The girls said nothing. Charlie, in the tree, was afraid if she spoke Billy Bear would see her. She figured they were safe as long as they were not spotted.

As soon as the bear saw Donald Pettinger, he panicked again and leapt up, running in a strange lope around the big meadow. Mr. Pettinger opened the gate.

“Is he going to chase him out?” asked Fiona.

“No, that bear knows where to find food now. He can’t let him go,” said Miss Webster.

Mr. Pettinger closed the gate behind himself, walked into the fenced meadow, put his rifle up, and fired but missed. This terrified the bear, who began slamming himself into the fence, but it was a high solid deer fence and the bear simply bounced off and in his frenzy, ran again in circles.

Charlie, watching him, began to lose her fear in pity for the plight of the trapped and panicked bear. Now instead of fearing for herself she feared for him. The more frantically he ran, the more she pitied him.

“Oh, don’t shoot him!” she cried at last. “Please don’t shoot him.”

But the conservation officer ignored her, lifted his rifle, and this time he aimed true and the bear fell silent in the blue wildflowers.

Charlie began to cry. But now she was crying for the bear. For all the springs he would not see again, all the moonlight shining without him, no more garbage days, no more feeling the tickle of running creeks on his furry legs, no more summer sunsets or wet dawn grasses on his paws. Tears flowed from her eyes in a way they never had before. She didn’t know who she was crying for; it seemed to be for Billy Bear but for herself and for everyone else too.

Ashley looked at her uncomprehendingly. “He got it,” she said. “We can get down now.” And she shinnied down the tree but Charlie stayed there until the conservation officer walked over.

“Need a hand?” he asked.

“I didn’t want you to do that,” sobbed Charlie. “I didn’t want you to kill him.”

“I didn’t,” said Mr. Pettinger in surprise. “I sedated him. That was a tranquilizer dart. He’ll wake up just fine when it wears off. I’m going to drive my truck into the meadow, hook him up to that crane you see there. I’ll haul him into the cage and take him an hour away to a lonelier stretch of forest where he can live.”

“But he won’t be at home,” said Charlie sadly. “He won’t know where he is.”

“No,” said the man, “he won’t. But at least he will be able to live somewhere. Sometimes a fed bear is a dead bear. Because they hurt someone before we can relocate them. At least he was spared that.”

By this point the others had all come walking cautiously across the field toward the downed bear as if they were worried he might come awake at any moment, leap up, and start his frantic scurrying around again.