BILLY AND HANS 



ment of the half-tamed but wholly 

 unreconciled animal was perhaps more 

 painful to me than to him, and my 

 first impulse was to turn him out into 

 his native forest to take his chances 

 of life ; but I considered that he was 

 already too far compromised with 

 Mother Nature for this to be prudent ; 

 for having learned to take his food 

 from a man, the first attack of hunger 

 was sure to drive him to seek it where 

 he had been accustomed to find it, 

 and the probable consequence was 

 being knocked on the head by a vil- 

 lage boy, or at best recon signed to a 

 worse captivity than mine. He had 

 no mother, and he was still little more 

 than a baby, so I decided to keep 

 him and make him as happy as he 

 would let me. His name was Hans. 

 Had I released him as I thought 

 to do, I had saved myself one 



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