er for help. That cry reached the faithful old Noozak. In an
instant she was on her feet--and just in time. Like a round black ball
shot out of a gun Neewa sped past the rock where she had been sleeping,
and ten jumps behind him came Makoos. Out of the corner of his eye he
saw his mother, but his momentum carried him past her. In that moment
Noozak leapt into action. As a football player makes a tackle she
rushed out just in time to catch old Makoos with all her weight full
broadside in the ribs, and the two old bears rolled over and over in
what to Neewa was an exciting and glorious mix-up.

He had stopped, and his eyes bulged out like shining little onions as
he took in the scene of battle. He had longed for a fight but what he
saw now fairly paralyzed him. The two bears were at it, roaring and
tearing each other's hides and throwing up showers of gravel and earth
in their deadly clinch. In this first round Noozak had the best of it.
She had butted the wind out of Makoos in her first dynamic assault, and
now with her dulled and broken teeth at his throat she was lashing him
with her sharp hind claws until the blood streamed from the old
barbarian's sides and he bellowed like a choking bull. Neewa knew that
it was his pursuer who was getting the worst of it, and with a squeaky
cry for his mother to lambast the very devil out of Makoos he ran back
to the edge of the arena, his nose crinkled and his teeth gleaming in a
ferocious snarl. He danced about excitedly a dozen feet from the
fighters, Soominitik's blood filling him with a yearning for the fray
and yet he was afraid.

Then something happened that suddenly and totally upset the maddening
joy of his mother's triumph. Makoos, being a he-bear, was of necessity
skilled in fighting, and all at once he freed himself from Noozak's
jaws, wallowed her under him, and in turn began ripping the hide off
old Noozak's carcass in such quantities that she let out an agonized
bawling that turned Neewa's little heart into stone.

It is a matter of most exciting conjecture what a small boy will do
when he sees his father getting licked. If there is an axe handy he is
liable to use it. The most cataclysmic catastrophe that cam come into
his is to have a father whom some other boy's father has given a
walloping. Next to being President of the United States the average
small boy treasures the desire to possess a parent who can whip any
other two-legged creature that wears trousers. An