“That honey you put in the trap made good bait,” said the short man.
“I thought it would,” replied the other. “Bears will go almost anywhere to get honey. And as soon as this one went in and began eating, he loosened the rope that held up the door, and it fell down. That’s how he was caught.”
Dido did not understand all this talk, but he wished, with all his heart, that he had not gone in to eat the honey.
“Come on,” said the big man, “we’ll carry the cage-trap out to the road and put it on the wagon. Then, in a few days, I will begin to teach this bear to dance.”
Dido ran around in the cage or trap once more, trying to get out, but he could not. And the next thing he knew he felt himself being lifted up and carried along. This frightened him more than ever, but there was nothing he could do, for he could not get out. He could smell the man-smell very plainly now, for the men were walking along close to the trap, carrying it.
Pretty soon Dido could see, through the cracks, that the woods were not as thick as they had been. He was being taken away from his beloved forest where he had lived all his short life. He was being taken away from the den-house, and from his father and mother and brothers.
And, even though Dido was only a bear he felt badly, as all animals do when they are taken to a new and strange place.
“If ever I get out of this trap,” thought Dido, “I’ll bite and scratch those men until they let me go.”
Biting and scratching comes natural to bears, as it does to some cats, you know, and you could hardly find fault with Dido for wanting to get loose. He did not learn, until afterward, that the men were going to be kind to him.