our first meeting he wanted to pick a quarrel, while making
friends with mother. She, however, would not have anything to say to
him. When he was getting ready to fight my father--walking sideways at
him and snarling, while my father, I am bound to confess, backed
away--mother did not say a word, but went straight at him as she had
rushed at the puma that day when she saved my life. Then father jumped
at him also, and between them they bundled him along till he fairly took
to his heels and ran. But whenever we met him after that--and we saw him
every evening at the patch--he snarled viciously at us, and I, at least,
was careful to keep father and mother between him and me. If he had
caught any one of us alone, I believe he would have killed us; so we
took care that he never should.

I can see the berry-patch now, lying white and shining in the moonlight,
with here and there round the edges, and even sometimes pretty well out
into the middle, if the night was not too light, the black spots showing
where the bears were feeding. We enjoyed our feasts in silence, and
beyond an occasional snapping of a twig, or the cry of some animal from
the forest, or the screech of a passing owl, there was not a sound but
that of our own eating. One night, however, there came an interruption.

It was bright moonlight, and we were revelling in our enjoyment of the
fruit, but father was curiously restless. The air was very still, but in
a little gust of wind early in the evening father declared that he had
smelled man. As an hour passed and there was no further sign of him,
however, we forgot him in the delight of the ripe berries. Suddenly from
the other side of the patch, nearly half a mile away from us, rang out
the awful voice of the thunder-stick. We did not wait to see what was
happening, but made at all speed for the shelter of the trees, and tore
on up the mountain slope. There was no further sound, but we did not
dare to go back to the patch that night, nor did we see any of the other
bears; so that it was not until some days afterwards that we heard that
the thunder-stick had very nearly killed the mother of one of the other
families. It had cut a deep wound in her neck, and she had saved
herself only by plunging into the woods. If we had known all this at the
time, I doubt if we should have gone back to the berry-patch as we did
on the very next night.

On our way to the patch we met the bad-tempered bear coming away from
it. T