chances of a long life and a happy one were
very slim indeed, especially as it happened that he was set free to
shift for himself just at the beginning of the hard times, when the big
and strong had begun to hunt the small and weak.

"For a while Little Chief had a hard time of it and so many narrow
escapes that his heart was in his mouth most of the time. In trying to
keep out of the way of his enemies he kept climbing higher and higher up
the mountain, for the higher he got the fewer enemies he found. At last
he came to a big rock-slide above where the trees grew, and where there
was nothing but broken stone and big rocks. The sun lay there very warm,
and Little Chief crept out among the stones to take a sun-bath; as he
squatted there it would have taken keen eyes indeed to tell him from a
stone himself, though he didn't know this.

"After he had had a good rest, and jolly Mr. Sun had moved so that
Little Chief was no longer in the warm rays, Little Chief decided to
look about a little. It didn't take him long to discover that there were
wonderful little winding galleries and hiding-places down among the
stones. These led to little cracks and caves deep down in the mountain
side. Little Chief was tickled almost to death.

"'This is the place for me!' he cried. 'No one ever will think to look
for me up here, and if they should they couldn't find me, for no one,
not even King Bear, could pull away these stones fast enough to catch
me. All day long I can enjoy the sun, and at night I can sleep in
perfect safety in one of these little caves.'

"So Little Chief made his home in the rock-slide high up on the mountain
and was happy, for it was just as he thought it would be--no one
thought of looking in that bare place for him. For food he ate the pea
vines and grasses and other green things that grew just at the edge of
the rock-slide and was perfectly happy. One day he decided he would take
some of his dinner into his little cave and eat it there. So he cut a
little bundle of pea vine and other green things. He left his little
bundle on a flat rock in the sun while he went to look for something
else and then forgot all about it. It didn't enter his head again until
a few days later he happened along by that flat rock and discovered that
little bundle. The pea vines and grasses were quite dry, just like the
hay Farmer Brown's boy helps his father store away in the barn every
summer.

"'I guess I don't want to eat that