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 



