Big Jinny: The Story of a Grizzly Bear

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Author: Frank B. Linderman

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BIG JINNY the story of a grizzly bear [-3], (3)

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frank b. linderman Illustrated by elizabeth lochrie Afterword by Sarah Waller Hatﬁeld University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London

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© 2005 by Sarah Waller Hatﬁeld, James B. Waller, Grace E. Waller, and John E. Waller All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America 䡬 ⬁ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Linderman, Frank Bird, 1869–1938.

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Big Jinny : the story of a grizzly bear / Frank B. Linderman ; illustrated by Elizabeth Lochrie ; afterword by Sara Waller Hatﬁeld. p. cm.

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Summary: A grizzly bear tells of her life in the Montana wilderness, from sharing adventures and mischief with her brother Jim, to learning from other animals as she tramps around by herself, to becoming a mother to her own cubs. isbn 0-8032-8044-0 (paper : alk. paper)— isbn 0-8032-0515-5 (electronic)

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1. Grizzly bear—Juvenile ﬁction. [1. Grizzly bear—Fiction. 2. Bears—Fiction.

3. Zoology—Montana—Fiction.

4. Montana—Fiction.] I. Lochrie, Elizabeth, ill. II. Title. pz10.3.l64bi 2005 [Fic]—dc22

2004017994

Set in New Baskerville by Kim Essman Designed by A. Shahan. Printed by Edward Brothers, Inc. .

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contents List of Illustrations vii Big Jinny 1 Afterword

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i l l u s t r at i o n s Color plates Big Jinny Comes upon a Whistling Marmot–Person, opposite page 22 The Creek in the Meadow, opposite page 23

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The Curious Twin Cubs, opposite page 54 The Cubs Meet a Skunk-Person, opposite page 55 Big Jinny, the Tramp, opposite page 62 Big Jinny and the Magpie-Person, opposite page 63 Old Scarface, opposite page 94

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Black-and-white drawings The Three-legged Wolverine-Person 1 Hibernation Ends 7 Mother Chases the Porcupine-Person Away 15 Jinny Wonders about a Beehive 24 Jim and Jinny Play Together 25 The Edge of the Forest 32 Jim Tries to Climb a Tree 39 Mother, Jim, and Jinny Forage for Berries 59 A Chipmunk-Person on a Stump 66 A Great Horned Owl–Person Came Along 70

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A Wolf-Person Nervously Sniffs the Wind 75 A Dog-Person on Big Jinny’s Trail

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The Beaver-People Cut Down a Quaking Aspen 79 The Bird-People Return from the South 80 Big Jinny Talks with the Beaver-Person 83 The Lynx-Person Is Hungry 101 A Dog-Person Yowls and Yips at Big Jinny 103 A Dog-Person Nips at Big Jinny’s Heels 104

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Big Jinny Heads to Her Cave 116

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big jinny

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1 I am a full-grown grizzly bear. I suppose I weigh nearly eight hundred pounds. My home is in the Rocky Mountains of northwestern Montana. Ursus horribilis is our family name, though I do not like the sound of it and never use it. I prefer my own name, which is just Jinny, or “Big Jinny” as some of my friends call me. I had no intention of ever telling anybody anything about myself until one day, when I was digging wild turnips to eat, a three-legged wolverine came along and told me his story. He had lost a part of his left foreleg and was a cripple. I had never paid any attention to the wolverine-person, had never even spoken to him, and yet his story interested me, perhaps because he was a good storyteller. It was soon after this that I decided to tell my friends about myself and the country I live in. Before I begin my story I ought to tell you not to believe that I remember everything I shall tell about my ﬁrst weeks of life. One cannot remember such things about one’s self. How1

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ever, I am a mother bear, and have had and raised several pairs of children of my own, so I know what I am talking about. And perhaps, just here, I had better tell you that bears cannot make a living when snow covers the country they live in. They are heavy creatures and have short legs, so that they cannot even travel in deep snow. Besides this, the ground freezes so hard during the winter months in the Rocky Mountains that bears cannot dig roots to eat here, and bears are great root-eaters. When you know all these things, you will understand how lucky it is that bears can sleep all winter without eating a single mouthful of food, and sleep they do. Each bear digs a den or ﬁnds a cave in the mountains, and then, when the snow falls deeply, he goes to sleep there and does not wake up and come out again until springtime. My mother had been sleeping in a dark cave for nearly three months when I was born. Now I will go on with my story. Looking at me today, a big, strong, eight-hundredpound grizzly bear, can you believe that I weighed less than one pound when I was born? No, of course, you cannot. And yet I weighed but thirteen ounces when I came into this big world, and thirteen ounces are less than one pound. Tiny? Yes, indeed, I was tiny. Why, I measured but ten inches in length, tail and all. However, my tail was then only half an inch long, and not worth a thought. It doesn’t amount to much even now. It is not much longer than your 2

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little ﬁnger, and yet it is tail enough for me. I’m not complaining about it. But just think of being born about the ﬁrst of February in the high Rocky Mountains of northwestern Montana without a winter coat, or any other kind of coat for that matter! You feel shivery when you think about it, don’t you? Nevertheless, I was born, nearly naked, about the ﬁrst of February in the Rocky Mountains of northwestern Montana. brrr! And you cannot imagine a more unattractive, or a more helpless, creature than I was at birth. I was not only imperfectly formed, but when I came into this big world I was blind, stone blind! At ﬁrst I did not even know that I had any eyes. They did not open for two weeks or more. For a long time neither my twin brother nor I moved about very much. We were too weak, too blind, and too cold to do anything but cuddle up against our mother’s big, warm body and nurse her milk. And Mother herself kept as still as she could, I can tell you. She knew that moving her heavy body would make her hungry. You see, she had not eaten a mouthful of food since the month of November, and there was nothing in the cave that she could eat. The big world outside was yet deeply covered with snow, so there was nothing that she could do but lie still and wait for the springtime. By the middle of March my hair had grown thick so that I began to feel quite comfortable, even when I was not lying against Mother’s side. My eyes had 3

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been open for some time now, and yet, excepting my Mother and my twin brother, Jim, there was nothing to see, even if our cave had not been so dark. Nevertheless, Jim and I began to play together a little, tumbling over Mother’s big, soft body so often as we pleased. Whenever we grew tired, we rested, and then Mother nursed us until we went to sleep. This went on until the middle of April, my brother and I growing stronger and happier each day, and our playing times longer and rougher. But during all this time Mother kept growing a little thinner and much hungrier, because she was steadily feeding Jim and me and eating nothing herself. Finally one morning, as though she had quite suddenly decided to leave our cave, my mother dug a hole through the crusted snow that covered its entrance and walked outside. Bright sunlight pouring in through the white snow-hole nearly blinded me. A chill wind was blowing. It made me feel cold again, and afraid. I believed that Mother was going to leave us and began to whimper; so did Jim. But in a few minutes Mother returned to the mouth of the snowhole. Her big body darkened it, shutting off the chill wind. My, but I was glad to see her again! “Come, children,” she said softly. I could just see her eyes looking at us through the snow-hole. “Follow me and walk carefully,” she said, turning around to walk down the steep mountain. I know that I can never make you see that awful 4

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mountainside with its tall, ragged cliffs, its patches of deep, crusted snow, and its long strips of sharp shale rock, all in a wild wind and bright sunlight, and all lying beneath a blue sky that had little white clouds running across it as though something had frightened them. The wild wind chilled me and rufﬂed the long hair on Mother’s back. A bird called, a Clark’s nutcracker it was. I saw its shadow on the crusted snow as the gray-and-black bird ﬂew over us, going swiftly down the wind; and just then, Mother broke through the snow crust, sinking nearly out of sight. “Mother!” I called, frightened by her ﬂoundering. “shhhh! Hush!” she said, a little crossly, her hair ﬁlled with dry snow. “Follow me. There will be little of this kind of going. We shall soon reach bare ground.” And then she plowed her way out of the snow patch and waited for Jim and me. Remember that we cubs were not yet much larger than housecats and were not used to traveling. I do not recall the number of times we fell down, nor how long it took us to wallow across that awful snow patch in the huge, tumbled trail that Mother had made. I remember that Jim fell into a deep hole, and the snow caved down and buried him for a minute, and that he cried. I cried a little myself. The big world looked very unkind to me that day. Of course, if Jim and I had kept away from Mother, and had walked on either side of her, we might have 5

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crossed the big snow patch on the crust without breaking through it. The snow crust would have held us up, and the traveling would then have been easy and ﬁne; but if we had slipped and fallen on the snow crust, we might have slid on down the mountainside to be dashed to death among the sharp rocks below. Mother knew this, so she made us follow behind her, wallowing terribly in the broken trail she had made, until at last we reached bare ground. My, what a relief that was! Four times we crossed deep patches of crusted snow, three times we traveled in shale rock, and twice we walked on smooth stone ledges that felt ﬁne on my feet. All this time we were working down the steep mountainside, and all this time the wild wind was blowing, the bright sun shining, and the little white clouds were racing across the blue sky as though something had frightened them. And all this time the chill wind was rufﬂing the long hair on Mother’s big back. I had no idea there was a world so big. By this time the snow patches were smaller. We could easily walk around them now. The gravelly ground was often soft, sometimes actually muddy in spots; and the dead grass, all of it lying ﬂat and all pointing down the mountainside, looked gray. We were on a long ridge that led down to the forest skirting the mountain when Mother stopped to smell the tracks, which some animal person had made quite 6

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-0.54802 lately. It was now that I looked back up the steep mountain. I could not see our cave. However, I did see many ragged cliffs and deep banks of snow, and felt glad that we had left them all. Of course, Jim and I could not travel fast. Mother often waited for us, and so we were a long time getting down that high mountain. The sun was past noon when Mother suddenly stopped and began to dig in the ground. And how she made the gravel ﬂy! Pebbles rattled and bounded, some of them striking Jim and me. Once, two rocks as large as we were went bumping down the hill; and then, just as I turned again to watch Mother dig, I heard some7

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thing squeal. Then I saw that Mother was eating an animal person that was as large as Jim. In a few minutes she had dug out and was eating another, then another. I wondered what these animals were. As Mother began looking for another place to dig, I asked, “What were you eating, Mother?” She smelled a dark hole among some rocks. “Marmots,” she said. “Whistling marmots. I have eaten nothing since last November, Jinny. I’m very hungry.” This was when I learned that bears do not eat in the Rocky Mountains during wintertime. “Goodness,” I thought. Of course, I did not know that from November to the middle of April is a long, long time to go without eating. Nevertheless, the very thought of it made me hungry, so I told Mother that my stomach was empty, and this set Jim going, too. We both whimpered for something to eat. But Mother told us that we must wait until we reached the forest. My, but I was a tired cub by the time we were among the trees. And yet Mother kept going on and on as though Jim and I were not hungry and tired. “Is there no end to the big world?” I wondered, promising myself that I wouldn’t mention my hunger again even if I should starve to death. We had been traveling along the bank of a roaring creek for quite a while when Mother stopped in a little meadow. Backwater from the creek made pools in 8

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this meadow, and at its upper end was some long, dry grass a ﬁne place to lie down. And wasn’t I glad of the chance! And wasn’t I hungry! And didn’t I nurse long and hard until I was full, and oh, so sleepy! Then, leaving Jim and me lying on the dry grass, Mother got up and began to eat the green spears of weeds and grass pricking through the ground in the meadow. Now and then she dug up and ate roots of some kind. I tried to watch her, wondering when she would come back to us, but I could not hold [9], (9) my eyes open. I fell fast asleep there on the long, dry grass in the little meadow just as the sun was sinking down behind the high mountain. The last Lines: 104 t thing I remember was cuddling tightly against my ——— twin brother, Jim, and wondering where the chill * 192.0080 wind had gone so suddenly. ———

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2 Oh, that wonderful ﬁrst morning in the big world! When I wakened, the great forest was dark and sweet smelling. I could hear the little winds playing in the treetops, and there were soft sounds among the bushes. Then, while I listened, I heard footsteps just back of us. Somebody was walking in the forest. A dry stick snapped as though somebody had stepped on it. I stopped nursing to stare into the shadowy bushes. The walking grew louder. “What is that sound, Mother?” I asked, sitting up. “A deer-person, a whitetail deer,” Mother answered, smelling the little winds to make sure. “Finish your breakfast, Jinny. We shall soon be traveling,” she said, as though a deer-person was nothing to worry about. I heard the deer running away now. Our talking had frightened it, I suppose. Anyhow, I settled down again to ﬁnish my breakfast. Mother was big, brave, and strong. I was not afraid to be out in the big world with her. I suppose I must have dozed again. Anyhow, pressed against my mother and brother, I felt so comfortable that I did not like the thought of mov11

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ing when Mother said, “Come, children. It is time we were traveling.” There was gray in the sky. Day was coming, my ﬁrst day in the big world. I remember that I felt a little important when I set out with my brother, walking close behind Mother, into the dark spruce forest with its huge trees and upturned roots. Sometimes Jim and I had to walk around the ends of these logs, and sometimes Mother helped us over them; and always she waited for us, never letting us get out of her sight. Often we walked on the fallen logs, and once, after we had walked a long time on a very large one, Jim and I found ourselves at its end, high above the ground. There was nothing to do except turn around and walk all the way back again until we could jump down to the ground. Mother was a little disgusted at this. She told us that we were wasting time, that we must learn to look ahead and not go blundering through the world. But I saw that she wasn’t really cross. By the time the sun had come into the sky we had traveled a long way, so that we were in an entirely different country now. I noticed that the bushes around us had tiny leaves, beautiful in their green freshness, and that along a creek, which we had been following for a long time, the wild currant bushes were nearly leafed out. We saw many deer and several elk, and when Mother ﬁnally stopped in a sunny place to feed us I heard a strange, booming sound down 12

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in the gulch. Mother said it was the drumming of a ruffed grouse. I wondered if I could ever learn as much about the big world as Mother knew. When we started on again, Jim and I quarreled over which of us should lead in following Mother; and Mother cuffed us both for quarreling. I remember how surprised I was when her huge paw cuffed me, and how extremely funny Jim looked rolling over and over from the force of Mother’s blow. He whimpered a little when he got up, with some twigs sticking to his coat, though he was not really hurt. And yet he was sulky for a time, even refusing to speak to me, so I let him walk ahead of me to get him into better humor. We were among ﬁr trees and pines and tall larches now. The country about us was nearly level. The weather was much warmer, too. We had not seen even a small patch of snow for a long, long time. Ever since we started out in the morning Mother had been tearing down old stumps and turning over half-rotten logs to get ants, bugs, and grubs that were in or under them. And all the morning she ate grass and occasionally dug roots to eat. Twice, in old stumps, she caught and ate mice; and in one stump, a tall one, she dug out a nest of ﬂying squirrels. All of them managed somehow to get away from Mother, however, and I felt glad of this, perhaps without good reason. But the ﬂying squirrels had such round, black eyes and such ﬂat, soft-looking, beau13

