t bears that
makes you love them. I'm not going to shoot many more--perhaps none after
we get this dog-killer we're after. I almost believe he will be my last
bear." Suddenly he clenched his hands, and added angrily: "And to think
there isn't a province in the Dominion or a state south of the Border that
has a 'closed season' for bear! It's an outrage, Bruce. They're classed
with vermin, and can be exterminated at all seasons. They can even be dug
out of their dens with their young--and--so help me Heaven!--I've helped to
dig them out! We're beasts, Bruce. Sometimes I almost think it's a crime
for a man to carry a gun. And yet--I go on killing."

"It's in our blood," laughed Bruce, unmoved. "Did you ever know a man,
Jimmy, that didn't like to see things die? Wouldn't every mother's soul of
'em go to a hanging if they had the chance? Won't they crowd like buzzards
round a dead horse to get a look at a man crushed to a pulp under a rock or
a locomotive engine? Why, Jimmie, if there weren't no law to be afraid of,
we humans'd be killing one another for the fun of it! We would. It's born
in us to want to kill."

"And we take it all out on brute creation," mused Langdon. "After all, we
can't have much sympathy for ourselves if a generation or two of us are
killed in war, can we? Mebby you're right, Bruce. Inasmuch as we can't kill
our neighbours legally whenever we have the inclination, it's possible the
Chief Arbiter of things sends us a war now and then to relieve us
temporarily of our blood-thirstiness. Hello, what in thunder is the cub up
to now?"

Muskwa had fallen the wrong way out of his crotch and was dangling like the
victim at the end of a hangman's rope. Langdon ran to him, caught him
boldly in his bare hands, lifted him up over the limb and placed him on the
ground. Muskwa did not snap at him or even growl.

Bruce and Metoosin were away from camp all of that day, spying over the
range to the westward, and Langdon was left to doctor a knee which he had
battered against a rock the previous day. He spent most of his time in
company with Muskwa. He opened a can of their griddle-cake syrup and by
noon he had the cub following him about the tree and straining to reach the
dish which he held temptingly just out of reach. Then he would sit down,
and Muskwa would climb half over his lap to reach the syrup.

At his present age Muskwa's affection and confidence were easily won. A
baby black bear is very much like a huma