“You, Tom! You, Jerry! come here!” called Balser one morning, while he and Jim were sitting in the shade near the river in front of the house, overseeing the baby. “You, Tom! You, Jerry!” called Balser a second time with emphasis. The cubs, snoozing in the sun a couple of paces away, rolled lazily over two or three times in an effort to get upon their feet, and then trotted to their masters with a comical, waddling gait that always set the boys laughing,—it was such a swagger. When they had come, Balser said, “Stop right there!” and the cubs, being always tired, gladly enough sat upon their haunches, and blinked sleepily into Balser’s face, with a greedy expression upon their own, as if to say, “Well, where’s the milk?” “Milk, is it?” asked Balser. “You’re always hungry. You’re nothing but a pair of gluttons. Eat, eat, from morning until night. Well, this time you’ll get nothing. There’s no milk for you.” The cubs looked disgusted, so Jim said, and no doubt he was right, for Jim and the cubs were great friends and understood each other thoroughly. “Now, I’ve been a good father to you,” said Balser. “I’ve always given you as much milk as you could hold, without bursting, and have tried to bring you up to be good respectable bears, and to do my duty by you. I have whipped you whenever you needed it, although it often hurt me worse than it did you.” The bears grunted, as if to say: “But not in the same place.” “Now what I want,” continued Balser, regardless of the interruption, “is, that you tell me what you know, if anything, concerning a big one-eared bear that lives hereabouts. Have you ever heard of him?” Tom gave a grunt, and Jim, who had been studying bear language, said he meant “Yes.” Jerry then put his nose to Tom’s ear, and whined something in a low voice. “What does he say, Jim?” asked Balser. “He says for Tom not to tell you anything until you promise to give them milk,” answered Jim, seriously. “Jerry, you’re the greatest glutton alive, I do believe,” said Balser; “but if you’ll tell me anything worth knowing about the one-eared bear, I’ll give you the biggest pan of milk you ever saw.” Jerry in his glee took two or three fancy steps, awkwardly fell over himself a couple of times, got up, and grunted to Tom to go ahead. Jim was the interpreter, and Tom grunted and whined away, in a mighty effort to earn the milk. “The one-eared bear,” said he, “is my uncle. Used to hear dad and mother talk about him. Dad bit his ear off. That’s how he came to have only one. Dad and he fought about mother, and when dad bit uncle’s ear off mother went with dad and wouldn’t have anything to do with the other fellow. Couldn’t abide a one-eared husband, she said.” “That’s interesting,” answered Balser. “Where does he live?” Tom pointed his nose toward the northwest, and opened his mouth very wide. “Up that way in a cave,” interpreted Jim, pointing as the cub had indicated. “How far is it?” asked Balser.