"No, they are not dead!" he exclaimed. "They
are warm. But they are awfully sound asleep."
"Let's haul them out!" cried Asa; and they now sent me to the wood-sled
for two or three small trace-chains. Asa then crawled in and slipped a
chain about the body of one of the bears. The other two chains were
hooked on; and then they slowly hauled the bear out, the old Squire
standing by with gun cocked--for we expected every moment that the
animal would wake.
But even when out on the snow crust the creature lay as inert as a dead
bear. It was small. "Only a yearling," the old Squire said. None of us
were now much afraid of them, and the other one was drawn out in the
same way. Their hair was glossy and as black as jet. Possibly they would
have weighed seventy-five pounds each. Evidently they were young bears
that had never been separated, and that accounted for their denning up
together; old bears rarely do this.
We put them on the wood-sled and hauled them home. They lay in a pile of
hay on the stable floor all night, without a sign of waking up; and the
next morning we hauled them to the cellar of the west barn. Under this
barn, which was used mainly for sheep and young cattle, there were
several pigsties, now empty.
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