of his wife, the terror in her eyes, and his promise to
bring their boy back safely, he kept on swiftly and bravely.

Fifteen minutes brought man and dog to the woods, and without
hesitation they plunged into its depths. It was not so easy going here
as it had been in the open. The rope was always getting tangled in the
underbrush, and a stop every few minutes to unloose it had to be made.

Sometimes the man plunged up to his waist in the snow where it lay deep
in some hollow. Sometimes it was a dead limb lying across his path
that sent him sprawling. Occasionally the underbrush lashed his face
and tore his skin. But these were little things. Somewhere in the
interminable woods a great brute of a bear was perhaps at this very
moment--he dared not finish the thought, he could only groan.

For half an hour they floundered forward, now slipping and sliding, and
now falling, but always up and on again.

At last, when the man was almost winded, and his breath was coming in
quick gasps, a faint, far-off cry floated down to him through the
ghostly aisles of the naked wind-swept forest. At first it was so
faint as to be almost unintelligible, but as they pressed on, it grew
louder and clearer, until the man recognized the pitiful wailing of a
baby.

"Thank God!" he gasped, "my boy is still alive."

By this time the old hound had fairly warmed up to the chase and was
tugging on the rope and whining eagerly.

To let the dog go on now might frighten the bear and thus defeat the
whole undertaking, so the man tied her to a sapling, and, bidding her
keep quiet, crept cautiously forward.

A hundred feet farther on, the cries from the child grew louder. A
moment more and he caught sight of the bear leaning up against a large
beech, holding the baby in her strong arms.

To the agonized father's great surprise the bear's attitude looked
almost maternal; she seemed indeed to be trying in her brute way to
soothe the infant. She caressed its face with her nose, and lapped it
with her long, soft red tongue. If it had been one of her own cubs she
could not have shown more concern.

So much the frantic father noted, while he stood irresolute, uncertain
what to do next. The bear would have been an easy shot by daylight, if
there had been no baby to consider. But there was that little bundle
of humanity, the man's own flesh and blood, and a bullet in order to
pierce the bear's heart must strike within a few inches of the b