only one foot at a time and pausing before she lifted
another foot. She sniffed at the cub on the ground, sniffed at Hedulio's
legs, and looked up at the cub in his arms. She made a sound more like a
whine than a growl. Hedulio lowered the cub and she sniffed at it. Then
Hedulio caught her by the back of the neck. She did not snarl but yielded
to his pull and rolled over on her side. He picked up the cub on the
ground and laid both by her nipples. They went to, nursing avidly, almost
like little pigs, yet also somewhat like puppies. Hedulio sauntered away
and to my tree, beckoned me down and we strolled away as if there were no
bear near: she in fact paying no attention to either of us after the cubs
began nursing her."

Tanno looked wildly about.

"Boys," he said, "forgive me if I am dazed, and don't be insulted. I
recall that Entedius prefaced his narrative with an oath to its veracity.
I am ready to believe all this if he reaffirms it. But I have a horrible
feeling that you farmers think you have caught a city ignoramus and that
it is your duty to stuff me with the tallest stories you can invent.
Please set me right. If you are stuffing me the joke is certainly on me,
for these incredible tales seem true: if they are true the joke is doubly
on me. As I am the butt, either way, don't be too hard on me: Please set
me right."

They chorused at him that they had all heard the story, most of them soon
after the marvel took place; that they had always believed it, and
believed it then. I corroborated Hirnio's exactitude as to all the
details.

CHAPTER IV

HOROSCOPES AND MARVELS

Tanno looked about again, less wildly, but still like a man in a daze.

"But," he cried, "if you do such wonders, how do you do them, Caius?"

"I don't know now," I said, "any more than I knew the first time I gentled
a fierce strange dog. It came natural then, it always has come natural."

"Naturally," said Lisius Naepor, "since it is part of your nature from
before birth. Do you mean to tell us, Opsitius, that Hedulio has never
shown you his horoscope?"

"Never!" said Tanno, "and he never spoke of it to me. I'm Spanish, you
know, by ancestry, and Spaniards are not Syrians or Egyptians. Horoscopes
don't figure largely in Spanish life. I never bothered about horoscopes, I
suppose. So I never mentioned horoscopes to Hedulio nor he to me."

"Nor he to you of course," said Neponius Pomplio, "he is too modest."

"In fact," said N