He took out a stout cord, and noosing them in turn, dragged them to the ground.  One rushed at him and, though little bigger than a cat, would certainly have done him serious injury had he not held it off with a forked stick.

After tying them to a strong but swaying branch he went to his horse, got a grain-bag, dropped them into that, and rode with them to his shanty.  He fastened each with a collar and chain to a post, up which they climbed, and sitting on the top they whined and growled, according to their humor.  For the first few days there was danger of the cubs strangling themselves or of starving to death, but at length they were beguiled into drinking some milk most ungently procured from a range cow that was lassoed for the purpose.  In another week they seemed somewhat reconciled to their lot, and thenceforth plainly notified their captor whenever they wanted food or water.

And thus the two small rills ran on, a little farther down the mountain now, deeper and wider, keeping near each other; leaping bars, rejoicing in the sunlight, held for a while by some trivial dam, but overleaping that and running on with pools and deeps that harbor bigger things.

II.  THE SPRINGS AND THE MINER’S DAM

Jack and Jill, the hunter named the cubs; and Jill, the little fury, did nothing to change his early impression of her bad temper.  When at food-time the man came she would get as far as possible up the post and growl, or else sit in sulky fear and silence; Jack would scramble down and strain at his chain to meet his captor, whining softly, and gobbling his food at once with the greatest of gusto and the worst of manners.  He had many odd ways of his own, and he was a lasting rebuke to those who say an animal has no sense of humor.  In a month he had grown so tame that he was allowed to run free.  He followed his master like a dog, and his tricks and funny doings were a continual delight to Kellyan and the few friends he had in the mountains.

On the creek-bottom below the shack was a meadow where Lan cut enough hay each year to feed his two ponies through the winter.  This year when hay-time came Jack was his daily companion, either following him about in dangerous nearness to the snorting scythe, or curling up an hour at a time on his coat to guard it assiduously from such aggressive monsters as Ground Squirrels and Chipmunks.  An interesting variation of the day came about whenever the mower found a bumblebees’ nest.  Jack loved honey, of course, and knew quite well what a bees’ nest was, so the call, “Honey—­Jacky—­honey!” never failed to bring him in waddling haste to the spot.  Jerking his nose up in token of pleasure, he would approach cautiously, for he knew that bees have stings.  Watching his chance, he would dexterously slap at them with his paws till, one by one, they were knocked down and crushed; then sniffing hard for the latest information, he would stir up the nest gingerly till the very last was tempted forth to be killed.  When the dozen or more that formed the swarm were thus got rid of, Jack would carefully dig out the nest and eat first the honey, next the grubs and wax, and last of all the bees he had killed, champing his jaws like a little Pig at a trough, while his long red, snaky tongue was ever busy lashing the stragglers into his greedy maw.