y them, but scurried down to the
river by themselves and would often have a day's fishing caught and
ready for her before she had put in her appearance.

But a few months later, when the cubs had grown still larger and
stronger, they became so boisterous and mischievous that they not only
handled the dogs too roughly, but when the old Indian and his wife left
camp at any time, they went on the rampage: chasing the dogs about,
ransacking the larder, turning the camp topsy-turvy, and scattering
everything in confusion. So the old couple decided that it was now
high time to put their skins upon the skin-stretcher in readiness to
sell to the fur-trader.

The black bear is a good swimmer and an excellent tree climber, and the
speed with which he can rush up a hillside is surprising. His diet is
a varied one, for he is always ready to eat vegetables, roots, berries,
insects, nuts, fish, eggs, meat, fruit, and of course sugar or honey;
furthermore, he is a killer of small game--when he is extra-hungry.
The black bear has been given so bad a name by uninformed writers and
dishonest story-tellers that most people dread to meet him in the
woods; whereas, in truth he is usually more frightened at meeting human
beings than they are of meeting him--for man is always his greatest and
most dangerous enemy. Though I have seen many bears in the
bush--seventeen on one trip--they never caused me any anxiety, and at
once took flight. But on one of two rare occasions they did not run,
perhaps because they were three in number and all full-grown.

It happened up on the borderline of Alaska. I was walking alone
through the mountains on my way to Stewart, and wishing to cross the
Marmot River, I took advantage of a great, permanent snowslide that had
been annually added to by avalanches from the snow-capped glaciers.
The snowslide not only completely blocked the canon, but on either side
it reached many hundreds of feet up the almost perpendicular mountains,
yet in the middle, where it bridged the river, it was no more than two
hundred feet high, though it was about two thousand feet in width.
Year in and year out that great snow-bridge spanned the little river,
and now when I wanted to make use of it, I had no sooner started over
than I discovered three bears with the same intention. They, too, had
just come out of the woods, and were only forty paces from me--as I
afterward measured. We were all going in the same direction, and
tho