aby's
head. The task that King Gessler set William Tell, was child's play
compared with this. To shoot might mean to kill his own child, and not
to shoot might mean a still more terrible death for the infant.

The child's wails now grew louder and more frequent. The old bear
became uneasy; in another moment she might flee farther into the woods,
or worse than that, might silence the little one with a blow or a
crunch of her powerful jaws.

The desperate man raised his gun. The fitful moonlight shimmered and
danced upon the barrel, and the shadows from the tree-tops alternated
with the dancing moonbeams. He could see the sight but dimly and,
added to all this, was the thought that the gun was not a rifle, with
an accurate bullet, but an old shotgun loaded with a Minie ball.

At first, his arms shook so that he could not hold the gun steady, but
by a mighty effort he nerved himself. For a second the moon favored
him; a moment the sight glinted just in front of the bear's left
shoulder, frightfully close to his child's head, and then he pressed
the trigger.

A bright flame leaped from the muzzle of the old gun; its roar
resounded frightfully through the aisles of the naked woods, and its
last echo was followed by the startled cry of the infant.

Dropping the gun in the snow, the man bounded forward, drawing a long
knife from his belt as he ran. Four or five frantic bounds carried him
to the foot of the beech, where the bear had stood when he fired.

There in the snow lay the enormous black form, and close beside it in a
snowdrift, still nicely wrapped in its blanket, was the child,
apparently without a scratch upon it.

CHAPTER III

A WILDERNESS BABY

When the young farmer beheld the great hulk of the black bear lying
motionless at the foot of the beech, and saw his child lying unharmed
in the snow, his eye, that had been so keen at the moment of peril,
grew dim and his senses swam, like one upon a high pinnacle, about to
fall.

But it was only for a second. His strong nerves soon restored him, and
he stooped and picked up the baby, although he was so blinded with glad
tears that he had to grope for the precious bundle.

What a miracle it was, he thought; only the watchful care of a special
Providence could have steadied his hand for that desperate shot. The
more he considered, the more miraculous it seemed, and with a heart
welling up with praise and gratitude, he silently thanked God for the