The mountains had been a great source of interest at first to the children, who had never before seen anything but boundless savannas. The vast blue and purple shapes seemed to be some strange sort of great live creatures lying crouched against the sky; and they had a little awe if not fear of them.

Even when they became familiar enough to perceive that one pasture led to another up their sides, and to know various of the tumbling black and white brooks by name, they still felt that the mountains were alive, in some mysterious way. And the fact that there were bears and panthers in the caves and recesses of the purplest of the hills, lent a shivery sense of danger, particularly for Essie; for, reasoned Essie, how could the mountains be kind to bears and wolves, and kind to children also? Yet at the same time the fact that Old Uncle owned great tracts of their heights and depths, and had his logging teams and men in the forests in winter getting out the lumber, gave the children a cosy feeling as if they, too, had a sort of proprietorship in them, and even in the remote wild beasts.

The late summer of their first year north had brought the little people a great deal of pleasure. More than once Uncle Billy had taken them all in a skiff down the river, slipping along on the current, and then poling in shore. They had kindled a fire on the bank, and joyously cooked their own dinner. Uncle Billy had caught trout, and Aunt Rose had broiled them, while they picked the berries. After dinner they had burned the remnant, and washed the dishes together.

They had gone up the hills, too, on so many picnics, and seen what had looked so blue and so far turn into woods and fields and lonely farms that they had left off expecting to see a big bear reach over their shoulders for their bread and honey. In fact, by this time they almost wished they might see one, and Essie and Ally had many a delightful bear-talk with Pincher.

One day Ally and Essie were out by themselves gathering autumn leaves, which had come as a great surprise to their southern eyes; first making them think the woods afire, and then that the world would not be a green world any more.

They had a large basket with them, with a handle at either end, so that they might lay in twigs and small branches as well as single leaves; and afterwards they were glad that they had brought that peculiar, particular basket.

They had it nearly half filled when they began to feel tired. They had been over the ground before and so were familiar with it; and Ally pointed out their favorite resting-log, and they made their way to it and sat down. It was covered with thick, velvet-green moss, and Ally sank into the deep cushion with a luxurious coo.

At the same moment she felt her feet touching something very soft. It was a dim, shady place, and she peered down curiously. The next minute she was on her knees in the grassy hollow, and Essie saw her with both arms round the very dearest, softest, hairiest little creature alive!

“Oh, Essie,” cried Ally, “just see what we’ve found! Oh, what do you suppose it is?”

“Oh, oh!” cried Essie, “isn’t it a dear!”

“Isn’t it a dear!” echoed Ally. “I just love it!”

“So do I love it! Let me feel it!” cried Essie, down in the hollow too, and half crowding Ally away, to get her own arms round the little animal. “Do you think it is a little fox?”

“Oh, no! Essie—foxes are yellowish. And it can’t be a wild-cat—wild-cats have blazing eyes, and they scratch. This is a soft sleepy baby, and it isn’t a panther—it isn’t anything cruel—oh, isn’t it cunning?”

“Perhaps it’s a quite new sort of animal,” said Essie, “and we have found it first of anybody; maybe it is one of the Bible animals—a leviathan, maybe, Ally.”

Ally didn’t answer. She was holding the little warm flat foot in her hand, and looking the little creature over. “I guess it’s a baby bear, Essie,” she said. “Bears don’t have tails, you know, and this hasn’t. Uncle Billy’ll know. Essie, if it is a bear, it’s our very own bear, and we can have it.”

“Yes, we can, and take it home! Oh, dear little bear!” cried Essie.

The children sat down by the little fellow in the leaves, and gave themselves up to perfect delight. They examined his ears, and his paws with the long claws, and they smoothed and poored his thick fur, and put their faces down to his; and then they rubbed his little stomach while he lay on his back with his feet curled up in the air, enjoying it all, winking and blinking—the most lovable little brown rogue ever to be seen! Sometimes he lay still, then again he moved in the leaves, sleepy, snuffling, nuzzling.

“Is he too heavy for us to carry?” asked Ally. “If I stoop, and you put his arms round my neck, and I take him pick-a-back?”

Essie shook her head. “I don’t believe he would like to be carried that way. What if we put him in our basket? He’d like lying on the leaves.”

“Why, yes,” said Ally. “He’s always lying on leaves and grass. Let’s do it. We oughtn’t to let him stay out here in the woods all night, all alone.”

“Of course not,” said Essie. “What a bad mother he must have had to go and leave him here!”

“Perhaps some hunter shot her,” said Ally.

Pitiful, the twins stroked him again and put their dear little faces close to his; and the little bear cuddled and snuggled and uttered a soft sound of pleasure.

But the soft sound quite changed its character when they began to try and lift the little fat lump into the basket. “Oh, Ally! he’s growling!” Essie cried. “Hear him!” and she went off in gales of laughter; it really was amusing—that little ineffectual growl.

The children tugged and lugged and lifted and hauled him till they had him on the side of the half-tipped basket, then they tipped it back, and he rolled in, on the leaves. Next they stripped off their aprons and tied them across the basket so that he might neither spill out nor jump out.

It seemed as if they never would get home. One on each side they took the basket a little way, and then they sat down to rest. Again they lugged and tugged it a short way farther; and sometimes the little creature inside made queer, uncouth sounds, and they had to stop and soothe and stroke him.

“Oh, he’s sucking my fingers,” suddenly said Ally, snatching her hand away.

“That’s how Pincher teaches the calves to drink,” cried Essie, joyously, “and we can give him his dinner just that way.”

Again and again it seemed as if they never would reach home. Fortunately it didn’t occur to them that there might be any mother-bear alive to follow them through the wood, and express her fear and anger in savage sort, with great cuffs of tremendous paws and cruel, murderous hugs. Cheerfully they dragged their burden along under the warm noonday sun, pink and perspiring, every now and again stopping for breath and strength, and taking a peep under the aprons. As for the little animal, he spent his own time sleeping for the most part. He seemed so warm in his fur, that seized with a sudden fear lest he should suffocate, they uncovered him, just as they came out at the foot of their lawn.