or
of man and iron was a never-failing warning, especially after an
experience which befell him in his sixth year.

His ever-reliable nose told him that there was a dead Elk down among the
timber.

[Illustration]

He went up the wind, and there, sure enough, was the great delicious
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 forward, 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.

[Illustration]

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 underneath 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.

[Illustration]

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 disablement 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
thenceforth 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 desperately 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.

III

One day after a long ab