nin' to
despair when I come across one of them big piles of rocks they have up
there, scattered around promiscus-like on the face of nature; and I
begin crawlin' in and crawlin' in, hopin' to find some cave or
somethin', and jest as I was despairin' my feet fell into a kind of
trail, kinder smooth and worn, but old, you know, and stomped hard
under the snow. Well, I follers along this path with my feet until it
come to a hole in the rocks; and when I come to that hole I went right
in, fer I was desprit; and I crawled in and crawled in until I come to
a big nest of leaves, and then I begin to burrow down into them
leaves. And as soon as I had made a hole I pulled them leaves over me
and fell to sleep, I was that exhausted.

"But after a while I had some awful bad dreams, and when I woke up I
felt somethin' kickin' under me. Yes 'm, that's right; I felt
somethin' kinder movin' around and squirmin', and when I begin to
investergate I found I was layin' down right square on top of a
tremenjous big grizzly bear! Well, you fellers can laugh, but I was,
all the same. What do you know about it, you woolies, punchin' cows
down here in the rocks and cactus?

"How's that, Miss Bunnair? W'y sure, he was hibernatin'! They all
hibernate up in them cold countries. Well, the funny part of this was
that Old Brin had gone to sleep suckin' his off fore foot, jest like a
little baby, and when I had piled in on top of him I had knocked his
paw out of his mouth and he was tryin' to git it back. But he was all
quilled up with himself under them leaves, and his claws was so long
he couldn't git that foot back into his mouth nohow. He snooped and
grabbed and fumbled, and every minute he was gittin' madder and
madder, a-suckin' and slobberin' like a calf tryin' to draw milk out
of the hired man's thumb, and a-gruntin' and groanin' somethin'
awful.

"Well, I see my finish in about a minute if he ever got good an' woke
up, so I resolved to do somethin' desprit. I jest naturally grabbed
onto that foot and twisted it around and stuck it into his mouth
myself! Afraid? Ump-um, not me--the only thing I was afraid of was
that he'd git my hand and go to suckin' it by mistake. But when I
steered his paw around in front of him he jest grabbed onto that big
black pad on the bottom of his foot like it was m'lasses candy, and
went off to sleep again as peaceful as a kitten."

The man from Coloraydo ended his tale abruptly, with an air of
suspense, and K