PREFACE. 



My Bright Young Reader: I was once 

 exactly your own age. Like all boys, I was, 

 from the first, fond of bear stories, and 

 above all, I did not like stories that seemed 

 the least bit untrue. I always preferred a 

 natural and reasonable story and one that 

 would instruct as well as interest. This I 

 think best for us all, and I have acted on 

 this line in compiling these comparatively 

 few bear stories from a long life of action 

 in our mountains and up and down the 

 continent. 



As a rule, the modern bear is not a 

 bloody, bad fellow, whatever he may have 

 been in Bible days. You read, almost any 

 circus season, about the killing of his keeper 

 by a lion, a tiger, a panther, or even the 

 dreary old elephant, but you never hear of 

 a tame bear's hurting anybody. 



I suppose you have been told, and be 

 lieve, that bears will eat boys, good or bad, 

 if they meet them in the woods. This is 

 not true. On the contrary, there are several 

 well-authenticated cases, in Germany most 

 ly, where bears have taken lost children 

 under their protection, one boy having been 

 i 



