Bruin had
it all his own way in the mountains, killed a young bull or a fat heifer
for his dinner every day or two, chased in pure sport a herd of sheep
over a precipice; and as for Lars Moe's bay mare Stella, he nearly
finished her, leaving his claw-marks on her flank in a way that spoiled
her beauty forever.

Now Lars Moe himself was too old to hunt; and his nephew was--well, he
was not old enough. There was, in fact, no one in the valley who was of
the right age to hunt this Gausdale Bruin. It was of no use that Lars
Moe egged on the young lads to try their luck, shaming them, or offering
them rewards, according as his mood might happen to be. He was the
wealthiest man in the valley, and his mare Stella had been the apple of
his eye. He felt it as a personal insult that the bear should have dared
to molest what belonged to him, especially the most precious of all his
possessions. It cut him to the heart to see the poor wounded beauty,
with those cruel scratches on her thigh, and one stiff, aching leg done
up in oil and cotton. When he opened the stable-door, and was greeted
by Stella's low, friendly neighing, or when she limped forward in her
box-stall and put her small, clean-shaped head on his shoulder, then
Lars Moe's heart swelled until it seemed on the point of breaking. And
so it came to pass that he added a codicil to his will, setting aside
five hundred dollars of his estate as a reward to the man who, within
six years, should kill the Gausdale Bruin.

Soon after that, Lars Moe died, as some said, from grief and chagrin;
though the physician affirmed that it was of rheumatism of the heart.
At any rate, the codicil relating to the enchanted bear was duly read
before the church door, and pasted, among other legal notices, in the
vestibules of the judge's and the sheriff's offices. When the executors
had settled up the estate, the question arose in whose name or to whose
credit should be deposited the money which was to be set aside for the
benefit of the bear-slayer. No one knew who would kill the bear, or if
any one would kill it. It was a puzzling question.

"Why, deposit it to the credit of the bear," said a jocose executor;
"then, in the absence of other heirs, his slayer will inherit it. That
is good old Norwegian practice, though I don't know whether it has ever
been the law."

"All right," said the other executors, "so long as it is understood who
is to have the money, it does not matter."

And so