He finally backed out of the thing and hastened from the cabin, sitting up on his haunches to nurse his bruised head. All the same, this maple sugar was mighty good stuff! Was he going to leave it? Not Twinkly Eyes! Not the little Black Bear who had once robbed the bee tree in spite of the worst its owners could do with their stings! He would go straight back there, give that kettle a good, vigorous cuff for its impudence, and then knock the sugar cask to bits. So they thought they could frighten him away, did they? Cautiously he tiptoed back into the shack. This time he felt sure he had caught the keg at a dis-ad-van-tage, for with one powerful blow of his great, furry fist, he sent it whirling into the corner. Then grappling it with his long steel claws, he wrenched at the syrup-soaked wood. For once it did not grab at his head. For he had torn such a hole in the side that there was room and to spare. Next moment the fat cub had settled himself at that giant lump of maple sugar with the cask held tight between his black knees. If Twinkly Eyes had been a small boy, he wouldn’t have wanted anything more to eat for a week. And it is more than likely that he would hate the smell of maple sugar for the rest of his life. But bears are not built that way. And Twinkly Eyes, with that same greed with which he had gobbled the honey comb, now put that maple sugar inside till there wasn’t so much as a crumb of it left. After that he slept awhile with his little black tummy rounded out till he could hardly move. For that is what makes a bear feel happiest, when he is eating his last meal for five months. Next day he once more started on his lumbering tramp over the slopes of Mount Olaf to find his winter’s resting place. Winter would set in early this year, the wild ducks had shouted as they honked their way southward that fall. And already the last leaves were falling in yellow swirls that crackled under-foot. In the pine forest it was still. But everywhere else the winds swept around the mountain in a way to chill through even Twinkly Eyes’ thick coat. Then one morning he awoke to find a world of white! And still he had found no cave to shelter him. [Illustration: [Bear]] LVIII THE FIRST SNOW Yes, sir, Twinkly Eyes awoke to find it snowing! A more surprised young bear you never saw in all your life, for as yet he had found no cave in which to pass his winter’s sleep. And the winds that tore around Mount Olaf made goose-flesh underneath his furs. He stared about him dazedly. Great soft flakes as big as feathers were falling, falling, falling through the naked tree-tops. He had never heard the world so still. And off across the valley the air looked thick and gray like a blanket. And indeed, it was a blanket—was this whirling white stuff that kept covering over the dead leaves that carpeted the forest floor. It filled in all the niches, and shut out all the wind.