Cubby?" I asked, quickly.

"Cubby? Oh, thet bear cub. Wal, take him along. Youngster, you don't
want to pack thet pesky cub back to Pennsylvania?"

"Yes, I do."

"I reckon it ain't likely you can. He's pretty heavy. Weighs nearly a
hundred. An' he'd make a heap of trouble. Mebbe we'll ketch a little
cub--one you can carry in your arms."

"That'd be still better," I replied. "But if we don't, I'll try to take
him back home."

The old hunter said I made a good shot at the big bear, and that he
would give me the skin for a rug. It delighted me to think of that huge
glossy bearskin on the floor of my den. I told Hiram how the bear had
suffered, and I was glad to see that, although he was a hunter and
trapper, he disliked to catch a bear in a trap. We skinned the animal,
and cut out a quantity of meat. He told me that bear meat would make me
forget all about venison. By the time we had climbed up the other canyon
and skinned the other bear and returned to camp it was dark. As for me,
I was so tired I could hardly crawl.

In spite of my aches and pains, that was a night for me to remember.
But there was the thought of Dick Leslie. His rescue was the only thing
needed to make me happy. Dick was in my mind even when Hiram cooked a
supper that almost made me forget my manners. Certainly the broiled bear
meat made me forget venison. Then we talked before the burning logs
in the stone fire-place. Hiram sat on his home-made chair and smoked
a strong-smelling pipe while I lay on a bearskin in blissful ease.
Occasionally we heard the cub outside rattling his chain and growling.
All of the trappers and Indian fighters I had read of were different
from Hiram Bent and Jim Williams. Jim's soft drawl and kind, twinkling
eyes were not what any book-reader would expect to find in a dangerous
man. And Hiram Bent was so simple and friendly, so glad to have even a
boy to talk to, that it seemed he would never stop. If it had not been
for his striking appearance and for the strange, wild tales he told of
his lonely life, he would have reminded me of the old canal-lock tenders
at home.

Once, when he was refilling his pipe and I thought it would be a good
time to profit from his knowledge of the forests, I said to him:

"Now, Mr. Bent, let's suppose I'm the President of the United States,
and I have just appointed you to the office of Chief Forester of the
National Forests. You have full power. The object is to conserve our
national re