I had finished. The ready ponies were put in
commission in less than three minutes. Then came the stampede, the heavy
thudding, the loud whacks of the ropes, and when these sounds had died
in the distance, I heard the "pop, pop" of side arms. I asked no
questions, but when the boys came back and said, "well, you bet he won't
be here again," I believed them.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: XXXVIII. Sketch of the Bear Family as made on the spot
_By E. T. Seton_]

[Illustration: XXXIX. Two pages from my journal in the garbage heap
_By E. T. Seton_]

* * * * *

XII

Bears of High and Low Degree

* * * * *

[Illustration: The Snorer]

XII

Bears of High and Low Degree

Why is snoring a crime at night and a joke by day? It seems to be so,
and the common sense of the public mind so views it.

In the September of 1912 I went with a good guide and a party of
friends, to the region southeast of Yellowstone Lake. This is quite the
wildest part of the Park; it is the farthest possible from human
dwellings, and in it the animals are wild and quite unchanged by daily
association with man, as pensioners of the hotels.

Our party was carefully selected, a lot of choice spirits, and yet there
was one with a sad and unpardonable weakness--he always snored a
dreadful snore as soon as he fell asleep. That is why he was usually put
in a tent by himself, and sent to sleep with a twenty-five foot
deadening space between him and us of gentler somnolence.

He had been bad the night before, and now, by request, was sleeping
_fifty_ feet away. But what is fifty feet of midnight silence to a
forty-inch chest and a pair of tuneful nostrils. About 2 A.M. I was
awakened as before, but worse than ever, by the most terrific, measured
snorts, and so loud that they seemed just next me. Sitting up, I bawled
in wrath, "Oh, Jack, shut up, and let some one else have a chance to
sleep."

The answer was a louder snort, a crashing of brush and a silence that,
so far as I know, continued until sunrise.

Then I arose and learned that the snorts and the racket were made, not
by my friend, but by a huge Grizzly that had come prowling about the
camp, and had awakened me by snorting into my tent.

But he had fled in fear at my yell; and this behaviour exactly shows the
attitude of the Grizzlies in the West to-day. They are afraid of man,
they fly at whiff or sound of h