EVERY BOY'S LIBRARY BOY SCOUT EDITION 
 
 rHEBIOGRAPHYOFA GRIZZLY 
 
 IS Drawings 
 ERNEST THOMPSON SETON * 
 
 lofiheS&ndhillSf&g 
 Wild Animals! H*ve Known 
 of Animus 
 
 Published by Grossct & Dunlap, New York
 
 Copyright, 1899, 1900, by 
 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1900, by 
 
 Ernest Se ton-Thompson. 
 
 First 
 Impression 
 Ap ri , 
 
 1900 
 
 Sixth 
 Impression 
 May 
 
 1903 
 
 Eleventh 
 Impression 
 November 
 1 
 1912 
 
 Second 
 Impression 
 November 
 26 
 1900 
 
 Seventh 
 Impression 
 May 
 10 
 1904 
 
 Twelfth 
 Impression 
 September 
 29 
 1914 
 
 Third 
 I mpression 
 January 
 
 1901 
 
 Eighth 
 Impression 
 February 
 
 1906 
 
 Thirteenth 
 Impression 
 October 
 11 
 1916 
 
 Fourth 
 Impression 
 June 
 20 
 1901 
 
 Ninth 
 Impression 
 October 
 4 
 1907 
 
 Fourteenth 
 Impression 
 January 
 29 
 1918 
 
 Fifth 
 Impression 
 April 
 
 1902 
 
 Tenth 
 Impression 
 June 
 
 1910 
 
 Fifteenth 
 Impression 
 June 
 
 1919
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 This Book is dedicated to the 
 memory of the days spent at 
 the Palette Ranch on the Gray- 
 bull, where from hunter, miner, 
 personal experience, and the 
 host himself, I gathered many 
 chapters of the History of Wahb. 
 
 1G60070
 
 In this Book the designs for title- 
 page, cover, and general make- 
 up, were done by Mrs. Grace 
 Gallatin Thompson Seton.
 
 List of 
 Full- Page Drawings 
 
 r* 
 
 Pa^e 
 
 They all Rushed Under it like a Lot 
 
 of Little Pigs 14 
 
 Like Children Playing 'Hands'. . . 18 
 He Stayed in the Tree till near Morn- 
 ing .... 32 
 
 A Savage Bobcat . . . Warned Him to 
 
 go Back 44 
 
 Wahb Yelled and Jerked Back . . 50 
 He Struck one Fearful, Crushing Blow 74 
 Ain't He an Awful Size, Though? . . 90 
 Wahb Smashed His Skull .... 102 
 Causing the Pool to Overflow . . .113 
 He Deliberately Stood up on the Pine 
 
 Root 142 
 
 The Roachback Fled into the Woods. 150 
 He Paused a Moment at the Gate . 165
 
 PART I 
 
 THE CUBHOOD OF WAHB
 
 I 
 
 was born over a 
 score of years ago, 
 away up in the wild- 
 est part of the wild 
 West, on the head of 
 the Little Piney, above where the 
 Palette Ranch is now. 
 
 His Motherwas just an ordinary 
 Silvertip, living the quiet life that 
 all Bears prefer, minding her own 
 business and doing her duty by her 
 family, asking no favors of any one 
 excepting to let her alone.
 
 It was July before she took her 
 remarkable family down the Little 
 Piney to the Graybull, and showed 
 them what strawberries were, and 
 where to find them. 
 
 Notwithstanding their Mother's 
 deep conviction, the cubs were not 
 remarkably big or bright; yet they 
 were a remarkable family, for there 
 were four of them, and it is not 
 often a Grizzly Mother can boast 
 of more than two. 
 
 The woolly-coated little crea- 
 tures were having a fine time, and 
 reveled in the lovely mountain sum- 
 mer and the abundance of good 
 things. Their Mother turned over 
 each log and flat stone they came 
 to, and the moment it was lifted 
 they all rushed under it like a lot 

 
 "THEY ALL RUSHED UNDER IT LIKE A LOT OF LITTLE PIGS.'
 
 of little pigs to lick up the ants and 
 grubs there hidden. 
 
 It never once occurred to them 
 that Mammy's strength might fail 
 sometime, and let the great rock 
 drop just as they got under it; nor 
 would any one have thought so 
 that might have Chanced to see 
 that huge arm and that shoulder 
 sliding about under the great yel- 
 low robe she wore. No, no; that 
 arm could never fail. The little 
 ones were quite right. So they 
 hustled and tumbled one another 
 at each fresh log in their haste to 
 be first, and squealed little squeals, 
 and growled little growls, as if each 
 was a pig, a pup, and a kitten all 
 rolled into one. 
 
 They were well acquainted with
 
 the common little brown ants that 
 harbor under logs in the uplands, 
 but now they came for the first time 
 on one of the hills of the great, fat, 
 luscious Wood-ant, and they all 
 crowded around to lick up those 
 that ran out. But they soon found 
 that they were licking up more cac- 
 tus-prickles and sand than ants, till 
 their Mother said in Grizzly, " Let 
 me show you how." 
 
 She knocked off the top of the 
 hill, then laid her great paw flat on 
 it for a few moments, and as the 
 angry ants swarmed on to it she 
 licked them up with one lick, and 
 got a good rich mouthful to crunch, 
 without a grain of sand or a cactus- 
 stinger in it. The cubs soon learned. 
 Each put up both his little brown 
 paws, so that there was a ring of 
 paws all around the ant-hill, and
 
 ,w 
 
 "LIKE CHILDREN PLAYING 'HANDS."
 
 there they sat, like children playing 
 1 hands/ and each licked first the 
 right and then the left paw, or one 
 cuffed his brother's ears for licking 
 a paw that was not his own, till the 
 ant-hill was cleared out and they 
 were ready for a change. 
 
 Ants are sour food and made the 
 Bears thirsty, so the old one led 
 down to the river. After they had 
 drunk as much as they wanted, and 
 dabbled their feet, they walked 
 down the bank to a pool, where the 
 old one's keen eye caught sight of 
 a number of Buffalo-fish basking 
 on the bottom. The water was very 
 low, mere pebbly rapids between 
 these deep holes, so Mammy said 
 to the little ones: 
 
 " Now you all sit there on the 
 bank and learn something new." 
 
 First she went to the lower end 
 
 * 
 
 fft
 
 of the pool and stirred up a cloud 
 of mud which hung in the still 
 water, and sent a long tail floating 
 like a curtain over the rapids just 
 below. Then she went quietly 
 round by land, and sprang into the 
 upper end of the pool with all the 
 noise she could. The fish had 
 crowded to that end, but this sud- 
 den attack sent them off in a panic, 
 and they dashed blindly into the 
 mud-cloud. Out of fifty fish there 
 is always a good chance of some 
 being fools, and half a dozen of 
 these dashed through the darkened 
 water into the current, and before 
 they knew it they were struggling 
 over the shingly shallow. 1 The old 
 Grizzly jerked them out to the 
 bank, and the little ones rushed
 
 noisily on these funny, short snakes 
 that could not get away, and gob- 
 bled and gorged till their little 
 bellies looked like balloons. 
 
 They had eaten so much now, 
 and the sun was so hot, that all 
 were quite sleepy. So the Mother- 
 bear led them to a quiet little nook, 
 and as soon as she lay down, though 
 they were puffing with heat, they 
 all snuggled around her and went 
 to sleep, with their little brown paws 
 curled in, and their little black noses 
 tucked into their wool as though it 
 were a very cold day. 
 
 After an hour or two they began 
 to yawn and stretch themselves, 
 except little Fuzz, the smallest; 
 she poked out her sharp nose for a 
 moment, then snuggled back be-
 
 
 
 tween her Mother's great arms, 
 for she was a gentle, petted little 
 thing. The largest, the one after- 
 ward known as Wahb, sprawled 
 over on his back and began to 
 worry a root that stuck up, grum- 
 bling to himself as he chewed it, 
 or slapped it with his paw for not 
 staying where he wanted it. Pres- 
 ently Mooney, the mischief, began 
 tugging at Frizzle's ears, and got 
 his own well boxed. They clenched 
 for a tussle; then, locked in a 
 tight, little grizzly yellow ball, they 
 sprawled over and over on th e grass, 
 and, before they knew it, down a 
 bank, and away out of sight toward 
 the river. 
 
 Almost immediately there was 
 an outcry of yells for help from the
 
 little wrestlers. There could be no 
 mistaking the real terror in their 
 voices. Some dreadful danger was 
 threatening. 
 
 Up jumped the gentle Mother, 
 changed into a perfect demon, and 
 over the bank in time to see a huge 
 Range-bull make a deadly charge 
 at what he doubtless took for a yel- 
 low dog. In a moment all would 
 have been over with Frizzle, for he 
 had missed his footing on the bank; 
 but there was a thumping of heavy 
 feet, a roar that startled even the 
 great Bull, and, like a huge bound- 
 ing ball of yellow fur, Mother Griz- 
 zly was upon him. Him ! the mon- 
 arch of the herd, the master of all 
 these plains, what had he to fear? 
 He bellowed his deep war-cry, and
 
 charged to pin the old one to the 
 bank; but as he bent to tear her 
 with his shining horns, she dealt 
 him a stunning blow, and before he 
 could recover she was on his shoul- 
 ders, raking the flesh from his ribs 
 with sweep after sweep of her ter- 
 rific claws. 
 
 The Bull roared with rage, and 
 plunged and reared, dragging Mo- 
 ther Grizzly with him; then, as he 
 hurled heavily off the slope> she let 
 go to save herself, and the Bull 
 rolled down into the river. 
 
 This was a lucky thing for him, 
 for the Grizzly did not want to fol- 
 low him there ; so he waded out on 
 the other side, and bellowing with 
 fury and pain, slunk off to join the 
 herd to which he belonged.
 
 D Colonel Pickett, 
 the cattle king, was 
 out riding the range. 
 The night before, he 
 had seen the new- 
 moon descending over the white 
 cone of Pickett's Peak. 
 
 " I saw the last moon over Frank's 
 Peak," said he, " and the luck was 
 against me for a month; now I 
 reckon it's my turn." 
 
 Next morning his luck began. 
 A letter came from Washington
 
 granting bis request that a post- 
 office be established at his ranch, 
 and contained the polite inquiry, 
 "What name do you suggest for 
 the new post-office?" 
 
