The bear could not have failed to see her, though it is not to be supposed that he was looking for the little girl when he first came that way.  Furthermore, had the chase lasted several minutes Nellie must have fallen a victim to the savage animal.

It required no instruction to teach her that there was but one way in which she could escape, and that was by climbing a tree.  Had there been a large one near at hand she would have ascended that as quickly as possible; but, fortunately, the first one to which she fled was a sapling, no larger than those she had climbed during the afternoon, and no one could have clambered to the highest point attainable quicker than did the frightened little girl.

Had she been a veteran hunter, Nellie could not have made a better selection, for she was fully twenty feet from the ground, and as much beyond the reach of the bear as though she were in her trundle-bed at home.

But the position was a frightful one to her, and for several minutes she believed the animal would tear the tree down and destroy her.

“I have done all I can for myself,” she murmured, recalling the instruction of her parents, “and now God will do the rest.”

Beautiful, trusting faith of childhood!  Of such, indeed, is the kingdom of heaven.

The huge bear, which from some cause or other had ventured from the recesses of the wood, was but a short distance behind the little wanderer when she climbed so hastily beyond his reach.  He acted as though he was somewhat bewildered by the unusual scene of a small child fleeing from him, but nothing is so tempting to pursuit as the sight of some one running from us, and the brute galloped after Nellie with an evident determination to capture her, if the thing could be done.

When he found the child had eluded him for the time, he sat down on his haunches and looked upward, as though he intended to wait till she would be compelled to descend and surrender herself.

The small tree in which Nellie had taken refuge was several yards from the edge of the stream, the bank sloping so steeply that the water never reached the base, excepting during a freshet.

It was a chestnut, whose smooth bark rendered it all the more difficult to climb, but Nellie went up it as rapidly as a man ascends telegraph poles with the spikes strapped to his boots.

The bear clawed the bark a little while, as a cat is sometimes seen to do when “stretching” herself, and it was during these few minutes that the girl thought nothing could save her from falling into his clutches.

When he ceased, she peered downward through the branches, and could just see the massy animal near the base of the tree, as if asking himself what was the next best thing to do.

It will be admitted that the situation of Nellie Ribsam was one in which few children of her tender years are ever placed.  Happy it is, indeed, that it is so, for what one in a thousand would have retained her self-possession?