, at first stripping the branches of fruit and leaves alike; but
at length, the keen edge of his appetite dulled, he sought only the
finest berries, crushing many and ruthlessly tearing down whole bushes
in his greed to get a branch of especially choice fruit. Then, his face
and paws stained with the juice and his sides uncomfortably distended,
he sought a secluded nook in which to sleep off his feast.

Toward evening, when the shadows grew long and the hills were touched
with the red and gold of the setting sun, Mokwa again took up the
northward trail, to which he held steadily most of the night. Morning
found him emerging from a thicket of juniper upon the banks of the river
at a place that he instantly recognized as the one from which he had
begun his unwilling travels.

Turning sharply to the right, the bear's eager eyes discovered the trunk
of a hemlock which had been blasted by lightning. Rearing himself upon
his haunches against it, and reaching to his utmost, he prepared to
leave his signature where he had so often left it, always above all
rivals. Ere his unsheathed claws could leave their mark, however, he
paused, gazing at another mark several inches above his own.

The hair rose along his back and his little eyes gleamed red while he
growled deep in his chest; yet, stretch as he would, he could not quite
reach the signature of the other bear. Mokwa dropped to all fours, rage
filling his breast at this indication of a rival in what he considered
his own domain. He hurried on, keenly alert, growing more and more
incensed at every fresh trace of the interloper. Here he came upon
evidences of a meal which the rival had made upon wake-robin roots.
Satisfied before he had devoured all he had dug, some of the roots still
lay scattered about, but, though Mokwa was hungry, he disdained the
crumbs from the other's table. He dined, instead, upon a fat field mouse
which he caught napping beside its runway. Again he pressed on, his
anger steadily fanned by fresh evidences of the hated rival who seemed
always just ahead.

Mokwa slept that night in his old den, but the next morning found him
once more on the trail of the enemy, a trail which was still fresh. He
had not gone far when his rival was, for the time being, forgotten,
while he sniffed eagerly at a new odour which drifted to his sensitive
nostrils. It was the scent of honey, a delicacy which a bear prizes
above all else. At that moment, as if to confirm the evi