eadfully, growling and
shaking her head, and making as much fuss as she could; but if in our
excitement either of us did chance to bite a little too hard, we always
knew it. With a couple of cuffs, hard enough to make us yelp, she would
throw us to one side and the other, and there was no more play for that
day. And mother could hit hard when she liked. I have seen her smack
father in a way that would have broken all the bones in a cub's body,
and killed any human being outright.

But to Kahwa and me both father and mother were very gentle and kind in
those first helpless days, and I suppose they never punished us unless
we deserved it. Later on my father and I had differences, as you will
hear. But in that first summer our lives, uneventful, were happy.

CHAPTER II.

CUBHOOD DAYS.

When they are small, bear-cubs rarely go about alone. The whole family
usually keeps together, or, if it separates, it is generally into
couples--one cub with each of the parents; or the father goes off alone,
leaving both cubs with the mother. A cub toddling off alone in its own
woolly, comfortable ignorance would be sure to make all manner of
mistakes in what it ate, and it might find itself in very serious
trouble in other ways.

Bears, when they live far enough away from man, have absolutely nothing
to be afraid of. There are, of course, bigger bears--perhaps bigger ones
of our own kind, either black or brown ("cinnamon," the brown members of
our family are called), or, especially, grizzly. But I never heard of a
grizzly bear hurting one of us. When I smell a grizzly in the
neighborhood, I confess that it seems wiser to go round the other side
of the hill; but that is probably inherited superstition more than
anything else. My father and mother did it, and so do I. Apart from
these, there lives nothing in the forest that a full-grown bear has any
cause to fear. He goes where he pleases and does what he likes, and
nobody ventures to dispute his rights. With a cub, however, it is
different.

I had heard my father and mother speak of pumas, or mountain lions, and
I knew their smell well enough--and did not like it. But I shall never
forget the first one that I saw.

We were out together--father, mother, Kahwa and I--and it was getting
well on in the morning. The sun was up, and the day growing warm, and I,
wandering drowsily along with my nose to the ground, had somehow strayed
away from the rest, when suddenly I smelled pu