han twenty miles away
he found a bee tree, an old hollow cedar which he tore open. He
devoured both bees and honey, then went lumbering home. Mountain lions
made frequent kills about the region, leaving the carcasses of deer,
cattle, horses and burros, which the bears located with their noses or
by the flight of birds, and gorged themselves; afterward lying down in
some retreat and sleeping long, peaceful hours.

It was because of their scavenger habits that they came to be blamed
for killing the animals upon which they fed. But not once did I find
evidence that they had killed anything larger than a marmot. The
grizzly was always working industriously, from dawn to dark, or at
night; while Blackie dallied, even though making a "bear living." He
preferred to go empty rather than to work for food.

Three winters in succession the grizzly climbed to a den in an exposed
spot on the northern slope of Mount Meeker. It was a low opening
beneath a rock, the entrance to which was partially stopped with loose
rubble, raked from inside the cave, and every fall he renovated it by
chinking the larger cracks and by pawing together loose bits of rock
for a bed. As fall approached, his tracks led to it; apparently he
napped inside occasionally to try it out. His ultimate retirement for
winter hibernation depended upon the weather and the food supply; if
the fall were late, with plenty of food, he would still be about the
woods as late as December, while one fall when snow came early and
deep, and so made food unavailable, he disappeared at the end of
October.

The grizzly had many individual traits. Not once in the years I
followed him, did he show any desire for others of his kind. He
preferred being alone. His play consisted chiefly of elaborate
stalkings of easily captured animals. If his hunger was appeased for a
time he would turn to hunting grasshoppers. Marking the spot where one
had alighted he would steal forward and pounce upon it as though it
were an animal of size and fighting ability. Again he would take great
pains to waylay a chipmunk, lying motionless while the unwary little
spermophile ventured closer and closer, then, with a lightning-like
slap of a huge paw, he would reduce his victim to the general shape and
thinness of a pancake.

Though the grizzly was somewhat awkward in appearance he could move
with amazing speed, and his strength was incredible. From glimpses I
had of him I estimated his we