The boy was completely charmed by the marvellous display and almost forgot that he was imprisoned between a bear's two paws.
Father Bear let him look into the rolling mill. He saw a workman take a short, thick bar of iron at white heat from a furnace opening and place it under a roller. When the iron came out from under the roller, it was flattened and extended. Immediately another workman seized it and placed it beneath a heavier roller, which made it still longer and thinner. Thus it was passed from roller to roller, squeezed and drawn out until, finally, it curled along the floor, like a long red thread.
But while the first bar of iron was being pressed, a second was taken from the furnace and placed under the rollers, and when this was a little along, a third was brought. Continuously fresh threads came crawling over the floor, like hissing snakes. The boy was dazzled by the iron. But he found it more splendid to watch the workmen who, dexterously and delicately, seized the glowing snakes with their tongs and forced them under the rollers. It seemed like play for them to handle the hissing iron.
"I call that real man's work!" the boy remarked to himself.
The bear then let the boy have a peep at the furnace and 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. The workmen were sooty and grimy. He fancied they were some sort of firefolk—that was why they could bend and mould the iron as they wished. He could not believe that they were just ordinary men, since they had such power!
"They keep this up day after day, night after night," said Father Bear, as he dropped wearily down on the ground. "You can understand that one gets rather tired of that kind of thing. I'm mighty glad that at last I can put an end to it!"
"Indeed!" said the boy. "How will you go about it?"
"Oh, I thought that you were going to set fire to the buildings!" said Father Bear. "That would put an end to all this work, and I could remain in my old home."
The boy was all of a shiver.
So it was for this that Father Bear had brought him here!
"If you will set fire to the noise-works, I'll promise to spare your life," said Father Bear. "But if you don't do it, I'll make short work of you!" The huge workshops were built of brick, and the boy was thinking to himself that Father Bear could command as much as he liked, it was impossible to obey him. Presently he saw that it might not be impossible after all. Just beyond them lay a pile of chips and shavings to which he could easily set fire, 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 roof of the iron foundry. Everything combustible would burn, the walls would fall from the heat, and the machinery would be destroyed. "Will you or won't you?" demanded Father Bear. The boy knew that he ought to answer promptly that he would not, but he also knew that then the bear's paws would squeeze him to death; therefore he replied:
"I shall have to think it over."
"Very well, do so," assented Father Bear. "Let me say to you that iron is the thing that has given men the advantage over us bears, which is another reason for my wishing to put an end to the work here."
The boy thought he would use the delay to figure out some plan of escape, but he was so worried he could not direct his thoughts where he would; instead he began to think of the great help that iron had been to mankind. They needed iron for everything. There was iron in the plough that broke up the field, in the axe that felled the tree for building houses, in the scythe that mowed the grain, and in the knife, which could be turned to all sorts of uses. There was iron in the horse's bit, in the lock on the door, in the nails that held furniture together, in the sheathing that covered the roof. The rifle which drove away wild beasts was made of iron, also the pick that had broken up the mine. Iron covered the men-of-war he had seen at Karlskrona; the locomotives steamed through the country on iron rails; the needle that had stitched his coat was of iron; the shears that clipped the sheep and the kettle that cooked the food. Big and little alike—much that was indispensable was made from iron. Father Bear was perfectly right in saying that it was the iron that had given men their mastery over the bears.
"Now will you or won't you?" Father Bear repeated.
The boy was startled from his musing. Here he stood thinking of matters that were entirely unnecessary, and had not yet found a way to save himself!
"You mustn't be so impatient," he said. "This is a serious matter for me, and I've got to have time to consider."
"Well, then, consider another moment," said Father Bear. "But let me tell you that it's because of the iron that men have become so much wiser than we bears. For this alone, if for nothing else, I should like to put a stop to the work here."
Again the boy endeavoured to think out a plan of escape, but his thoughts wandered, willy nilly. They were taken up with the iron. And gradually he began to comprehend how much thinking and calculating men must have done before they discovered how to produce iron from ore, and he seemed to see sooty blacksmiths of old bending over the forge, pondering how they should properly handle it. Perhaps it was because they had thought so much about the iron that intelligence had been developed in mankind, until finally they became so advanced that they were able to build great works like these. The fact was that men owed more to the iron than they themselves knew.
"Well, what say you? Will you or won't you?" insisted Father Bear.
The boy shrank back. Here he stood thinking needless thoughts, and had no idea as to what he should do to save himself.
"It's not such an easy matter to decide as you think," he answered. "You must give me time for reflection."
"I can wait for you a little longer," said Father Bear. "But after that you'll get no more grace. You must know that it's the fault of the iron that the human kind can live here on the property of the bears. And now you understand why I would be rid of the work."
The boy meant to use the last moment to think out some way to save himself, but, anxious and distraught as he was, his thoughts wandered again. Now he began thinking of all that he had seen when he flew over the mining districts. It was strange that there should be so much life and activity and so much work back there in the wilderness.
"Just think how poor and desolate this place would be had there been no iron here!
"This very foundry gave employment to many, and had gathered around it many homes filled with people, who, in turn, had attracted hither railways and telegraph wires and—"
"Come, come!" growled the bear. "Will you or won't you?"
The boy swept his hand across his forehead. No plan of escape had as yet come to his mind, but this much he knew—he did not wish to do any harm to the iron, which was so useful to rich and poor alike, and which gave bread to so many people in this 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," returned 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. Both he and Father Bear had been so engrossed in their own affairs they had not observed that a man had stolen right upon them.
"Father Bear! Don't you hear the clicking of a trigger?" cried