to spare your
life," said Father Bear. "But if you don't do it, I'll make short work
of you!" The huge workshops were built of brick, and the boy was
thinking to himself that Father Bear could command as much as he liked,
it was impossible to obey him. Presently he saw that it might not be
impossible after all. Just beyond them lay a pile of chips and shavings
to which he could easily set fire, and beside it was a wood pile that
almost reached the coal shed. The coal shed extended over to the
workshops, and if that once caught fire, the flames would soon fly over
to the roof of the iron foundry. Everything combustible would burn, the
walls would fall from the heat, and the machinery would be destroyed.
"Will you or won't you?" demanded Father Bear. The boy knew that he
ought to answer promptly that he would not, but he also knew that then
the bear's paws would squeeze him to death; therefore he replied:

"I shall have to think it over."

"Very well, do so," assented Father Bear. "Let me say to you that iron
is the thing that has given men the advantage over us bears, which is
another reason for my wishing to put an end to the work here."

The boy thought he would use the delay to figure out some plan of
escape, but he was so worried he could not direct his thoughts where he
would; instead he began to think of the great help that iron had been to
mankind. They needed iron for everything. There was iron in the plough
that broke up the field, in the axe that felled the tree for building
houses, in the scythe that mowed the grain, and in the knife, which
could be turned to all sorts of uses. There was iron in the horse's bit,
in the lock on the door, in the nails that held furniture together, in
the sheathing that covered the roof. The rifle which drove away wild
beasts was made of iron, also the pick that had broken up the mine. Iron
covered the men-of-war he had seen at Karlskrona; the locomotives
steamed through the country on iron rails; the needle that had stitched
his coat was of iron; the shears that clipped the sheep and the kettle
that cooked the food. Big and little alike--much that was indispensable
was made from iron. Father Bear was perfectly right in saying that it
was the iron that had given men their mastery over the bears.

"Now will you or won't you?" Father Bear repeated.

The boy was startled from his musing. Here he stood thinking of matters
that were entirely unnecessary, and had not yet found a wa