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“Try to look into the shop,” he said.

The boy saw a workman take a short, thick bar of iron at white heat from a furnace opening, and place it under a roller that flattened and extended it. Immediately another workman seized it and placed it beneath a heavier roller. Thus it was passed from roller to roller until, finally, it curled along the floor like a long red thread. Continuously fresh threads followed it like hissing snakes.

“I call that real man’s work!” the boy said to himself.

Father Bear then let him have a peep at the forge, and he became more and more astonished as he saw how the blacksmiths handled iron and fire.

“Those men have no fear of heat and flames,” he thought.

“They keep this up day after day,” Father Bear said as he dropped wearily on the ground. “One gets tired of that kind of thing. I’m glad that at last I can put an end to it.”

The boy was all of a shiver now.

“If you will set fire to the noise-shop, I’ll spare your life,” said Father Bear.

Just beyond them lay a pile of chips and shavings, and beside it was a wood pile that almost reached the coal shed. The coal shed extended over to the workshops, and if that once caught fire, the flames would soon fly over to the iron foundry. The walls would fall from the heat, and the machinery would be destroyed.

“Will you or won’t you?” demanded Father Bear.

“You mustn’t be so impatient,” the boy said. “Let me think a moment.”

“Very well,” said Father Bear, tightening his hold on the boy.

They needed iron for everything, Nils knew. There was iron in the plough that broke up the field, and in the axe that felled the tree for building houses, in the scythe that mowed the grain, and in the knife that could be turned to all sorts of uses. There was iron in the horse’s bit, and in the lock on the door, in the nails that held the furniture together, and in the sheathing that covered the roof. Iron covered the men-of-war that he had seen in the harbor, the locomotives steamed through the country on iron rails. The needle that had stitched the boy’s coat was made of iron, the shears that clipped the sheep, and the kettle that cooked the food. The rifle which drove away wild beasts was made of iron. Father Bear was perfectly right. He knew that the coming of iron to the forest had given the human kind their mastery over the beasts.

“Will you or won’t you?” demanded Father Bear.

The boy shrank back. He swept his hand across his forehead. He could see no way of escape, but this much he knew, he did not wish to do any harm to the iron which was useful to so many people in the land.

“I won’t!” he said.

Father Bear squeezed him a little harder but said nothing.

“You’ll not get me to destroy the ironworks,” defied the boy. “The iron is so great a blessing that it will never do to harm it.”

“Then of course you don’t expect to be allowed to live very long,” said the bear.

“No, I don’t expect it,” replied the boy, looking the bear straight in the eye.

Father Bear gripped him still harder. It hurt so that the boy could not keep the tears back, but he did not cry out or say a word.

“Very well, then,” said Father Bear, raising his paw very slowly, hoping that the boy would give in at the last moment.

But just then the boy heard something click very close to them, and saw the muzzle of a rifle two paces away.

“Father Bear! Don’t you hear the clicking of a trigger?” cried the boy. “Run, or you will be shot!”

Father Bear grew terribly hurried. He gave himself time, though, to pick up the boy and carry him along. As he ran, a couple of shots sounded; the bullets grazed his ears, but he escaped.

When Father Bear had run some distance into the woods, he paused and set Nils down on the ground.

“Thank you, little one,” he said. “I dare say those bullets would have caught me if you hadn’t been there. Now I want to do you a service in return. If you should ever meet with another bear, just say to him this–which I shall whisper to you–and he won’t touch you.”

Father Bear whispered a word or two into the boy’s ear and then hurried away.