The Story of Ben 9 



The bark of the fir tree was rough and afforded good 

 finger holds, and it also scraped the skin off the inside 

 of my knee, but in due time I reached the lower limbs 

 and, seating myself on one of these, rested for a few 

 minutes. Then I began climbing up after the cubs, 

 who moved higher up at my approach. One of them, 

 after climbing some twenty feet, crawled out on a 

 branch and, as I came to him first, I gave the limb a 

 gentle shake expecting to see him roll off and go tum- 

 bling down through the boughs to the ground below. 

 As the cub did not drop at the first shake, I gave another 

 and harder one. As this did not dislodge him, I stood 

 on the branch and, grasping the limb over my head 

 with both hands jumped up and down with all my 

 might and, after several minutes of this exercise, saw 

 the youngster lose his desperate grip on the small 

 branches and go smashing down out of sight. And a 

 moment later a loud splash announced his arrival at 

 his destination. Even then, I learned afterward, he 

 got to his feet and had nearly reached another tree 

 before he was captured. 



The racket that had been raised in dislodging the 

 one cub had so frightened the other that he had climbed 

 to the topmost branch of the tree, and here I found him 

 with his head down, snorting and striking with his little 

 paws. If he had weighed fifty pounds he would have 

 been an ugly customer to handle, but as it was there 

 was no danger from him. But there was considerable 



