n't you see?"

"I've never yet seen a powdered coffee that could compare with the real
thing," Ace complained.

"Why couldn't Les buy the real thing and then get it powdered and sealed
into little separate tins for us?"

"He could," agreed Norris, "I suppose,--if we're going to be as fussy as
all that." (Ace flushed.) "But with our woods' appetites----"

"Oh, and citric acid tablets," the Senator's son hastened to change the
subject. "For lemonade, you know."

The discussion was cut short by Pedro's discovery that a bear had invaded
the lean-to.

The American black bear, and his California cousin whose coat has
generally lightened to the cinnamon brown of the soil, is all but tame in
the National Parks, where for years he has been unmolested. A friendly
fellow even in the wild state,--for the most part,--he roams the Giant
Forest as much a prized part of the landscape as the Big Trees
themselves. He has learned to visit the garbage dump regularly every
night, and it causes no sensation whatever to meet one on the trail. It
was much the same about the lumber camp.

But to have him visit uninvited, and serve his own refreshments from
their selected stores, was a less attractive trick. Nor did he show the
slightest inclination to take alarm and vacate when the boys returned. On
the contrary, he snarled and showed his teeth when they would have driven
him from the maple sugar can, and even Ace felt at the moment that
discretion was in order. It was not till Old Shaggy-Sides had pretty well
demolished everything in sight, and then carried the ham off under his
arm, that he took a reluctant departure.

This would never do. That night the unprotected edibles were hoisted just
too high for a possible visitor to reach, on a rope slung over the limb
of a tree. The boys still slept under the stars, for they knew enough
about bears, (all but Pedro), not to be afraid. Pedro, however, got
little sleep that night, though he would not have confessed to the fact
for anything on earth.

"There was one bear in Sequoia Park," remembered Ace, "who got too fresh,
that way, and raided some one's tent, and they had to send for help to
get him out. When it happened half a dozen times, he was ordered shot.
But he was the only one I've ever heard of acting that way. Now I'll bet,
if we'd inquire, we'd find this bear had been half tamed, and altogether
spoiled by these lumbermen.

"We were driving through Yellowstone last summer when o