nd so I fixed up the pile
of leaves just as she had left them, went up the hill a little way and
shinned a tree.

"About half an hour later the bear came back, leading two half-grown
cubs so thin you could count their slats, and I recognized the
interesting family I had met and had fun with in the fall. She was
saying things to them in bear-talk, sort of whining and grunting, and
they wobbled along behind her up to that pile of leaves. The cubs laid
down with their tongues hanging out as if they were pretty tired, and
the old girl tackled the pile confidently. It was plain enough that
she had cached me for dinner, gone home into the gulch after the cubs
and brought them back to have a square meal after being holed up for
two or three months.

"The old bear made only two or three dabs at the pile when she began to
suspect something was wrong, and then she sailed into it like a steam
shovel. She made leaves and dirt fly so fast out between her hind legs
that the cubs had to get out of the way or be buried, and the more she
dug, the more excited she got. She worked over that pile and all the
ground for ten feet around it until she was down to the frost, and when
she finally got it through her head that the cupboard was bare, she was
the most foolish-looking critter a man ever saw. She stood there
blinking at the cubs, who were sniffing at the rubbish she had
scattered about, and couldn't explain to them what had become of that
square meal, and I reckon the cubs had it put up that mamma was getting
light-headed and having dreams. They quit prospecting and sat down and
looked at her and whined, and that set her off again raking over all
the leaves in the neighborhood as if she hoped to find me hiding under
them. Pretty soon she struck some kind of a root that was good to eat,
and she braced up and called the cubs and showed it to 'em as if that
was what she had been hunting for all the time. She made more fuss
over that root than there was any call for and pretended it was the
greatest thing a bear ever struck in the woods, and the cubs were so
glad to get anything that they allowed roots were good enough and
forgot all about what she had promised them.

"If her pelt had been good and the cubs had been big enough, I reckon
I'd have got even with her for caching me, but she wasn't worth
skinning and the cubs were no good for grub. It was getting late and I
was tired of my tree, so I ploughed up the dirt under her