 The Colonel took down his new 
 rifle, a 45-90 repeater. " May as 
 well," he said ; "this is my month " ; 
 and he rode up the Graybull to see 
 how the cattle were doing. 
 , As he passed underthe Rimrock 
 Mountain he heard a far-away roar- 
 ing as of Bulls fighting, but thought 
 nothing of it till he rounded the 
 point and saw on the flat below a 
 lot of his cattle pawing the dust and 
 bellowing as they always do when 
 they smell the blood of one of their 
 number. He soon saw that the 
 great Bull, * the boss of the bunch.*
 
 was covered with blood. His back 
 and sides were torn as by a Moun- 
 tain-lion, and his head was battered 
 as by another Bull. 
 
 " Grizzly/' growled the Colonel, 
 for he knew the mountains. He 
 quickly noted the general direction 
 of the Bull's back trail, then rode 
 toward a high bank that offered a 
 view. This was across the gravelly 
 ford of the Graybull, near the 
 mouth of the Piney. His horse 
 splashed through the cold water 
 and began jerkily to climb the other 
 bank. 
 
 As soon as the rider's head rose 
 above the bank his hand grabbed 
 the rifle, for there in full sight were 
 five Grizzly Bears, an old one and 
 four cubs.
 
 " Run for the woods, Tt growled 
 the Mother Grizzly, for she knew 
 that men carried guns. Not that 
 she feared for herself; but the idea 
 of such things among her darlings 
 was too horrible to think of. She 
 set off to guide them to the timber- 
 tangle on the Lower Piney. But 
 an awful, murderous fusillade be- 
 gan. 
 
 <g! and Mother Grizzly felt 
 a deadly pang. 
 
 Rang! and poor little Fuzz rolled 
 over with a scream of pain and lay 
 still. 
 
 With a roar of hate and fury 
 Mother Grizzly turned to attack 
 the enemy. 
 
 <Bang! and she fell paralyzed 
 and dying with a high shoulder
 
 shot. And the three little cubs, not 
 knowing what to do, ran back to 
 their Mother. 
 
 Bang! bang! and Mooney and 
 Frizzle sank in dying agonies be- 
 side her, and Wahb, terrified and 
 stupefied, ran in a circle about 
 them. Then, hardly knowing why, 
 he turned and dashed into the tim- 
 ber-tangle, and disappeared as a 
 last bang left him with a stinging 
 pain and a useless, broken hind 
 paw. 
 
 THAT is why the post-office was 
 called Four-Bears. The Colonel 
 seemed pleased with what he had 
 done; indeed, he told of it himself. 
 
 But away up in the woods of 
 Anderson's Peak that night a little
 
 lame Grizzly might have been seen 
 wandering, limping along, leaving 
 a bloody spot each time he tried to 
 set down his hind paw; whining 
 and whimpering, " Mother! Mo- 
 ther! Oh, Mother, where are you?" 
 for he was cold and hungry, and 
 had such a pain in his foot. But 
 there was no Mother to come to 
 him, and he dared not go back 
 where he had left her, so he wan- 
 dered aimlessly about among the 
 pines. 
 
 Then he smelled some strange 
 animal smell and heard heavy foot- 
 steps; and not knowing what else 
 to do, he climbed a tree. Presently 
 a band of great, long-necked, slim- 
 legged animals, taljer than his Mo- 
 ther, came by under the tree. He
 
 'HE STAYED IN THE TREE TILL NEAR MORNING.
 
 had seen such once before and had 
 not been afraid of them then, be- 
 cause he had been with his Mother. 
 But now he kept very quiet in the 
 tree, and the big creatures stopped 
 picking the grass when they were 
 near him, and blowing their noses, 
 ran out of sight. 
 
 He stayed in the tree till near 
 morning, and then he was so sti 
 with cold that he could scarcely 
 get down. But the warm sun came 
 up, and he felt better as he sought 
 about for berries and ants, for he 
 was very hungry. Then he went 
 back to the Piney and put his 
 wounded foot in the ice-cold water. 
 
 He wanted to get back to the 
 mountains again, but still he felt he 
 must go to where he had left his
 
 Mother and brothers. When the 
 afternoon grew warm, he went 
 limping down the stream through 
 the timber, and down on the banks 
 of the Graybull till he came to the 
 place where yesterday they had 
 had the fish-feast; and he eagerly 
 crunched the heads and remains 
 that he found. But there was an 
 odd and horrid smell on the wind. 
 It frightened him, and as he went 
 down to where he last had seen his 
 Mother the smell grew worse. He 
 peeped out cautiously at the place, 
 and saw there a lot of Coyotes, tear- 
 ing at something. What it was he 
 did not know; but he saw no Mo- 
 ther, and the smell that sickened 
 and terrified him was worse than 
 ever, so he quietly turned back
 
 toward the timber-tangle of the 
 Lower Piney, and nevermore came 
 back to look for his lost family. 
 He wanted his Mother as much 
 as ever, but something told him it 
 was no use. 
 
 As cold night came down, he 
 missed her more and more again, 
 and he whimpered as he limped 
 along, a miserable, lonely, little, 
 motherless Bear not lost in the 
 mountains, for he had no home to 
 seek, but so sick and lonely, and 
 with such a pain in his foot, and in 
 his stomach a craving for the drink 
 that would nevermore be his. That 
 night he found a hollow log, and 
 crawling in, he tried to dream that 
 his Mother's great, furry arms were 
 around him, and he snuffled him- 
 self to sleep.
 
 Ill 
 
 AHB had always 
 been a gloomy little 
 Bear; and the string 
 of misfortunes that 
 came on him just as 
 his mind was forming made him 
 more than ever sullen and morose. 
 It seemed as though every one 
 were against him. Hetriedto keep 
 out of sight in the upper woods of 
 the Piney, seeking his food by day 
 and resting at night in the hollow 
 log. But one evening he found it 
 occupied by a Porcupine as big as
 
 himself and as bad as a cactus-bush. 
 Wahb could do nothing with him. 
 He had to give up the log and seek 
 another nest. 
 
 One day he went down on the 
 Graybull flat to dig some roots that 
 his Mother had taught him were 
 good. But before he had well be- 
 gun, a grayish-looking animal came 
 out of a hole in the ground and 
 rushed at him, hissing and growl- 
 ing. Wahb did not know it was a 
 Badger, but he saw it was a fierce 
 animal as big as himself. He was 
 sick, and lame too, so he limped 
 away and never stopped till he was 
 on a ridge in the next canon. Here 
 a Coyote saw him, and came bound- 
 ing after him, calling at the same 
 time to another to come and join 
 the fun. Wahb was near a tree, so
 
 \ m 
 
 
 he scrambled up to the branches. 
 The Coyotes came bounding and 
 yelping below, but their noses told 
 them that this was a young Grizzly 
 they had chased, and they soon de- 
 cided that a young Grizzly in a tree 
 means a Mother Grizzly not far 
 away, and they had better let him 
 alone. 
 
 After they had sneaked off Wahb 
 came down and returned to the 
 Piney. There was better feeding 
 on the Graybull, but every one 
 seemed against him there now that 
 his loving guardian was gone, while 
 on the Piney he had peace at least 
 sometimes, and there were plenty 
 of trees that he could climb when 
 an enemy came. 
 
 His broken foot was a long time 
 in healing ; indeed, it never got quite
 
 well. The wound healed and the 
 soreness wore off, but it left a stiff- 
 ness that gave him a slight limp, 
 and the sole-balls grew together 
 quite unlike those of the other foot. 
 It particularly annoyed him when 
 he had to climb a tree or run fast 
 from his enemies; and of them he 
 found no end, though never once 
 did a friend cross his path. When 
 he lost his Mother he lost his best 
 and only friend. She would have 
 taught him much that he had to 
 learn by bitter experience, and 
 would have saved him from most 
 of the ills that befell him in his 
 cubhood ills so many and so dire 
 that but for his native sturdiness 
 he never could have passed through 
 alive. 
 
 The pinons bore plentifully that
 
 year, and the winds began to show- 
 er down the ripe, rich nuts. Life 
 was becoming a little easier for 
 Wahb. He was gaining in health 
 and strength, and the creatures he 
 daily met now let him alone. But 
 as he feasted on the pinons one 
 morning after a gale, a great Black- 
 bear came marching down the hill. 
 * No one meets a friend in the 
 woods/ was a byword that Wahb 
 had learned already. H e swung up 
 the nearest tree. Atfirstthe Black- 
 bear was scared, for he smelled the 
 smell of Grizzly; but when he saw 
 it was only a cub, he took courage 
 and came growling at Wahb. He 
 could climb as well as the little 
 Grizzly, or better, and high as 
 Wahb went, the Blackbear fol-
 
 lowed, and when Wahb got out on 
 the smallest and highest twig that 
 would carry him, the Blackbear 
 cruelly shook him off, so that he 
 was thrown to the ground, bruised 
 and shaken and half-stunned. He 
 limped away moaning, and the only 
 thing that kept the Blackbear from 
 following him up and perhaps kill- 
 ing him was the fear that the old 
 Grizzly might be about. So Wahb 
 was driven away down the creek 
 from all the good pinon woods. 
 
 There was not much food on the 
 Graybull now. The berries were 
 nearly all gone; there were no fish 
 or ants to get, and Wahb, hurt, 
 lonely, and miserable, wandered 
 on and on, till he was away down 
 toward the Meteetsee.
 
 A Coyote came bounding and 
 barking through the sage-brush 
 after him. Wahb tried to run, but 
 it was no use ; the Coyote was soon 
 up with him. Then with a sudden 
 rush of desperate courage Wahb 
 turned and charged his foe. The 
 astonished Coyote gave a scared 
 yowl or two, and fled with his tail 
 between his legs. Thus Wahb 
 learned that war is the price of 
 peace. 
 
 But the forage was poor here; 
 there were too many cattle; and 
 Wahb was making for a far-away 
 pifion woods in the Meteetsee 
 Canon when he saw a man, just 
 like the one he had seen on that 
 day of sorrow. At the same mo- 
 ment he heard a bang, and some
 
 'A SAVAGE BOBCAT . . . WARNED HIM TO GO BACK.'
 
 sage-brush rattled and fell just 
 over his back. All the dreadful 
 smells and dangers of that day 
 came back to his memory, and 
 Wahb ran as he never had run be- 
 fore. 
 
 He soon got into a gully and fol- 
 lowed it into the canon. An open- 
 ing between two cliffs seemed to 
 offer shelter, but as he ran toward 
 it a Range-cow came trotting be- 
 tween, shaking her head at him and 
 snorting threats against his life. 
 
 He leaped aside upon a long log 
 that led up a bank, but at once a 
 savage Bobcat appeared on the 
 other end and warned him to go 
 back. It was no time to quarrel. 
 Bitterly Wahb felt that the world 
 was full of enemies. But he turned
 
 and scrambled up a rocky bank 
 into the pirion woods that border 
 the benches of the Meteetsee. 
 
