d into interest. "Where are they, Leo?"
demanded Jesse. "I can't see them."

"Four grizzlum," reaffirmed Leo, quietly. "Up high. Up high, two; more
low, two."

Indeed, at last they saw that the hunter was not mistaken. There were
four bears all at once on the surface of the slides, but they were
almost concealed by the tall vegetation which in places had grown upon
it.

"He'll go dig pretty soon now," said Leo. "Ketch 'um gopher."

"You're mistaken, Leo," said Uncle Dick, "about two of those bears. I
can see them all plainly with the glasses now, and those lowest down
in the brush are black bears. The upper ones are grizzlies, and mighty
good ones, too."

"Oh, ho!" said Leo. "No see 'um good at first. Yes, two black bear--he
won't go close to grizzlum. Him scare' of grizzlum. Me no like 'um
black bear there. S'pose we go after grizzlum, them little black bear,
he'll ron off and scare grizzlum."

They sat watching the bears from their place in the middle of the
valley. The largest one began to advance deliberately toward the
middle of the slide, where they could see little heaps of yellow earth
thrown up by the burrowing gophers. The bear would look at these idly
and paw at them curiously now and then, but it was some time before he
began to dig in earnest.

The second grizzly, lower down on the slide, went earnestly to work,
and apparently was interested in something which he thought was
underneath a certain large rock. They later found that this rock must
have weighed three or four hundred pounds at least, although they saw
where the bear, putting his mighty forearm under it, had rolled it out
of its bed as easily as though it had been a pebble. There is no
animal in the world more powerful for its size than the mountain
grizzly.

Leo continued to express his dislike of the little black bears.

"S'pose grizzlum ketch plenty gopher, he stay sometam. We heap shoot
'um. But me no like 'um black bears. No get around 'um; they ron off
sure."

"Well, we'll wait awhile," said Uncle Dick, "and see what'll happen."

"Just look at them!" exclaimed Jesse, who was using the glasses now.
"They're playing like children, those little black bears."

They could see that these two smaller bears were apparently out more
for a lark than anything else. They would lie down sometimes flat on
the ground like dogs, or sit up in all kinds of awkward attitudes and
scratch themselves, first with one foot and then another. Sometime