rd the lower stretches, where the ledges were still wet, and the
long, black-green weed-masses still dripping, and where the
limpet-covered protuberances of rock still oozed and sparkled. With
her iron-hard claws the mother bear scraped off a quantity of these
limpets, and crushed them between her jaws with relish, swallowing the
salty juices. The cub tried clumsily to imitate her, but the limpets
defied his too tender claws, so he ran to his mother, thrust her great
head aside, and greedily licked up a share of her scrapings. The sea
flavour tickled his palate, but the rough, hard shells exasperated
him. They hurt his gums, so that he merely rolled them over in his
mouth, sucked at them a few moments, then spat them out indignantly.
His mother thereupon forsook the unsatisfactory limpets, and went
prowling on toward the water's edge in search of more satisfying
fare. As they left the limpets, a gaunt figure in gray homespuns,
carrying a rifle, appeared on the crest of the cliffs above, caught
sight of them, and hurriedly took cover behind an overhanging pine.

The young woodsman's first impulse was to try a long shot at the
hulking black shape so conspicuous out on the ledge, against the
bright water. He wanted a bearskin, even if the fur was not just then
in prime condition. But more particularly he wanted the cub, to tame
and play with if it should prove amenable, and to sell, ultimately,
for a good amount, to some travelling show. On consideration, he
decided to lie in wait among the rocks till the rising tide should
drive the bears back to the upland. He exchanged his steel-nosed
cartridges for the more deadly mushroom-tipped, filled his pipe, and
lay back comfortably against the pine trunk, to watch, through the
thin green frondage, the foraging of his intended prey.

The farther they went down the long slant of the ledge, the more
interested the bears became. Here the crows and gulls had not had time
to capture all the prizes. There were savoury blue-shelled mussels
clinging under the tips of the rocks; plump, spiral whelks between
the oozy tresses of the seaweed; orange starfish and bristly
sea-urchins in the shallow pools. All these dainties had shells that
the cub's young teeth could easily crush, and they yielded meaty
morsels that made beetles and grubs seem very meagre fare. Moreover,
in the salty bitter of this sea-fruit there was something marvelously
stimulating to the appetite. From pool to pool the ol