 The Pine Squirrels seemed to 
 resent his coming, and barked furi- 
 ously. They were thinking about 
 their pifion-nuts. They knew that 
 this Bear was coming to steal their 
 provisions, and they followed him 
 overhead to scold and abuse him, 
 with such an outcry that an enemy 
 might have followed him by their 
 noise, which was exactly what they 
 intended. 
 
 There was no one following, but 
 it made Wahb uneasy and nervous. 
 So he kept on till he reached the 
 timber line, where both food and 
 foes were scarce, and here on the 
 edge of the Mountain-sheep land 
 v at last he got a chance to rest. 
 
 K
 
 IV 
 
 AHB never was 
 
 sweet-tempered like 
 his baby sister, and 
 the persecutions by 
 his numerous foes 
 were making him more and more 
 sour. Why could not they let him 
 alone in his misery? Why was 
 every one against him? If only 
 he had his Mother back! If he 
 could only have killed that Black- 
 bear that had driven him from his 
 woods! It did not occur to him 
 that some day he himself would be
 
 big. And that spiteful Bobcat, that 
 took advantage of him; and the 
 man that had tried to kill him. He 
 did not forget any of them, and 
 he hated them all. 
 
 Wahb found his new range fairly 
 good, because it was a good nut 
 year. He learned just what the 
 Squirrels feared he would, for his 
 nose directed him to the little gran- 
 aries where they had stored up 
 great quantities of nuts for winter's 
 use. It was hard on the Squirrels, 
 but it was good luck for Wahb, for 
 the nuts were delicious food. And 
 when the days shortened and the 
 nights began to be frosty, he had 
 grown fat and well-favored. 
 
 He traveled over all parts of the 
 canon now, living mostly in the
 
 higher woods, but coming down at 
 times to forage almost as far as the 
 river. One night as he wandered 
 by the deep water a peculiar smell 
 reached his nose. It was quite 
 pleasant, so he followed it up to the 
 water's edge. It seemed to come 
 from a sunken log. As he reached 
 over toward this, there was a sud- 
 den clank, and one of his paws was 
 caught in a strong, steel Beaver- 
 trap. 
 
 Wahb yelled and jerked back 
 with all his strength, and tore up 
 the stake that held the trap. He 
 tried to shake it off, then ran away 
 through the bushes trailing it. He 
 tore at it with his teeth ; but there 
 it hung, quiet, cold, strong, and im- 
 movable. Every little while he
 
 tore at it with his teeth and claws, 
 or beat it against the ground. He 
 buried it in the earth, then climbed 
 a low tree, hoping to leave it be- 
 hind; but still it clung, biting into 
 his flesh. He made for his own 
 woods, and sat down to try to 
 puzzle it out. He did not know 
 what it was, but his little green- 
 brown eyes glared with a mixture 
 of pain, fright, and fury as he tried 
 to understand his new enemy. 
 
 He lay down under the bushes, 
 and, intent on deliberately crush ing 
 the thing, he held it down with one 
 paw while he tightened his teeth 
 on the other end, and bearing down 
 as it slid away, the trap jaws opened 
 and the foot was free. It was mere 
 chance, of course, that led him to
 
 squeeze both springs at once. He 
 did not understand it, but he did 
 not forget it, and he got these not 
 very clear ideas : * There is a dread- 
 ful little enemy that hides by the 
 water and waits for one. It has an 
 odd smell. It bites one's paws and 
 is too hard for one to bite. But it 
 can be got off by hard squeezing.' 
 
 For a week or more the little 
 Grizzly had another sore paw, but 
 it was not very bad if he did not do 
 any climbing. 
 
 It was now the season when the 
 Elk were bugling on the mountains. 
 Wahb heard them all night, and 
 once or twice had to climb to get 
 away from one of the big-antlered 
 Bulls. It was also the season when 
 the trappers were coming into the
 
 mountains, and the Wild Geese 
 were honking overhead. There 
 were several quite new smells in 
 the woods, too. Wahb followed 
 one of these up, and it led to a 
 place where were some small logs 
 piled together; then, mixed with 
 the smell that had drawn him, was 
 one that he hated he remem- 
 bered it from the time when he had 
 lost his Mother. He sniffed about 
 carefully, for it was not very strong, 
 and learned that this hateful smell 
 was on a log in front, and the 
 sweet smell that made his mouth 
 water was under some brush be- 
 hind. So he went around, pulled 
 away the brush till he got the prize, 
 a piece of meat, and as he grabbed 
 it, the log in front went down with 
 a heavy chock.
 
 It made Wahb jump ; but he got 
 away all right with the meat and 
 some new ideas, and with one old 
 idea made stronger, and that was, 
 ' When that hateful smell is around 
 it always means trouble.' 
 
 As the weather grew colder, 
 Wahb became very sleepy; he 
 slept all day when it was frosty. He 
 had not any fixed place to sleep in ; 
 he knew a number of dry ledges 
 for sunny weather, and one or two 
 sheltered nooks for stormy days. 
 He had a very comfortable nest un- 
 der a root, and one day, as it began 
 to blow and snow, he crawled into 
 this and curled up to sleep. The 
 storm howled without. The snow 
 fell deeper and deeper. It draped 
 the pine-trees till they bowed, then 
 shook themselves clearto be draped
 
 anew. 
 
 It drifted over the moun- 
 tains and poured down the funnel- 
 like ravines, blowing off the peaks 
 and ridges, and filling up the hol- 
 lows level with their rims It piled 
 up over Wahb's den, shutting out 
 the cold of the winter, shutting out 
 itself: and Wahb slept and slept.
 
 'E slept all winter with- 
 out waking, for such 
 is the way of Bears, 
 and yet when spring 
 came and aroused 
 him, he knew that he had been 
 asleep a long time. He was not 
 much changed he had grown in 
 height, and yet was but little thin- 
 ner. He was now very hungry, and 
 forcing his way through the deep 
 drift that still lay over his den, he 
 set out to look for food.
 
 There were no pinon-nuts to get, 
 and no berries or ants ; but Wahb's 
 nose led him away up the canon to 
 the body of a winter-killed Elk, 
 where he had a fine feast, and then 
 buried the rest for future use. 
 
 Day after day he came back till 
 he had finished it. Food was very 
 scarce for a couple of months, and 
 after the Elk was eaten, Wahb lost 
 all the fat he had when he awoke. 
 One day he climbed over the Di- 
 vide into the Warhouse Valley. It 
 was warm and sunny there, vege- 
 tation was well advanced, and he 
 found good forage. He wandered 
 down toward the thick timber, and 
 soon smelled the smell of another 
 Grizzly. This grew stronger and 
 led him to a single tree by a Bear- 
 trail. Wahb reared up on his hind
 
 feet to smell this tree. Itwasstrong 
 of Bear, and was plastered with 
 mud and Grizzly hair far higher 
 than he could reach ; and Wahb 
 knew that it must have been a very 
 large Bear that had rubbed him- 
 self there. He felt uneasy. He 
 used to long to meet one of his own 
 kind, yet now that there was a 
 chance of it he was filled with 
 dread. 
 
 No one had shown him anything 
 but hatred in his lonely, unprotected 
 life, and he could not tell what this 
 older Bear might do. As he stood 
 in doubt, he caught sight of the old 
 Grizzly himself slouching along a 
 hillside, stopping from time to time 
 to dig up the quamash-roots and 
 wild turnips. 
 
 He was a monster. Wahbinstinc-
 
 tively distrusted him, and sneaked 
 away through the woods and up a 
 rocky bluff where he could watch. 
 
 Then the big fellow came on 
 Wahb's track and rumbled a deep 
 growl of anger; he followed the 
 trail to the tree, and rearing up, he 
 tore the bark with his claws, far 
 above where Wahb had reached. 
 Then he strode rapidly along 
 Wahb's trail. But the cub had seen 
 enough. He fled back over the Di- 
 vide into the Meteetsee Canon, and 
 realized in his dim, bearish way 
 that he was at peace there because 
 the Bear-forage was so poor. 
 
 As the summer came on, his 
 coat was shed. His skin got very 
 itchy, and he found pleasure in 
 rolling in the mud and scraping his
 
 back against some convenient tree. 
 He never climbed now: his claws 
 were too long, and his arms, though 
 growing big and strong, were losing 
 that suppleness of wrist that makes 
 cub Grizzlies and all Blackbears 
 great climbers. He now dropped 
 naturally into the Bear habit of 
 seeing how high he could reach 
 with his nose on the rubbing-post, 
 whenever he was near one. 
 
 He may not have noticed it, yet 
 each time he came to a post, after 
 a week or two away, he could reach 
 higher, for Wahb was growing fast 
 and coming into his strength. 
 
 Sometimes he was at one end of 
 the country that he felt was his, 
 and sometimes at another, but he 
 had frequent use for the rubbing-
 
 tree, and thus it was that his range 
 was mapped out by posts with his 
 own mark on them. 
 
 One day late in summer he 
 sighted a stranger on his land, a 
 glossy Blackbear, and he felt furi- 
 ous against the interloper. As the 
 Blackbear came nearer Wahb no- 
 ticed the tan-red face, the white 
 spot on his breast, and then the bit 
 out of his ear, and last of all the 
 wind brought a whiff. There could 
 be no further doubt ; it was the very 
 smell: this was the black coward 
 that had chased him down the 
 Piney long ago. But how he had 
 shrunken! Before, he had looked 
 like a giant; now Wahb felt he 
 could crush him with one paw. Re- 
 venge is sweet, Wahb felt, though
 
 he did not exactly say it, and he 
 went for that red-nosed Bear. But 
 the Black one went up a small tree 
 like a Squirrel. Wahb tried to fol- 
 low as the other once followed 
 him, but somehow he could not. 
 He did not seem to know how to 
 take hold now, and after a while he 
 gave it up and went away, although 
 the Blackbear brought him back 
 more than once by coughing in de- 
 rision. Later on that day, when 
 the Grizzly passed again, the red- 
 nosed one had gone. 
 
 As the summer waned, the up- 
 per forage-grounds began to give 
 out, and Wahb ventured down to 
 the Lower Meteetsee one night to 
 explore. There was a pleasant 
 odor on the breeze, and following
 
 it up, Wahb came to the carcass 
 of a Steer. A good distance away 
 from it were some tiny Coyotes, 
 mere dwarfs compared with those 
 he remembered. Right by the car- 
 cass was another that jumped 
 about in the moonlight in a fool- 
 ish way. For some strange reason 
 it seemed unable to get away. 
 Wahb's old hatred broke out. He 
 rushed up. In a flash the Coyote 
 bit him several times before, with 
 one blow of that great paw, Wahb 
 smashed him into a limp, furry rag ; 
 then broke in all his ribs with a 
 crunch or two of his jaws. Oh, 
 but it was good to feel the hot, 
 bloody juices oozing between his 
 teeth! 
 
