thing to my folks about that: but I wasn't surprised when word came next week that we were to have a new teacher—the little one had gone to live with Black Jean.
Well, there was more talk—talk of rail-riding the pair of them out of the district. But nothing was done, and one evening, a month later, there was a rap at our door and the French-Canadian staggered in. He was carrying the school teacher in his arms.
"What has happened?" my father demanded.
"Dat dam' leetle bear," snarled Black Jean—"She try to keel Madam."
He laid the woman on the bed. She looked pretty badly cut up, and we sent for the doctor. Mother would only let her stay in the house that night, being shocked at the way she was living with the French-Canadian.
It turned out she wasn't much hurt, and father kept trying to find out just what had happened. But he couldn't. I knew, however. Most of my time, when I wasn't in school or running errands for the folks, I was spending watching that couple, and only that afternoon I had seen her stick a hot poker into the side of the smaller bear and wind it up into his fur until he screamed. And the bear must have bided his time and gone for her—those brutes were just like folks.
Next morning Black Jean came and got his woman, and I stole out and followed. I knew there would be more to it. I was right. The two of them went into the cabin, and pretty soon I hear a rampus and out comes Black Jean with the smaller bear and behind them the woman. She was carrying a cowhide whip.
The French-Canadian had a chain heaped about each forepaw of the animal, and, pulling it under a tree, he tossed the free end of the chain over a short branch and yanked the bear off his feet. Then he wound the end of the chain about the trunk of the tree and sat down. So the bear hung, his feet crossed, and squirming and helpless.
And there in that clear day and warm sunshine, the woman started at the bear with the whip. She lashed it until it cried like a child. Black Jean watched the proceedings and grinned.
"Bah!" he shouted, after the woman had begun to tire. "She t'ink you foolin'. Heet harder. Heet the eyes!"
Again the woman went at it and kept it up until the bear quit moaning, and its head drooped and its body got limp. I was feeling sick at the sight, and I stole away.
But next morning, when I crawled back, there was the bear still hanging. It was dead.
That woman was a fair mate for Black Jean.
She kept him working steady over here to this kiln—most any night you could see the reflection of the blaze—and it was something to watch Black Jean when he was feeding his fire with the light playing on that copper piece and making it look like a big red eye flashing in the night. I saw it many times.
And it was noticed that Black Jean wasn't getting drunk any more, and he wasn't wrestling the one-eyed bear any more. He had good reason for that. I began to believe Black Jean was afraid of that brute.
But he made it work for him in the kiln, using the whip, and it was a curious animal, growling and snarling most of the time, as it pulled and lifted big sticks of wood and lugged them to the kiln.
When Black Jean wasn't working he was over at the cabin where he would follow the woman around like a dog. She could make him do anything. she was getting thinner and crosser, and I was more afraid of her than ever I was of Black Jean.
Once she caught me watching her from my spying-place in a tree. She had been petting the one-eyed bear, rubbing his snout and feeding him sugar. She ran to the house and got a rifle and, my friends, I came down out of that tree lickety split.
