it).

He wanted to run, to scream,--a course that would have been most
ill-advised, for the bear might then have given chase. As it was, the boy
remembered that the animal was probably more afraid than he,--or more
likely merely curious at this biped invasion of his wilderness,--and
would not harm him if no hostile move were made. The cinnamon bear of
the Sierras, like his blood brother, the New England black bear, is a
good-natured fellow.

With an iron grip on his nerves, he forced himself to stand stock-still,
then back--ever so amenably--off the trail. The bear, finding no
hostility intended, turned and lumbered up the mountainside.

"'Minds me of one time,' said Long Lester, when he heard the story, 'I
was down to the crick once when I was a shaver, and along came a big
brown bear. The bear, he stood up on his haunches, surprised like, and
just gave one 'woof.' About that time I decided to take to the tall
timber." (At this, Pedro looked singularly gratified.) "Well, that bear,
he took to the same tree I did, and I kept right on a-climbin' so high
that I get clear to the top,--it were a slim kind of a tree,--and the top
bends and draps me off in the water!"

[Illustration: Around the turn of the trail rose a huge brown form.]

"What became of the bear?" Pedro demanded.

"I dunno. I didn't wait to see. But Mr. Norris here were a-sayin' there's
nothin' in the back country a-goin' to hurt you unless'n it's
rattlesnakes. Now when I was a-prospectin' I allus used to carry a hair
rope along, and make a good big circle around my bed with it. The rattler
won't crawl over the hair rope."

The boys thought he was joshing them, but Long Lester was telling the
literal truth. "Once I was just a-crawlin' into bed," he went on, "when I
heard a rattle," and with the aid of a dry leaf he gave a faint imitation
of the buzzing "chick-chick-chick-chick-chick" that sounds so ominous
when you know it and so harmless when you don't. "I flung back the covers
with one jerk, and jumped back myself out of the way. There was a snake
down at the foot of my blankets. They are always trying to crawl into a
warm place."

"Then what?" breathed three round eyed boys.

"First I put on my shoes and made up a fire so's I could see, 'n' then
I take a forked stick and get him by the neck, and smash his head with a
stone."

"And yet I've heard of making pets of them," said Norris.

"They do. Some do. But I wouldn't," stated Long Lester empha