identified as coming from high up
the ragged canyon side, and I started up. It was hard work. Certainly no
bears or hunter had climbed out just here. At length, sore, spent, and
torn, I fell out of a tangle of brush upon the edge of the canyon. Above
me rose the swelling mountain slope thickly covered with dwarf pines.

"This way, youngster!" called the old hunter from my left.

A few more dashes in and out of the brush and trees brought me to a
fairly open space with not much slope. Hiram Bent stood under a pine,
and at his feet lay a black furry mass.

"Wal, I heerd you shoot. Reckon you got yourn?"

"Yes, I killed him.... Say, Mr. Bent, I don't like traps."

"Nary do I--for bears," replied he, shaking his gray head. "A trapped
bear is about the pitifulest thing I ever seen. But it's seldom one ever
gits into trap of mine."

"This one you shot must be the old mother bear. Where's the cub? Did it
get away?"

"Not yet. Lookup in the tree."

I looked up the black trunk through the network of slender branches, and
saw the bear snuggling in a fork. His sharp ears stood up against the
sky. He was most anxiously gazing down at us.

"Wal, tumble him out of thar," said Hiram Bent.

With a natural impulse to shoot I raised my rifle, but the cub looked so
attractive and so helpless that I hesitated.

"I don't like to do it," I said. "Oh, I wish we could catch him alive!"

"Wal, I reckon we can."

"How?" I inquired, eagerly, and lowered my rifle.

"Are you good on the climb?"

"Climb? This tree? Why, with one hand. Back in Pennsylvania I climbed
shell-bark hickory-trees with the lowest limb fifty feet from the
ground. .. But there weren't any bears up them."

"You must keep out of his way if he comes down on you. He's a sassy
little chap. Now take this rope an' go up an' climb round him."

"Climb round him?" I queried, as I gazed dubiously upward. "You mean to
slip out on the branches and go up hand-over-hand till I get above him.
The branches up there seem pretty close--I might. But suppose he goes
higher?"

"I'm lookin' fer him to go clean to the top. But you can beat him to
it--mebbe."

"Any danger of his attacking me--up there?"

"Wal, not much. If he hugs the trunk he'll have to hold on fer all he's
worth. But if he stands on the branches an' you come up close he might
bat you one. Mebbe I'd better go up."

"Oh, I'm going--I only wanted to know what to expect. Now, in case I get
above him, what th