One day, the famed frontiersman, Kit Carson, was heading home to his wife and family after having guided a group through the mountains. He was a bit tired and stopped to rest by a pond. He noticed there were quite a lot of bass in there just itching to be caught so he fashioned a pole and strung a hook and line from it. Soon he had caught two beautiful large mouth bass. He was sure his wife would be excited to have them for his welcome-home supper!

He set off down the trail and came to a field. Not far off the path he spied a quail's nest filled with eggs. Those were his wife's favorite treat, he knew. He snatched up the lot to have with dinner but then was perplexed: how could he get them home without breaking? He had an idea and pried open the mouth of one of the fish and put them in as an improvised carrier. He set off again, nearly home.

But as he approached the final leg of his journey he heard a low growl. He turned and there was a huge brown bear looking at him hungrily! Kit regretted that he had tied his gun to his pack since his hands were full carrying the fish. He had no way to defend himself. In desperation he tossed one of the fish at the bear hoping to distract him and took off for home. The bear gobbled the free meal and let our hero go on his way.

When he got home he related the story to his wife. She looked at the fish he had brought and saw its mouth was empty.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think which fish I threw to the bear since I had to act quickly. I wish I had kept some of the quail eggs for you, dear."

His wife was not appeased. She said, "Well, it goes to show, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one bass, Kit!"