They gazed at him with wild seriousness as he
approached them, and when he began to climb they scrambled up higher.
Here one set up a plaintive whining and the other an angry growling,
their outcries increasing as he came nearer.
He took out a stout cord, and noosing them in turn, dragged them to
the ground. One rushed at him and, though little bigger than a cat,
would certainly have done him serious injury had he not held it off
with a forked stick.
After tying them to a strong but swaying branch he went to his horse,
got a grain-bag, dropped them into that, and rode with them to his
shanty. He fastened each with a collar and chain to a post, up which
they climbed, and sitting on the top they whined and growled,
according to their humor. For the first few days there was danger of
the cubs strangling themselves or of starving to death, but at length
they were beguiled into drinking some milk most ungently procured from
a range cow that was lassoed for the purpose. In another week they
seemed somewhat reconciled to their lot, and thenceforth plainly
notified their captor whenever they wanted food or water.
And thus the two small rills ran on, a little farther down the
mountain now, deeper and wider, keeping near each other; leaping bars,
rejoicing in the sunlight, held for a while by some trivial dam, but
overleaping that and running on with pools and deeps that harbor
bigger things.
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