THE CUBS LEARN TO SWIM
“G-r-r! Better go on!” warned Mother Brown Bear, and at that, the
Ranger’s Boy thought best to march down the trail. But some day, he
promised himself, he was going to see more of that bear cub. As for
Chinook, he was consumed with a great curiosity to know more of the man
cub who walked on his hind legs all the way.
What an interesting world it was that lay all about him! First there had
been the sour-tasting ants and buttery grubs that his mother was always
finding under the fallen logs and boulders. Then there was Douglas, the
red-brown squirrel he could never catch, but who was always running
right across his trail till it seemed the easiest thing in the world to
nab him, only that some way Douglas always managed to leap beyond reach
just in the nick of time. Douglas claimed that the woods belonged to him
and that the bears were trespassing on his domain, and from the safety
of some limb too small for a bear cub, he would hurl jeers and insulting
challenges at Chinook.
“That’s because he’s afraid of us,” Mother Brown Bear told her son.
“Douglas is bluffing. He knows that bears are fond of having squirrel
for supper.”
For a while after the Boy had passed out of sight, the cubs were allowed
to practise walking on the fallen logs. When they fell off, they were so
fat and so round, and the moist ground so soft, that it did not hurt
them. Besides, the moment they felt themselves slipping, they could put
out their claws and cling to the rough bark. By and by the Boy returned
along the way he had come, but by this time Mother Brown Bear had led
the cubs far up the gulch to where a spot of sunshine invited a cat nap.
Even as she dozed, she kept one eye half open, and one ear cocked for
the slightest sound beyond the calling of nestling birds and the barking
and scrambling of noisy Douglas and his family, and the tinkling of the
wee cascades that led to the river. The cubs rolled and tumbled over
her, or coasted off her huge back, boxed and wrestled and played hide
and seek, or came up to pat her huge, furry face with little love pats.
It was a warm day, and when she had had her nap and the cubs their milk,
and a nap of their own, and the sun threw her shadow directly beneath
her, she decided that it would be a good time to teach them to swim. For
woods babies were likely any time to fall into the water, and if there
were any possible way of getting into trouble, Chinook, especially, was
sure to find it.
“Come!” she bade them with an affectionate soft rumble deep in her
throat, and she led the way down to the little river and on to where it
spread out shallowly over gravelly banks and the sun took some of the
chill out of the water. Mother Brown Bear waded in slowly. Chinook tried
first one fore paw, then the other, in this strange new element that was
not air, though one could see straight through it to the pebbly ground
beneath. Snookie backed off, whimpering. “Come on!” commanded Mother
Brown Bear. “Follow me.”
Chinook, less fearful than his sister, but still wary, because of the
coldness and the strange wetness of it, followed for a few steps, then
ran splashing back to shore, where he stood shaking first one foot, then
another with a shower of sparkling drops.
“Snookie, come here!” ordered Mother Brown Bear. But Snookie only
whimpered. “Chinook, show your sister that you are not afraid,” she
coaxed, and Chinook, with a show of bravado, waded in. But the instant
the water was deep enough to start lifting him off his feet, he turned
in a panic and again dashed madly back to solid ground.
“Snookie!” called Mother Brown Bear, wading back to shore, “climb on my
back.” This the smaller cub willingly did. She liked to ride on Mother’s
back, hanging on to the long fur with her handlike paws. “Come,
Chinook!” and Mother Brown Bear waded back into the river with both
youngsters gleefully taking a ride. As she went in deeper, Snookie
looked back at the receding shore line, and clung faster to her mother’s
fur. Still deeper went their chariot, till at last it reached deep
water. “Now swim!” commanded their mother, and with a suddenness that
unseated them, she made a dive and shook them from her back, then turned
and paddled to shore without once heeding Snookie’s strangling squeal
for help.
The cubs naturally struggled wildly to find a footing, and as they pawed
and clawed about, their legs worked the same way as when they ran, which
was just the way they ought to have worked. Then they discovered that by
spreading their legs even wider and scooping at the water with their
paws, they could do better still. Their vigorous paddling not only
served to keep their noses above water, but Chinook, less frightened
than his twin, turned his eyes to where his mother stood waiting on the
river bank, and struck out towards her with all his might. Snookie,
seeing his wee stub of a tail near her jaws, grabbed hold and let him
tow her, and soon they had their feet once more on the gravelly shore.
Puffing and panting, and dripping chilly drops, the cubs would have
rested, but that Mother Brown Bear set off on a gallop into the woods.
“Wait for me!” squealed Snookie.
“Wait!” panted Chinook, and the cubs galloped after her, Why was Mother
so unkind today?