y to save
himself!

"You mustn't be so impatient," he said. "This is a serious matter for
me, and I've got to have time to consider."

"Well, then, consider another moment," said Father Bear. "But let me
tell you that it's because of the iron that men have become so much
wiser than we bears. For this alone, if for nothing else, I should like
to put a stop to the work here."

Again the boy endeavoured to think out a plan of escape, but his
thoughts wandered, willy nilly. They were taken up with the iron. And
gradually he began to comprehend how much thinking and calculating men
must have done before they discovered how to produce iron from ore, and
he seemed to see sooty blacksmiths of old bending over the forge,
pondering how they should properly handle it. Perhaps it was because
they had thought so much about the iron that intelligence had been
developed in mankind, until finally they became so advanced that they
were able to build great works like these. The fact was that men owed
more to the iron than they themselves knew.

"Well, what say you? Will you or won't you?" insisted Father Bear.

The boy shrank back. Here he stood thinking needless thoughts, and had
no idea as to what he should do to save himself.

"It's not such an easy matter to decide as you think," he answered. "You
must give me time for reflection."

"I can wait for you a little longer," said Father Bear. "But after that
you'll get no more grace. You must know that it's the fault of the iron
that the human kind can live here on the property of the bears. And now
you understand why I would be rid of the work."

The boy meant to use the last moment to think out some way to save
himself, but, anxious and distraught as he was, his thoughts wandered
again. Now he began thinking of all that he had seen when he flew over
the mining districts. It was strange that there should be so much life
and activity and so much work back there in the wilderness.

"Just think how poor and desolate this place would be had there been no
iron here!

"This very foundry gave employment to many, and had gathered around it
many homes filled with people, who, in turn, had attracted hither
railways and telegraph wires and--"

"Come, come!" growled the bear. "Will you or won't you?"

The boy swept his hand across his forehead. No plan of escape had as yet
come to his mind, but this much he knew--he did not wish to do any harm
to the iron, which was so useful to rich