Perhaps it was the smell of the fish. Maybe it was because of the noise that Bobby and his father made, singing and whistling as they walked along. Whatever the cause, five gray wolves, gaunt and lean, met them at the turn of a road.

"Ho! ho! Here's supper for us. And we won't have to work to get it," cried the biggest wolf, in a loud, gruff voice.

"Fine, fresh fish," said the next largest wolf. "And all ready for us to take."

"Well, we surely are lucky," the third wolf cried. "I'll make short work of my portion."

"Let us see, let us see. Five gray wolves, to two bears. This will be an easy job for us." So spoke wolf number four.

"I'm so hungry, oh, so hungry. When are we going to start eating the fish?" wailed the smallest wolf of the lot.

All the time the wolves were talking they were slinking around Father Bear and Bobby.

Now they rushed forward, thinking it would be very easy to overcome the bears and take the fish for themselves. But they reckoned wrong. They didn't know that Father Bear had won many prizes as the greatest fighting bear for miles around.

Why, he even had been known to conquer a lion—so strong were his great arms and legs, and so powerful his jaws. So, when four gray wolves rushed at him at once he was ready for them. Wolf number one went down with a blow which killed him at once. The next two were cruelly wounded by Father Bear's powerful claws. And the fourth, seeing how badly the rest were getting on, ran away, as fast as he could.

What about little Bobby Bear all this time? Remember, he had a fish to guard, and this fish was almost as big as himself. The fifth wolf had attacked Bobby, who never had seen such awful white teeth and angry eyes.

He hardly knew what to do. One thing he was determined on, though, and that was that this boy-wolf would never get the fish from him. What, the fish he had caught himself? The idea.

So he quickly struck with all his might at the wolf, grabbing him as he stumbled. Then the wolf found out how strong Bobby was.

"Please, Mr. Bear, let me go, and I'll never again try to harm you," he called out.

"Will you run right away and never come near me again?" Bobby panted, for he was using all his strength.

"Yes, yes, anything, only let me go," said the little wolf.

With this Bobby let go. The wolf fell to the ground—he was so tired. He lay there a few moments, then with much grunting got on his feet and ran off.

For some time Father Bear had been watching his boy. Very proud indeed was he of what was going on.

Now that all danger was past he rushed over and embraced Bobby. "My boy, how well you fought. You're a credit to Bearland."

Gathering up their fish, they once more started for home.

The battle with the wolves had not taken more than a few minutes, although, as Bobby now told his father, it had seemed a long, long while to him.

"I was so afraid the little wolf would steal my fish," said Bobby.

"It is well to be able to take care of yourself, isn't it?" asked Father Bear.

"Yes," said Bobby. "If you keep on taking me out with you every day, I shall grow up to be a very strong bear. I can see that."

His father said nothing, but smiled to hear his little boy talk so wisely.

It was almost dark when they got home, but there still was light enough for the two tired bears to see Mother Bear.

She, growing anxious, had thrown a red shawl over her shoulders and was sitting in a rocking chair, outside the cave, watching for the return of the fishermen.

How proud she was to see her boy with such a great fish which was nearly as big as Bobby himself. She threw her arms around him and kissed him. Such a fine boy-bear, he was!

"Mother," grunted Father Bear, "let's have fish for supper. And let it be the fish that Bobby caught. The others we can eat for breakfast."

So Mother Bear busied herself cleaning Bobby's big fish, and in a very little while it was stuffed and baked and supper was ready.

They all enjoyed it—especially the one who had caught it. How much nicer a thing tastes when one has had some trouble in getting it.

Bobby dreamed much that night. If you think he dreamed about the fish you are mistaken, for it was to little Jane Bird and her sweet face, that his fancies wandered.

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Transcriber's notes

Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without note.

For consistency with the rest of the book, 'boy bear' was replaced with 'boy-bear' in Bobby Catches a Fish: "Grasping the boy-bear around".

Illustration caption was changed from "BOBBY, GET UP AT ONCE" to "BOBBY, BOBBY, GET UP AT ONCE" to match the list of illustrations.