“Not till then did she notice that a boat was approaching the raft—­a boat with two human beings in it.  It was very much nearer the raft than she was—­and traveling very much faster than she could swim.  Her savage heart went near to bursting with rage and fear.  She knew those beings in the boat could have but one object—­the slaughter, or at least the theft, of her little one.  She swam frantically, her great muscles heaving as she shouldered the waves apart.  But in that race she was hopelessly beaten from the first.

“The boat reached the raft, bumped hard upon it—­and the baby’s mother leaped out while the man, with his boathook, held the two craft close together.  The woman, thrusting the cub angrily aside, clutched the baby hysterically to her breast, sobbing over her and muttering strange threats of what she would do to her when she got her home to punish her for giving so much trouble.  The baby did not seem in the least disturbed by these threats—­to which the man in the boat was listening with a grin—­but when her mother started to carry her to the boat she reached out her arms rebelliously for the cub.

“‘Won’t go wivout my Teddy Bear,’ she announced with tearful decision.

“‘Ye’d better git a move on, Mrs. Murdoch,’ admonished the man in the boat, ‘Here’s the old b’ar comin’ after her young un, an’ I’ve a notion she ain’t exactly ca’m.’

“The woman hesitated.  She was willing enough to indulge the baby’s whim, the more so as she felt in her heart that it was in some respects her fault that the raft had got away.  She measured the distance to that formidable black head cleaving the waters some thirty yards away.

“‘Well,’ said she, ’we may’s well take the little varmint along, if baby wants him.’  And she stepped over to pick up the now shrinking and anxious cub.

“‘You quit that an’ get into the boat quick!” ordered the man in a voice of curt authority.  The woman whipped round and stared at him in amazement.  She was accustomed to having people defer to her; and Jim Simmons, in particular, she had always considered such a mild-mannered man,

“‘Get in!’ reiterated the man in a voice that she found herself obeying in spite of herself.

“’D’ye want to see baby et up afore yer eyes?” he continued sternly, hiding a grin beneath the sandy droop of his big mustache.  And with the baby kicking and wailing and stretching out her arms to the all-unheeding cub, he rowed rapidly away just as the old bear dragged herself up upon the raft.

“Then Mrs. Murdoch’s wrath found words, and she let it flow forth while the man listened as indifferently as if it had been the whistling of the wind.  At last she stopped.

“‘Anything more to say, ma’am?’ he asked politely.

“Mrs. Murdoch snorted a negative.

“‘Then all I hev to say,’ he went on, ’is that to my mind mothers has rights.  That there b’ar’s a mother, an’ she’s got feelin’s, like you, an’ she’s come after her young un, like you—­an’ I wasn’t a-goin’ to see her robbed of him.’”