ame in sight of the corner where Kahwa had
fallen I saw her for the second time--just as on that wretched evening
at the berry-patch--surrounded by a group of three or four men. But this
time they had no ropes round her, and were not trying to drag her away;
only they stood talking and looking down at her, while she lay dead on
the ground before them.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

Now indeed I was truly lonely. During the three or four weeks that had
passed since I had seen my father or mother, I had in a measure learned
to rely upon myself; nor had I so far felt the separation keenly,
because I knew that every evening I should see Kahwa. Now she was gone
for ever. There was no longer any object in going into the town, and the
terror of that last scene was still so vivid in my mind that I wished
never to see man again.

It was true that I had feared man instinctively from the first, but
familiarity with him had for a while overcome that fear. Now it
returned, and with the fear was mingled another feeling--a feeling of
definite hatred. Originally, though afraid of him, I had borne man no
ill-will whatever, and would have been entirely content to go on living
beside him in peace and friendliness, just as we lived with the deer and
the beaver. Man himself made that impossible; and now I no longer wished
it. I hated him--hated him thoroughly. Had it not been for dread of the
thunder-sticks, I should have gone down into the town and attacked the
first man that I met. I would have persuaded other bears to go with me
to range through the buildings, destroying every man that we could find;
and though this was impossible, I made up my mind that it would be a bad
day for any man whom I might meet alone, when unprotected by the weapon
that gave him so great an advantage.

Meanwhile my present business was, somehow and somewhere, to go on
living. On that first evening, amid my conflict of emotions, it was some
time before I could bring myself to turn my back definitely upon the
town; for it was difficult to realize at once that there was in truth no
longer any Kahwa there, nor any reason for my going again among the
buildings, and it was late in the night before I finally started to look
for my father and mother. I went, of course, to the place where I had
left them, and where the fight with the stranger had taken place.

They were not there when I arrived, but I saw that they had spent the
preceding day a