 The Coyote was caught in a
 
 trap. Wahb hated the smell of the 
 iron, so he went to the other side 
 of the carcass, where it was not so 
 strong, and had eaten but little be- 
 fore clank, and his foot was caught 
 in a Wolf-trap that he had not seen. 
 But he remembered that he had 
 once before been caught and had 
 escaped by squeezing the trap. 
 He set a hind foot on each spring 
 and pressed till the trap opened 
 and released his paw^ About the 
 carcass was the smell that he knew 
 stood for man, so he left it and wan- 
 dered down-stream ; but more and 
 more often he got whiffs of that hor- 
 rible odor, so he turned and went 
 back to his quiet pinon benches.
 
 PART II 
 
 THE DAYS OF HIS STRENGTH
 
 I 
 
 'AHB'S third sum- 
 rner had brought 
 him the stature of 
 a large-sized Bear, 
 though not nearly 
 the bulk and power that in time 
 were his. He was very light-col- 
 ored now, and this was why Spah- 
 wat, a Shoshone Indian who more 
 than once hunted him, called him 
 the Whitebear, or Wahb. 
 
 Spahwat was a good hunter, and 
 as soon as he saw the rubbing-tree
 
 on the Upper Meteetsee he knew 
 that he was on the range of a big 
 Grizzly. He bushwhacked the 
 whole valley, and spent many days 
 before he found a chance to shoot; 
 then Wahb got a stinging flesh- 
 wound in the shoulder. Hegrowled 
 horribly, but it had seemed to take 
 the fight out of him ; he scrambled 
 up the valley and over the lower 
 hills till he reached a quiet haunt, 
 where he lay down. 
 
 His knowledge of healing was 
 wholly instinctive. He licked the 
 wound and all around it, and sought 
 to be quiet. The licking removed 
 the dirt, and by massage reduced 
 the inflammation, and it plastered 
 the hair down as a sort of dressing 
 over the wound to keep out the
 
 air, dirt, and microbes. There 
 could be no better treatment. 
 
 But the Indian was on his trail. 
 Before long the smell warned Wahb 
 that a foe was coming, so he quiet- 
 ly climbed farther up the moun- 
 tain to another resting-place. But 
 again he sensed the Indian's ap- 
 proach, and made off. Several 
 times this happened, and at length 
 there was a second shot and an- 
 other galling wound. Wahb was 
 furious now. There was nothing 
 that really frightened him but that 
 horrible odor of man, iron, and guns, 
 that he remembered from the day 
 when he lost his Mother; but now 
 all fear of these left him. He 
 heaved painfully up the mountain 
 again, and along under a six-foot
 
 ledge, then up and back to the top 
 of the bank, where he lay flat. On 
 came the Indian, armed with knife 
 and gun ; deftly, swiftly keeping on 
 the trail ; gloating joyfully over each 
 bloody print that meant such an- 
 guish to the hunted Bear. Straight 
 up the slide of broken rock he 
 came, where Wahb, ferocious with 
 pain, was waiting on the ledge. On 
 sneaked the dogged hunter; his 
 eye still scanned the bloody slots 
 or swept the woods ahead, but 
 never was raised to glance above 
 the ledge. And Wahb, as he saw 
 this shape of Death relentless on 
 his track, and smelled the hated 
 smell, poised his bulk at heavy 
 cost upon his quivering, mangled 
 arm, there held until the proper
 
 1 HE STRUCK ONE FEARFUL, CRUSHING BLOW.'
 
 instant came, then to his sound 
 arm's matchless native force he 
 added all the weight of desperate 
 hate as down he struck one fearful, 
 crushing blow. The Indian sank 
 without a cry, and then dropped 
 out of sight. Wahb rose, and 
 sought again a quiet nook where 
 he might nurse his wounds. Thus 
 he learned that one must fight for 
 peace; for he never saw that In- 
 dian again, and he had time to rest 
 and recover.
 
 II 
 
 H E years went on as 
 before, except that 
 each winter Wahb 
 slept less soundly, 
 and each spring he 
 came out earlier and was a bigger 
 Grizzly, with fewer enemies that 
 dared to face him. When his sixth 
 year came he was a very big, strong, 
 sullen Bear, with neither friend- 
 ship nor love in his life since that 
 evil day on the Lower Piney. 
 No one ever heard of Wahb's
 
 mate. No one believes that he ever 
 had one. The love-season of Bears 
 came and went year after year, but 
 left him alone in his prime as he 
 had been in his youth. It is not 
 good for a Bear to be alone; it is 
 bad for him in every way. His ha- 
 bitual moroseness grew with his 
 strength, and any one chancing to 
 meet him now would have called 
 him a dangerous Grizzly. 
 
 He had lived in the Meteetsee 
 Valley since first he betook him- 
 self there, and his character had 
 been shaped by many little adven- 
 tures with traps and his wild rivals 
 of the mountains. But there was 
 none of the latter that henow feared, 
 and he knew enough to avoid the 
 first, for that penetrating odor of
 
 man and iron was a never-failing 
 warning, especially after an experi- 
 ence which befell him in his sixth 
 year. 
 
 His ever-reliable nose told him 
 that there was a dead Elk down 
 among the timber. 
 
 He went up the wind, and there, 
 sure enough, was the great de- 
 licious carcass, already torn open 
 at the very best place. True, there 
 was that terrible man-and-iron 
 taint, but it was so slight and the 
 feast so tempting that after circling 
 around and inspecting the carcass 
 from his eight feet of stature, as he 
 stood erect, he went cautiously for- 
 ward, and at once was caught by 
 his left paw in an enormous Bear- 
 trap. He roared with pain and
 
 slashed about in a fury. But this 
 was no Beaver-trap; it was a big 
 forty-pound Bear-catcher, and he 
 was surely caught. 
 
 Wahb fairly foamed with rage, 
 and madly grit his teeth upon the 
 trap. Then he remembered his 
 former experiences. He placed the 
 trap between his hind legs, with a 
 hind paw on each spring, and 
 pressed down with all his weight. 
 But it was not enough. He dragged 
 off the trap and its clog, and went 
 clanking up the mountain. Again 
 and again he tried to free his foot, 
 but in vain, till he came where a 
 great trunk crossed the trail a few 
 feet from the ground. By chance, 
 or happy thought, he reared again 
 under this and made a new attempt.
 
 With a hind foot on each spring 
 and his- mighty shoulders under- 
 neath the tree, he bore down 
 with his titanic strength : the great 
 steel springs gave way, the jaws 
 relaxed, and he tore out his foot. 
 So Wahb was free again, though 
 he left behind a great toe which 
 had been nearly severed by the 
 first snap of the steel. 
 
 Again Wahb had a painful wound 
 to nurse, and as he was a left- 
 handed Bear, that is, when he 
 wished to turn a rock over he stood 
 on the right paw and turned with 
 the left, one result of this dis- 
 ablement was to rob him for a time 
 of all those dainty foods that are 
 found under rocks or logs. The 
 wound healed at last, but he never
 
 forgot that experience, and thence- 
 forth the pungent smell of man and 
 iron, even without the gun smell, 
 never failed to enrage him. 
 
 Many experiences had taught 
 him that it is better to run if he 
 only smelled the hunter or heard 
 him far away, but to fight despe- 
 rately if the man was close at hand. 
 And the cow-boys soon came to 
 know that the Upper Meteetsee 
 was the range of a Bear that was 
 better let alone.
 
 HI 
 
 'NE day after a long 
 absence Wahb came 
 into the lower part 
 of his range, and saw 
 to his surprise one 
 of the wooden dens that men make 
 forthemselves. As he came around 
 to get the wind, he sensed the taint 
 that never failed to infuriate him 
 now t and a moment later he heard 
 a loud bang and felt a stinging shock 
 in his left hind leg, the old stiff leg. 
 He wheeled about, in time to see a 
 man running toward the new-made
 
 shanty. Had the shot been in his 
 shoulder Wahb would have been 
 helpless, but it was not. 
 
 MIGHTY arms that could toss pine 
 logs like broomsticks, paws that 
 with one tap could crush the biggest 
 Bull upon the range, claws that 
 could tear huge slabs of rock from 
 the mountain-side what was even 
 the deadly rifle to them ! 
 
 WHEN the man's partner came 
 home that night he found him on 
 the reddened shanty floor. The 
 bloody trail from outside and a 
 shaky, scribbled note on the back 
 of a paper novel told the tale. 
 
 It was Wahb done it. I seen him by the 
 spring and wounded him. I tried to git on 
 the shanty, but he ketched me. My God, 
 how I suffer I JACK,
 
 It was all fair. The man had 
 invaded the Bear's country, had 
 .i' /..^ tried to take the Bear's life, and 
 ; . had lost his own. But Jack's part- 
 / ' ner swore he would kill that Bear. 
 "* He took up the trail and followed 
 
 it up the canon, and there bush- 
 whacked and hunted day after day. 
 He put out baits and traps, and at 
 length one day he heard a crash, 
 clatter, thump, and a huge rock 
 bounded down a bank into a wood, 
 scaring out a couple of deer that 
 floated away like thistle-down. 
 Miller thought at first that it was a 
 land-slide; but he soon knew that 
 it was Wahb that had rolled the 
 boulder over merely for the sake 
 of two or three ants beneath it. 
 The wind had not betrayed him,
 
 so on peering through the bush 
 Miller saw the great Bear as he 
 fed, favoring his left hind leg and 
 growling sullenly to himself at a 
 fresh twinge of pain. Miller stea- 
 died himself, and thought, "Here 
 goes a finisher or a dead miss." 
 He gave a sharp whistle, the Bear 
 stopped every move, and, as he 
 stood with ears acock, the man 
 fired at his head. 
 
 But at that moment the great 
 shaggy head moved, only an infuri- 
 ating scratch was given, the smoke 
 betrayed the man's place, and the 
 Grizzly made savage, three-legged 
 haste to catch his foe. 
 
