s.

[Illustration]

The Upper Piney had so long been a Blackbear range that the Squirrels had
ceased storing their harvest in hollow trees, and were now using the spaces
under flat rocks, where the Blackbears could not get at them; so Wahb found
this a land of plenty: every fourth or fifth rock in the pine woods was the
roof of a Squirrel or Chipmunk granary, and when he turned it over, if the
little owner were there, Wahb did not scruple to flatten him with his paw
and devour him as an agreeable relish to his own provisions.

And wherever Wahb went he put up his sign-board:

Trespassers beware!

It was written on the trees as high up as he could reach, and every one
that came by understood that the scent of it and the hair in it were those
of the great Grizzly Wahb.

[Illustration]

If his Mother had lived to train him, Wahb would have known that a good
range in spring may be a bad one in summer. Wahb found out by years of
experience that a total change with the seasons is best. In the early
spring the Cattle and Elk ranges, with their winter-killed carcasses, offer
a bountiful feast. In early summer the best forage is on the warm
hillsides where the quamash and the Indian turnip grow. In late summer the
berry-bushes along the river-flat are laden with fruit, and in autumn the
pine woods gave good chances to fatten for the winter. So he added to his
range each year. He not only cleared out the Blackbears from the Piney and
the Meteetsee, but he went over the Divide and killed that old fellow that
had once chased him out of the Warhouse Valley. And, more than that, he
held what he had won, for he broke up a camp of tenderfeet that were
looking for a ranch location on the Middle Meteetsee; he stampeded their
horses, and made general smash of the camp. And so all the animals,
including man, came to know that the whole range from Frank's Peak to the
Shoshone spurs was the proper domain of a king well able to defend it, and
the name of that king was Meteetsee Wahb.

[Illustration]

Any creature whose strength puts him beyond danger of open attack is apt to
lose in cunning. Yet Wahb never forgot his early experience with the traps.
He made it a rule never to go near that smell of man and iron, and that was
the reason that he never again was caught.

[Illustration]

So he led his lonely life and slouched around on the mountains, throwing
boulders about like pebbles, and huge t