ther with Aunt Jane we sat before the glowing fire of his hearth.
Despite Aunt Jane's gentle excuses for me, I felt ashamed and
determined to return next day and take up the bear's trail. Running
away from an unseen bear was ludicrous, not to say cowardly. But I
comforted myself with the assurance that even the Parson might have no
other chance to run, if the bear saw him first!

The "bad lands" became the scene of many a hide-and-seek game, with the
animals slipping silently away as I blundered along behind, puzzling
out their trails, and imagining I was stalking them unawares. My many
failures, while discouraging, were fruitful of experience, for I
learned to hunt up-wind, thus discounting the high-power noses of the
bears and muffling to some extent my clumsy movements from the deer.
Repeated trips into that rough region informed me that one or two bears
lived there, and that though they often left it to explore some other
region, they eventually returned to their own home range. In tracing
their movements I kept a sort of big-game Bertillon record; only
instead of taking finger-prints, as is done with criminals, I measured
footprints sketching them in my notebook, noting any slight peculiarity
that would distinguish one track from another, and thus made positive
identification possible.

I was compelled to get my information concerning the bears' movements
mostly from their tracks, for they were far too crafty to be seen "in
person"! They evidently moved on the assumption that vigilance was the
price of life. They used their wits as well as their keen senses,
seemed to reason as well as to have instinct. Moreover they made use
of other animals for their own defense. They were ever alertly
watching the significant movements of their neighbors, for signals of
dangers beyond the range of their own senses. The quiet retreat of a
fox or coyote apprised them of something unusual in the wind; the
sudden up-winging of magpies and jays warned them of the approach of an
enemy. They distinguished between the casual flight of birds and their
flying when bound toward a kill of mountain lion or other beasts of
prey. They were tuned-in on every animal broadcasting station on their
range.

I learned that contrary to the lurid tales of the early explorers and
hunters, they were peace-loving, deeming it no disgrace to run away
from danger and leaving the vicinity as soon as man appeared in it.
True, their curiosity some