IN THE HANDS OF MAN
It seemed to me that I waited a long time; but it cannot have been
really long, for it was not yet noon when I heard again the barking of
dogs, and the voices of men approaching. They walked round and round
the trap, and tried to peer through the crevices, and they let off
their thunder-sticks, presumably to make me give some sign that I was
inside. But I remained crouching in the corner silent.
Then I heard them on the roof. A sudden ray of light pierced the
half-darkness, and in another moment one of the logs from the roof had
been lifted off, and thrown upon the ground outside, and the sunlight
poured in upon me. I heard a shout from one of the men, and, looking
up out of the corners of my eyes, I saw their heads appearing in the
opening above, one behind the other. But I did not move nor give any
sign that I was alive.
The next thing I knew was that a rope dropped on me from above. It had
a loop at the end which fell across my head; and remembering Kahwa, and
how she had been dragged away with ropes about her, I raised a paw and
pushed the thing aside. Somehow, as I did so, the loop fell over my
paw, and when I tried to shake it off it slipped, and ran tight about
my wrist, and the men at the other end jerked it till it cut deep into
the flesh. Then I lost my temper, and when a second rope fell on me I
struck at it angrily with my free paw, but only with the same result.
Both my paws were now fast, the two ropes passing out through the
roof, one at one side and one at the other; and as the men pulled and
jerked on them inch by inch, in spite of all my strength, my arms were
gradually stretched out full spread on either side of me, and I was
helpless, held up on my hind-legs, unable to drop my fore-feet to the
floor, and unable to reach the rope on either side with my teeth.
Then I lost all control of myself, and I remember nothing of the
struggle that followed, except that everything swam red around me, and
I raged blindly, furiously, impotently. In the end another rope was
fast to one of my hind-legs, and another round my neck. Then, I know
not how, they lifted the log, which Wooffa and I had been unable to
budge, away from the door, and, fighting desperately, I was dragged out
into the open, and so, yard by yard, down, down the mountain towards
their houses.
I was utterly helpless. Four of the men walked, two on either side of
me, each having hold of the end of a rope, and all the ropes were kept
taut. If I stopped, the two dogs that they had with them fell upon my
heels and bit, and I could not turn or use a paw to reach them. If I
tried to charge at the men on either side, my feet were jerked from
under me before I could move a yard. And somewhere close behind me all
the while, I knew, walked the last man, with a thunder-stick in his
hand, which might speak at any minute.
It was nearly evening by the time that they had dragged me the mile or
so to where their houses were. As we came near, other men joined us,
until there must have been thirty or more; but the original four still
held the ropes, and they dragged me into one of the buildings, several
times larger than the trap, and, making holes in the walls between the
logs, they passed the ends of the ropes through them and made them fast
outside, so that I was still held in the same position, with my two
arms stretched out on either side of me and the ropes cutting into the
flesh. So they left me. They left me for two days and two nights. Often
they came in and looked at me and spoke to me, and once the ropes were
slackened for a minute or two from the sides, and a large pail of water
was pushed within my reach. I think they saw that I was going mad from
thirst, as certainly I was. I plunged my face into the water and drank,
and as soon as I ceased the ropes were pulled tight and the pail was
taken away. It was not until the third day that I had a mouthful to
eat, when the same thing was repeated: the ropes were slackened for a
while, and both food and drink were pushed up to me. I was allowed a
longer time to make the meal, but, as soon as I had finished, the ropes
were tightened once more. Two days later I was given another meal; and
then two days and another. But I was never given as much food as I
wanted, but only enough to keep me alive. By this time I had come to
distinguish the men apart, and one I saw was the master of the others.
He it was who always brought me my food, and--I am ashamed to confess
it--I began to look forward to his coming.
Kill him? Yes, gladly would I have killed him, had he put himself
within my reach; but I saw that he meant me no harm. The tone of his
voice when he spoke to me was not angry. Whenever he spoke he called
me 'Peter,' and I came to understand that this was the name he had
given me. When he came to the door and said 'Peter,' I knew that food
was coming. I hated him thoroughly; but it seemed that he was all that
stood between me and starvation, and, however much he made me suffer,
I understood that he did not intend to kill me or wish to let me die.
Then I remembered what Kahwa had said about the man who gave her food
and used to play with her, and I began to comprehend it. No one ever
attempted to play with me, or dared to put themselves within reach of
my paws; but after a while this man, the man whom I in my turn now
thought of as Peter, when my paws were safely bound and the ropes taut,
would come to me and lay his hand upon my head, taking care to keep
well away out of reach of my teeth. He rarely came to see me, at any
time of the day or night, without bringing me lumps of sugar, which he
held out to my mouth on the end of a piece of board so that I could
lick them off; and after a while he gave me meals every day, and I was
less hungry.
Then one day another rope was slipped over my nose, so that I could
not bite, and, while all the ropes were stretched to their uttermost
and I could not move an inch, Peter put a heavy collar round my neck,
to which was fastened a chain that I could neither break nor gnaw. And
when that had been firmly fastened round one of the logs in the wall,
the ropes were all taken off.
Wow-ugh! The relief of it! Both my wrists and one of my ankles where
the ropes had been were cut almost to the bone, and horribly painful;
but though it was at first excruciating agony to rest my weight on
my front-feet, the delight of being able to get on all fours again,
and to be able to move around to the full length of the chain, was
inexpressible. I had not counted the days, but it must have been over a
month since I was captured, and all that time I had been bound so that,
sleeping or waking, I was always in the same position, sitting on my
haunches, with the ropes always pulling at my outstretched arms.
