Pretty soon Dido felt his trap being lifted up. Then it was set down on a wagon, and horses began to draw it down the mountain to the place where the trappers lived. For the two men were trappers, and they set traps in the woods to catch wild animals, which they trained to do tricks and sold to circuses, or to persons who wanted them. Dido did not learn until afterward what horses were, but he knew they must be strong animals to pull a heavy wagon and the two men and himself in the log-trap.
How long he rode on the wagon Dido did not know, but after a while he felt himself being lifted up again and he was carried into a queer place. Though the little bear cub did not know what it was he found out later that it was a barn. It was dark in there, almost as dark as in the woods at night, but Dido was not afraid of the dark. He rather liked it.
“Are you going to take the little bear out of the trap?” asked the little man.
“Not right away,” answered the big man. “I will first let him get quiet. I want to tame him a bit so he will not bite. I won’t give him anything to eat or drink for a long while, and then he will be so hungry and thirsty that he will not be afraid when I come near to give him something.”
And that is just what happened to Dido. The sweet honey had made him thirsty, and he was very warm from having tried so hard to get out of the trap. Oh! how he wanted a drink of water from the cool, blue lake! But there was no water in the cage-trap.
Finally Dido fell asleep. When he opened his eyes again he could see a little light shining through the chinks of the trap. Then he smelled the man-smell again, and he heard the big man say:
“Well, I wonder how my little bear is to-day?”
Dido growled, as all wild bears do when first they know a man is near them.
“Not very tame yet, I guess,” the man said. “But you soon will be, when you get hungrier and more thirsty.”