you hadn't to be backward about pushing. The cubs weren't troubled with a feeling of backwardness. First one gave a good shove, and then the other. Dusty Star, nestling close against Goshmeelee's furry side, felt distinctly jostled.
When the cubs discovered that a third cub had pushed its way into their proper bed, they grumbled and shoved all the harder. Dusty Star soon found that there were two sides to his share of the den: one was the soft one against Goshmeelee: the other was the hard one against a piece of hemlock root. The more the cubs shoved, the more he felt the root. It was no good saying "Don't!" The cubs didn't understand "Don't." Even when their mother growled at them, they kept on pushing and grumbling and making a fuss, so that no one could be comfortable, or pretend to go to sleep. Dusty Star made medicine with his voice—much medicine. He also pushed and shoved. He was not very polite; but then when people are sleepy they are not always polite, and the cubs really were very inhospitable. Goshmeelee was at her wits end to know what to do. Short of cuffing everybody all round, there seemed nothing to be done but growl. So growl she did, till all her body seemed a big thunder-box, with a lid that was always on the point of bursting open.
But by degrees the cubs got sleepier and sleepier, and at last forgot to push. And the rumbling in the thunder-box died away. And Dusty Star, pressed close against the great old thundermaker, slept his first sleep among the bears.
When the early morning twilight was stealing into the black places of the swamp, he crept softly out of the warm furry darkness of the lair, and picked his way across the bog.
And when he finally reached home, he found that Kiopo had not yet returned from his night's hunting, and so would not ask him any awkward questions about his very beary smell. For though you might hide things from Kiopo's eyes, and ears, it was dreadfully difficult to conceal them from his nose.