and poor alike, and which gave
bread to so many people in this land.

"I won't!" he said.

Father Bear squeezed him a little harder, but said nothing.

"You'll not get me to destroy the ironworks!" defied the boy. "The iron
is so great a blessing that it will never do to harm it."

"Then of course you don't expect to be allowed to live very long?" said
the bear.

"No, I don't expect it," returned the boy, looking the bear straight in
the eye.

Father Bear gripped him still harder. It hurt so that the boy could not
keep the tears back, but he did not cry out or say a word.

"Very well, then," said Father Bear, raising his paw very slowly, hoping
that the boy would give in at the last moment.

But just then the boy heard something click very close to them, and saw
the muzzle of a rifle two paces away. Both he and Father Bear had been
so engrossed in their own affairs they had not observed that a man had
stolen right upon them.

"Father Bear! Don't you hear the clicking of a trigger?" cried the boy.
"Run, or you'll be shot!"

Father Bear grew terribly hurried. However, he allowed himself time
enough to pick up the boy and carry him along. As he ran, a couple of
shots sounded, and the bullets grazed his ears, but, luckily, he
escaped.

The boy thought, as he was dangling from the bear's mouth, that never
had he been so stupid as he was to-night. If he had only kept still, the
bear would have been shot, and he himself would have been freed. But he
had become so accustomed to helping the animals that he did it
naturally, and as a matter of course.

When Father Bear had run some distance into the woods, he paused and set
the boy down on the ground.

"Thank you, little one!" he said. "I dare say those bullets would have
caught me if you hadn't been there. And now I want to do you a service
in return. If you should ever meet with another bear, just say to him
this--which I shall whisper to you--and he won't touch you."

Father Bear whispered a word or two into the boy's ear and hurried away,
for he thought he heard hounds and hunters pursuing him.

The boy stood in the forest, free and unharmed, and could hardly
understand how it was possible.

The wild geese had been flying back and forth the whole evening, peering
and calling, but they had been unable to find Thumbietot. They searched
long after the sun had set, and, finally, when it had grown so dark that
they were forced to alight somewhere for the night