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tiful tails that I was glad to see them get away. Many times since that morning I have wondered why such beautiful creatures as ﬂying squirrels travel in the forests only at night when scarcely anybody can see them. Besides this, it has never seemed to me that the ﬂying squirrels belonged to the tribe of nightloving forest people. They are gentle and kindly. Most of the others are cruel killers who hunt and kill in darkness. It was afternoon when Mother stopped to dig dogtooth violets, or fawn lilies. These were the ﬁrst ﬂowers we had seen Mother dig, and we ate scores of their roots, or bulbs. It was while Mother was busy digging these bulbs that Jim and I got into our ﬁrst trouble. We saw something moving slowly along in a ﬁr thicket near us, so we went into the thicket to see who it was. The person was larger than either of us, and was not the least bit afraid. In truth he appeared to be very friendly. He even sat down, letting Jim and me walk right up to him. I saw that he had round, black eyes like the ﬂying squirrel’s, except his were much larger. They were nearly without expression, the eyes of a good-natured, lazy person who might be a little dumb, I thought. And yet we could scarcely see the person’s face because of his hair. However, when he sat down, I sat down, and then Jim sat down. We were quite willing to be friendly with the person. But our adventure ended just here, and so sud14

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1.15198p denly that Jim and I were terriﬁed. Mother came crashing into the ﬁr thicket. Slap! Slap! Her great paw sent Jim and me tumbling head over heels away from the round-eyed, good-natured person, who did not move nor even so much as wink. The last I saw of him, he was just staring out of his round, black eyes at Mother, as though wondering what it was all about. And, of course, Jim and I were wondering, too that is, until Mother cuffed us out of the thicket. She said, “Now, sit down here, and stop your snifﬂing, both of you.” 15

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“You hurt me,” I whimpered, sitting down as she had told me. “I intended to hurt you, Jinny,” she said, quite severely. “Now, listen to me, both of you. That innocent-looking person in the ﬁr thicket is the porcupine. He always attends to his own business and will give you no trouble unless you annoy him. Beneath the long hair on his body are thousands of sharp quills, or spines and he is a very touchy person. The least thing may annoy him. When he is annoyed or disturbed, he strikes his disturber with his powerful tail, which is covered with long, barbed spines. These spines, or quills, sink into the ﬂesh and then keep working in deeper and deeper until they ﬁnally cripple or kill. If you were to touch the porcupineperson, even in fun, he would be sure to strike you with his tail; then you would suffer. Come now and have your dinner.” Somehow I felt a little ashamed of Mother’s high regard for so small a person as the porcupine. “Are you afraid of him, Mother?” I asked, remembering the porcupine-person’s soft, round eyes and his gentle manner. “Yes,” she readily admitted. “We grizzlies are afraid of the porcupine-person. Eat your dinner, Jinny.” And then, when I had begun to nurse, she said, “A single blow of my paw would kill the porcupineperson, breaking every bone in his prickly body; but if I struck him, my paw would be ﬁlled with his quills. 16

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And if I were to bite him, my mouth would be stuck full of them and they might kill me. The porcupine is a dangerous person. Let him strictly alone, and whenever you meet him in the forest, give him the trail, the right of way, always.” “What a queer place this big world must be,” I was thinking, when Jim asked, “What does he eat, Mother?” “I will show you what he mostly eats as soon as Jinny has ﬁnished her dinner,” Mother promised. Jim was sitting up, staring into the ﬁr thicket where we had met the porcupine-person. “Hurry up, Jinny,” he said, pushing me with his paw. Of course, this ﬁnished my eating. I was curious. There was so much to learn in the big world! “I have ﬁnished,” I told Mother, even though I was yet a little hungry. “Come, then.” Mother led us back along the way we had traveled to a small pine tree that had been nearly stripped of its bark. I had noticed the tree when we passed it. Even many of its limbs had been stripped, so that they looked nearly white in the sunlight. “This,” said Mother, “is the work of the porcupineperson. He likes the bark of young pine trees. Sometimes his bark-peeling kills the trees. This tree will die because its bark has been taken all the way around its trunk, so that the sap cannot again reach its branches. He does not often peel trees in this 17

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manner, however. He nearly always takes the bark from the young trees in patches, so that the trees live. Besides the bark of trees, the porcupine-person digs and eats roots, and he eats berries, just as we do.” Late that afternoon we found a dead elk. We did not know why the elk had died. Perhaps it had lived out its years. Anyhow, Mother, who had been eating roots, grass, bugs, and grubs all day, ate part of the dead elk, nearly half of it. Then she dug a hole in the ground and buried the rest of the meat in it, covering the hole with dirt, sticks, and dead leaves. “There,” she said, with deep satisfaction. “I am full for the ﬁrst time since last fall, and now it is nearly May. Heigh-ho! I guess we will stay here all summer; that is, we will stay around this place until fall. Come and have your supper, children.” Mother sighed contentedly, and I felt glad myself and a little tired. We had stopped in a tiny open place in the deep forest. All about us were tall trees and thickly growing bushes with green leaves that were nearly half grown. It was a beautiful place, with green grass and ﬂowers all about it. I could hear the rippling water of a creek not far away. Back toward the big mountain, Mother had nipped single blades of grass here and there as though they were scarce. Here the grass was plentiful. Everything was plentiful in the big world if one knew just where to look for what he needed, it seemed to me. 18

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After Jim and I had had our supper, Mother said, “I am going to look around here a little. You must stay where you are until I return. Do you both understand me?” “Yes,” we both answered, snuggling against each other for company. And then Mother left us there alone in the little open place. I could hear her walking for several minutes. She went to look at the place where she had buried the dead elk. I thought she stopped there for a little time. After this I could not hear her walking. I began to feel lonesome and a little frightened. Jim and I were so small and the world was so big. Why did Mother leave us? I wondered. The sun was setting. None of the little winds were stirring. The voices of happy birds, strangely loud in the fading sunlight, grew fewer and fewer, and ﬁnally there were no sounds at all. Then a little wind came. It stirred the hair on Jim’s back. I felt it brush my nose, and then, suddenly, I heard somebody walking. “Jim! Jim!” I whispered. But my brother was sound asleep. I stood up to listen, wondering at my brother’s sleeping at such a time. But the walking had ceased. Whoever he was, the walker went on about his business; and yet, after he had passed, every sound that came to me out of the deep forest seemed louder than ever. The sun dropped out of sight. The little winds brought cooler air. I could feel it on my nose, 19

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and then the little winds came down from the mountain and began to stir the bushes. Mother had disappeared through an opening in the bushes, and now I began to watch the opening without even blinking. It grew darker and darker until it was quite black. I could not see beyond it. Many little winds were moving the bushes when “Snap” went a dry stick, as though somebody had stepped upon it. The sound came from behind me, on the other side of the little open place. “Jim! Jim! Wake up! Somebody is coming!” I whispered, shaking my brother. I was all ready to run, I can tell you. Jim sat up to stare stupidly at a great, dark form that was moving toward us. “Is that you, Mother?” he called out, his voice sounding afraid. “shhhh! Yes. Don’t make so much noise,” Mother answered. And, oh, wasn’t I glad! “Jinny was frightened,” Jim laughed. And I had been frightened, though I thought Jim might have kept still about it. “I did not expect to be gone so long, children,” Mother said, lying down with Jim and me. “But I had to learn just who would be our neighbors if we settled down here for the summer, you see. I like to know who is about a place before I settle down in it, with children.” “Oh, I like it here,” Jim said, as though he expected that I would disagree with him. 20

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“And so do I, Mother,” I declared, forgetting the sounds I had heard while she was away. “Yes, children, I like this place myself,” Mother said thoughtfully. “I have already lived here for two summers, so I know all about it. But there is a person staying around here whom I do not like. I have not seen him yet. Nevertheless, I smelled him and saw his tracks in the mud beside the creek. And I found his bed, too. He has been staying around here for quite a while. And if he is going to stay here all summer we may have to move.” “Are you afraid of him, Mother?” I asked, remembering the porcupine-person. “Yes, Jinny,” she said, gently, “but mostly on your account, and on Jim’s. I will decide in the morning what we had better do. Go to sleep now, children.” “Who is this bad person, Mother?” I asked, snuggling up against her soft side. “Is he like the porcupine-person, full of quills or something?” “No, no,” she chuckled. “He is a man-grizzly whom I have known ever since I can remember. My mother knew him long before I was born. He is old, more than twenty-ﬁve years old, and he is cross with children. Go to sleep now, Jinny.” “What is the cross bear’s name, Mother?” Jim asked, pushing against me to sit up. “Old Scarface,” Mother answered. The name itself seemed to remind her of many things. “He has had many battles, Jim. His face is badly scarred from 21

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ﬁghting. One of his ears is gone entirely, and so is one of his eyes.” “Which ear is gone, Mother?” Jim was so funny. As though it made a difference which of the man-bear’s ears was gone! “His right ear,” Mother told him, without even having to stop to think. “And which eye, Mother?” Jim asked, full of interest. “His right eye,” Mother answered, with patience. “And is Old Scarface big bigger than you are, Mother? And is he stronger?” “Yes, Jim.” Mother’s voice was soft. “Old Scarface is bigger, braver, and stronger than I am. But I am a woman-bear. Old Scarface does not quarrel with women. Now go to sleep, both of you.” My! What a night that was. There were stars, and little winds, and pleasant forest-smells and sounds. And yet when I cuddled up against my mother’s big, warm body to sleep I could not drive Old Scarface from my thoughts. I tried and tried, and always the old man-bear would come back. “I know what I’ll do,” I thought. “I’ll keep one eye open all night.” But somehow I couldn’t do this. I became so interested in trying to keep one eye open that I forgot all about Old Scarface, and before I knew it I was sound asleep.

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3 Well, we did not move after all. Mother decided to stay all summer around the little open place in the forest. Jim and I were glad, because we liked the country so much. We grizzly bears are not great wanderers anyhow. We like best to live all our lives in one area, and most of us do this if we are not molested by man. I honestly suppose that ten miles square would more than cover the lifetime wanderings of the average, undisturbed grizzly. However, man, and especially the white man, has made us change our natural ways of life considerably. He is the only living thing that we grizzlies actually fear. When Mother told Jim and me that grizzly bears are afraid of the porcupine-person, she meant that we avoid porcupines just as men avoid hornets and yellow jackets and bumblebees. Of course the porcupine is much more to be dreaded than hornets, yellow jackets, or bumblebees, because the stings of the latter will get well all by themselves. Porcupine quills will not come out of one’s ﬂesh by themselves. The days grew longer and longer and warmer and warmer, and Jim and I kept growing fatter and fatter until we were nearly round. Our coats were thick and shiny now and how we did romp and tumble 23

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and play together in the long, sweet-smelling grass! And the ﬂowers! Why, they were in large patches in every little open place in the forest and along the creek. Jim and I were so happy that we could not keep still for more than a single minute at a time. Jim was actually pretty, too. But between you and me, both Jim and I were secretly ashamed of Mother’s appearance. Ragged! Why, the tenth of June her coat was in tatters! And it was so faded that nobody could have guessed its original color. She looked terribly shoddy. Honestly, there were large patches on her body that were nearly bare. Jim and I did not know that all this was natural to bears, that the time of year had arrived when bears shed their winter coats. I am sure Jim and I would have felt better about it if we 24

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12.25198 had known, but how could we know? Mother said nothing about it, and goodness knows we wouldn’t ask her. We were afraid we might hurt her feelings by speaking of her raggedy coat, so we just let it go, and felt ashamed of her appearance. And my goodness, how the ﬂies and gnats tormented Mother now! She was sometimes nearly frantic with them. I did not blame her at all when one afternoon she went to a puddle of black, soft mud and rolled in it to get rid of the ﬂies. I wish you could have seen her when she came lumbering out of that mud puddle, black from her nose 25

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to her tail. She was fairly plastered all over with the mud. She was a sight to behold! And yet she did not roll on the dry ground, did not even shake herself. No, sir. Instead, she stood perfectly still in the hot sunlight so that the black mud might dry and cover her body like a coat to keep the ﬂies and gnats from her bare places. And she did this nearly every day for a long time. Jim and I thought that Mother looked worse than ever now, and yet we didn’t blame her. Nevertheless, her rolling in that black mud made her a perfect mess to live with. Every time that Jim and I touched her, and we had to touch her often to eat, we got some of the black mud on our ﬁne coats. But withal our daily lives were orderly, Jim and I growing fonder of Mother every day. And yet, because she had to feed us both, Mother had to work hard to get enough for herself to eat. She had long ago ﬁnished the dead elk, which was the only meat she had all summer, unless one calls an occasional woodchuck, or a mouse, meat. We grizzlies are not great meat-eaters anyhow. We usually eat meat when we ﬁnd it, and we would kill for meat, if we could. However, our killings for meat are mostly chance killings, because we are not often able to catch deer, elk, or mountain sheep unless they have been crippled or have accidentally run into us. Whenever any of these animals die of old age, starvation, or from bullet wounds, we grizzlies often eat them when we ﬁnd them, but not always. 26

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All the other animals of the forests and mountains are afraid of us grizzlies. All we have to do to see them run is to walk toward them and we do not even have to look cross. Away they go, sometimes pretending that they have business to attend to at another place. Jim and I learned about this all by ourselves, and got a good cufﬁng besides. One hot day late in June, Mother dug wild turnips from before daylight until nine o’clock; then we all took a nap in a damp, shady place in the forest not far from where Mother had been digging. It was after two o’clock when I wakened. Mother and Jim were yet sound asleep, so I tried hard to be still. But a pine squirrel began barking and calling us names from a tree. He was a saucy person, pretending to be brave. He ran out on a slender limb, scolding at us, saying many things I could not understand, though I was certain they were not complimentary. At last, he grew so saucy that I got up as quietly as I could to drive the noisy squirrel-person away. No sooner had I moved myself than he ran down the tree and ﬂed. I did not feel sleepy anymore, so I began to play with some pinecones all by myself. Jim must have heard me, I guess. Anyhow, he got up to play with me. I saw Mother stir, open one eye, and look at us, so I felt certain she knew her children were awake. But she must have gone to sleep again. It was a snowshoe rabbit that started all the trouble. He came hopping, hopping along among the 27

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trees as though he had not made up his mind where he wished to go. But he decided quickly enough when Jim and I got after him. And my, but he was a swift runner! He raced like a streak up a little hill, his dark bunch of a tail bobbing so fast I couldn’t even count the bobs it made. He was up that hill and over the top before Jim and I were halfway, and yet we kept on, doing the best we could. Jim was ahead of me a little when we reached the hilltop, and there, just over the crest and very near us, was a woman black bear nursing her two cubs. Jim said, “Oh, my,” and tried to stop. But there was no need of our stopping. When the woman black bear saw us she got up and started down that hill pell-mell with her cubs ahead of her, and Jim and I went after her, just for fun. I saw that one of the woman black bear’s cubs was brown and that the other was as black as she was herself. And how they ran! My, it was fun. Jim and I stopped at the creek that ﬂowed along the foot of the hill. We were afraid to go any farther. “I guess they think we are cross,” Jim laughed, when we had stopped running. “And oh, look at this,” he said, walking around a monstrous bear’s track in a patch of mud beside the creek. I’m sure my heart must have skipped several beats when I looked at that big track in the mud. It must have been nearly sixteen inches long. And it was 28