 Miller dropped his gun and 
 swung lightly into a tree, the only 
 large one near. Wahb raged in
 
 vain against the trunk. He tore 
 off the bark with his teeth and 
 claws; but Miller was safe beyond 
 his reach. For fully four hours the 
 Grizzly watched, then gave it up, 
 and slowly went off into the bushes 
 till lost to view. Miller watched 
 him from the tree, and afterward 
 waited nearly an hour to be sure 
 that the Bear was gone. He then 
 slipped to the ground, got his gun, 
 and set out for camp. But Wahb 
 was cunning; he had only seemed 
 to go away, and then had sneaked 
 back quietly to watch. As soon as 
 the man was away from the tree, 
 too far to return, Wahb dashed 
 after him. In spite of his wounds 
 the Bear could move the faster. 
 Within a quarter of a mile well,
 
 Wahb did just what the man had 
 sworn to do to him. 
 
 Long afterward his friends found 
 the gun and enough to tell the tale. 
 
 The claim-shanty on the Me- 
 teetsee fell to pieces. It never 
 again was used, for no man cared 
 to enter a country that had but few 
 allurements to offset its evident 
 curse of ill luck, and where such a 
 terrible Grizzly was always on the 
 war-path.
 
 IV 
 
 HEN they found 
 good gold on the 
 Upper Meteetsee. 
 Miners came in 
 pairs and wandered 
 through the peaks, rooting up 
 the ground and spoiling the little 
 streams grizzly old men mostly, 
 that had lived their lives in the 
 mountain and were themselves 
 slowly turning into Grizzly Bears; 
 digging and grubbing everywhere, 
 not for good, wholesome roots, but
 
 
 '"AIN'T HE AN AWFUL SIZE, THOUGH?"
 
 for that shiny yellow sand that they 
 could not eat; living the lives of 
 Grizzlies, asking nothing but to be 
 let alone to dig. 
 
 They seemed to understand 
 Grizzly Wahb. The first time they 
 met, Wahb reared up on his hind 
 legs, and the wicked green light- 
 nings began to twinkle in his small 
 eyes. The elder man said to his 
 mate: 
 
 " Let him alone, and he won't 
 bother you." 
 
 " Ain'the an awful size, though ?" 
 replied the other, nervously. 
 
 Wahb was about to charge, but 
 something held him back a some- 
 thing that had no reference to his 
 senses, that was felt only when 
 they were still; a something that
 
 in Bear and Man is wiser than his 
 wisdom, and that points the way 
 at every doubtful fork in the dim 
 and winding trail* 
 
 Of course Wahb did not under- 
 stand what the men said, but he 
 did feel that there was something 
 different here. The smell of man 
 and iron was there, but not of that 
 maddening kind, and he missed 
 the pungent odor that even yet 
 brought back the dark days of his 
 cubhood. 
 
 The men did not move, so Wahb 
 rumbled a subterranean growl, 
 dropped down on his four feet, and 
 went on. 
 
 Late the same year Wahb ran 
 j across the red-nosed Blackbear. 
 
 f How that Bear did keep on shrink-
 
 ing ! Wahb could have hurled him 
 across the Graybull with one tap 
 now. 
 
 But the Blackbear did not mean 
 to let him try. He hustled his fat, 
 podgy body up a tree at a rate that 
 made him puff. Wahb reached up 
 nine feet from the ground, and with 
 one rake of his huge claws tore 
 off the bark clear to the shining 
 white wood and down nearly to 
 the ground; and the Blackbear 
 shivered and whimpered with ter- 
 ror as the scraping of those awful 
 claws ran up the trunk and up his 
 spine in a way that was horribly 
 suggestive. 
 
 What was it that the sight of 
 that Blackbear stirred in Wahb? 
 Was it memories of the Upper
 
 Piney, long forgotten ; thoughts of 
 a woodland rich in food? 
 
 Wahb left him trembling up there 
 as high as he could get, and with- 
 out any very clear purpose swung 
 along the upper benches of the 
 Meteetsee down to the Graybull, 
 around the foot of the Rimrock 
 Mountain; on, till hours later he 
 found himself in the timber-tangle 
 of the Lower Piney, and among 
 the berries and ants of the old 
 times. 
 
 He had forgotten what a fine 
 land the Piney was : plenty of food, 
 no miners to spoil the streams, no 
 hunters to keep an eye on, and no 
 mosquitos or flies, but plenty of 
 open, sunny glades and sheltering 
 woods, backed up by high, straight 
 cliffs to turn the colder winds.
 
 There were, moreover, no resi- 
 dent Grizzlies, no signs even of 
 passing travelers, and the Black- 
 bears that were in possession did 
 not count. 
 
 Wc*hb was well pleased. He 
 rolled his vast bulk in an old Buf- 
 falo-wallow, and rearing up against 
 a tree where the Piney Canon quits 
 the Graybull Canon, he left on it 
 his mark fully eight feet from the 
 ground. 
 
 In the days that followed he 
 wandered farther and farther up 
 among the rugged spurs of the 
 Shoshones, and took possession 
 as he went. He found the sign- 
 boards of several Blackbears, and 
 if they were small dead trees he 
 sent them crashing to earth with a 
 drive of his giant paw. If they
 
 were green, he put his own mark 
 over the other mark, and made it 
 clearer by slashing the bark with 
 the great pickaxes that grew on 
 his toes. 
 
 The Upper Piney had so long 
 been a Blackbear range that the 
 Squirrels had ceased storing their 
 harvest in hollow trees, and were 
 now using the spaces under flat 
 rocks, where the Blackbears could 
 not get at them; so Wahb found 
 this a land of plenty: every fourth 
 or fifth rock in the pine woods was 
 the roof of a Squirrel or Chip- 
 munk granary, and when he turned 
 it over, if the little owner were 
 there, Wahb did not scruple to 
 flatten him with his paw and de- 
 vour him as an agreeable relish to 
 his own provisions.
 
 And wherever Wahb went he 
 put up his sign-board: 
 
 Trespassers beware ! 
 
 It was written on the trees as 
 high up as he could reach, and 
 every one that came by understood 
 that the scent of it and the hair in 
 it were those of the great Grizzly 
 Wahb. 
 
 If his Mother had lived to train 
 him, Wahb would have known that 
 a good range in spring may be a 
 bad one in summer. Wahb found 
 out by years of experience that a 
 total change with the seasons is 
 best. In the early spring the Cat- 
 tle and Elk ranges, with their win- 
 ter-killed carcasses, offer a boun- 
 tiful feast. In early summer the 
 best forage is on the warm hill- 

 
 sides where the quamash and the 
 Indian turnip grow. In late sum- 
 mer the berry-bushes along the 
 river-flat are laden with fruit, and 
 in autumn the pine woods gave 
 good chances to fatten for the win- 
 ter. So he added to his range each 
 year. He not only cleared out the 
 Blackbears from the Pineyand the 
 Meteetsee, but he went over the 
 Divide and killed that old fellow 
 that had once chased him out of 
 the Warhouse Valley. And, more 
 than that, he held what he had 
 won, for he broke up a camp of 
 tenderfeet that were looking for a 
 ranch location on the Middle Me- 
 teetsee; he stampeded their horses, 
 and made general smash of the 
 camp. And so all the animals, in-
 
 eluding man, came to know that 
 the whole range from Frank's Peak 
 to the Shoshone spurs was the pro- 
 per domain of a king well able to 
 defend it, and the name of that king 
 was Meteetsee Wahb. 
 
 Any creature whose strength 
 puts him beyond danger of open 
 attack is apt to lose in cunning. 
 Yet Wahb never forgot his early 
 experience with the traps. He 
 made it a rule never to go near that 
 smell of man and iron, and that 
 was the reason that he never again 
 was caught. 
 
 So he led his lonely life and 
 slouched around on the mountains, 
 throwing boulders about like peb- 
 bles, and huge trunks like match- 
 wood, as he sought for his daily
 
 { 
 
 food. And every beast of hill and 
 plain soon came to know and fly in 
 fear of Wahb, the one time hunted, 
 persecuted Cub. And more than 
 one Blackbear paid with his life for 
 the ill-deed of that other, lorn* ago. 
 And many a cranky Bobcat flying 
 before him took to a tree, and if 
 that tree were dead and dry, Wahb 
 heaved it down, and tree and Cat 
 alike were dashed to bits. Even 
 the proud-necked Stallion, leader 
 of the mustang band, thought well 
 for once to yield the road. The 
 great, grey Timberwolves, and the 
 Mountain Lions too, left their new 
 kill and sneaked in sullen fear aside 
 when Wahb appeared. And if, as 
 he hulked across the sage-covered 
 river-flat sending the scared An-
 
 telope skimming like birds before 
 him, he was faced perchance, by 
 some burly Range-bull, too young 
 to be wise and too big to be afraid, 
 Wahb smashed his skull with one 
 blow of that giant paw, and served 
 him as the Range-cow would have 
 served himself long years ago. 
 
 The All-mother never fails to 
 offer to her own, twin cups, one 
 gall, and one of balm. Little or 
 much they may drink, but equally 
 of each. The mountain that is 
 easy to descend must soon be 
 climbed again. The grinding hard- 
 ship of Wahb's early days, had 
 built his mighty frame. All usual 
 pleasures of a grizzly's life had 
 been denied him but power be- 
 stowed in more than double share.
 
 So he lived on year after year, 
 unsoftened by mate or compan- 
 ion, sullen, fearing nothing, ready 
 to fight, but asking only to be let 
 alone quite alone. He had but 
 one keen pleasure in his sombre 
 life the lasting glory in his match- 
 less strength the small but never 
 failing thrill of joy as the foe fell 
 crushed and limp, or the riven 
 boulders grit and heaved when he 
 turned on them the measure of his 
 wondrous force.
 
 EVERYTHING has 
 
 a smell of its own 
 for those that have 
 noses to smell. Wahb 
 had been learning 
 smells all his life, and knew the 
 meaning of most of those in the 
 mountains. It was as though each 
 and every thing had a voice of its 
 own for him; and yet it was far 
 better than a voice, for every one 
 knows that a good nose is better 
 than eyes and ears together. And
 
 each of these myriads of voices 
 kept on crying, " Here and such 
 am I." 
 
 The juniper-berries, the rose- 
 hips, the strawberries, each had a 
 soft, sweet little voice, calling, 
 "Here we are Berries, Berries/' 
 
 The great pine woods had a 
 loud, far-reaching voice, " Here 
 are we, the Pine-trees/' but when 
 he got right up to them Wahb 
 could hear the low, sweet call of 
 the pinon-nuts, " Here are we, the 
 Pinon-nuts." 
 
 And the quamash beds in May 
 sang a perfect chorus when the 
 wind was right: "Quamash beds, 
 Quamash beds." 
 
 And when he got among them 
 he made out each single voice.
 
