“You Scalawag!” the Boy kept laughing, as he stared at Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear, in the top of the beech tree.

“So it was you who stole my fish?”

But Twinkly Eyes said never a word. He just sat still, like a bump on a log, in the hope that the Boy might yet be deceived into thinking him only a blackened limb.

But the Boy from the Valley Farm was not to be deceived. He, and his father before him, had lived all their lives in the north woods where footprints are very clear—and the little Bear’s footprints led straight to the tree.

Moreover, he had long been wishing he might catch a cub for a pet. Therefore, he started to climb the tree.

Twinkly Eyes, who did not know the kindness of the Boy’s intentions—and who certainly would not have wanted to be caught if he had—decided it was time to show fight.

“Whoof! Whoof!” he growled, slapping his heavy paws on the tree trunk.

“You can’t scare me!” laughed the Boy. “You’re nothing but a yearling cub. And I’m the best wrestler at the Cross-roads School!” And on he came regardless.

Now here was where ignorance was bliss. For while it was true that cubs have been caught and tamed, the Boy from the Valley Farm had much to learn about how it is done. And there was one thing he did not know.

He did not know that if it came to a wrestling match with Twinkly Eyes, the Boy would be the one to get very much the worst of it all. The cub was so small and cunning, so like an over-grown Newfoundland puppy, that the Boy would not have believed, had you told him, what a scrapper he could be.

Grown bears the Boy feared, but this little fellow didn’t look the least bit dangerous as he clung to his tree-top. And the Boy was only fourteen. That is to say, he held the firm belief that he could lick his weight in wildcats—to say nothing of bear cubs.

It was well for the Boy from the Valley Farm that Twinkly Eyes had no mind to let him try it.

Yes, sir, it was lucky for that Boy!

As it was, no sooner had he scrambled painfully half way up the trunk than Twinkly Eyes climbed to the very topmost branch; and as the Boy still came after him, he crept so near the tip that it swayed beneath his weight. Here he felt sure the Boy could not follow, and his courage returning with a bound, he turned to “Whoof!” at his pursuer.

“Ho! ho!” laughed the Boy from the Valley Farm. “I can shake you off, you rascal, if that’s your game.” For you see his natural kindness was forgotten in the thrill of the chase, and he was bound and determined now to have that bear.