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wide an awful track. “Goodness, let’s go back to Mother, Jim,” I whispered, scarcely daring to move. “I bet it’s Old Scarface. I bet he made this track, Jinny,” Jim whispered. “Suppose he should walk right out of those bushes over there, what would you do?” I had not thought of Old Scarface since the night that Mother told us about him. “You come along,” I said a little louder, and just then Mother came. Oh, but she was angry! She cuffed Jim and me all the way up that hill, over it, and down the other side. Mercy! It was the worst cufﬁng I ever got in my life. And wasn’t Mother cross! “Stop that crying, both of you!” she said shortly, giving us an extra cuff apiece, as soon as we had reached the place where the snowshoe rabbit-person had started all the trouble. “Stop it instantly!” I had never seen Mother so angry. “Well, Jim snufﬂed, “we only ran after some bears because they were afraid of us. That’s all we did.” For a second or two I thought Mother was going to laugh. Her eyes wanted to laugh, I know. But she made them cross-looking again. “Afraid of you?” she sniffed. “Afraid of a couple of fuzzy cubs! The idea! No, no, Jimmy, my son, when the woman black bear saw you she was smart enough to know that I was not far away. Maybe she smelled me. If she did, she is still traveling away from here. Now listen, you two. The track you saw down by the creek was made by Old Scarface. He does not like small children. I told you 29

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this the other day. But I did not tell you that if Old Scarface catches you alone, away from me, he may kill and eat you both. He has done such things that I know about.” My! In my mind I could see that awful track in the mud and feel the hair on my back shivering. Jim was looking over his shoulder up that hill. “I don’t like the rabbit-person, anyhow,” he said sulkily, but I knew he was thinking of that big track in the mud just as I was. Why, even my thinking of Old Scarface made me look around for a place to hide. I was half afraid when Mother said, “Now children, play around here while I dig some roots to eat.” Nevertheless, life was so full of joy that by the time Jim and I had tumbled over each other and rolled a few times, I had forgotten all about Old Scarface, and because we were not hungry we forgot all about Mother and what she had said. We raced through the grass and weeds and ﬂowers and low bushes, rolling each other over and over until we ran into a swampy spot near a little spring of clear water. Two green frogs leaped out of the tall grass around the spring. “Plump! Plump!” they went, headﬁrst into the water like two stones. We could see their green backs on the spring’s dark bottom. “Let’s catch them and eat them,” Jim said, walking into the water. The water was not deep. I believed that I could reach the frogs with my paw, and I said so. But Jim’s walking around roiled the water so that I could no 30

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longer see the frogs. We had to wait until the spring grew clear again, so we both sat very still so still that one of the frogs must have believed we had gone away. He stuck his head out of the water to look around. ﬂip! Like a ﬂash Jim’s paw swept the frog out of the spring, sending him ten feet away into the tall grass. I saw the frog fall, saw him strike the ground, then leap twice. By this time Jim and I were both after him as though our lives depended upon catching [31], (9) him. But the green frog in the green grass was not easy to see, and smelling where he had been did us Lines: 78 to no good because he was no longer there. The frog ——— was cunning, and besides, I suppose he knew his 15.0pt P country. Anyhow, after Jim and I had trampled the ——— grass down ﬂat for a long distance around the spring Normal Pag I saw the frog jump again, this time way over near * PgEnds: Eje the timber. “I see him. Come on, Jim,” I called, running to [31], (9) the place where the frog had shown himself. But Jim stopped at the spring. He had seen the other frog there and was now trying to catch him and ﬁsh him out of the water. I raced on alone, feeling certain that I could ﬁnd the frog when I got there. The ground was nearly bare beneath the trees. Beyond the grass there was no place for the frog-person to hide. I knew that he must still be in the long grass. I began feeling, smelling the grass as I went. Now and then I patted 31

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the grass with my paw to make the frog jump out if he happened to be there. But I could not make him jump, and I could not even smell where he had been. “No use,” I thought. And when I looked up, there, right before me on the edge of the timber, stood Old Scarface! A quick, shivering thrill ran along my back and down my legs. I could neither move nor cry out. And yet to save my life I could not take my eyes away from the big man-bear’s hideously scarred face. He was staring straight at me out of his one good eye [32], (10 as though trying to decide something, and he was smelling the little winds. I could see his nostrils movLines: 81 ing. A woodpecker was tapping, tapping on a dead ——— tree. It was a loud tapping, and I could feel the little 0.26pt winds stirring the hair on my back. I tried to cry out. ——— Normal P Perhaps I did cry out. Anyhow, Mother came tearing * PgEnds: P across the grassy place, passing me like a ﬂash. Her big mouth was open, her ears drawn down against her head, and her eyes [32], (10 were like two glowing coals of ﬁre. And then I saw that Old Scarface was running away into the dark forest with Mother after him, after Old Scarface! Oh, but I felt proud of my Mother then! And even when she came back to scold and cuff me until I cried, I felt just as proud 32

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of her as ever. And my goodness, wasn’t Jim jealous of me because I had seen Old Scarface! And didn’t he ask me questions! Of course, I pretended that I had not been badly frightened and all that. You can scarcely blame me for it. And, oh, didn’t Jim’s eyes grow large when I told him how Mother had chased the big man-bear away! “Ah, I thought you said you were afraid of Old Scarface, Mother,” Jim said, wonderingly. “I am, Jim,” Mother told him. Now what on earth could she have meant by that?

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4 Up to this time my brother, Jim, had felt himself to be very important. Sometimes this had been quite noticeable to me, and it was a little annoying, too. But now, after I had seen Old Scarface all by myself, Jim was different. He was nearly humble in his attitude toward me, and of course I made the most of my experience, letting Jim build it up with his own imagination. This may have been wrong, and yet I believe that nearly anybody who knew Jim would have acted as I did. May and June were rainy that year. Grass and ﬂowers grew so rapidly that one could nearly see them grow. The forest was dark and wet and soft to walk in. On open hillsides the berry bushes were so loaded with white blossoms that when we bumped against them while walking by, they showered our backs with their petals, and nearly always with rainwater, too. Sometimes the petals would fall so thickly upon our coats that we appeared to change color! Those petals would often stay in our hair for a whole day. The worst storm we had all summer came a few hours after I had seen Old Scarface. We were all in an open place where Mother was digging roots when the sky clouded over and became nearly black. Quick 35

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little winds ran past us into the forest as though they were afraid and wanted to hide in the bushes and ferns. Then everything was still. The night seemed to be coming on. I thought suddenly of Old Scarface, and then far off I heard thunder growl. When it stopped, a big wind came racing across the open place as though looking for the little winds who were hiding among the ferns. Just then Mother called, “Come, children! It’s going to rain hard.” She led us beneath the low branches of a huge spruce tree where the ground was quite dry. And then, almost immediately, how the rain poured down! The thunder was deafening, the lightning terrifying, and all night long we had both. Sheets of rain, driven by big winds, made a deep puddle of water all around our tree. Sometimes when the lightning lighted the pool I could see the heavy rain whipping the water. And once, a little after midnight, a tree was uprooted by the wind. Its top crashed against our own tree, raking all the branches from one side, but it left the branches on our side untouched. The whole night was ﬁlled with terrors for me. I believed that the end of my life had come when that tree fell down. I was happy when morning came again, even though every bush was dripping water. By noon the sky was clear and blue, the sun hot as ever. Jim and I, full of play now that we were warm again, wrestled and tumbled whenever Mother 36

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stopped to dig roots. All this time I could see that she was worried about something, however. She kept smelling the little winds, and when she ﬁnally scolded Jim and me for making too much noise, though we hadn’t been making any noise at all, I knew positively that something was wrong. We were going slowly down a hillside toward a creek when Mother stopped quite suddenly and sat down, her nose smelling the little winds as though she did not like what they told her. “What is it, Mother?” I asked, sitting up beside her. “shhhh!” was all she said. “shhhh!” “Oh, look, look, look, Jinny!” Jim stood up on his hind legs. Mother cuffed him down again. “shhhhh!” she said, but this time not so loudly. Below us, just within the timber beside the creek, a mother black bear was climbing a large ﬁr tree, driving her two black cubs up ahead of her. They made a great noise in their climbing. I could see their fat sides shake as they mounted higher and higher, and oh, but they climbed fast! They were all up that tree and among its thick branches in a few seconds. And then all was quiet. Not another sound came to us. I was wondering what this meant when Mother said, “Come, children.” Then she started back up that hillside, walking so rapidly that Jim and I had to run part of the time to keep up. And she did not stop a minute until we were nearly tired out. My, it was hot going back up 37

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that hill as fast as we could go! But when Mother ﬁnally stopped walking we were in the shady forest beside a new creek, one that Jim and I had never seen before. “Why did we leave that other place so fast, Mother?” Jim asked, ﬂopping himself ﬂat on a damp spot near the new creek. “Oh, I didn’t like what the little winds told me there,” Mother answered, lying down in a cool place. “What did the little winds tell you, Mother?” Jim asked anxiously. I was glad, because I wished very much to know this myself. “Nothing deﬁnite.” I could see that Mother did not care to talk about whatever it was. But Jim persisted, as usual. “Well, then why did we walk away from there so fast?” he wanted to know. “Because one of the little winds told me that a white man was somewhere around that place. None of the other little winds told me anything, however. Now you children better have something to eat,” Mother said, as though the matter were ended. “What’s a man, Mother?” Jim was sitting up now, all ears, and I was listening carefully myself. “Man, especially the white man, is the only thing in all creation that full-grown grizzly bears fear. Man,” she went on, seeming to choose her words with care, “is the enemy of every created thing, and he is powerful. But do not think about man now. You will know 38

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about him soon enough. Just mind me. I will take good care of you until next summer.” Jim was plainly puzzled. So was I. “Well, was it what the little winds told the mother black bear that made her climb that tree?” Jim asked. “Yes, of course, though it may not have been the same thing that made me go away from that place. The woman black bear may have smelled Old Scarface, or she may have smelled us. Black bears do not climb trees unless something has frightened them,” Mother answered. Jim was quiet for a time. Then he said, “Climbing trees must be great fun. This very afternoon I’m going to climb a big tree myself.” “I am sure it will be an experience for you, Jim,” Mother said, so evenly that I knew my brother was

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about to learn another lesson, and that I’d proﬁt by it myself. Jim got up, looked critically at several trees, and then, standing beside a tall larch, said, “Here I go.” “I wouldn’t climb too high, Jimmy,” Mother said, sitting up to watch my brother. And she winked at me. But for some reason Jim could not get started at his climbing. He tried desperately enough. And then he looked so bafﬂed and disappointed that Mother called him to her. “Why can’t I climb a tree, Mother?” he asked, ready to cry. “Because you are a grizzly,” Mother answered, smiling. “Grizzly bears cannot climb trees, Jim. Only the black bears climb trees,” she told him. “And squirrels and things?” Jim asked her, as though all tree-climbing animal-people were in one class, and quite insigniﬁcant after all. “Yes, Jim, and squirrels and things,” Mother smiled. Poor Jim looked beaten. He had felt so certain that he could climb a tree. I felt sorry for him now. I think Mother felt the same as I did, because she said, “Go to sleep for a while now, children.” And there on the damp, cool ground, with the little winds playing around us, Jim and I slept until Mother awakened us by sitting up. “Be quiet,” she whispered, feeding us again. 40

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Somebody was coming. “Who is it, Mother?” I whispered, looking between two big thimbleberry leaves to see who might be walking. “A man-grizzly,” she answered, without moving, though I could see the hair on her neck and shoulders bristling. I stood up among the thimbleberry bushes. I could see a large, sand-colored bear-person shufﬂing along as though he knew exactly where he was going, but did not care a rap when he got there. He saw us. I know positively that he saw us, and yet he pretended that he did not know we were in the world. Mother did not move. On went the sandy-colored man-bear about his business. Finally he shufﬂed out of my sight. “Is he a grizzly, Mother?” Jim whispered when the man-bear had disappeared. “Yes. Don’t you know a grizzly bear when you see him?” Mother said. “Why, he doesn’t look like you. His coat isn’t even the same color as yours. Aren’t all grizzlies the same color when they are grown bears?” Jim was perplexed. “No, Jim,” Mother answered. “Grizzly bears may be nearly any color. Their coats range from nearly black to a faded yellowish brown. But somewhere on all of them, especially around the ears, there is white-tipped hair. This is the mark of the grizzly. Often, because of this white-tipped hair, grown grizzlies 41

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appear to be nearly white, and it is this hair that has given us the name of “silver tips.” Jim was thoughtful for a moment. Then he asked: “But how can one tell which are grizzly bears if they are all colors?” Mother laughed so heartily that I joined her, though of course I did not know why she laughed. “By their heads, by their forms, by their manner of walking, and above all, by their claws, Jim,” Mother said, holding up her front paw for our inspection. “I did not notice the claws of the black bears we saw,” Jim admitted. “That was because they were not noticeable,” Mother said. “Now, a black bear’s claws are short. Ours are long, sometimes nearly six inches long when we ﬁrst come out of our dens in the spring. But by the time we are nearly ready for our long winter sleep, our claws are so worn down that they are not very much longer than those of a black bear. Each winter, while we sleep, our claws grow long, and each summer, while we are awake, we wear them out by digging roots. And now I think I’d better wear my own claws out a little, because I’m hungry,” she ﬁnished, getting up to dig turnips. Jim and I followed. We found a small log whose top had fallen upon another log, so that it did not touch the ground. We could walk under it easily. It just brushed the hair on our backs. In a minute we had made up a game, and began to play it. Jim would 42

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stand on the log and try to slap me when I ran under it. Then we would change places for a while. But Jim became so excited that he struck me too hard, and then we quarreled so noisily that Mother cuffed us both and stopped the game. It was while she was cufﬁng Jim that I saw a womangrizzly and two cubs not more than twenty-ﬁve yards away. The woman-bear was digging roots. She did not notice us even when Jim cried out under Mother’s cufﬁng. Nevertheless, the woman-bear’s cubs sat up to look at us, their ears pricked forward as though surprised. But Mother turned again to her root-digging as though she did not see the other bears at all. “Jim, Jim,” I said, to stop his crying. “See those children over there!” Poor Jim! As soon as he saw the woman-grizzly’s cubs he started toward them with the best of intentions. But Mother stopped him instantly. “Come back here, Jim,” she ordered. Of course, Jim came back. “Why? I only wanted to play with those children,” he pouted. “May I, Mother?” “No!” Mother turned to walk away. “Come, both of you,” she said shortly. “My goodness, Jinny,” Jim whispered when Mother’s back was turned. “I think it is positively snippy to be so unsociable.” 43

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“What’s that, Jim?” Mother turned around and sat down, her face serious. “What did you say, my son?” “I said that I thought it snippy of us to be so unsociable,” Jim admitted truthfully, looking back at the woman-grizzly’s children as though he hoped they had heard him. “No, Jim,” Mother said gently. “It is never snippy to attend to one’s own business; and besides, it’s grizzly law. Grizzly bears are individualists. They do not run in packs as wolves do. Each of us walks alone in this world. A mother grizzly takes care of her children for two summers. Then she leaves them to shift for themselves, and knows them no more. Her children, left alone in the second fall after their birth, often stay together until the following spring; then they, too, separate and become strangers, walking alone in this world as long as they live.” “Perhaps we are an unsociable lot, after all,” she said, more to herself than to us. “But this is grizzly law, made by the Maker of grizzly bears. Come, children.”

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5 Berry time! How Mother looked forward to berry time! During a hot afternoon, while we were lying in deeply shaded places in the green forest, Mother told Jim and me wonderful stories of berry time. Most of them were of great feasts of ripened berries, plenty for all, and yet some were not so happy. Sometimes she told us of quarrels between bears in the berry patches, and theses stories always reminded me of Old Scarface. Thoughts of again meeting this cross old man-bear nearly spoiled my dreams of berry time. And yet it seemed to me that Mother could think of nothing except berry time. She told us that the berries were intended for the use of all bears, and that no single bear owned any berry patch. She said that if a bear saw other bears among the berry bushes, he or she had the right to walk right in and eat berries, carefully pretending not to see the other bears. “Attend to your own business. This is grizzly law,” she reminded us again. “But Mother,” Jim asked, “suppose some cross old bear tries to drive another bear out of a berry patch? What, then, is grizzly law?” I could see that Mother did not wish to answer this question. I wondered if she was thinking of Old 45

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Scarface. But Jim insisted. “What does one do then, Mother?” he asked again. “Well,” Mother answered reluctantly, “if one does not wish to be driven out of a berry patch one must ﬁght.” “Did any bear ever try to drive you out of a berry patch, Mother?” Jim asked, indignantly. “Yes.” I could see that Mother wished to change the subject. “Berry time is when you children begin to make your own living,” she told us, and would have gone on in this vein if Jim had not been dissatisﬁed. “Did you ﬁght when another bear tried to drive you out of a berry patch?” he asked hopefully. “Yes, and I stayed in the berry patch, Jim. The cross bear ran away after a while,” Mother smiled. Jim and I were nearly six months old now. We had, for two months, nibbled at grass and roots, but our food was our mother’s milk. We wondered how we should manage when berry time came, if we had then to make our own living. But we said nothing about this to Mother. We knew that she would take good care of us. I have told you that Mother looked for food early in the morning and late in the evening, and that during the hot afternoons we all slept together in cool places. One afternoon, an hour before sundown, Mother said, “Come, children, serviceberries are ripe. The little winds told me this while you were sleeping.” 46

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“At last!” I thought, with a great thrill. And then Old Scarface came to my mind to spoil everything. Nevertheless, I followed Mother and Jim toward lower country where there were bushy hillsides. And how Mother did walk! Jim and I had to run to keep up with her. It was this running that led us into trouble; that is, it led Jim into trouble. Of course, I was with him when he met it, but I was lucky. It was this way: Mother was walking so fast that she was nearly out of sight. Jim, who was ahead of me, ran into a patch of tall weeds, thinking to cut across it and catch up with Mother. But there was a skunkperson in that weed patch. Jim must have bumped against him, I guess. Anyhow, when he ﬁnally got out of those tall weeds Jim wasn’t ﬁt to live with. He smelled perfectly awful! And all the country around him smelled just as awful as he did. Why, I had to go away by myself to make sure that the skunk-person had missed me. Poor Jim! Mother was cross with him. She had shown us the skunk-persons and had carefully told us all about them. And now, after all Mother had said, Jim had had bad luck. “I didn’t see him,” Jim whimpered while Mother was digging a hole in the ground. “No, I suppose not,” Mother muttered. “Now you lie down in this hole and I’ll cover you up,” she said crossly. “My, but you are a perfect mess,” she added, 47

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piling the dirt upon poor Jim but leaving his nose sticking out. “You walked so fast, Mother,” I said, taking my brother’s part. “We had to run to catch up. Jim cut across ” “Come here,” Mother ordered, interrupting me and beginning to dig another hole. “Nobody can sleep with that smell,” she said severely. “But I’m all right,” I told her. “The skunk-person missed me.” But Mother would not believe me until she had smelled me all over. I didn’t blame her, though. The whole world smelled the same as Jim’s coat, even the tall weeds. “Well, lie down then. Don’t be rambling around so much,” Mother said ﬁnally. “We’ll have to stay here for a while to let Jim get rid of that smell, until evening anyhow. It serves him right, too. My, but Mother was cross that afternoon. She had planned to feast upon serviceberries, I suppose, and now, of course, she would be late in reaching the berry patch. But little by little she grew better natured. Finally I saw her sides shaking with laughter, and I knew that she had forgiven Jim. Darkness had crept into the forest before Mother dug Jim out of the hole. The fresh earth had done great good, and yet Jim smelled bad enough even now. I could smell that skunk-person on Jim’s coat 48

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for more than a month afterward. But I never mentioned it for fear of hurting my brother’s feelings. Summer nights are short in northwestern Montana. By three o’clock in the morning the birds begin singing in the forests here, and forest-people are stirring about. If one wishes to learn about the wilderness and its natural inhabitants, there is no other time of day that can be compared with early morning. Before daylight Mother, Jim, and I were among the serviceberry bushes. And these berries were the ﬁrst solid food that I had really liked. Eat! Why, I ate and ate until I could not hold another berry, and then I learned that if I rolled over a few times I could hold more. I did a lot of rolling during berry time. I am sure that it would surprise you if you knew the number of serviceberries a bear can eat, even a small bear. After the ﬁrst day among the berry bushes our tongues were stained black, and they remained black until the end of berry time. We all grew fat. Our coats, especially Jim’s, were thick and glossy by the time the serviceberries were gone; and then huckleberry time came along. And, oh, how good the huckleberries tasted! They grow in higher country than the serviceberries, and in the forest. Mother led us to patch after patch of huckleberries. In nearly every one of them we saw other bears. Black bears and brown bears would nearly always leave the patches when 49

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they saw us coming. The grizzlies did not leave the patches. They pretended that they did not see us and went on eating huckleberries as though we had not come. Twice we saw women-bears with three cubs each. Mother said that sometimes, though rarely, a woman-bear has four cubs. Think of having two pairs of twins to take care of, especially if they happened to be like my brother, Jim! August was hot. The forest was so dry that every little stick broke with a loud snap if a person stepped upon it. And then one night, when all the little winds were sleeping, a storm came to the forest. Lightning struck a dead tree near us and set it aﬁre. The ﬂames, climbing up and up to the dead treetop, lighted the wet forest. It was beautiful to see, and yet it frightened me a little, and it worried Mother. She told us that the great forest might burn, and that we might have to go back into the high mountains. But we were lucky. The rain came down so heavily that it put out the ﬁre. And besides this, the rain helped everything in the forest. Every tree and bush and weed looked happier the next morning, and my, how the birds sang after the rain! By daylight we were eating huckleberries as fast as we could. We had not seen any other bears all the morning. Indeed, we had heard no sounds in the forest except birdsongs, so that I supposed we had the berry patch all to ourselves. But suddenly, Mother stopped eating berries and sat up on her 50

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haunches. “Listen, children,” she said, pricking her ears forward. We all stood very still. The berry patch was on a hillside, with scattered ﬁr trees shading the berry bushes. Looking down the hill I saw the bushes shaking, and then I saw the back of a man-grizzly. It looked nearly white, the whitest I had ever seen. The big bear was coming toward us through the berry bushes, and he was not Old Scarface, thank goodness. “Come, children,” Mother whispered, leading us farther up the hill. She did not walk fast, but stopped now and then to eat berries, as though attending to her own business. “Who is that big man-bear, Mother?” I asked when we had stopped among some bushes loaded with huckleberries. “His name is Whitey,” Mother answered, looking back down the hill where the white-backed bear was eating berries. “Whitey is a great traveler,” Mother went on. “Sometimes he follows the Kootenai River until he ﬁnds salmon, and there he stops to catch and eat the salmon ﬁsh until he grows tired of them. In doing this, he takes desperate chances because to ﬁnd the salmon ﬁsh one must go far down the Kootenai, toward its mouth. Whitey is here, there, and everywhere. One never knows when he will turn up. “Is he cross?” Jim asked, full of interest. 51

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“I have heard so,” Mother said, her mouth full of berries. “And old?” Jim inquired. “No,” Mother answered. “Whitey is not old, that is, he is not so old as Old Scarface. And yet I have heard that he is both cross and strong. I had rather not meet him when you children are with me.” I kept looking down the hillside at the man-bear’s white back. He was not coming toward us now, and this relieved me. He was attending to his own business, so that I began to eat berries myself. And then I heard talking; so did Mother and so did Jim. We all sat up on our haunches to look down the hill. I saw that the white back of the big man-bear was hidden in the bushes now. “Well, what are you doing around here?” somebody was asking crossly. Somehow I knew that it was Old Scarface. The hair on my back felt shivery. “I am doing the thing that you better be doing, mister,” another gruff voice answered sneeringly. “I am attending strictly to my own business,” it said. “That’s Whitey,” Mother whispered, standing up to see better. Goodness, how I wished I were tall. “Oh, you are, are you? Well, you get out of this berry patch, and be in a hurry about it,” said the cross voice. “That’s Old Scarface,” Mother whispered. But I already knew it was Old Scarface, you see. And then I heard Whitey laugh. It wasn’t funny 52

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laughter; it was awful laughter, awful. It made me wish that I were miles away from that hillside. “Why you old tramp,” Whitey said savagely. “If you do not stand aside and let me pass, I’ll ” thud! I heard an awful blow, saw the white back of the big man-bear ﬂash in the bushes, saw the bushes torn up by their roots, saw the two great bears go rolling down the hillside like a mighty, noisy ball of hair and long claws, breaking the berry bushes as though they were but grass. Oh, the power, the awful strength, of those two big bears! And the anger, and the deep hate, in their voices! The noise of their battle did not leave my ears for days. I wish you might have seen the hillside where they fought. “Who won the ﬁght, Mother? Who whipped?” Jim’s voice was so ﬁlled with excitement that it trembled. He had been trying to climb to Mother’s shoulders. Once he actually stood up on my back. Mother did not answer. Instead, she walked farther up the hillside. When she stopped to look down again I saw Old Scarface running away with Whitey after him. My heart leaped with joy. Old Scarface was bleeding, and he was limping badly. I wondered if he would always limp now. “Hey, you old tramp,” Whitey called to him. “If you happen to see another old man-bear who is as cross as you are just tell him that Whitey has returned to this part 53

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of the country and that he intends to stay here till fall.” I noticed that Whitey limped a little, too. “That was a good ﬁght,” Jim said, as though he were a judge of battles. However, I was puzzled. “What’s a tramp, Mother?” I asked, when both Whitey and Old Scarface were out of sight. “Oh, it’s a person who is here, there, and everywhere,” she said. I could see that Mother did not hold tramps in very high regard, though I thought that being here, there, and everywhere ought not to lower a person’s social standing. I rather liked the idea myself.

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6 Jim talked of the battle between Whitey and Old Scarface until I grew tired of it. Mother was so patient with him, answering his countless questions without once being cross. And, of course, I listened to Jim’s questions and Mother’s answers. Somehow, all this time, I thought that Mother was a little sorry Whitey had whipped Old Scarface. I could not get this thought out of my mind, so one afternoon, when we were alone for a minute, I asked her if she liked Old Scarface very much. “Oh, I don’t know,” she answered, a little put out, I thought. “Grizzly bears never marry, you know, Jinny,” she went on, as though she believed she ought to explain. “I have known Old Scarface all my life. I guess I had grown to believe that no bear could whip him. And, yes, I like him quite well, Jinny,” she ended. After this I did not know whether I ought to be glad that Old Scarface got such a whipping. Anyhow, he left that part of the country. I was glad of this. The huckleberries lasted until frost came, and then there were the black haws, scads of them. The haws were not as good as the huckleberries. Their bushes, which are sometimes good-sized, have sharp 55

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thorns that are very annoying. And, of course, we sometimes ate Oregon grapes, and the beautiful red berries of the kinnikinic, long after the frosts came. I shall always remember the ﬁrst frost that whitened the grass, and how it sparkled in the early morning sunlight. And I cannot forget the ﬁrst nights of fall. They were so beautiful, starlit and clear. Each day seemed to be a little brighter than the one before, and each night a little sharper, until one morning, at daylight, when Mother called Jim and me, I noticed that her breath was white. I asked about this. Mother said it was a sign that winter was not very far away. I had not given a thought to winter. Now I began thinking about it, and it was a little saddening. I remembered that nearly all the birds had left the forest, that they had been disappearing for weeks. When I asked Mother if the birds had gone to sleep for the winter, she said, “No, Jinny, they have gone south.” I wondered why we could not go south, but Mother was digging out a ground squirrel and did not seem to wish to discuss the question just then. I did not like to think of winter. We were all so fat and happy that I wished winter would never come. Then, one morning, a little later, I saw thin, clear ice on a tiny pool of water, and that very morning Mother began traveling back toward the high mountains. Oh, how I did wish that I were a songbird, so that I might ﬂy south instead. 56

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We traveled slowly, stopping for days at a time to dig and eat roots. The middle of October found us at the cave where Jim and I were born. Somehow I was not glad to see the cave. I could not forget the wonderful summer we had spent in the lower country. However, Mother, Jim, and I looked the place over, cleaned it out, and carried in a little grass and weeds and brush for our winter beds. The very thought of having to sleep all winter long disgusted me. One misses so much by sleeping all winter! However, we three Mother, Jim, and I spent a day or two getting our cave ready for the long sleep, and then we all went back down the steep mountain to dig out Columbian ground squirrels and whistling marmots while we waited for the deep snows to come. There had already been several little snows that had quickly melted away. And yet the nights kept growing colder and colder, and every day the ground froze a little harder, so that digging grew more and more difﬁcult. Mother had fed Jim and me a little all summer, and even through the early fall, but now she refused to feed us, so that we had to dig our food just as she did. Our claws were worn down to nearly nothing, Mother’s being so short that I wondered how she could dig at all. In November, while we were staying in the spruce forest at the foot of the high mountain, a great storm came in the night. We were already in high country, so that when the storm had passed the snow was 57

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deep and the weather cold. I shall always remember the climb up that rough mountain to our cave, and how tired we all were when we ﬁnally reached it. For once I was glad to see the cave. We had not eaten a mouthful of food for two whole days when we three, Mother, Jim and I, settled down on our beds with empty stomachs to sleep until spring. And yet, you must not feel sorry because our stomachs were empty. Bears do not go to sleep for the winter when their stomachs are full. I must have gone to sleep at once. All I can remember of that winter in the cave are dreams. Some of them were wild, and quite disturbing. Twice I dreamed of Old Scarface, and once I cried out. But Mother and Jim were sound asleep and did not hear me, even when I sat up. I know that I must have turned over a good many times, and once, when I was partially awake, I heard Jim talking in his sleep. But withal, our cave was dark and quiet all winter long. I suppose that during the winter both Mother and Jim were awake as often as I was, and yet we did not happen to be awake all at the same time until early in March. Then we talked a little, and I remember I felt so drowsy that I was glad to go back to sleep. April was half gone when Mother dug a way through the snow that was piled over the mouth of our cave. The sudden light blinded me for a few minutes, just as it had the year before, and I felt the chill wind with 58

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misgivings. I remember that I was not very hungry until we were halfway down the mountain. Then, after wallowing in deep snow, I suffered from hunger for hours. At last we all began to dig out marmots, and even after eating several I wondered if I could ever again get enough to eat. I was growing, you see, and must have weighed about seventy-ﬁve pounds. At last summer came, and then berry time, just as they always come. We all grew fat again long before our new claws were worn out, and we all began to work our way back toward the high mountain when the frosts came in the fall. One morning, however, when Jim and I wakened, we discovered we were alone. Mother had lately told us that the time had 59

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come for us to shift for ourselves, so that we had been expecting to be left alone. But now that Mother was gone we felt downhearted and lonesome. Nevertheless, we kept traveling toward the high mountain and our cave, half expecting to ﬁnd Mother waiting for us there. But the cave was vacant. Nobody had been there in ever so long. It was a lonesome-looking place, I can tell you. My, how the wind was blowing! There was already snow on the ground, and little ﬂurries of it dusted the hair on our backs. I looked at Jim, and Jim looked at me. “Well, she’s gone,” he said soberly, “and she didn’t tell us where she was going, so there’s nothing we can do about it, I guess.” I cannot tell you how left alone I felt, nor how silently Jim and I made up our winter beds. But we made out all right, doing the work in silence. Then we both went back down the mountain to ﬁnd something to eat, just as we had done the year before. There seemed nothing else to do. But Jim and I waited too long before starting back up the high mountain to our cave. A ﬁerce storm caught us in the spruce forest. By the time we were halfway up the mountainside the snow was so deep that we had to take turns breaking a trail. Night came, and a terrible blizzard, before we reached our cave, and by morning the entrance to the cave was covered over with drifted snow. I felt actually grate60

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ful for the cave now, and wondered if Mother had found a good place to sleep for the winter. “Heigh-ho,” Jim yawned. “I suppose that losing one’s mother in this way is grizzly law, and that we must abide by it,” he said sleepily. This set me to thinking. Mother had given two whole summers to Jim and me, and now we were grown up, or were growing up as fast as we could. We weighed nearly one hundred and ﬁfty pounds apiece. Nevertheless, we sorely missed Mother. I wondered if she would have other children to take care of in the spring, and if she would notice us if we met her in the berry patches. “I shall always speak to her anyhow,” I thought, remembering what she had told us about attending to one’s own business. And this was the last I remembered for a long, long time. I need not tell you about that winter. It was the same as the other, and the summer that followed was not unlike those I have told you about. Jim and I stayed together nearly all the time until the following fall, seeing Mother but twice in the whole season. If she saw Jim and me she did not let us know, and we had no opportunity to speak to her, though I noticed that she had no children with her. We saw Whitey four times during berry time, and once when Jim tried to talk privately to a young woman-grizzly, Whitey drove him out of the berry patch without even noticing me. It was soon after this affair that Jim told me he had found a cave for himself, and that I 61

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might keep our old one. Somehow I did not fully realize what this meant until one day, after the quaking aspens had turned yellow, Jim left me. I knew that he had made several little journeys into the mountains all by himself, and that he might have been looking for a cave. Now he was gone. I had lost my mother and my brother according to grizzly law, and was alone in the big world. Well, there is no good in worrying about things one cannot help. Grizzly law is grizzly law. I slept alone in our old cave that winter. When spring came and I started down the high mountain I had nearly forgotten both Mother and Jim. To me they were now ordinary grizzly bears governed by grizzly law just as I was. I wondered if I should know Jim if I met him. A person thinks a good deal when alone. While I was going down the mountain I kept saying, “grizzly law, grizzly law,” keeping it up until I reached the spruce forest. By the time I had found enough food to satisfy my hunger, I had decided that I did not like all grizzly laws. Perhaps this was because I am naturally a sociable person and like to be friendly. Being alone in the big world, and having no children to care for, I could not think of a single good reason why I should not speak to the forest-people when I met them, grizzly law or no grizzly law. Anyhow, I decided that I would be friendly and see what happened. 62

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“Of course, this speaking to everybody will make me seem a little queer to other grizzlies,” I thought, while I looked for a place to sleep for the night. And then, when I ﬁnally got settled down, an idea came to me. I’d be a tramp. I could scarcely wait for morning.

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7 I was up and traveling south long before daylight. Where was I going? I did not know. Moreover, I did not care where I went. I intended to travel, to be a tramp, to be here, there, and everywhere, and to be sociable with everybody. Somehow, my good intentions made me suddenly happy. To be alone in the big world was not so bad after all. By two o’clock, after I had found enough to eat and was resting on a little hill, a woman-grizzly came shufﬂing along just below me. She was about my own age and alone in the world just as I was. “Well,” I thought, “here is where I begin to be friendly. “Good afternoon,” I called sitting up and smiling my very best. But grizzly law was grizzly law to that womanbear. She did not even look at me. “Shucks,” I said to myself when that woman-bear was out of sight. “She may be deaf and dumb, for all I know. Anyhow, I’m going to continue to be friendly.” Mother had told Jim and me that Whitey sometimes followed the Kootenai waters to salmon-ﬁsh, and that he caught and ate salmon there. I did not know how far a person might have to go to ﬁnd salmon, perhaps a long, long way, even to the Columbia for all I knew. And anyhow, the ﬁrst run 65

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of salmon did not come up the rivers until June. The water is always very high in June and July. If I traveled to salmon-ﬁshing waters, I might be late for berry time in my own country, so I decided not to go on following the Kootenai waters but to wander about in my own country instead, and just as I turned around I smelled meat. I had eaten no meat, excepting a few ground squirrels, chipmunks, and marmots, and of course I was hungry. The little winds told me that the meat was not far away, so I started toward it, walking carefully, because one never knows what person may be hiding near meat in the forest. In a minute I met a skunkperson who had been to the meat and was coming back up the hill. “Good afternoon,” I said, remembering to be sociable but giving him the right of way nevertheless. He stopped, surprised. “Why, hello,” he said, his big beautiful tail held high. This looked suspicious. I was a little afraid that he intended mischief. However, I said, “This is a ﬁne day,” while backing up to give him plenty of room. “Yes, it’s lovely. But where are you going?” he asked so good-naturedly that I stopped to explain. 66

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“Well, don’t go near that meat,” he said, as though he knew a secret about it. “Why?” I asked, smelling the little winds again. The meat smelled good. “Because there is a trap set there, a trap for bears. I saw the men set the trap four days ago. If you try to eat any of that meat you’ll be caught. The trap is a deadfall. It will break your back.” Mother had told Jim and me that we would learn about men soon enough. Now I was learning about them from a skunk, the very last person on earth whom I had expected to associate with, even for a minute. “Want to see that deadfall?” the skunk-person asked, ready to lead me to it. “Yes, please,” I answered. And didn’t I hate to fall in behind him! I tried to walk a little to one side. He noticed this and laughed good-naturedly. “You must have done something to one of my people sometime,” he said, looking back at me. “No,” I told him honestly. “I have better sense than that. I really have.” This pleased him so much that he rolled with laughter. I laughed a little myself, and yet I couldn’t feel quite comfortable in the skunk-person’s company. I kept watching his tail. “Well, here’s the deadfall,” he said ﬁnally, stopping beside a log pen. “I’ve eaten some of the meat in there, and I expect to eat more of it,” he went on, 67

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adding, “but you are too big and too heavy to try to get at it. Better let it alone.” I saw that at the door of the pen a heavy green log, nearly as large around as my body and more than ﬁve times as long, had been cunningly set upon a small pole that formed the top of a ﬁgure four. If anybody who was a large person tried to move or eat the meat in the pen, he would move the small pole so that the heavy green log would fall and kill him. I could not understand why the men should wish to kill us bears in this manner. Surely we had done them no wrong. “Why do the men do this thing?” I asked the skunkperson, who was already helping himself to a little meat. “To get your coats, your skins,” he told me. “Why, they kill us all for our skins.” “But sometimes our skins are without good fur. Would the men kill us then?” I asked, wonderingly. “Oh, yes,” he laughed. “They would kill you at any time, because you are a bear. They do not often kill the rest of us unless our fur is good, and prime. But most men will kill a bear at any time of year, so that they may boast of the deed.” I wondered if Mother knew about deadfalls and the other things I had learned from the skunkperson. “Thank you, friend,” I said, turning to go about my business. “Say,” he called, “you had better look out for steel traps, too. There is one set down that way by the 68

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river.” He pointed and then said, “Nobody has better noses than you bear-people. Use your nose. If you ﬁnd meat and smell men around it, let it alone.” “Thank you,” I said again, starting on. But the skunk-person caught up to me. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Jinny,” I told him, wondering at his friendliness. “Well, Jinny,” he said coming up close to me, “if you had not spoken to me, I’d have let you go on about your business and said nothing about the [69], (5) deadfall. But you are a friendly person. I like you. Where do you live, anyhow?” “Oh, I live here, there, and everywhere,” I anLines: 119 t swered. “I’m a tramp, you know.” I liked the sound ——— of the word tramp better than ever. 0.0pt Pg “Well, good-bye, Jinny, and good luck to you. I’m ——— Normal Pag going to stay around this place and eat all the meat I * PgEnds: Eje can. There’s nearly a whole deer in that pen, and it will save hunting for food.” Then the skunk-person came even closer, closer than I liked. “There’s a [69], (5) mountain lion snooping around here,” he whispered. “I hope he gets caught. I’d like to see him get caught. I don’t like that person. He’s as bad as men, or nearly as bad.” “I believe you are right,” I said, remembering how easily the mountain lion kills the deer-people. But I couldn’t wish anybody bad luck just then, because the big world and everybody in it had been kind to me ever since I had become a tramp. In a single day 69

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I’d learned many things, and made a friend at the same time, just by being sociable myself. I felt glad that I was a tramp. But even a tramp has to eat. I had spent a good deal of time visiting with the skunk-person, and now I was hungry. Food was scarce just there, and by the time I had found enough to eat and had lain down for the night, the forest was dark and still. The little winds of the night had not begun to stir about when a great horned owl came along. At ﬁrst I forgot to speak to him when he settled upon a limb of a tree near me, and then I remembered to be friendly. “Good evening,” I said, sitting up. “Good evening,” he answered, cocking his head on one side, as though listening. I listened myself but heard nothing. “Have you traveled far?” I asked, just to make talk. “Not very,” he replied. “I was to meet a fellow here,

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but there he is now. Coog-cooganoots-sto-kay,” he called, answering another owl-person who must have been far away in the dark forest. And my goodness, what a voice he had! Anybody who heard it would suppose that the owl was a noisy person, and yet no other bird ﬂies so silently as he does. “Have you ever seen any men around here?” I asked, remembering the deadfall and all that the skunk-person had told me. “Yes,” he answered. “There are two men sitting beside a campﬁre just beyond that hill yonder. I saw them as I passed. And say,” he added suddenly, as though he had remembered an important matter, “you’d better look out for yourself. Those two men are hunting for bears. They killed a black bear today. I’d go away from here if I were you.” “Thank you, friend,” I said, smelling the little winds. But they told me nothing, because they were blowing the wrong way. “Coog-cooganoots-sto-kay,” the owl-person called again. Then he said to me, “My friend is slow. We have a little business together, and he is late.” I had not yet smelled a man. I needed to know the smell, and now I intended to go where the little winds would bring it to me. “I’ll be going, friend,” I said to the owl-person. “What’s your name, big one?” he asked me, just as his friend arrived. “Jinny,” I told him, turning to go. 71

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“Jinny, Jinny,” he repeated. “I’ll remember your name, Jinny. And where do you live, Jinny?” he asked, as though he liked to speak my name. “Oh, here, there, and everywhere,” I told him. And then, after I had walked a few steps, I called back, “I’m a tramp.” I felt quite certain that this would impress the owl-person. I crossed the hill the owl-person had mentioned, walking carefully until I saw the men’s campﬁre. The little winds brought me the smell of the smoke, and then I caught the smell of the men themselves. I knew instantly that I could never forget. Walking nearer I saw the men. One of them was tall. The other was short and fat. Both had hairy faces. While I was looking, the fat man put wood on the ﬁre. The ﬂames grew brighter, the ﬁrelight reaching nearly to me. I drew back into the bushes. And then I heard the tall man say, “There are grizzlies around here, Bill. I saw their tracks in some mud today.” Goodness, I thought, the tracks may have been my own. I made up my mind to be more careful about walking on muddy places. I wished to get away from that campﬁre. I had seen enough, heard enough, and smelled enough to know that this was not a good place for me. “Here I go,” I said to myself, “and if you two men ever see any more of my tracks, you will ﬁnd them a long way from here.” 72

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This adventure got on my nerves a little. Walking rapidly, without knowing where I wished to go, I began to think of the days before my time, days when grizzly bears had nothing on earth to fear. Somehow I had learned a little about those days, and now I wished that I might have lived before the white man brought his noisy riﬂe to the Rockies. I knew that it was the white man’s riﬂe that had made the grizzlies afraid. I had been walking a long time now, and rapidly, and I must have been thinking deeply, because when I saw that the day was coming I could scarcely believe my eyes. My stomach began to cry for food, so that I began at once to look for something to eat. I was on a steep hillside where the bushes were already budded. Many marmots were yet in their winter dens there, so I began digging. Later, just as I began digging for a third marmot, one of the little winds brought me the smell of men. Goodness! More men! Now what ought I to do? Better learn where the men are, I decided, beginning to walk carefully into the little wind that had brought me the news. It grew stronger, and by the time I had climbed to the top of the hill and was looking down into a timbered gulch, it brought me another smell. At ﬁrst I believed that this new odor was the smell of a wolf-person, and yet there was something about it that did not seem to be natural. Morning was coming fast now. The sun was beginning to light 73

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the snowy mountain peaks in the west, thus making the gulch look even darker. The rushing creek in its bottom appeared to be a winding, snowy trail leading out of the mountains to the Kootenai River. I watched the sunlight creep down the white peaks until it brushed the tops of the trees at the base of the mountain range westward, the little winds, which had now grown strong, bringing me the smell of the men and the other, wolﬂike odor as well. “Anyhow, I’m glad I’m a tramp,” I said aloud. And just then, just as the sunlight touched my back, I saw a thin ﬁlm of blue smoke stab its way out of a ﬁr thicket down in the gulch. “Oh-ho!” I said, as though speaking to the men themselves, “There you are, hey?” As though something led me, I went back down that hill intending to spend the summer in the section where I was born, or north of it a little.