 Each root had its own little piece 
 to say to his nose: " Here am I, a 
 big Quamash, rich and ripe/' or 
 a tiny, sharp voice, "Here am I, 
 a good-for-nothing, stringy little 
 root." 
 
 And the broad, rich russulas in 
 the autumn called aloud, " I am a 
 fat, wholesome Mushroom," and 
 the deadly amanita cried, " I am an 
 Amanita. Let me alone, or you'll 
 be a sick Bear." And the fairy 
 harebell of the canon-banks sang 
 a song too, as fine as its thread- 
 like stem, and as soft as its dainty 
 blue; but the warden of the smells 
 had learned to report it not, for 
 this, and a million other such, were 
 of no interest to Wahb. 
 
 So every living thing that moved,
 
 and every flower that grew, and 
 every rock and stone and shape 
 on earth told out its tale and sang 
 its little story to his nose. Day or 
 night, fog or bright that great, 
 moist nose told him most of the 
 things he needed to know, or 
 passed unnoticed those of no con- 
 cern, and he depended on it more 
 and more. If his eyes and ears to- 
 gether reported so and so, he would 
 not even then believe it until his 
 nose said, u Yes; that is right." 
 
 But this is something that man 
 cannot understand, for he has sold 
 the birthright of his nose for the 
 privilege of living in towns. 
 
 While hundreds of smells were 
 agreeable to Wahb, thousands 
 were indifferent to him, a good
 
 many were unpleasant, and some 
 actually put him in a rage. 
 
 He had often noticed that if a 
 West wind were blowing when he 
 was at the head of the Piney 
 Canon there was an odd, new 
 scent. Some days he did not mind 
 it, and some days it disgusted 
 him; but he never followed it up. 
 On other days a north wind from 
 the high Divide brought a most 
 awful smell, something unlike any 
 other, a smell that he wanted only 
 to get away from. 
 
 WAHB was getting well past his 
 youth now, and he began to have 
 pains in the hind leg that had been 
 wounded so often. After a cold 
 night or a long time of wet weather
 
 he could scarcely use that leg, and 
 one day, while thus crippled, the 
 west wind came down the canon 
 with an odd message to his nose. 
 Wahb could not clearly read the 
 message, but it seemed to say, 
 * Come/ and something within him 
 said, 'Go.' The smell of food will 
 draw a hungry creature and disgust 
 a gorged one. We do not know 
 why, and all that any one can learn 
 is that the desire springs from a 
 need of the body. So Wahb felt 
 drawn by what had long disgusted 
 him, and he slouched up the moun- 
 tain path, grumbling to himself and 
 slapping savagely back at branches 
 that chanced to switch his face. 
 
 The odd odor grew very strong ; 
 it led him where he had never been
 
 before up a bank of whitish sand 
 to a bench of the same color, where 
 there was unhealthy-looking water 
 running down, and a kind of fog 
 coming out of a hole. Wahb threw 
 up his nose suspiciously such a 
 peculiar smell! He climbed the 
 bench. 
 
 A snake wriggled across the 
 sand in front. Wahb crushed it 
 with a blow that made the near 
 trees shiver and sent a balanced 
 boulder toppling down, and he 
 growled a growl that rumbled up 
 the valley like distant thunder. 
 Then he came to the foggy hole. 
 It was full of water that moved 
 gently and steamed. Wahb put in 
 his foot, and found it was quite 
 warm and that it felt pleasantly on
 
 his skin. He put in both feet, and 
 little by little went in farther, caus- 
 ing the pool to overflow on all 
 sides, till he was lying at full length 
 in the warm, almost hot, sulphur- 
 spring, and sweltering in the green- 
 ish water, while the wind drifted 
 the steam about overhead. 
 
 There are plenty of these sul- 
 phur-springs in the Rockies, but 
 this chanced to be the only one on 
 Wahb's range. He lay in it for 
 over an hour; then, feeling that he 
 had had enough, he heaved his 
 huge bulk up on the bank, and 
 realized that he was feeling re- 
 markably well and supple. The 
 stiffness of his hind leg was gone. 
 
 He shook the water from his 
 shaggy coat. A broad ledge in full
 
 CAUSING THE POOL TO OVERFLOW.
 
 sun-heat invited him to stretch 
 himself out and dry. But first he 
 reared against the nearest tree and 
 left a mark that none could mis- 
 take. True, there were plenty of 
 signs of other animals using the 
 sulphur-bath for their ills; but 
 what of it? Thenceforth that tree 
 bore this inscription, in a language 
 of mud, hair, and smell, that every 
 mountain creature could read : 
 
 My bath. Keep away I 
 
 (Signed) WAHB. 
 I] 
 
 H Wahb lay 'on his belly till his 
 
 j/ i N back was dry, then turned on his 
 f I broad back and squirmed about in 
 i r I a ponderous way till the broiling 
 : p* sun had wholly dried him. He
 
 realized that he was really feeling 
 very well now. He did not say to 
 himself, " I am troubled with that 
 unpleasant disease called rheuma- 
 tism, and sulphur-bath treatment 
 is the thing to cure it." But what 
 he did know was, " I have dreadful 
 pains; I feel better when I am in 
 this stinking pool." So thenceforth 
 he came back whenever the pains 
 began again, and each time he was 
 cured.
 
 PART III 
 
 THE WANING 
 
 W% "h 
 
 fcfc fef 
 
 IW*XAf> ^QA^O;
 
 I 
 
 'EARS went by. 
 Wahb grew no big- 
 ger, there was no 
 need for that, but 
 he got whiter, cross- 
 er, and more dangerous. He really 
 had an enormous range now. Each 
 spring, after the winter storms 
 had removed his notice-boards, he 
 went around and renewed them. 
 It was natural to do so, for, first of 
 all, the scarcity of food compelled 
 him to travel all over the range.
 
 There were lots of clay wallows at 
 that season, and the itching of his 
 skin, as the winter coat began to 
 shed, made the dressing of cool, 
 wet clay very pleasant, and the 
 exquisite pain of a good scratch- 
 ing was one of the finest pleasures 
 he knew. So, whatever his motive, 
 the result was the same: the signs 
 were renewed each spring. 
 
 At length the Palette Ranch out- 
 fit appeared on the Lower Piney, 
 and the men got acquainted with 
 the 'ugly old fellow.' The Cow- 
 punchers, when they saw him, de- 
 cided they 'had n't lost any Bears 
 and they had better keep out of his 
 way and lethim mind his business.' 
 
 They did not often see him, al- 
 though his tracks and sign-boards
 
 were everywhere. But the owner 
 of this outfit, a born hunter, took a 
 keen interest in Wahb. He learned 
 something of the old Bear's his- 
 tory from Colonel Pickett, and 
 found out for himself more than 
 the colonel ever knew. 
 
 He learned that Wahb ranged 
 as far south as the Upper Wiggins 
 Fork and north to the Stinking 
 Water, and from the Meteetsee to 
 the Shoshones. 
 
 He found that Wahb knew more 
 about Bear-traps than most trap- 
 pers do; that he either passed them 
 by or tore open the other end of the 
 bait-pen and dragged out the bait 
 without going near the trap, and 
 by accident or design Wahb some- 
 times sprang the trap with one of
 
 the logs that formed the pen. This 
 ranch-owner found also that Wahb 
 disappeared from his range each 
 year during the heat of the summer, 
 as completely as he did each win- 
 ter during his sleep.
 
 II 
 
 'ANY years ago a 
 wise government set 
 aside the head wa- 
 ters of the Yellow- 
 stone to be a sanc- 
 tuary of wild life forever. In the 
 limits of this great Wonderland the 
 ideal of the Royal Singer was to be 
 realized, and none were to harm or 
 make afraid. No violence was to 
 be offered to any bird or beast, no 
 ax was to be carried into its primi- 
 tive forests, and the streams were
 
 to flow on forever unpolluted by 
 mill or mine. All things were to 
 bear witness that such as this was 
 the West before the white man 
 came. 
 
 The wild animals quickly found 
 out all this. They soon learned 
 the boundaries of this unfenced 
 Park, and, as every one knows, 
 they show a different nature within 
 its sacred limits. They no longer 
 shun the face of man, they neither 
 fear nor attack him, and they are 
 even more tolerant of one another 
 in this land of refuge. 
 
 Peace and plenty are the sum of 
 earthly good; so, finding them 
 here, the wild creatures crowd 
 into the Park from the surround- 
 ing country in numbers not else- 
 where to be seen.
 
 The Bears are especially nu- 
 merous about the Fountain Ho- 
 tel. In the woods, a quarter of a 
 mile away, is a smooth open place 
 where the steward of the hotel has 
 all the broken and waste food put 
 out daily for the Bears, and the man 
 whose work it is has become the 
 Steward of the Bears' Banquet. 
 Each day it is spread, and each 
 year there are more Bears to par- 
 take of it. It is a common thing 
 now to see a dozen Bears feast- 
 ing there at one time. They are 
 of all kinds Black, Brown, Cin- 
 namon, Grizzly, Silvertip, Roach- 
 backs, big and small, families and 
 rangers, from all parts of the vast 
 surrounding country. All seem to 
 realize that in the Park no vio- 
 lence is allowed, and the most fe-
 
 rocious of them have here put on 
 a new behavior. Although scores 
 of Bears roam about this choice re- 
 sort, and sometimes quarrel among 
 themselves, not one of them has 
 ever yet harmed a man. 
 
 Year after year they have come 
 and gone. The passing travellers 
 see them. The men of the hotel 
 know many of them well. They 
 know that they show up each sum- 
 mer during the short season when 
 the hotel is in use, and that they 
 disappear again, no man knowing 
 whence they come or whither they 
 
 One day the owner of the Palette 
 Ranch came through the Park. 
 During his stay at the Fountain 
 Hotel, he went to the Bear ban-
 
 quet-hall at high meal-tide. There 
 were several Blackbears feasting, 
 but they made way for a huge 
 Silvertip Grizzly that came about 
 sundown. 
 
 "That, 11 said the man who was 
 acting as guide, "is the biggest 
 Grizzly in the Park; but he is a 
 peaceable sort, or Lud knows 
 what r d happen/' 
 
 " That ! TT said the ranchman, in 
 astonishment, as the Grizzly came 
 hulking nearer, and loomed up like 
 a load of hay among the piney 
 pillars of the Banquet Hall. " That! 
 If that is not Meteetsee Wahb, I 
 never saw a Bear in my life ! Why, 
 that is the worst Grizzly that ever 
 rolled a log in the Big Horn 
 Basin."
 
