ars.
The forest is full of them, but they seem never to attack people unless
when wounded, or much aggravated by dogs, or a shebear thinks you are
going to molest her young.

I dreamt of bears so vividly that I woke with a furry death hug at my
throat, but feeling quite refreshed. When I mounted my horse after
breakfast the sun was high and the air so keen and intoxicating that,
giving the animal his head, I galloped up and down hill, feeling
completely tireless. Truly, that air is the elixir of life. I had a
glorious ride back to Truckee. The road was not as solitary as the day
before. In a deep part of the forest the horse snorted and reared, and
I saw a cinnamon-colored bear with two cubs cross the track ahead of
me. I tried to keep the horse quiet that the mother might acquit me of
any designs upon her lolloping children, but I was glad when the
ungainly, long-haired party crossed the river. Then I met a team, the
driver of which stopped and said he was glad that I had not gone to
Cornelian Bay, it was such a bad trail, and hoped I had enjoyed Tahoe.
The driver of another team stopped and asked if I had seen any bears.
Then a man heavily armed, a hunter probably, asked me if I were the
English tourist who had "happened on" a "Grizzly" yesterday. Then I
saw a lumberer taking his dinner on a rock in the river, who "touched
his hat" and brought me a draught of ice-cold water, which I could
hardly drink owing to the fractiousness of the horse, and gathered me
some mountain pinks, which I admired. I mention these little incidents
to indicate the habit of respectful courtesy to women which prevails in
that region. These men might have been excused for speaking in a
somewhat free-and-easy tone to a lady riding alone, and in an unwonted
fashion. Womanly dignity and manly respect for women are the salt of
society in this wild West.

My horse was so excitable that I avoided the center of Truckee, and
skulked through a collection of Chinamen's shanties to the stable,
where a prodigious roan horse, standing seventeen hands high, was
produced for my ride to the Donner Lake. I asked the owner, who was as
interested in my enjoying myself as a West Highlander might have been,
if there were not ruffians about who might make an evening ride
dangerous. A story was current of a man having ridden through Truckee
two evenings before with a chopped-up human body in a sack behind the
saddle, and hosts of stories of ruffianis