For another month and more I was kept in the same building, always
chained and with the collar round my neck, until one day they tried
to put the ropes on me again; but I was cunning now, and would not let
them do it. I simply lay down, keeping my nose and paws in the earth,
and, as long as a rope was anywhere near me, refused to move either
for food or drink. But a bear is no match for men. They appeared to
give up all attempts to put ropes on me, until a few days later they
brought a lump of wool on the end of a long stick, and pushed it into
my face till I bit at it and worried it. It was soaked in something the
smell of which choked me and made me dizzy, and when I could hardly
see, somehow they slipped a sack over my head that reeked with the
same smell, and the next thing I knew was that I must have been asleep
for an hour or more and the ropes were on all my legs again. When they
began to drag me out of the building, I resisted at first; but I soon
knew it was useless, so I made up my mind to go quietly, and they
took me away, down the stream and over mountains for several days and
nights, until one evening we came to a town and they dragged me into a
box nearly as big as a house, and bigger than the trap in which I had
been caught. And soon the box began to move. I know now that I was on
the railway. We travelled for days and days, out of the mountains into
the plains, where for three days there were no trees or hills, but only
the great stretch of flat yellow land. I had no idea that there was so
much of the world.
From the railway I was put on a boat, and from the boat back on the
railway, and from that back on a boat again. For nearly a month we
were constantly moving, always as far as I could tell, in the same
direction; and yet we never came to the end of the world. During this
time Peter was always with me or close at hand. He gave me all my
meals, and when other men took the ropes to lead me from the railway to
the boat or back again, if I got angry, he spoke to me, and for some
reason, though I hardly know why myself, it calmed me. It was not until
I had been in the gardens here, in this same cage, for some days that
at last he went away and never came back. That was two years ago. When
he went away, the new Peter took charge of me, and he has been here
ever since.
Two years! It is a long time to be shut up in a cage. But I mind it
less than I did at first. Why does man do it? I do not understand; nor
can I guess what I am wanted for. I stay here in the cage all the
time, and Peter brings me meals and cleans the cage, one half at a
time, when I am shut up in the other half; and crowds of people come
and walk past day after day, and look at me, and give me all sorts
of things to eat--some quite ridiculous things, like paper bags and
walnut-shells and pocket-handkerchiefs. Peter, I believe, means to
be kind to me always, and I think he is proud of me, from the way he
brings people to look at me. But how could you expect me to be friendly
to man after all that I have suffered at his hands? Even Peter, as I
have said, never comes into the same half of the cage with me. I have
often wondered what I would do if he did. Twice only have men come
within my reach when my paws have been free, and neither of them will
ever go too near a bear again. But I am not sure whether I would hurt
Peter or not. I like him to scratch my head through the bars.
Twice since I have been here they have given me a she-bear as a
companion, and she has tried to make friends with me; but they had to
take her away again. Let them bring me Wooffa if they think I am lonely.
And I am lonely at times--in spring and summer especially, when it is
hot and dusty, and I remember how Wooffa and I used to have the cool
forests to wander in at nights, and the thick, moist shade of the brush
by the water's edge to lie in during the day. Then I get sick for the
scent of the pines, and the touch of the wet bushes, and the feel of
the good soft earth under my claws. And sometimes in the heat of the
day I hear the scream of an eagle from somewhere round there to the
right (it is in a cage, I suppose, like myself, for it calls always
from the same place, and I never hear a mate answering), and it all
comes back to me--the winding streams and the beaver-dams, with the
kingfishers, black and white, darting over the water, and the osprey
sitting and screaming from its post on the pine-top. And at night
sometimes, when the wolves howl and the deer whistle, or the whine of
a puma reaches my ears--all caged, I suppose--the longing for the old
life becomes almost intolerable. I yearn for the long mountain-slopes,
with the cool night-wind blowing; and the stately rows of trees,
black-stemmed and silver-topped in the moonlight; and the noise of the
tumbling streams in one's ears, when all the world was mine to wander
in--mine and Wooffa's.
Yes, I want freedom; but I want Wooffa most. And I do not even know,
and never shall know now, whether she and Kahwa escaped with their
lives that day, when I could not get to her even to lick the blood from
her broken leg.
But, on the other hand, these thoughts only come when some external
sight or sound arouses them in me, and at ordinary times I am content.
I have enough to eat, which, after all, is the main thing in life, and
am saved the work of finding food for myself. I never know real hunger
now, as sometimes I knew it in the old days when the frost was on the
ground; and there is no need now to hibernate. My first winter here I
started, as a matter of habit, and scratched the sawdust and stuff into
a heap in that corner over there. But what was the use, when it never
got cold and my meals came every day?
My claws are growing horribly long from lack of use, because there
is nothing here to dig for; and I know I am getting fat from want of
exercise. But it is pleasant enough lying and dreaming of the old days;
and, after all, perhaps I have lived my life. There is nothing that I
look back upon with shame. It was not my fault that my sister Kahwa
died; for I did my best to save her. Even if the later little Kahwa
perished, still, I sent one son and a daughter out into the world, fit
I think, to hold their own. Above all, I avenged the old insult to my
parents. What more could I have done had I had my freedom longer?
It is all good to remember, and, except when I long for Wooffa, I am
content.
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD