I do not think I had ever been a
hundred yards away from one or other of my parents, and now, when I
started out alone, it was always in horrible fear of meeting the big
bear when there was no one to stand by me. Gradually, however, I
acquired confidence in myself, making each night a longer trip alone,
and each night going in the direction of the town. At last, one night, I
found myself at the edge of the town itself, and now when I was alone I
did not stop at the first building that I came to, but very
cautiously--for the man-smell was thick around me, and terrified me in
spite of myself--very cautiously I began to thread my way in between the
buildings.[A] As I snuffed round each building, I found all sorts of new
things to eat, with strange tastes, but most of them were good. That the
men were not all asleep was plain from the shouts and noises which
reached me at times from the centre of the big town, where, as I could
see by occasional glimpses which I caught of the nearer buildings, many
of the houses had bright lights streaming from them all night. Avoiding
these, I wandered on, picking up things to eat, and all the while
keeping ears and nose open for a sign of Kahwa.

[A] The new mining town or camp of the Far West has no long rows
of houses or paved streets. The houses are built of logs or of
boards, rarely more than one story high, and are set down
irregularly. There maybe one more or less well-defined
"street"--the main trail running through the camp--but even
along that there will be wide gaps between the houses; while,
for the rest, the buildings are at all sorts of angles, so that
a man or a bear may wander through them as he pleases,
regardless of whether he is following a "street" or not.

I stayed thus, moving in and out among the buildings, till dawn. Once a
dog inside a house barked furiously as I came near, and I heard a man's
voice speaking to it, and I hurried on. As the sky began to lighten, I
made my way out into the woods again, and rejoined my father and mother
before the sun was up. When I joined them, my father growled at me
because I smelled of man.

The next night found me down in the town again. I began to know my way
about. I learned which houses contained dogs, and avoided them. Other
animals besides myself, I discovered, came into the town at night for
the sake of the food which they found lying about--coyotes and
wood-rats, and polecats; but th