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8

It is strange how one’s reputation will travel. I had not walked two hundred yards when I met a wolfperson coming up the hill. “Good morning, Jinny,” he said, turning aside to [First Page] let me pass. [75], (1) “Good morning,” I answered, sitting down to let him see that I was perfectly willing to visit a little Lines: 0 to while. “How did you happen to know my name?” I asked, ——— 15.12pt when the wolf-person had stopped, as I hoped he ——— would. Normal Pag “Oh, everybody knows who you are. All the forest- * PgEnds: Eje people like you because you are so friendly,” he replied, grinning so broadly that I could see his [75], (1) teeth. This pleased me, of course. “I suppose all this friendliness is because I’m a tramp, isn’t it?” I asked. I wanted him to know that I was a tramp, you see. But I saw at once that he didn’t understand. 75

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“What is a tramp?” he asked, looking puzzled. “Why, a tramp is a person who is here, there, and everywhere,” I told him, with a feeling of importance. “Oh,” he grinned, as though not deeply impressed. I wondered if he had understood me after all. Just then the little winds coming down the hillside brought me the wolﬂike odor. I wanted to mention it, and yet I did not wish to have the wolf-person think me silly. So I said, “There are men over there,” nodding my head up the hill. “Yes, and two dogs,” he answered, snifﬁng the wind, his nostrils working nervously. “Dogs?” I said. “What are dogs? What are they like?” “Like wolves, some of them. Anyhow, they are relatives of ours, and yet we are bitter enemies,” he said, looking savagely up the hill. Now I understood why I had thought of wolves when the little winds brought me the ﬁrst smell of the dogs. “Do the dogs live with the men?” I asked, remembering that the smells seemed to be together when the little winds brought them. “Yes,” he said, with a look of deep disgust in his eyes, “and if the dogs ﬁnd your tracks they will follow you, and then the men will follow the dogs. You had better get away from this place, Jinny.” I wondered where I could go. “I will,” I told him, as 76

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though I had thought of a better place. “Good-bye, friend,” I said, getting up to go about my business. “I’ll help you anytime I can.” “Dogs,” I thought, walking rapidly, smelling the little winds as I traveled. “If a dog comes near enough to me I’ll ” Goodness! They were coming. The dogs were on my trail. I could hear their excited voices yipping and barking, not at all like wolves. I was not afraid of the dogs. If only the men would not follow the dogs I would not walk another step. No, indeed. I’d wait for the dogs and break every bone in their bodies. But the wolf-person had told me that the men would follow the dogs. I was afraid of the men and their riﬂes, so I hurried away, listening all the time to the yelping dogs. They were gaining on me. They were nearly in sight when I reached a creek. “Now we shall learn which is the smarter, dog or grizzly bear,” I thought, stepping into the creek to walk in its water. And I walked downstream so that if I roiled the water the muddy color would stay with me or run ahead, 77

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because the creek was swift. Luckily the little winds were blowing in the same direction that the creek was running. I smiled at this good fortune. But there were deep holes in the creek’s bottom. Often I had to swim for short distances, and while swimming in one of these deep places I traveled nearly as fast as the water itself. It was while I was swimming that the dogs suddenly stopped barking. I knew by this that they had reached the spot where I had stepped into the water, and that they had been fooled. I laughed a [78], (4) little because I knew that the dogs, with their noses to the ground, were running up and down the creek’s Lines: 101 bank looking for my tracks that were lost in the water. ——— And the dogs could not smell me because the creek 15.0pt and the winds and I were all traveling in the same ——— direction. Normal P When I saw a good place I climbed out of the * PgEnds: E creek, on the other side from the dogs, giving myself a good shake to get rid of the water. “Now Jinny, [78], (4) you tramp, what are you going to do about this situation?” I asked myself. I knew that when the men reached the bafﬂed dogs, they might guess the trick I had played. And yet even the men could not know whether I had gone upstream or downstream. “By the time they learn which way I traveled I’ll be a long, long way from here,” I said aloud. Then I set out, keeping mostly with the little winds, though this is a dangerous way for a person to travel, because 78

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when he is walking with the winds they can tell him nothing whatever. And didn’t I go! By the time the sun was in the middle of the sky I had reached familiar country. And wasn’t I glad to see the places I had known when Jim and I were cubs! And wasn’t I hungry! The sun was nearly down when my hunger was satisﬁed. Then I settled down for the night. I knew every tree and every bush, yes, and even every rock, and the creek besides. Mother and Jim and I had once lived along this creek for more than a month. It was good to feel so much at home. But the little meadow had changed. Its edges were muddy now, and the beavers had built a house in the water exactly where Mother and Jim and I used to sleep. Besides all this, the busy beavers had dug little ditches, or canals, that reached a grove of quaking aspens, and all of these ditches were ﬁlled with water from the big pond that their dam had made. I saw that the beavers had been cutting the quaking aspens and ﬂoating them down the

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little canals to their pond, where the beavers ate the quaking aspen bark. Peeled sticks and poles, white and smooth, were in the water and on the beaver’s dam, and many of them were on the pond’s bottom. The beavers had worked hard. They are much smarter than most of us. But goodness, they had made everything muddy around here. And everything was so quiet! The birds were only beginning to come back from the southland. I had seen a robin or two and a bluebird, and of course, some woodpeckers that stay here all the time. Two fat mallards, who were sailing around on the beaver’s pond when I reached it, ﬂew away, quacking as though they had seen trouble coming. And then, while I was looking for a dry place for the night I saw a mink-person running along the edge of the pond on the far side. I watched him go into holes and then come out again, once with a mouse, which he ate on the spot. While I watched him the mink80

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person slid into the pond so swiftly that I knew he had seen a ﬁsh in the water. In a minute he was out again and greedily eating a wriggling ﬁsh that was as long as he was. He is a swift, capable person, the mink. At last I found a high spot dry enough for a bed. From it I could see and hear everything near the pond. The sun was down by now, and yet I had not seen a beaver. Several deer came to the pond and drank. One of them, a ﬁne buck with his new horns showing quite plainly, whistled at me and then ran away without taking a drink of water. All the deer were on the far side of the pond, so that I did not try to talk to them. Anyhow, I was waiting to have a visit with the beavers and did not wish to make any noise. Little by little the daylight crept away into the darkening forest as though it intended to sleep there for a while. The world darkened so rapidly that in a few minutes I could not see beyond the nearest tree. The beaver pond looked black. All the shadows had left it. I was wondering where they could have gone when suddenly, as though it had fallen from the sky, the reﬂection of a star a large, bright one began to shimmer on the water of the beaver pond. The little night-winds made it dance on the water; and then, as though its merry dancing had attracted other stars, two more, this time tiny ones, dropped their reﬂections upon the pond. 81

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And now, while I watched, the three stars danced to the music of the little night-winds, each by itself, as Indians dance. Sometimes, and quite suddenly, as though their chief had sent them, the little nightwinds would leave the beaver pond to run away into the dark forest where I could hear them whispering among the trees; and always, while the little winds were gone, the three stars waited there on the black water, so that when the little winds returned they might dance again. At last, during a time when the little winds were gone from the beaver pond, and the three stars were waiting for their return, a dark lump appeared on the water between the two tiny stars. I saw it lift itself into view, saw rings of water widen around it, jiggling all of the stars, and yet I heard no sound. The dark lump did not move, not even when the little winds returned and the three stars began to dance. I kept very still, because I knew that the dark lump was a beaver-person’s head. The little winds were making the three stars dance wildly now, and yet the dark lump did not dance, did not even move in the water. I wondered if I ought to speak. The beaver-person may have been wondering much as I was. Anyhow, just when the little winds made the three stars leap high, he called, “Oh, I see you. Anybody could see you there.” His voice was pleasant enough, and yet there was something of a sneer in its tone. It wasn’t very friendly. 82

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“Good evening,” I said, standing up. “I wasn’t trying to hide,” I told the beaver-person. “I came here to visit with you,” I said, making my voice soft. “Oh, you did! Well, I have some work to do. I wish you’d go about your business,” he said, as though this would end our visit. But I did not take the hint (and really it was a little more than a hint). I said, “I’m Jinny, the tramp. I’m here, there, and everywhere.” I said this all in a 83

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hurry, because I realized that a person who lives in the water as much as the beaver does cannot hear all the gossip. I wanted him to know just who I was, and besides, I was anxious to visit a little, you see. “Jinny, hey?” The beaver’s head did not move in the water. “Well, Jinny or no Jinny, you are a grizzly bear,” he said, as though my being a grizzly settled everything. “Come ashore and we’ll visit,” I called, pretending that I had not heard what the beaver-person had said. “Nope,” he answered shortly. “I never associate with meat-eaters, because I’m meat, myself, and fat meat at that. I know when I’m well off. And say,” he added, swimming around a little, “I wish you would go away from here. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.” “All right,” I agreed, “but before I go, let me tell you that we grizzlies are not great meat-eaters, that I myself have never harmed one of your people. Good evening,” I ﬁnished, starting out in the darkness, through the mud that the beavers had made around there. I’d let him see that I was generous, anyhow. My, but the night was black dark. “Say!” the beaver-person called, swimming toward the shore, “I believe that you are a little different from most of your kind. Anyhow, you’d better take a look at a beaver-house in the next gulch north of here. A grizzly bear wrecked it, tore it all to pieces, 84

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trying to get the beavers who were living in it. Those beavers are my friends, some of them my relations. But Mister Grizzly Bear didn’t get any of them. Just take a good look at that wrecked beaver-house, and then you’ll understand why I’m not friendly with grizzlies.” “I will. I’ll take a good look at it,” I promised, slipping in some black mud. I felt put out, of course, and yet I believed that I had, by a little, the best of the situation. [85], (11)

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9 I did not go far from the beaver pond that night. I was tired, and besides, I met a young woman-grizzly who talked to me. When I ﬁrst spoke to her, she acted snippy and did not answer. But when I insisted upon visiting a little she ﬁnally sat down with me. And what that young woman-bear did not know about the affairs of other forest-people wasn’t worth listening to. She was a year older than I, and a born gossip, though she had never in her life been ten miles from her birthplace. How she had managed to gather all the little scandals that she told me I could not imagine. Anyhow, she gave me an earful. When I told her that I was a tramp, that I was here, there, and everywhere, and that I hoped to see a little of the world before settling down, she was deeply impressed. “Oh, let’s travel together,” she proposed eagerly. But I was cautious. I knew quite well that she would be likely to seek the society of men-grizzlies about berry time. I liked my own society best, so I told her plainly that I had made other plans and let it go at that. But my goodness! “Well, of all things! Humph!” she sniffed, walking away as noisily as she could. I saw her again during 87

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berry time. She was running around with a rather shabby-looking man-grizzly then, and she pretended that she did not see me at all. However, I did not let this incident worry me in the least. I slept soundly after the young womangrizzly left me, thinking once or twice of my promise to the beaver-person before I went to sleep. In the morning, as soon as I had had breakfast, I set out to have a look at the wrecked beaver-house in the next gulch north of the beaver pond. The sun was well up in the sky when I reached the place. The beaver-person had told the truth. The beaver-house, a very large one, had been completely wrecked by somebody, and I suppose the wrecker was a grizzly bear. Somehow, as I looked at the torn house, I thought of Old Scarface, and then of Whitey, of their battle among the berry bushes and of Whitey’s calling Old Scarface a tramp. Now, I myself was a tramp, and proud of it. The grizzly, or whoever had wrecked the beaverhouse, had torn its top away. I had never before seen the inside of a beaver’s house. Now I had a good look, and in all my life nothing furnished me a greater surprise. I suppose this was because I had judged the beaver-house by its outside appearance, which is exactly like that of a round heap of dry sticks in a pond of water. It is ugly enough, goodness knows. Nevertheless, the interior of the house was wonderful. Beneath its arched roof, which was 88

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smoothly plastered with mud, was a side balcony extending all the way around the room. The ﬂoor of the balcony was covered with dried rushes, and in the center of the room, or house, surrounded by the balcony, was a pool of clear water, a portion of the pond itself. And the cunning beavers had built the balcony high enough so that even when the spring freshets brought sudden ﬂoods to their pond, the water in the pool inside their house could not reach the dry rushes on the balcony’s ﬂoor. It was here on this balcony, in the wintertime when ice covered the pond, that the beavers visited, ate the bark of the quaking aspens, which they cut short enough to permit bringing inside, and slept during the daytime. I had wondered how the beavers got into their houses. I had never seen any door. Now, looking down to the bottom of the clear pool below the balcony, I saw several arched openings that led out of the pool into the beaver pond. “Clever,” I said aloud in deep admiration. “Clever indeed.” “What’s clever?” I turned to see who had spoken. A muskrat-person was looking up at me from the water beside the beaver-house. “What’s clever?” he asked again. “Why, this house,” I said. “Did you ever see the inside of a beaver’s house?” I asked, offering to let him look. “Humph,” he sniffed as though he thought me an 89

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ignorant person. “Of course I’ve seen the inside of a beaver’s house,” he said. “Did you ever see the inside of a muskrat’s house, Big One?” he asked me. “No,” I told him frankly. “Well, when you examine the inside of a muskrat’s house you will ﬁnd it much like that of a beaver. Of course,” he went on, “the beavers spend much more time in building their houses than we do, and yet my grandmother told me that long ago, when the world was young, the beavers got their house plans from us muskrat-people. Anyhow, we build many more houses than they do,” he said pridefully. “Someday I’ll have a look at the interior of a muskrat’s house,” I promised him. “Well, don’t tear it down just to see its interior,” he said. And then, moving back a little, he asked, “Did you wreck this place?” “No,” I answered. “And whoever tore this house down to get the beavers was a silly person, because the beavers would leave the house, swim away under water, while he was wrecking the place.” “Yes, of course, of course,” the muskrat-person agreed. “A land-person could never catch the beavers. But I’ve got to be going about my business,” he said, moving away in the water. “Good-bye, friend,” I called, stepping down from the beaver’s house into the shallow water. “Good-bye. And say, what’s your name?” he asked, stopping. 90

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“Jinny,” I told him, hoping that he would ask me where I lived and he did. “Here, there, and everywhere. I’m a tramp,” I told him, my paws in the soft mud of the pond’s bottom. “Well, I travel a good deal myself, Jinny,” the muskrat-person said, moving on again, his long, slim tail wriggling in the water. “I came all the way up this gulch from the big river looking for a place like this beaver pond. I think I’ll move my wife and family up here. I’m sure my wife will like it,” he ended, diving to swim under water. I did not see him again. I’m a heavy person, so that by now I was nearly stuck in the mud of the beaver pond. By the time I reached solid ground, the water was muddy all around me and halfway across the pond. A kingﬁsher-person laughed at me from the limb of a birch tree near the water. “Say, you!” he said, making his topknot go up and down. “You’ve made this water so roily that I cannot see a ﬁsh anywhere in the pond, and I haven’t had my breakfast yet.” “I’m sorry,” I told him. And this made him laugh again. “Oh, never mind. I’m not hungry. I came up here more to have a look around than for anything else,” he said, laughing louder than ever. He’s a happy person, the kingﬁsher. By the time berries were ripe all the forest-people were speaking to me, even some of my own kind. 91

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However, I could see that the grizzlies thought me a little queer. This, I felt sure, was because I had broken old grizzly customs, so I did not let it worry me. But because the summer was hot, and dry as an old bone, the berries were not plentiful. This made the forest-people, all of them, a little cross. In August I had one or two arguments, and a battle that cost me the tip of my left ear. From the very beginning of berry time I tried to keep away from my kind and especially from the men-grizzlies. I did not wish to quarrel with the women over the berries, and I did not care to meet the men because I was not yet ready to settle down and take care of children. I was too young, and anyhow I was a tramp. But one hot afternoon when the sun was wilting the leaves on the berry bushes, I blundered onto a woman-grizzly who was nursing her cubs. “Excuse me,” I said politely, turning to go about my own business. But she sprang upon me so viciously that I had to face her and ﬁght. And how those cubs did squall! Goodness! They made the echo-people dance a lively jig. In a jiffy several grizzlies, one of them my brother, Jim, who had been attracted to the place by the cubs’ squalling, were watching that woman-bear and me ﬁght. This was my ﬁrst battle, remember, and the woman-bear was older than I, and yet she ran away, after we had made a mess of the whole hillside. 92

