me on, however, I began to rove,
roaming usually along the streams, and sleeping there in the cool
herbage by the water's edge during the heat of the day. My chief
pleasure, I think, was in fishing, and I was glad my mother had shown me
how to do it. No bear, when hungry, could afford to fish for his food,
for it takes too long; but I had all my time to myself, and nearly
every morning and evening I used to get my trout for breakfast or for
supper. At the end of a long, hot day, I know nothing pleasanter than,
after lying a while in the cold running water, to stretch one's self out
along the river's edge, under the shadow of a bush, and wait, paw in
water, till the trout come gliding within striking distance; and then
the sudden stroke, and afterwards the comfortable meal off the cool
juicy fish in the soft night air. I became very skilful at fishing, and,
from days and days of practice, it was seldom indeed that I lost my fish
if once I struck.

Time, too, I had for honey-hunting, but I was never sure that it was
worth the trouble and pain. In nine cases out of ten the honey was too
deeply buried in a tree for me to be able to reach it, and in trying I
was certain to get well stung for my pains. Once in a while, however, I
came across a comb that was easy to reach, and the chance of one of
those occasional finds made me spend, not hours only, but whole days at
a time, looking for the bees' nests.

Along by the streams were many blueberry-patches, though none so
large as that which had cost Kahwa her life; but during the season
I could always find berries enough. And so, fishing and bee-hunting,
eating berries and digging for roots, I wandered on all through the
summer. I had no one place that I could think of as a home more than
any other. I preferred not to stay near my father and mother, and so
let myself wander, heading for the most part westward, and farther
into the mountains as the summer grew, and then in the autumn
turning south again. I must have wandered over many hundred miles of
mountain, but when the returning chill in the air told me that
winter was not very far away, I worked round so as to get back into
somewhat the same neighborhood as I had been in last winter, no
more, perhaps, than ten miles away.

On the whole, it was an uneventful year. Two or three times I met a
grizzly, and always got out of the way as fast as I could. Once only I
found myself in the neighborhood of man, and I gave him a wide