ft knee. The
bite and the force of his unexpected charge knocked me backward into
the corner. Instantly the bear was on top of me, growling, biting and
striking.

With my uninjured leg I kicked out savagely and thrust him away,
sliding him back across the slippery concrete. Again he charged, and
once more I kicked him off.

Outside the iron fence women were screaming and men trying futilely to
enter, but the fence was ten feet high and the sharp iron points of its
pickets were discouraging--and the gateway was locked against intruders.

At this juncture the keeper rushed to another cage where he kept an
iron bar for just such emergencies, but the bar was away from home that
day.

At this crisis, Johnny and Jenny arrived, Jenny collided with the bars
of the cage and staggered back, dazed. But Johnny found the open cage
door, and charged the black bear ferociously. The black bear
outweighed my little grizzly three to one, but Johnny struck his
sensitive snout, forcing him into a corner, and followed up, striking
with both paws, lunging in and taking furry samples of his hide.

Within a few seconds the black bear was climbing the side of the cage
and howling for help. He gained the shelf near the roof. Johnny,
unable to climb, sat below, growling maledictions in bear language,
daring him to come down and fight it out. But the black bear had had
more than enough. He stuck to the safety seat, whimpering with pain
and fright.

Thus, limping and reluctant, I took leave of my pets. The ambulance
had arrived to rush me to the hospital where my knee was to be treated.
As long as I could see them, they looked after me, wondering at my
desertion.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK

It had been my boyhood dream to find a region unspoiled by man, wild,
primitive.

When I saw that rugged wilderness called the Rockies I was sure I had
found it. Miles and miles of virgin forest, innocent of ax and saw;
miles and miles of fertile valleys, yet to feel the touch of plow;
miles and miles of unclaimed homesteads with never the smoke of a
settler's chimney! Deer and elk, sheep and bear roamed the forests,
beavers preempted the valleys, trout spashed and rippled the waters of
the lakes and rivers. Yes, this was purely primeval, natural,
uncivilized.

But the old-timers did not agree with me. Parson Lamb, whose nearest
neighbor was ten miles away, complained that the country was being
spoiled.