 "It ain't possible/' said the 
 other, "for he T s here every sum- 
 mer, July and August, an' I reckon 
 he don't live so far away." 
 
 "Well, that settles it," said the 
 ranchman; "July and August is 
 just the time we miss him on the 
 range ; and you can see for yourself 
 that he is a little lame behind and 
 has lost a claw of his left front foot. 
 Now I know where he puts in 
 his summers; but I did not sup- 
 pose that the old reprobate would 
 know enough to behave himself 
 away from home." 
 
 The big Grizzly became very 
 well known during the successive 
 hotel seasons. Once only did he 
 really behave ill, and that was the 
 first season he appeared, before
 
 he fully knew the ways of the 
 Park. 
 
 He wandered over to the hotel, 
 one day, and in at the front door. 
 In the hall he reared up his eight 
 feet of stature as the guests fled in 
 terror ; then he went into the clerk's 
 office. The man said: " All right; 
 if you need this office more than I 
 do, you can have it," and leaping 
 over the counter, locked himself in 
 the telegraph -off ice, to wire the 
 superintendent of the Park : " Old 
 Grizzly in the office now, seems 
 to want to run hotel; may we 
 shoot?" 
 
 The reply came: "No shooting 
 allowed in Park; use the hose." 
 Which they did, and, wholly taken 
 by surprise, the Bear leaped over
 
 the counter too, and ambled out 
 the back way, with a heavy thud- 
 thudding of his feet, and a rattling 
 of his claws on the floor. He 
 passed through the kitchen as he 
 went, and, picking up a quarter of 
 beef, took it along. 
 
 This was the only time he was 
 known to do ill, though on one oc- 
 casion he was led into a breach 
 of the peace by another Bear. 
 This was a large she-Blackbear 
 and a noted mischief-maker. She 
 had a wretched, sickly cub that 
 she was very proud of so proud 
 that she went out of her way to 
 seek trouble on his behalf. And 
 he, like all spoiled children, was 
 the cause of much bad feeling. 
 She was so big and fierce that she
 
 fk#, 
 
 could bully all the other Black- 
 bears, but when she tried to drive 
 off old Wahb she received a pat 
 from his paw that sent her tumbling 
 like a football. He followed her 
 up, and would have killed her, for 
 she had broken the peace of the 
 Park, but she escaped by climbing 
 a tree, from the top of which her 
 miserable little cub was apprehen- 
 sively squealing at the pitch of his 
 voice. So the affair was ended; in 
 future the Blackbear kept out of 
 Wahb's way, and he won the repu- 
 tation of being a peaceable, well- 
 behaved Bear. Most persons be- 
 lieved that he came from some 
 remote mountains where were 
 neither guns nor traps to make 
 him sullen and revengeful.
 
 Ill 
 
 ,VERY one knows 
 that a Bitter-root 
 Grizzly is a bad 
 Bear. The Bitter- 
 root Range is the 
 roughest part of the mountains. 
 The ground is everywhere cut up 
 with deep ravines and overgrown 
 with dense and tangled under- 
 brush. 
 
 It is an impossible country for 
 horses, and difficult for gunners, 
 and there is any amount of good
 
 Bear-pasture. So there are plenty 
 of Bears and plenty of trappers. 
 
 The Roachbacks, as the Bitter- 
 root Grizzlies are called, are a 
 cunning and desperate race. An 
 old Roachback knows more about 
 traps than half a dozen ordinary 
 trappers; he knows more about 
 plants and roots than a whole col- 
 lege of botanists. He can tell to a 
 certainty just when and where to 
 find each kind of grub and worm, 
 and he knows by a whiff whether 
 the hunter on his trail a mile away 
 is working with guns, poison, dogs, 
 traps, or all of them together. And 
 he has one general rule, which is 
 an endless puzzle to the hunter: 
 'Whatever you decide to do, do it 
 quickly and follow it right up.' So
 
 when a trapper and a Roachback 
 meet, the Bear at once makes up 
 his mind to run away as hard as he 
 can, or to rush at the man and 
 fight to a finish. 
 
 The Grizzlies of the Bad Lands 
 did not do this : they used to stand 
 on their dignity and growl like a 
 thunder-storm, and so gave the 
 hunters a chance to play their 
 deadly lightning; and lightning is 
 wors i than thunder any day. Men 
 can get used to growls that rumble 
 along the ground and up one's legs 
 to ihz little house where one's 
 courage lives; but Bears cannot 
 get used to 4590 soft-nosed bul- 
 lets, and that is why the Grizzlies 
 of the Bad Lands were all killed 
 off.
 
 So the hunters have learned 
 that they never know what a 
 Roachback will do; but they do 
 know that he is going to be quick 
 about it. 
 
 Altogether these Bitter-root 
 Grizzlies have solved very well 
 the problem of life, in spite of 
 white men, and are therefore in- 
 creasing in their own wild moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Of course a range will hold only 
 so many Bears, and the increase 
 is crowded out; so that when that 
 slim young Bald-faced Roachback 
 found he could not hold the range 
 he wanted, he went out perforce t 
 seek his fortune in the world. 
 
 He was not a big Bear, or e 
 would not have been crowded < it;
 
 but he had been trained in a good 
 school, so that he was cunning 
 enough to get on very well else- 
 where. How he wandered down 
 to the Salmon River Mountains 
 and did not like them; how he 
 traveled till he got among the barb- 
 wire fences of the Snake Plains 
 and of course could not stay there ; 
 how a mere chance turned him 
 from going eastward to the Park, 
 where he might have rested; how 
 he made for the Snake River 
 Mountains and found more hunters 
 than berries; how he crossed into 
 the Tetons and looked down with 
 disgust on the teeming man colony 
 of Jackson's Hole, does not belong 
 to this history of Wahb. But when 
 Baldy Roachback crossed theGros
 
 Ventre Range and over the Wind 
 River Divide to the head of the 
 Graybull, he does come into the 
 story, just as he did into the coun- 
 try and the life of the Meteetsee 
 Grizzly. 
 
 The Roachback had not found 
 a man-sign since he left Jackson's 
 Hole, and here he was in a land of 
 plenty of food. He feasted on all 
 the delicacies of the season, and 
 enjoyed the easy, brushless coun- 
 try till he came on one of Wahb's 
 sign-posts. 
 
 " Trespassers beware!" it said 
 in the plainest manner. The 
 Roachback reared up against it. 
 
 "Thunder! whataBear!" The 
 nose-mark was a head and neck 
 above Baldy's highest reach. Now,
 
 a simple Bear would have gone 
 quietly away after this discovery; 
 but Baldy felt that the mountains 
 owed him a living, and here was a 
 good one if he could keep out of 
 the way of the big fellow. He 
 nosed about the place, kept a sharp 
 lookout for the present owner, and 
 went on feeding wherever he ran 
 across a good thing. 
 
 A step or two from this ominous 
 tree was an old pine stump. In the 
 Bitter-roots there are often mice- 
 nests under such stumps, and 
 Baldy jerked it over to see. There 
 was nothing. The stump rolled 
 over against the sign-post. Baldy 
 had not yet made up his mind 
 about it; but a new notion came 
 into his cunning brain. He turned
 
 'HE DELIBERATELY STOOD UP ON THE PINE ROOT.
 
 his head on this side, then on that. 
 He looked at the stump, then at 
 the sign, with his little pig-like 
 eyes. Then he deliberately stood 
 up on the pine root, with his back 
 to the tree, and put his mark away 
 up, a head at least above that of 
 Wahb. He rubbed bis back long 
 and hard, and he sought some 
 mud to smear his head and shoul- 
 ders, then came back and made the 
 mark so big, so strong, and so 
 high, and emphasized it with such 
 claw-gashes in the bark, that it 
 could be read only in one way 
 a challenge to the present claimant 
 from some monstrous invader, who 
 was ready, nay anxious, to fight to 
 a finish for this desirable range. 
 Maybe it was accident and may-
 
 be design, but when the Roach - 
 back jumped from the root it rolled 
 to one side. Baldy went on down 
 the canon, keeping the keenest 
 lookout for his enemy. 
 
 It was not Ions* before Wahb 
 found the trail of the interloper, 
 and all the ferocity of his outside- 
 the-Park nature was aroused. 
 
 He followed the trail for miles 
 on more than one occasion. But 
 the small Bear was quick-footed as 
 well as quick-witted, and never 
 showed himself. He made a point, 
 however, of calling at each sign- 
 post, and if there was any means 
 of cheating, so that his mark might 
 be put higher, he did it with a vim, 
 and left a big, showy record. But 
 if there was no chance for any but
 
 a fair register, he would not go 
 near the tree, but looked for a fresh 
 tree near by with some log or side- 
 ledge to reach from. 
 
 Thus Wahb soon found the in- 
 terloper's marks towering far above 
 his own a monstrous Bear evi- 
 dently, that even he could not be 
 sure of mastering. But Wahb was 
 no coward. He was ready to fight 
 to a finish any one that might 
 come ; and he hunted the range for 
 that invader. Day after day Wahb 
 sought for him and held himself 
 ready to fight. He found his trail 
 daily, and more and more often he 
 found that towering record far 
 above his own. He often smelled 
 him on the wind; but he never saw 
 him, for the old Grizzly's eyes had
 
 grown very dim of late years; 
 things but a little way off were 
 mere blurs to him. The continual 
 menace could not but fill Wahb 
 with uneasiness, for he was not 
 young now, and his teeth and claws 
 were worn and blunted. He was 
 more than ever troubled with pains 
 in his old wounds, and though he 
 could have risen on the spur of the 
 moment to fight any number of 
 Grizzlies of any size, still the con- 
 tinual apprehension, the knowledge 
 that he must hold himself ready at 
 any moment to fight this young 
 monster, weighed on his spirits and 
 began to tell on his general health.
 
 IV 
 
 HE Roachback's life 
 was one of contin- 
 ual vigilance, always 
 ready to run, doub- 
 ling and shifting to 
 avoid the encounter thatmust mean 
 instant death to him. Many a time 
 from some hiding-place he watched 
 the great Bear, and trembled lest 
 the wind should betray him. Sev- 
 eral times his very impudence 
 saved him, and more than once he 
 was nearly cornered in a box-
 
 canon. Once he escaped only by 
 climbing up a long crack in a cliff, 
 which Wahb's huge frame could 
 not have entered. But still, in a 
 mad persistence, he kept on mark- 
 ing the trees farther into the range. 
 At last he scented and followed 
 up the sulphur-bath. He did not 
 understand it at all. It had no ap- 
 peal to him, but hereabouts were 
 the tracks of the owner. In a 
 spirit of mischief the Roachback 
 scratched dirt into the spring, and 
 then seeing the rubbing-tree, he 
 stood sidewise on the rocky ledge, 
 and was thus able to put his mark 
 fully five feet above that of Wahb. 
 Then he nervously jumped down, 
 and was running about, defiling the 
 bath and keeping a sharp lookout,
 
 THE ROACHBACK FLED INTO THE WOODS.
 
 when he heard a noise in the 
 woods below. Instantly he was all 
 alert. The sound drew near, then 
 the wind brought the sure proof, 
 and the Roachback, in terror, 
 turned and fled into the woods. 
 
