“I didn’t think home was so far,” he panted at last, looking fearfully over his shoulder at the Black Shadows. “Ha, there is the great windfall!” he added joyously, as he spied a pile of fallen trees in the distance.
He approached it carefully, stopping often to look and listen, for you know he didn’t want to be seen by Mother Bear or Woof-Woof. At least, he thought he didn’t want to be seen by them, though way down inside that was just what he did want.
He heard no one and saw no one. Presently he was close to that windfall. A great longing for home swept over him. He no longer wanted to get even with anybody. All he wanted was home and mother. Perhaps Mother Bear and Woof-Woof hadn’t returned yet and he could slip in. Then they would never know. Boxer slipped around the old windfall to where he thought the entrance was. There wasn’t any! It wasn’t the right windfall! Boxer knew right then and there that he was lost, that he was a lone, lost little Bear out in the Great World. He sat down and began to cry.
CHAPTER XXVII
A DREADFUL NIGHT FOR A LITTLE BEAR
A lot of people, great and small,
Are like a frightened little Bear—
Where danger there is none at all
They somehow get a dreadful scare.