“It’s Dave Tutt who makes Bowlaigs captive; Dave rounds Bowlaigs up in his infancy one time when he’s pesterin’ about over in the foothills of the Floridas lookin’ for blacktail deer.  Dave meets up with Bowlaigs an’ the latter’s mother who’s out, evident, on a scout for grub.  Bowlaig’s mother has jest upturned a rotten pine-log to give little Bowlaigs a chance to rustle some of these yere egreegious white worms which looks like bald catapillars, that a-way, when all at once around a p’int of rocks Dave heaves in view.  This parent of Bowlaigs is as besotted about her son as many hooman mothers; for while Bowlaigs stands almost as high as she does an’ weighs clost onto two hundred pounds, the mother b’ar still has the idee tangled up in her intelligence that Bowlaigs is that small an’ he’pless, day-old kittens is se’f-sustainin’ citizens by compar’son to him.  Actin’ on these yere errors, Bowlaig’s mother the moment she glimpses Dave grabs young Bowlaigs by the scruff of the neck an’ goes caperin’ off up hill with him.  An’ to give that parent b’ar full credit, she’s gettin’ along all right an’ conductin’ herse’f as though Bowlaigs don’t heft no more than one of them gooseha’r pillows, when, accidental, she bats pore Bowlaigs ag’in the bole of a tree—­him hangin’ outen her mouth about three foot—­an’ while the collision shakes that monarch of the forest some, Bowlaigs gets knocked free of her grip an’ goes rollin’ down the mountain-side ag’in like a sack of bran.  It puts quite a crimp in Bowlaigs.  The mother b’ar, full of s’licitoode to save her offspring turns, an’ charges Dave; tharupon Dave downs her, an’ young Bowlaigs becomes a orphan an’ a pris’ner on the spot.

“Followin’ the demise of Bowlaig’s mother, Dave sort o’ feels reesponsible for the cub’s bringin’ up an’ he ties him hand an’ foot, an’ after peelin’ the pelt from the old mother b’ar, packs the entire outfit into camp.  Dave’s pony protests with green eyes ag’in carryin’ sech a freight, but Dave has his way as he usually does with everything except Tucson Jennie.

“At first Dave allows he’ll let Bowlaigs live with him a whole lot an’ keep him ontil he grows up, an’ construct a pet of him.  But as I more than once makes plain, Dave proposes but Tucson Jennie disposes; an’ so it befalls that on the third day after the cub takes up his residence with her an’ Dave, Jennie arms herse’f with a broom an’ harasses the onfortunate Bowlaigs from her wickeyup.  Jennie declar’s that she discovers Bowlaigs organisin’ to devour her child Enright Peets Tutt, who’s at that epock comin’ three the next spring round-up.

“‘I could read it in that Bowlaigs b’ar’s eyes,’ says Jennie, ‘an’ it’s mighty lucky a parent’s faculties is plumb keen.  If I hadn’t got in on the play with my broom, you can bet that inordinate Bowlaigs would have done eat little Enright Peets all up.

“Shore, no one credits these yere apprehensions of Jennie’s; Bowlaigs would no more have chewed up Enright Peets than he’d played table-stakes with him; but a fond mother’s fears once stampeded is not to be headed off or ca’med, an’ Bowlaigs has to shift his camp a heap.