elder brother to the bear and the wildcat you learn their habits, and
avoid or outwit them.

Climbing over rocks and windfalls I came against a solid log wall and
heard the woman talking in a very pretty chatter the other side of it.
She only left off talking to call for help, and left off calling for
help to scold and laugh again. There was a man imprisoned with her, and
they were speaking English, a language I did not then understand. But
what had happened to them was very plain. They had wandered into a pen
built by hunters to trap bears, and could not find the bush-masked and
winding opening, but were traveling around the walls. It was lucky for
them that a bear had not arrived first, though in that case their horses
must have smelled him. I heard the beasts shaking their bridles.

I found my way to the opening, and whistled. At once the woman ceased
her chatter and drew in her breath, and they both asked me a question
that needed no interpretation. I told them where they were, and the
woman began talking at once in my own tongue and spoke it as well as I
could myself.

"In a bear pen? George, he says we are in a bear pen! Take us out, dear
chief, before the bear family arrive home from their ball. I don't know
whether you are a chief or not, but most Indians are. My nurse was a
chief's daughter. Where are you? I can't see anything but chunks of
blackness."

I took her horse by the bridle and led him, and so got both the riders
outside. They had no tinder, and neither had I; and all of us groped for
the way by which they had come to the bear pen. The young man spurred
his horse in every direction, and turned back unable to get through.