ey think it's a new backdrop," explained Kelly.

But the delight with which Ikey was enjoying his bath in the autumn
leaves was not lost upon his parents. Slowly and clumsily they dropped
to the ground. As though they expected to be recalled, each turned to
look at the group of people who had now run to peer through the wire
meshes of the fence. But, as no one spoke and no one signalled, the
three bears, in single file, started toward the edge of the forest. They
had of cleared space to cover only a little distance, and at each step,
as though fearful they would be stopped and punished, one or the other
turned his head. But no one halted them. With quickening footsteps the
bears, now almost at a gallop, plunged forward. The next instant they
were lost to sight, and only the crackling of the underbrush told that
they had come into their own.

Herrick dropped to the ground and locked himself inside the preserve.

"I'm going after them," he called, "to see what they'll do."

There was a frantic chorus of entreaties.

"Don't be an ass!" begged Jackson. "They'll eat you." Herrick waved his
hand reassuringly.

"They won't even see me," he explained. "I can find my way about this
place better than they can. And I'll keep to windward of them, and watch
them. Go to the house," he commanded. "I'll be with you in an hour, and
report."

It was with real relief that, on assembling for dinner, the house party
found Herrick, in high spirits, with the usual number of limbs, and
awaiting them. The experiment had proved a great success. He told how,
unheeded by the bears, he had, without difficulty, followed in their
tracks. For an hour he had watched them. No happy school-children, let
loose at recess, could have embraced their freedom with more obvious
delight. They drank from the running streams, for honey they explored
the hollow tree-trunks, they sharpened their claws on moss-grown rocks,
and among the fallen oak leaves scratched violently for acorns. So
satisfied was Herrick with what he had seen, with the success of his
experiment, and so genuine and unselfish was he in the thought of the
happiness he had brought to the beasts of the forests, that for him no
dinner ever passed more pleasantly. Miss Waring, who sat next to her
host, thought she had seldom met a man with so kind and simple a nature.
She rather resented the fact, and she was inwardly indignant that so
much right feeling and affection could be wasted on farmyar