and their caresses had been his one pleasure during
the strenuous year with Pedro.

Now, suddenly all this relationship toward man was changed. Black
Bruin had gone from the pale of civilization into that of savagery. He
was now a wild beast, feared by men, although without much cause.

Little by little this new relationship between himself and the man
beast was borne in upon Black Bruin. At first, he shunned men and
their way, fearing that some man might capture him and again claim him
for the road. The wild, free life made him glad. To be here to-day
and there to-morrow was to his liking, and he did not intend to live
again upon a chain.

But that Black Bruin's long companionship with men was a disadvantage
to him in his new life was only too apparent, for it led him into
indiscretions, which a normal bear would never have committed.

In his natural state the bear is a very wary animal, always upon the
watch, even when he is feeding; always and forever testing the wind
with both ear and nostril. But with the half-domesticated dancing-bear
it was different. In his own mind he had nothing to fear from men. He
had walked through their villages and along their country roads and
seen them by thousands and tens of thousands. They had never harmed
him, and he had no reason to think they ever would.

One September morning he was digging roots along the edge of the woods.
He had found something quite to his liking and was much absorbed, when
suddenly a fresh puff of wind blew the strong body scent of a man full
into his nostrils. He looked this way and that but could see no man.
Then a twig snapped in the cover near at hand, and a squirrel hunter
stepped into view, not fifty feet away. The hunter was probably much
more astonished than was Black Bruin. The great shaggy brute was so
close to him that he looked like a veritable monster.

With the hunter's instinct, that acts almost before the mind has time
to think, the gun went to his shoulder and both barrels were discharged
in such quick succession as to call for merely one echo.

The hunter was of course not in search of bears, so the two charges of
number four shot did not have a mortal effect upon the quarry, but at
such close range they penetrated quite deeply into his flesh and stung
him with an excruciating pain. With a loud "Hoof," and an agonized
grunt of pain, the bear fled precipitately in one direction, and the
hunter, thinking that he had jeopa