ightened 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
anguish 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 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 Indian again, and he had time to rest and recover.

[Illustration: "HE STRUCK ONE FEARFUL, CRUSHING BLOW."]

[Illustration]

II

The 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 friendship nor love in his life
since that evil day on the Lower Piney.

[Illustration]

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 habitual moroseness grew with
his strength, and any one chancing to meet him now would have called him a
dangerous Grizzly.

[Illustration]

He had lived in the Meteetsee Valley since first he betook himself there,
and his character had been shaped by many little adventures with traps and
his wild rivals of the mountains. But there was none of the latter that he
now feared and he knew enough to avoid the first, for that penetrating od