much nearer the raft
than she was--and traveling very much faster than she could swim. Her
savage heart went near to bursting with rage and fear. She knew those
beings in the boat could have but one object--the slaughter, or at
least the theft, of her little one. She swam frantically, her great
muscles heaving as she shouldered the waves apart. But in that race
she was hopelessly beaten from the first.

"The boat reached the raft, bumped hard upon it--and the baby's mother
leaped out while the man, with his boathook, held the two craft close
together. The woman, thrusting the cub angrily aside, clutched the
baby hysterically to her breast, sobbing over her and muttering strange
threats of what she would do to her when she got her home to punish her
for giving so much trouble. The baby did not seem in the least
disturbed by these threats--to which the man in the boat was listening
with a grin--but when her mother started to carry her to the boat she
reached out her arms rebelliously for the cub.

"'Won't go wivout my Teddy Bear,' she announced with tearful decision.

"'Ye'd better git a move on, Mrs. Murdoch,' admonished the man in the
boat, 'Here's the old b'ar comin' after her young un, an' I've a notion
she ain't exactly ca'm.'

"The woman hesitated. She was willing enough to indulge the baby's
whim, the more so as she felt in her heart that it was in some respects
her fault that the raft had got away. She measured the distance to
that formidable black head cleaving the waters some thirty yards away.

"'Well,' said she, 'we may's well take the little varmint along, if
baby wants him.' And she stepped over to pick up the now shrinking and
anxious cub.

"'You quit that an' get into the boat quick!" ordered the man in a
voice of curt authority. The woman whipped round and stared at him in
amazement. She was accustomed to having people defer to her; and Jim
Simmons, in particular, she had always considered such a mild-mannered
man,

"'Get in!' reiterated the man in a voice that she found herself obeying
in spite of herself.

"'D'ye want to see baby et up afore yer eyes?" he continued sternly,
hiding a grin beneath the sandy droop of his big mustache. And with
the baby kicking and wailing and stretching out her arms to the
all-unheeding cub, he rowed rapidly away just as the old bear dragged
herself up upon the raft.

"Then Mrs. Murdoch's wrath found words, and she let it flow forth while
the man l