The Story of Ben 49 



on his face or on any part of his body between the top 

 of his head and his knees. He eventually came out of 

 the hospital no worse for his ordeal, but I doubt if he 

 ever again undertook to ride a bear. 



For a while there was much curiosity in town as to 

 what old man Urlin would do in the matter, and many 

 prophecies and warnings reached me. But for some 

 days I heard nothing from him. Then he called on 

 me and asked, very politely, if I had killed the bear. 

 When I told him that Ben was well and would in all 

 natural probability live for twenty years or so, the old 

 fellow threw diplomacy to the winds and fumed and 

 threatened like a madman. But he calmed down in 

 the end; especially after he was informed by his lawyers 

 that, as his boys had forcibly broken into my shed, it 

 was he himself that could be called to legal account. 

 And so the matter was dropped. 



But Ben was now grown so large that none but 

 myself cared to wait on him; and when, the next 

 spring, I found that I was going to be away in the 

 mountains all summer, I began looking about for 

 some way of getting him a good home. Nothing in the 

 world would have induced me to have him killed, and 

 I did not like to turn him loose in the hills for some 

 trapper to catch or poison. Moreover I doubted his 

 ability, after so sheltered a life, to shift for himself in 

 the wilderness. But this was a problem in which the 

 ^^don^t^s^^ were more easily discovered than the '^do's/' 



