With his little stomach full of rich milk and sweet honey, Buster grew very sleepy, and when he curled up to rest one of his rescuers spread a warm blanket over him. In a few minutes he was lost in slumberland.
[Illustration: HE STOOD ON HIS HIND LEGS AND CRIED FOR IT]
When Buster awoke he had a queer sensation of being carried in a hammock or something equally soft and comfortable. It was so different from his hard bed on the rocks! His first thought was that it was all part of a dream, but remembering his experience with Loup the Lynx he shuddered, and set up a call for his mother. He was frightened, and whimpered so loudly that the man carrying him opened the blanket and peeked in.
“What is it, Buster?” he asked, addressing him by the very name his mother had always called him. “Hungry again?”
Buster was indeed hungry again, but he was also homesick and wanted his mother. He kept on whimpering when the man took him out of the blanket and patted him.
“Oh, give him something to eat, Bill, and stop his crying,” said the man’s companion.
So they stopped long enough to feed him again, and after that Buster felt less homesick, and, it must be confessed, forgot his mother. The men began playing with him, and Buster rolled over and gnawed at a stick for them until they roared with laughter.
“Do you know, Jim,” said one of his captors, “we’ve got a rich prize in that cub. He’s the most intelligent little chap I ever saw. I wonder where he came from.”
“Probably his mother was killed, and that Lynx knew it, and was trying to make a dinner off him.”
“I’d like to get a crack at that lynx some day.”
“So would I. But I’m mighty glad we saved the cub. He’ll make a fine pet. He’s as playful as a dog.”
Buster was a little startled to hear that his mother had probably been killed. That would account for her not returning to the cave when he called her. Had Loup killed her? No, Buster didn’t think so, for his mother was big and powerful, and could easily knock a lynx over with one blow from her paw. Then who was her murderer, or wasn’t she dead?
These questions were too hard for Buster to answer, and he soon stopped trying to think of them. Meanwhile, he was safe and well fed, and his two captors liked him. Why should he worry about something that couldn’t be helped?