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“Good girl, Jinny!” somebody called when the woman-bear began to run, driving her crying cubs ahead of her. I knew the voice instantly. It was Whitey’s. I liked him for what he had said. But I had lost the tip of my left ear. I saw that same woman-bear a little later in the season. This time she was careful to keep out of my way, though she need not have been fearful of me, goodness knows. I am sorry to say that my battle with that woman-bear seemed to lift me up in the estimation of my own people, though I never mentioned it myself. I heard that Whitey talked of the battle a good deal, and that he told everybody the battle had been a good one. Somehow I felt happier because Whitey had noticed me. I have already told you that we grizzly bears do not generally have companions, and that we live mostly alone. A mother-grizzly and her cubs live together for two whole summers, and then, when their mother ﬁnally leaves them, the cubs stay together for another summer and winter, so that when they separate and strike out for themselves, the young grizzlies are nearly half-grown. Knowing these habits of the grizzlies, you will see that there was nothing strange about my traveling alone. However, since becoming a tramp I had grown friendly toward the other forestpeople, and in this I was unlike my own people. I felt that they looked down on me for breaking the old 93

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grizzly law, and yet I had a good time all that summer. And my friendliness toward the other forestpeople not only contributed much to my happiness, but paid me besides, as you shall see. I have already said that the summer was hot and dry and that the berries were scarce. Besides this, digging was difﬁcult. The roots we like best were small that year and nearly tasteless, so that nobody was very fat when the frosts came in the fall. Mother bears who had nursed cubs all summer were actually thin, too thin to go into dens or caves to sleep without food all winter, and yet all of them would have to go. Even I, who was young and a tramp, with nobody to care for except myself, was not fat when the frost came. I had been working my way back toward the high mountain, thinking of my old cave and trying hard to get a little fatter, when one morning a magpieperson spoke to me. “Hello, Jinny,” he said, hopping about in a tree just above my head. Of course I knew that he was a rascal and that one ought never to trust him, yet I wished to be friendly; so I said, “Hello, friend. What luck are you having?” “Good luck, good luck, and heaps of it. Why, look at me,” he said, happily. “I’m fat as tallow. I get all the meat I need to eat, and I have good clothes.” He was fat. The magpie-people are great meateaters, and I wondered how he managed so well. 94

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“I’m glad that somebody is fat,” I said, thinking of the long, foodless winter ahead of me. “Are you hungry, Jinny?” he asked, cocking his black head sideways, his bright eyes full of mischief. “Yes,” I told him honestly. “Say, Jinny, I like you,” he said conﬁdentially. “Everybody likes you. See that tall, dead ﬁr tree on the top of that hill yonder, the hill with the big boulders on it?” “Yes, of course,” I told him, wondering what trick [95], (9) he had in mind. “Well, you walk up to that tall, dead ﬁr tree. I’ll be waiting for you there.” And away he ﬂew, his blackLines: 98 to and-white coat looking very pretty in the morning ——— sunlight. * 90.0pt P And what ought I to do? I wondered. You see, I had ——— Normal Pag been saving my strength, because with us grizzlies * PgEnds: Pag to waste strength is to waste fat, and I had none to spare. “Am I hungry enough to trust the greatest of all liars?” I asked myself. And then, before I realized [95], (9) what I was doing, I was walking up that hill as fast as I could go. Would the magpie-person be there? I wondered.

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10 It was a long way to the top of that hill. When I ﬁnally reached the tall, dead ﬁr tree, the magpie-person wasn’t there. I looked high and low, while the winds laughed at me, and at last I laughed myself. “Serves me just right for believing a known liar,” I said aloud, starting back down the hill, ﬁlled with disgust. “Hey, Jinny! Hey, here I am!” And there, behind a piece of loose bark on the tall, dead ﬁr tree, was the magpie-person, his black eyes dancing with fun. I knew that he must have heard what I said, and yet there was nothing I could do about it now. An apology would only make the situation worse, so I said, “I didn’t see you, friend. Why did you hide?” I wished I hadn’t asked that silly question as soon as it was out of my mouth. “Oh, I wanted to see what you would do and hear what you would say, and I did both,” he chuckled. “I’m sorry,” I told him, sitting down by the tall, dead ﬁr tree, wondering why I had climbed the hill. “Oh, goodness, never mind, Jinny. Never mind,” he said soberly. “I’m used to being called a liar. It doesn’t annoy me in the least. I am a liar and a good one, and I’m a thief besides. I’m the best liar and thief in this whole section. You respect natural talent, 97

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don’t you, Jinny?” he asked, so seriously that I nearly laughed. “Why, yes, of course,” I told him. “Well, I’m a talented person. That’s why I’m always fat. Come, Jinny. Follow me,” he said, ﬂying low along the hilltop. I saw him light on a large boulder, his long black tail rufﬂing in the little winds that were blowing away from me. When I reached him I saw two large whitetail bucks lying on the ground beside the boulder. Both deer were dead, their antlers locked tightly together, so that they could never be torn apart. “Here’s a story for you, Jinny a story and a big feast, all in one,” said the magpie-person, hopping down from the boulder to sit on the antlers of one of the dead bucks. “They fought! Ha, ha, ha! They fought over a woman-deer and now they are dead. Help yourself, Jinny. Help yourself to the meat.” The magpie-person’s voice was scornful, and yet happy. “Thank you, friend,” I said, wondering why the little winds had not told me about this meat while I was traveling up toward the high mountain. The magpie must have guessed my thoughts, because he said, “This meat was high above you, Jinny. The little winds could not tell you about it. I ﬂy high and low and all about the land. What I do not smell I see. Help yourself,” he said again. “How much shall I eat?” I asked him, thinking of 98

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the long winter ahead of me in the dark cave. And yet I did not wish to appear too greedy. “Oh, eat plenty. Eat all you can hold. Shucks, eat all the meat. You’ll need it. I can ﬁnd plenty more. I’ll give this meat to you. Eat it, eat it; and take your time about it. Good-bye, and good luck to you, Jinny.” “Wait!” I called when he left me. “Winter will soon be here. How will you make out when the deep snows come?” He came back to the boulder. “Listen, Jinny,” he said seriously, “you are not only a friendly person, but you are kindly. You say that you are hungry. Well, I’d like to help you get fat. Snow will be here soon, and you cannot walk in deep snow. You are too heavy, and besides this, your legs are too short. Do not hesitate to eat all this meat. I can get more. I stay out all winter and keep fat all the time, because I have warm clothes, pretty clothes, and talent, lots of talent. Ha, ha, ha!” He laughed so heartily that I laughed with him. “Yes,” he went on, chuckling merrily, “you bears, all of you, have better noses than we magpies, and yet we ﬁnd more meat than you do. But, of course,” he added thoughtfully, “it takes a lot of meat to make you fat, an awful lot. And yet if you were a bird and not a bear I could tell you how to ﬁnd all the meat you need. Here’s the secret, anyhow, Jinny.” He leaned over so that he could whisper in my ear. “Follow the hunters, especially the white men who 99

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hunt deer, elk, and mountain sheep with automatic riﬂes,” he conﬁded. “They shoot at everything they see, Jinny,” he went on, whispering fast. “And they wound ﬁve animals where they kill one, and they get less than half the game they kill and cripple. Most of the wounded animals get away from the hunters and then die in the forests or in the mountains. I follow and ﬁnd them. Snow and cold weather do not bother me at all, because I have talent, talent and clothes, talent and clothes,” he laughed, darting toward the deep gulch, leaving me alone with the meat. Nobody had ever been so friendly to me as this magpie-person. It is true that both the skunk-person and the wolf-person had given me good advice, and yet one cannot eat advice. Anyhow, it is much cheaper than good, fat meat. And I had called the magpie-person a liar. I felt ashamed of this now. I promised myself that I would never again say an uncomplimentary thing about anybody that is, not aloud. I was careful to make this a reservation, because one who is alone as much as I am is likely to talk to herself. The two dead deer were not in a very good place, so I dragged them to a better spot and ate until I could hold no more. Then I slept all night, or until a lynx-person came to the meat. “Go about your own business,” I told him, feeling sleepy. “I’m hungry, Jinny,” he said, backing away. I do not like to hear a person say that he is hungry. 100

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0.25198p Besides this, the lynx-person called me Jinny. “Here,” I said, giving him a shoulder. “Now go away from here,” I told him again. “Stingy! Stingy!” he sneered, dropping the meat I had given him, and then he spat at me. The catpeople are all alike. “Go! Get out! Kill your own meat,” I said, forgetting to be friendly now. “I need this meat,” I told him. “You can make your living in the snow and I cannot. Get on about your business.” Nobody else bothered me. I stayed on that hill until I had eaten every morsel of the two bucks. The 101

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ground was whitened with snow after the ﬁrst night on the hill, and yet there was no snow down in the deep gulch. Then, on the morning when I had eaten the last of the meat, snow began falling in earnest. I saw that winter had come and that it was high time I reached my cave. I was not fat, and yet I was a little heavier than when I met that magpie-person. My stomach was full when I began climbing the high mountain, so I felt strong. Nevertheless, when I ﬁnally reached my cave my stomach was empty enough, goodness knows. And I was so tired that I went to sleep nearly as soon as I stretched myself on my bed. I did not even know when the snow covered the mouth of my cave. Nothing happened all winter, that is, nothing that I knew about. I slept nearly all the time. Day and night were the same to me until spring. Then, just before I left my cave for the season, a monstrous snowslide crashed down the mountain, breaking and twisting the trees and tearing huge rocks from their beds as though they were pebbles. I did not see this snowslide, and yet I heard it quite plainly. It made the whole mountain tremble. After this I did not sleep very soundly. I dreamed a good deal, sometimes of Whitey. I wondered if I should see him during berry time. I hoped so. Twice I dreamed of men and dogs. These dreams made me decide to keep high up on the mountain102

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sides as soon as the snow left them. I could travel far in this way and not be likely to meet men and dogs. Food would be scarce on the high mountains, and yet I believed that I could go each night into lower country. This scheme would permit me to again be a tramp and to see a new part of the big world in safety. I was so pleased with my plan that I could scarcely wait for the weather to let me out of the cave. But goodness, I had not been out a week when I had an experience with two dogs that I shall never forget. Of course, I was very hungry, and my hunger may have made me a little careless. Anyhow, I was digging out a marmot when out of some bushes just behind me raced two black dogs. And such a yowling and yipping you never heard in all your life! I charged the dogs and they turned tail and ran like cowards. Then, remembering what the wolf-person had told me that the men always followed the dogs I started walking away from there in a hurry. But no sooner had I turned my back on

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the cowardly dogs than they raced up behind me and began nipping my heels. I could not stand this. Nobody could. I had to stop and ﬁght the dogs or have my heels torn to shreds. But the dogs would not ﬁght, and of course, I could not stand there all day with the men coming with their riﬂes. I just had to go on or be shot. But no sooner had I started than both dogs, ﬁrst one and then the other, began to nip my heels again. They were cut and bleeding. I had to sit down to save them. Twice I had struck at the dogs and missed them. Now, even though I knew that the men were coming, I grew cunning. I pretended that I was not only badly wounded but awkward, unable to strike the dogs. I let them get nearer and nearer, even whimpering a little to make them believe I was afraid. Twice they bit me, and yet I did not move until one of the dogs was within easy reach of my paw. Then I knocked him ﬁfty feet. His body struck the other dog, tumbling him over and over; before he could recover I ﬁnished him. I’d 104

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have eaten them both if there had been time. As it was, I hurried away from that place and then spent an hour or two licking my bleeding heels. I did not see the men. I did not hang around that section to see anybody, I can tell you. Two days afterward a woman black bear told me that the men had killed a woman-bear and her cubs. This news led me to go farther away than I had intended. No grizzly bear ever had a ﬁner coat than mine that spring, and I hoped to keep it. I traveled in snowstorms, in sleet, and in rain, keeping high up on the mountains until the weather grew warmer and my ﬁne coat began to look ragged. I knew that nobody would be likely to kill me to get my coat now, so I began to go lower, toward the valley, without letting myself grow careless for a single minute. I remembered that the skunk-person had told me how white men like to boast about having killed bears, and yet I did not believe that hunters would be out looking for bears when their coats were ragged and worthless. I was now in a strange country where nobody knew me. Time and time again I tried to talk to the mountain-people, and those of the forest as well, but they would not talk. They were ofﬁsh, and would scarcely answer a question. I began to feel out of place and a little lonesome. I even began to tire of being a tramp. Then one warm day when I was taking a nap somebody called my name. 105

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“Jinny! Jinny, wake up,” the person called. I thought I must be dreaming. “Hey, Jinny!” I heard again, sitting up, half awake. Nobody was in sight, and yet I heard laughing. “Where are you?” I called, unable to locate the laughing one who, I knew, could not be far away. “Here, right here,” said the voice, and then I saw him, the magpie-person, sitting on the limb of a spruce tree just above me. “Oh, my friend, I’m glad to see you,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “But how in the world did you get here?” I asked. “How? Why, I ﬂew here. I’m looking around. I’m seeing things; and say, Jinny, who do you suppose I saw this morning?” he asked me, as though he had suddenly remembered something important. “I’m sure I don’t know,” I said, thinking of the men and dogs. “Old Scarface, that’s who I saw,” said the magpieperson. “And he’s going to get into trouble, too,” he went on. “Old Scarface is killing sheep and cattle down in the valley. He has gone bad, altogether bad. He’s an outlaw now. The ranchmen have offered one hundred dollars to anybody who will kill him. The hunters will soon be out looking for Old Scarface now, and all grizzly bears will look alike to them. Old Scarface will get you into trouble. I wouldn’t stay in the same section with him.” 106

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“But where can I go?” I asked, remembering that men and dogs seemed to be everywhere. “See that long ridge yonder?” he asked. “Well, you’d better cross that ridge and stay there until fall. Good-bye, Jinny. Take care of yourself.” “Good-bye,” I called after the cunning black-andwhite bird-person who was ﬂying southward. The long ridge he had mentioned was north of me. I could see that it was heavily timbered, and in the gulch on my side of it were several little meadows. The sun was more than halfway down. “Well, Jinny, you tramp, what are you going to do about this situation?” I asked myself. “Why, I’m going to take my friend’s advice, of course,” I answered, as though somebody else had asked the question. And then away I went toward the long ridge. But one should never depend too much upon friends. Somehow I believed that my friend, the magpie-person, had lately visited the country beyond the long ridge and that he had seen everything there. Anyhow, without the least bit of care, I went straight to the nearest meadow at the foot of the long ridge, expecting to spend the night there. But I didn’t even stop there. The very ﬁrst thing I saw when I reached the meadow was Old Scarface’s track in the mud. I knew it instantly. And what a huge track it was! There were two of them, three of them, a lot of them. 107

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I turned aside, a prickly feeling creeping along my back. It was the same feeling that had come to me when Jim and I had seen Old Scarface’s track in the mud when we were cubs. I left that little meadow without even a look at it.

