g,
pushing and straining, prying and growling, availed him nothing.

At last his great strength was worn out and in the place of rage at
being restrained fear came over him. It was man that had done this
thing. The scent on the honey-frame plainly said as much. He was
again in the clutches of that dread creature.

Now his fear grew tenfold. The giant lay down in a corner, as far as
possible away from the honey that had cost him his freedom, and cowered
like a whipped dog, with his head between his paws and fear clutching
him like an awful force that he was powerless to resist.

The following morning when Alec visited his trap, he found to his great
joy that it was sprung. Going up cautiously, he peeped through a crack
between the logs. There was the gigantic black bear cowering inside.

When Alec's eyes became accustomed to the gloom of the pen, he saw that
the bear wore the heavy collar about his neck, although it was deeply
imbedded in the fur, and at this assurance, Alec gave a shout of
delight.

"Heem, my deevil bar, sure enough," he exclaimed, and at the hated
man-sound Black Bruin drew farther into his corner.

That afternoon an ox-cart, bearing a mammoth crate made of two by four
timbers, came creaking into the woods and was backed up to the
pen-trap. For an hour or so there was a sound of hammering while a
plank-covered gangway was being built from the pen-trap to the strong
crate.

Then, to the great astonishment of Black Bruin, the door of the
pen-trap slowly lifted, and the way to freedom seemed plain.

With a sudden rush he scrambled up the gang-plank into the crate, and a
second trap-door, as strong as that in the pen-trap, closed behind him
and he was a prisoner in a new house.

For a long time Black Bruin could not realize that he was still a
prisoner. The light streamed in between the strong bars. He could see
his captors all about him. They were three excited, gesticulating men,
all dark, and to Black Bruin's eyes, sinister-looking like Pedro.

He put his paws between the bars and strained with all his might.

They pounded his paws and prodded him to make him desist, but he did
not mind their blows any more than he would those of a child. Freedom
was so near at hand. The green woods, the sweet wild woods, his woods
were all about him. The blue sky was above him. The fragrant wind
blew fresh through his prison-bars.

It could not be that he was helpless so near to freedom. Pr