 It was Wahb. He had been 
 failing in health of late; his old 
 pains were on him again, and, as 
 well as his hind leg, had seized his 
 right shoulder, where were still 
 lodged two rifle-balls. He was 
 feeling very ill, and crippled with 
 pain. He came up the familiar 
 bank at a jerky limp, and there 
 caught the odor of the foe; then 
 he saw the track in the mud his 
 eyes said the track of a small Bear, 
 but his eyes were dim now, and 
 his nose, his unerring nose, said,
 
 "This is the track of the huge in- 
 vader/' Then he noticed the tree 
 with his sign on it t and there be- 
 yond doubt was the stranger's mark 
 far above his own. His eyes and 
 nose were agreed on this; and 
 more, they told him that the foe 
 was close at hand, might at any 
 moment come. 
 
 Wahb was feeling ill and weak 
 with pain. He was in no mood for 
 a desperate fight. A battle against 
 such odds would be madness now. 
 So, without taking the treatment, 
 he turned and swung along the 
 bench away from the direction 
 taken by the stranger the first 
 time since his cubhood that he 
 had declined to fight. 
 
 That was a turning-point in
 
 Wahb's life. If he had followed 
 up the stranger he would have 
 found the miserable little craven 
 trembling, cowering, in an agony 
 of terror, behind a log in a natural 
 trap, a walled-in glade only fifty 
 yards away, and would surely have 
 crushed him. Had he even taken 
 the bath, his strength and courage 
 would have been renewed, and if 
 not, then at least in time he would 
 have met his foe, and his after life 
 would have been different. But he 
 had turned. This was the fork in 
 the trail, but he had no means of 
 knowing it. 
 
 He limped along, skirting the 
 lower spurs of the Shoshones, and 
 soon came on that horrid smell 
 that he had known for years, but 
 
 * * * 
 
 ft 1 Lffi 
 f 1 ri 
 
 ,?dtf
 
 never followed up or understood. 
 It was right in his road, and he 
 traced it to a small, barren ravine 
 that was strewn over with skele- 
 tons and dark objects, and Wahb, 
 as he passed, smelled a smell of 
 many different animals, and knew 
 by its quality that they were lying 
 dead in this treeless, grassless hol- 
 low. For there was a cleft in the 
 rocks at the upper end, whence 
 poured a deadly gas ; invisible but 
 heavy, it filled the little gulch like 
 a brimming poison bowl, and at the 
 lower end there was a steady over- 
 flow. But Wahb knew only that 
 the air that poured from it as he 
 passed made him dizzy and sleepy, 
 and repelled him, so that he got 
 quickly away from it and was glad 
 once more to breathe the piny wind.
 
 Once Wahb decided to retreat, 
 it was all too easy to do so next 
 time ; and the result worked double 
 disaster. For, since the big stranger 
 was allowed possession of the sul- 
 phur-spring, Wahb felt that he 
 would rather not go there. Some- 
 times when he came across the 
 traces of his foe, a spurt of his old 
 courage would come back. He 
 would rumble that thunder-growl 
 as of old, and go painfully lumber- 
 ing along the trail to settle the thing 
 right then and there. But he never 
 overtook the mysterious giant, and 
 his rheumatism, growing worse 
 now that he was barred fro'.i the 
 cure, soon made him daily less 
 capable of either running or fight- 
 ing. 
 
 Sometimes Wahb would sense
 
 his foe f s approach when he was 
 in a bad place for fighting, and, 
 without really running, he would 
 yield to a wish to be on a better 
 footing, where he would have a 
 fair chance. This better footing 
 never led him nearer the enemy, 
 for it is well known that the one 
 awaiting has the advantage. 
 
 Some days Wahb felt so ill that 
 it would have been madness to have 
 staked everything on a fight, and 
 when he felt well or a little better, 
 the stranger seemed to keep away. 
 
 Wahb soon found that the stran- 
 ger's track was most often on the 
 Warhouse and the west slope of 
 the Piney, the very best feeding- 
 grounds. To avoid these when he 
 did not feel equal to fighting was
 
 d 
 
 only natural, and as he was always 
 in more or less pain now, it amount- 
 ed to abandoning to the stranger 
 the best part of the range. X *"" 
 
 Weeks went by. Wahb had / 
 
 meant to go back to his bath, but ' v, '\ 
 
 he never did. His pains grew v \^ 
 
 worse; he was now crippled in his * -^* ( ' 
 
 right shoulder as well as in his 
 hind leg. & 
 
 The long strain of waiting for 
 the fight begot anxiety, that grew 
 to be apprehension, which, with ^ 
 the sapping of his strength, was ^ 
 breaking down his courage, as it 
 always must when courage is 
 founded on muscular force. His 
 daily care now was not to meet and 
 fight the invader, but to avoid him 
 till he felt better.
 
 Thus that first little retreat grew 
 into one long retreat. Wahb had 
 to go farther and farther down the 
 Piney to avoid an encounter. He 
 was daily worse fed, and as the 
 weeks went by was daily less able 
 to crush a foe. 
 
 He was living and hiding at last 
 on the Lower Piney the very 
 place where once his Mother had 
 Drought him with his little brothers. 
 The life he led now was much like 
 the one he had led after that dark 
 day. Perhaps for the same reason. 
 If he had had a family of his own 
 all might have been different. As 
 he limped along one morning, seek- 
 ing among the barren aspen groves 
 for a few roots, or the wormy 
 partridge-berries that were too poor
 
 to interest the Squirrel and the 
 Grouse, he heard a stone rattle 
 down the western slope into the 
 woods, and, a little later, on the 
 wind was borne the dreaded taint. 
 He waded through the ice-cold 
 Piney, oncehe would have leaped 
 it, and th e ch ill water sent th ro ugh 
 and up each great hairy limb keen 
 pains that seemed to reach his very 
 life. He was retreating again 
 which way? There seemed but 
 one way now toward the new 
 ranch-house. 
 
 But there were signs of stir 
 about it long before he was near 
 enough to be seen. His nose, his 
 trustiest friend, said, "Turn, turn 
 and seek the hills/' and turn he did 
 even at the risk of meeting there
 
 the dreadful foe. He limped pain- 
 fully along the north bank of the 
 Piney, keeping in the hollows and 
 among the trees. He tried to climb 
 a cliff that of old he had often 
 bounded up at full speed. When 
 half-way up his footing gave way, 
 and down he rolled to the bottom. 
 A long way round was now the only 
 road, for onward he must go on 
 on. But where? There seemed 
 no choice now but to abandon the 
 whole range to the terrible stranger. 
 And feeling, as far as a Bear can 
 feel, that he is fallen, defeated, de- 
 throned at last, that he is driven 
 from his ancient range by a Bear 
 too strong for him to face, he turned 
 up the west fork, and the lot was 
 drawn. The strength and speed
 
 were gone from his once mighty 
 limbs; he took three times as long 
 as he once would to mount each 
 well-known ridge, and as he went 
 he glanced backward from time to 
 time to know if he were pursued. 
 Away up the head of the little 
 branch were the Shoshones, bleak, 
 forbidding ; no enemies were there, 
 and the Park was beyond it all 
 on, on he must go. But as he 
 climbed with shaky limbs, and 
 short uncertain steps, the west wind 
 brought the odor of Death Gulch, 
 that fearful little valley where every- 
 thing was dead, where the very air 
 was deadly. It used to disgust him 
 and drive him away, but now Wahb 
 felt that it had a message for him; 
 he was drawn by it. It was in his
 
 line of flight, and he hobbled slowly 
 toward the place. He went nearer, 
 nearer, until he stood upon the 
 entering ledge. A Vulture that had 
 descended to feed on one of the 
 victims was slowly going to sleep 
 on the untouched carcass. Wahb 
 swung his great grizzled muzzle 
 and his long white beard in the 
 wind. The odor that he once had 
 hated was attractive now. There 
 was a strange biting quality in the 
 air. His body craved it. For it 
 seemed to numb his pain and it 
 promised sleep, as it did that day 
 when first he saw the place. 
 
 Far below him, to the right and 
 to the left and on and on as far as 
 the eye could reach, was the great 
 kingdom that once had been his;
 
 where he had lived for years in the 
 glory of his strength; where none 
 had dared to meet him face to face. 
 The whole earth could show no 
 view more beautiful. But Wahb 
 had no thought of its beauty; he 
 only knew that it was a good land 
 to live in ; that it had been his, but 
 that now it was gone, for his 
 strength was gone, and he was fly- 
 ing to seek a place where he could 
 rest and be at peace. 
 
 Away over the Shoshones, in- 
 deed, was the road to the Park, 
 but it was far, far away, with a 
 doubtful end to the long, doubtful 
 journey. But why so far? Here in 
 this little gulch was all he sought; 
 here were peace and painless sleep. 
 He knew it; for his nose, his
 
 never-erring nose, said, "Here! 
 here nowl" 
 
 He paused a moment at the gate, 
 and as he stood the wind-borne 
 fumes began their subtle work. 
 Five were the faithful wardens of 
 his life, and the best and trustiest 
 of them all flung open wide the 
 door he long had kept. A moment 
 still Wahb stood in doubt. His 
 lifelong guide was silent now, had 
 given up his post. But another 
 sense he felt within. The Angel of 
 the Wild Things was standing 
 there, beckoning, in the little vale. 
 Wahb did not understand. He had 
 no eyes to see the tear in the 
 Angel's eyes, nor the pitying smile 
 that was surely on his lips. He 
 could not even see the Angel. But 
 he felt him beckoning, beckoning.
 
 "HE PAUSED A MOMENT AT THE GATE.
 
 A rush of his ancient courage 
 surged in the Grizzly's rugged 
 breast. He turned aside into the 
 little gulch. The deadly vapors 
 entered in, filled his huge chest 
 and tingled in his vast, heroic 
 limbs as he calmly lay down on the 
 rocky, herbless floor and as gently 
 went to sleep, as he did that day in 
 his Mother's arms by the Graybull, 
 long ago.

 
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