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11 Before sundown I was on the top of the long ridge, giving careful attention to what the little winds had to tell me. They had already let me know that Old Scarface was somewhere about the little meadow where I had seen his tracks, though I had not seen the old bear himself. Not a sound was in the air. Even the birds had stopped singing for the night. I could not see all of the little meadow from where I was sitting. Nearly half of it was hidden by the trees about me, so I walked out on a jutting ledge of rock on the edge of the long ridge. Now I could see all of the little meadow, and miles of the creek besides. The sunset shadows were creeping across the little meadow when I saw some willows tremble violently beside the creek that bordered it. I knew instantly that the huge bear was coming to the meadow. Old Scarface had terriﬁed me when I was a cub. Now he fascinated me. The very fact that he had turned bad, was an outlaw, a wanton killer, made me wish to see him once more. I watched the willows breathlessly. The big bear seemed to have stopped walking. I wondered if he had turned back, and then out he shufﬂed into the open meadow, his scarred nose warily snifﬁng the little winds as though he expected 109

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an enemy to appear. His huge body, hard as stone, looked untidy, positively ugly, with its ragged coat. I imagined that I could see his sightless eye and the stump of his missing ear, even from the ridge. I felt glad that I was not in the little meadow. Slowly, as though the little winds had warned him of trouble, the old warrior-bear walked out to the center of the little meadow where he stopped to stare up the creek, his single ear pricked sharply in that direction. Was somebody coming? Did he see an enemy? The thought thrilled me, set my blood tingling. Half afraid, I looked up the creek. Yes, somebody was coming. A big bear, a man-grizzly Whitey. Whitey was coming! I saw the willows bend, saw Whitey’s back, and then, as though he owned the meadow and all the world about it, he walked straight toward Old Scarface, pretending not to see him. I wanted to go away from there, to cry out, to warn Whitey! And yet I knew that he had seen Old Scarface. There was nothing I could do. I could not even go away. It was as though the two bears had arranged to meet in the meadow. There was no talking between them, no delay, not the slightest hesitation by either. I could not tell which had been ﬁrst to strike. It seemed to me that Whitey walked straight into a clinch with Old Scarface, intending to kill him or be killed himself. Intently, and at ﬁrst without a sound, the two huge man-bears were rearing, back110

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ing, twisting, and rolling over and over, with hair, grass, and mud ﬂying in all directions. Both were shedding their winter coats, so that their heavy claws raked great patches of hair from each other’s sides. I saw that Whitey’s side was torn and he was bleeding. The grass was reddened, and even the dark mud of the meadow. Then I heard heavy, mufﬂed blows and ﬁerce snarls that made me afraid. I walked along the rocky ledge a little way, wanting to go away from there, and yet something seemed to hold me so that I could not go. Looking down again into the darkening shadows on the meadow, I saw that Old Scarface was lying on his side now, and that he did not move, even when Whitey struck him. I heard the blow quite plainly. Twilight had fallen upon the little meadow. Far up the creek a timber wolf howled. I saw Whitey, worn by ﬁghting, turn and look in that direction and then stretch himself upon the muddy grass to lick his wounds. The night was coming fast. Up on the long ridge, beneath the ﬁr trees, I watched the big moon rise, wondering at my own thoughts. Old Scarface had once been my chief terror. And yet, now that he was no more, I blamed Whitey for killing him. I wished that somebody, anybody, would come along and talk to me. But nobody appeared. Finally, after midnight, the big moon went down. And then, in the darkness, I began to think 111

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of Whitey, of his wounds, of his bravery. I wondered if he had left the little meadow. When daylight came I walked out on the rocky ledge and looked down. The huge body of Old Scarface was there on the torn meadow. But Whitey was gone. I knew that he might be somewhere along the willows, too deeply wounded to go far. My eyes searched the bushes in the gray light until I felt certain that Whitey was nowhere about the meadow. And then, quite suddenly, I knew that I was proud of him, that I was glad he had won the battle with Old Scarface. I wanted to go down to the little meadow and have a look at the place, so down I went. The sunlight had not yet reached the spot. The soft, black ground around Old Scarface was terribly torn. And my, what an ugly face the old bear had! I can see it even to this day. “Meat! Good, fresh meat!” The shrill rasping voice of the magpie-person surprised me. “Help yourself, Jinny,” he laughed, settling upon Old Scarface, as though he had killed the big bear himself. “No, thank you,” I said, quite positively. He appeared to be surprised at this. “Where’s Whitey?” he asked anxiously. “Where’s that big fellow?” he asked again, looking over his shoulder into the bushes where the ﬁrst sunbeams were like yellow ﬁre. “Gone,” I told him, feeling glad that Whitey could walk. 112

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“Did you see the ﬁght, Jinny?” the magpie-person asked, tearing a morsel of ﬂesh from a wound on the body of Old Scarface. “Yes,” I told him, without going into details. “Must have been a good one. Sorry I missed it. Yep, it must have been a good ﬁght, a long ﬁght, and a fast one. But I can’t be everywhere at once. Eat, Jinny, eat. Whitey will not let all this meat go to waste. He’ll be back. I’ll bet that he’s somewhere around this place right now. Better eat.” The magpie-person was all appetite and feathers, it seemed to me. “No,” I told him once more. And then, fearing that Whitey might return to the little meadow while I was there, I said, “I’ll be going about my business.” I did not wish to meet Whitey, or any other man-grizzly before berry time, and perhaps not even then. Well, this meat is a little tough,” laughed the magpie-person, mistaking my reason for leaving the place. “But good-bye, Jinny, good-bye.” I stayed away from the little mountain meadow after that morning, though my friend the magpieperson must have invited several of his own people to feast with him there. I heard him joking and laughing over Old Scarface for days and days. However, I did not try to learn if Whitey came back to the little meadow. I wanted to forget all about the ﬁght there, you see. I made but few new friends in the country about the long ridge, so that I felt glad when the berries 113

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were ripe. I began to see other grizzlies now, and many black bears besides. Perhaps they had all moved to the long ridge country for the same reason I had. Anyhow, I ran across my mother one morning, though she was not especially friendly, and I saw and talked a little to Jim. He had taken a fancy to a woman-grizzly who was old enough to be his grandmother, but I did not let on that I noticed this. There is gossiping enough in the berry patches during berry time without my adding anything to it. But I will say that I saw the woman-bear whom I whipped, and she had three of the scrubbiest looking cubs I ever saw in my life. Somehow the story of the battle between Old Scarface and Whitey was known to everybody, though I, the only person who actually saw it, had never spoken of it to a soul. The magpie-person must have peddled the news. Anyhow, everybody was talking about the ﬁght, and especially about Whitey, and I noticed that they called him “Old” Whitey now. The women-grizzlies were eager to meet Whitey, all of them. I could see this quite plainly, and I thought it disgusting. However, I kept to myself and said not one word about having witnessed the ﬁerce battle in the little mountain meadow. Nobody seemed to know exactly where Whitey was holding out, not even myself. And then, one rainy morning in July, the famous Whitey came to the berry patches. The women were instantly all excitement. 114

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There was one young thing who tried, quite clumsily, to put herself in the famous bear’s way, and so far as I know she was unlucky. However, I noticed that the men-grizzlies, all of them, gave Whitey plenty of room in the berry patches. Yet he appeared not to notice them, whether they were near or far. I liked him better for this, and for paying so little attention to what was going on in the berry patches. Nevertheless, there was talk, idle gossip, that linked Whitey’s name with those of several grizzly-women, all of them quite ordinary individuals in every way. I was entirely fancy-free and had not yet decided to settle down when one morning, while the berries were ripe and plentiful, I met Whitey face to face. I had no idea that he was in the berry patch when I entered it. When I met him so suddenly I would have turned back if he had not spoken. “Hello, Jinny,” he said pleasantly. And then before I could answer, he asked, “Where have you been all summer?” “Oh, here, there, and everywhere. I’m a tramp, you know,” I told him. “Yes, so I’ve been told,” he smiled, leading me to a bush that was loaded with ripe berries. I noticed now that he limped a little. “Are you lame?” I asked. “Have you hurt yourself?” “Nothing serious,” he laughed. “I had a ﬁght a little while ago.” “With Old Scarface?” I asked, beginning to eat berries. 115

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1.26pt “Yes,” he answered, “with Old Scarface. Why do you ask?” “Because I saw the ﬁght,” I told him. And I wish you might have seen his face. I had to tell him all about it, every detail, how I happened to be there, all. I made quite a story of it, because I saw that two women-grizzlies were watching Whitey and me. In truth I stretched the yarn quite a little. And this was the beginning of an affair between me and the most talked-of man-grizzly in the Rocky Mountains. And please notice that I said “talked of” and not “talked about,” because they are importantly 116

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different. Whitey paid me careful attention until the end of berry time. My, he was a ﬁne-looking man! His limp left him soon after we met, and long before the end of berry time he was handsomer than ever. But, of course, such affairs do not last long with us grizzlies. Their beginnings and their endings are set by the seasons, so that by the time the ﬁrst frosts had whitened the grass and weeds, I commenced to work back toward my old cave, alone. I was fat this year and reasonably happy when I made my bed. [117], (9) The last sounds I heard before going to sleep were the sorrowful cries of a lonely pika, or little-chief hare, among the cold rocks below my cave on the Lines: 93 to mountainside. I wondered what life offered him. ——— And then I dozed, thinking of my many friends and * 192.0080 especially of Whitey, until I slept. ———

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12 My tramping days were ended forever on the last day of January, when two cubs were born to me, a boy and a girl. I had to settle down now and try to keep my youngsters out of trouble in the big world. I was four years old and as capable as most grizzlies, yet when my ﬁrst children began to play around me in our dark cave I felt a little afraid of the big world myself. This was because of men and their riﬂes and traps. Nothing else gave me a moment’s worry; nothing else ever has. I have been lucky. I have raised eight cubs, four pairs of twins, without losing one of them while under my protection. By this you will see that I have been a busy person. Of course, you know that any mother is likely to believe that her children are exceptionally smart, and you may expect me to tell you some stories about mine. And perhaps this is the very reason why I am not going to talk about my children. Anyhow, their early experiences were identical with my own when I was a cub, and I have already told those. I have said that I have been lucky. I am lucky to be alive. The big world is changing rapidly for us grizzlies. Today, distance from civilization, and even the vast wilderness of the Rockies themselves, offer little 119

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protection to bears. Hunters may use automobiles and airplanes, so that nobody, nothing, can hide, not even an ant. However, the great national parks offer us bears some protection, and from this day until I die I am going to live in Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana, where neither hunters nor dogs are permitted to enter. I shall be friendly with all the forest-people there, especially when I am not taking care of very young cubs, because I have learned that friendliness pays. It was this friendliness on my part that led the three-legged wolverineperson to tell me his story, and it was his storytelling that induced me to write this book. I hope you like it.

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after word

Sarah Waller Hatﬁeld

A curiosity to learn the habits of forest creatures started when my grandfather, Frank Bird Linderman, was a young boy in Ohio. He spent holidays and most of his vacations roaming the woods near his home, watching the wild animals and birds, and experimenting with taxidermy. When he was not quite seventeen, Frank came west in 1885 to the remote and unsettled Flathead and Swan valleys and mountains in northwestern Montana Territory. He spent the next seven years trapping and trading, gathering the lore of Indians and mountain men, and studying the habits of native animals and birds. The early Cree Indians with whom he became intimately involved called him Sings Like a Bird. After nearly a quarter of a century pursuing several self-taught careers, Linderman built a home at Goose Bay, on the western shores of Flathead Lake, at a favorite site where he had wintered in 1887. In this wooded solitude he spent the rest of his life (1869–1938) making a written record of the vanishing West: Indian legends and biographies, novels of 121

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trappers and traders, miners and road agents, and the forest folk he knew so well. In his foreword to How It Came About Stories (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921) Linderman stated: “These stories . . . are altogether imaginary, and are told in the hope of entertaining young Americans and interesting them in the strange habits of our wild animals and birds. . . . I believe in the cultivation of appreciation for the work and beauties of nature as a ﬁrm foundation for better citizenship.” In 1927 Frank wrote fellow writer Hermann Hagedorn that there were “rumblings of success, and I’m listening as I used to listen in the wilderness.” Frank spent six months in New York City in late 1929 and early 1930 securing several publishing contracts with the John Day Company and consulting with illustrator Herbert Stoops. He stayed, at his publisher’s insistence, so his reading public could get to know him at parties where he was a featured storyteller. He read proof, sculpted, and saw the city sites, and no doubt the Bronx Zoo, which inspired him to write A Grizzly in Bronx Park, a tale of a young boy zoo visitor who communicates with a huge caged male grizzly bear named Chief, and learns his native habits and encounters with people, both Indian and white. When he returned to his Montana home, the Junior Literary Guild asked Linderman to write the story of a chipmunk. Stumpy, the published result in 122

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1933, told the life of a chipmunk who lived near his Goose Bay home, and is a book that has delighted young and old to this day. On March 4, 1932, he wrote to Frederick Van De Water, “[W]hat a lot a fellow has to know about a chipmunk to write a whole book about the little cuss.” The success of Stumpy inspired Linderman to write an entirely new story of a grizzly bear and her cubs in a native setting in Montana, again from personal knowledge gained in his trapping days of the habits of grizzly and black bears. On May 1, 1934, he wrote his daughter Wilda Linderman, “I have commenced the autobiography of a grizzly bear, because I’m beginning to hear from Stumpy a little. I shall try to make it interesting from the very start, and it will contain much information that is not generally known. However, the white man knows next to nothing about the animals; and now is too late for him to learn. He was too busy exterminating them, and besides he hunted with a noisy weapon that forbade all acquaintance with the forest-folk.” In October of 1934 Linderman wrote to Dick Walsh at the John Day Company that “I’ve just ﬁnished typing a kid’s story, the autobiography of a grizzly bear. . . . Big Jinny . . . contains much information not generally known.” Linderman expressed great frustration in a November 16, 1935, letter to Walsh about the magazine Child Life rejecting Big Jinny. He wrote: “Big Jinny is 123

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better than Stumpy . . . and ought to be selling. Enclosing 12 cents in stamps which I believe will carry Big Jinny home. Get her out of your way. I’ll pen her up with scores of her kind and perhaps when I shall have made my camp on some showery cloud my daughters may ﬁnd opportunity to proﬁtably parade the whole damned menagerie who knows?” Hard ﬁnancial times at the height of the Great Depression caused book and magazine publishers to reject Big Jinny, and publication of A Grizzly in Bronx Park was not even attempted. Linderman paid Montana artist Elizabeth Lochrie to do watercolor and pen-and-ink illustrations of bears for Big Jinny. He wrote to her on September 10, 1936: “I’ve been thinking about bears. Note that when cubs are very young they are thin. . . . Later in the summer they grow fat. Perhaps a picture of the cubs coming down the mountain with their mother might make a good illustration. . . . Make some bear heads, and let me see them. Let’s make bear heads ﬁne. . . . Wished I lived near enough to help you with the heads.” Linderman wrote Alice Dalgliesh, at Scribner’s Books for Young Readers, on July 12, 1937: I’m sending Big Jinny to you by prepaid express, together with illustrations, perhaps too many of them; but the jacket pleases me immensely. The House of Scribner’s know that I have 124

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lived where bears roam for more than half a century and that I should be intimately acquainted with them. I hope that you will like Big Jinny. Anyhow, like the Indian, bears are commonly “misquoted.” Again, the market did not justify publication, and Big Jinny was returned to a discouraged Frank Linderman. Late in 1937 Frank suffered a heart attack. His doctors ordered him to go to California for rest. He passed away in Santa Barbara on May 12, 1938. Nearly three-quarters of a century after he ﬁrst recorded the life stories and habits of grizzly bears so young and old could learn and appreciate, Frank Linderman’s Big Jinny ﬁnally makes its debut.

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