, dreams were no longer acceptable substitutes
for dinner. So the hungry, worrying cubs would not let their dam
sleep, and she soon became as ravenous as they and impatient of
imprisonment.

Every day Mother Grizzly tried the barrier to find a way out, but for
more than two weeks the snow was without a crust that would sustain the
weight of a dog, and she could only flounder into the drift a few feet
and struggle out again. Then a light drizzle of rain came, and the
next night there was a sharper tingle in the air, a promise of cold
weather, and crust began to form. In a day or two more it would be
firm enough to travel upon, and the old Grizzly would lead her starving
cubs down into the foothills and hunt for a stray calf or a sheep with
which to feed them.

The big snow obliterated mountain roads and trails, and the mail was
carried to many of the smaller mountain settlements by men on
snowshoes, who took the shortest feasible routes and found smooth
traveling a dozen or fifteen feet above the rough, rock-strewn ground.
A Sierra carrier on skis--the long, wooden Norwegian snowshoes--with a
letter pouch strapped to his shoulders, was tempted by the light crust
to leave the ridge and shorten his journey by making a cut-off down the
long, smooth slope. A minute's swift rush down that slope would save
hours of weary plodding above the heads of the gulches.

The carrier studied the stretch of gleaming white carefully to select
his course, and determined on a line passing a little below the roots
of the fallen pine, which were indicated by a slight fold in the
blanket of snow. Setting his steel-shod staff under his left arm pit
to serve as brake and rudder and throwing his weight upon it, the
carrier ranged his skis parallel, the right in advance a few inches,
fixed his attention upon the range mark he had chosen, gave a slight
push with the staff and got under way. The crust bore his weight
easily, and in two seconds he was gliding swiftly. In five seconds
more he was speeding like an arrow from the bow, and the ringing of the
steel staff point against the crust arose in a high clear note above
the grating sound of the sliding skis.

Mother Grizzly heard the strange sound, which was unlike anything of
which she knew the meaning, and cuffing the whining cubs into instant
silence, she started cautiously up the barrier to see what was going on
or what danger menaced. Her frequent attempts to get out of the hole
h