settle his doubts.

To his great astonishment he found Black Bruin curled up in one corner,
nearly covered with old hay that he had scraped together for the
purpose.

He was very sleepy, and only grunted when the man touched him with his
foot and spoke to him. As he seemed well content with the winter
quarters that he had selected, the man left him and went back to his
chores.

Not until the middle of March did he again appear, although different
members of the family often went to the trap-door and called for him to
come out. He seemed to be obeying a strongly rooted habit in the bear
nature, and he doubtless knew what was best for a sturdy cub like
himself.

One warm March morning the mistress thought she heard some one in the
back room, and supposing that a neighbor had come in, opened the door.

The intruder was no stranger to the family, for there was Black Bruin,
standing on his hind legs, licking off the sticky outside of a
maple-syrup pail. He had remembered his old delight in syrup.

Perhaps he had even got a whiff of the sweet on the spring air, and his
nose had told him what was going on. The bear's scent is very keen,
and this and his acute hearing make up for his poor eyesight.

Black Bruin, on his reappearance, was at once taken back into the
family's affection, and petted and spoiled, all of which seemed to suit
him admirably.

For a week or two, however, he would eat very little, and appeared to
come to his appetite gradually. At first the good people thought he
was sick, but an old woodsman explained to them that the bear was
always fastidious after hibernation. In the wild state he will eat
only buds and grasses, and perhaps a very few roots. He is wise, after
the way of the wild beasts, and knows that his digestive organs are not
in condition to do hard work; but when the right hour comes, he will
have a meal that will make up for much fasting.

The roguishness and capacity for mischief that Black Bruin had shown
during his first year of cubhood, increased tenfold, as he grew older
and stronger.

Tree-climbing, which he had learned late in the summer of his first
year, became a passion with him. He climbed the elms and the maples
along the road and the fruit trees in the orchard. In the barn, too,
he clambered about on the scaffolds and pried into all the corners with
his inquisitive nose.

A neighbor's boy often came to the farmhouse to romp and wrestle with
the bear-cub. Not