I do not remember how long I slept.I must have been conscious, however, during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape; for I awoke once or twice, clutching it with a despairing hand as it was disappearing over the foot of the couch.
Then I became suddenly aroused to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally persistent force; and, letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it swiftly drawn under the couch.At this point I sat up, completely awake; for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to emerge from under the couch.Presently it appeared fully, dragging the serape after it.There was no mistaking it now: it was a baby-bear,--a mere suckling, it was true, a helpless roll of fat and fur, but unmistakably a grizzly cub!
I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspect as it slowly raised its small, wondering eyes to mine.It was so much taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its forelegs were so disproportionately small, that, in walking, its hind-feet invariably took precedence.It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed, inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary somersaults with the gravest astonishment.
To add to its preposterous appearance, one of its hind-feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's, into which it had accidentally and inextricably stepped.As this somewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and then, possibly recognizing in the stranger the same species as its master, it paused.Presently it slowly raised itself on its hind-legs, and vaguely and deprecatingly waved a baby-paw, fringed with little hooks of steel.
I took the paw, and shook it gravely.From that moment we were friends.The little affair of the serape was forgotten.
Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship by an act of delicate courtesy.Following the direction of his eyes, I had no difficulty in finding on a shelf near the ridge-pole the sugar-box and the square lumps of white sugar that even the poorest miner is never without.While he was eating them, I had time to examine him more closely.His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely-modulated gray, deepening to black in his paws and muzzle.His fur was excessively long, thick, and soft as eider-down; the cushions of flesh beneath perfectly infantine in their texture and contour.
He was so very young, that the palms of his half-human feet were still tender as a baby's.Except for the bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, there was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump figure.He was as free from angles as one of Leda's offspring.Your caressing hand sank away in his fur with dreamy languor.To look at him long was an intoxication of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to embrace him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties.
When he had finished the sugar, he rolled out of the door with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eyes as if he expected me to follow.I did so; but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented Pomposo in the hollow not only revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me to take another direction.After a moment's hesitation, he concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a certain impish look in his eye, that he fully understood and rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo.As he rolled along at my side, with a gait not unlike a drunken sailor, Idiscovered that his long hair concealed a leather collar around his neck, which bore for its legend the single word "Baby!" I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners.This, then, was the "baby" with whom I was to "play."How we "played;" how Baby allowed me to roll him down hill, crawling and puffing up again each time with perfect good-humor;how he climbed a young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had "shied" into one of the topmost branches; how, after getting it, he refused to descend until it suited his pleasure; how, when he did come down, he persisted in walking about on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his breast with the remaining one; how I missed him at last, and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the tenantless cabins, with a bottle of sirup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to extract its contents,--these and other details of that eventful day I shall not weary the reader with now.Enough that, when Dick Sylvester returned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an immense bolster, at the foot of the couch, asleep.Sylvester's first words after our greeting were,--"Isn't he delicious?"
"Perfectly.Where did you get him?"
"Lying under his dead mother, five miles from here," said Dick, lighting his pipe."Knocked her over at fifty yards: perfectly clean shot; never moved afterwards.Baby crawled out, scared, but unhurt.She must have been carrying him in her mouth, and dropped him when she faced me; for he wasn't more than three days old, and not steady on his pins.He takes the only milk that comes to the settlement, brought up by Adams Express at seven o'clock every morning.They say he looks like me.Do you think so?" asked Dick with perfect gravity, stroking his hay-colored mustachios, and evidently assuming his best expression.