a grunt of deep satisfaction, he
lifted the limp figure in his arms as high as he could, and flung it
into the yawning chasm below.

He peered over the railing and saw it strike upon the rocks beneath,
hang for a moment uncertain and disappear in the dark eddy.

Then he dropped on all fours and hurried back to camp, where he
demolished everything of Pedro's meagre outfit, not forgetting to tear
his coat to shreds. This done to his evident satisfaction, he obeyed
the call from the deep woods, that had been so insistent in his ear all
that spring and summer, and shuffled away into the gloom.

The dark plumes of fir and pines sighed, "Come," and the night wind
whispered, "Come," and the rustling fronds and grasses said, "Come."
All nature welcomed the exile to this, his native wilderness.

CHAPTER IX

LIFE IN THE WILD

It was with a wild exultant sense of being free that Black Bruin
shuffled through the underbrush and entered the deep woods on this, his
first night of actual freedom. Some of the native ferocity of his kind
coursed in his veins. Had he not within the hour slain his
tormentor--the inexplicable creature who had tyrannized over him and
bullied and beaten him for more than a year? But mingled with his
triumph was a faint sense of fear that caused him to put many miles
between himself and the deep gorge before he stopped for food or rest.
True, he had seen the limp, lifeless figure fall into the abyss and
then disappear in the dark stream. Still, he might come to life in
some miraculous way and pursue him.

It was under most peculiar circumstances that this alien returned to
his native wilderness;--circumstances that we shall have to consider
briefly to understand why so many mishaps befell him during his first
year of freedom.

From the first moment that the fuzzy little bear-cubs follow their huge
mother from the den into the open world, their lessons of life begin.
These lessons are acquired partly through imitation and also through
design upon the part of the wise old dam. Nearly all small creatures
are imitative, so, as the old bear did only those things that were for
her good, the cubs soon learned by imitation which of the wild
creatures to be upon good terms with and which were to be let alone.

The cubs always stay with their mother for a year, usually denning up
with her the first fall, and only being deserted when the new cubs
come; so it will be seen that this early training a