unsuspected canon before me might carry news of 

 my presence to the bear. 



Near mountain-tops the wind is deflected this 

 way and that by ridges and canons. In a small area 

 the prevailing west wind may be a north wind, and 

 a short distance farther on it may blow from the 

 southwest. Often, when the bear was somewhere in 

 a canon, I climbed entirely out of it, to avoid the 

 likelihood of being scented, and scurried ahead on a 

 plateau. 



Usually I followed in the bear's trail, but some- 

 times I made short cuts. So long as Old Timberline 

 remained on the moorland summit of this treeless 

 ridge, I could not get close to him. But when he 

 arose and started down the ridge, I hurried down 

 the slope, hoping to get ahead and hide in a place 

 of concealment near which he might pass. I kept 

 out of sight in the woods and hastened forward for 

 two miles, then climbed up and hid in a rock-slide 

 on the rim of the ridge. 



By and by I saw Old Timberline coming. When 

 within five hundred feet of me he stopped and dug 

 energetically. Buckets of earth flew behind, and 

 occasionally a huge stone was torn out and hurled 

 with one paw to the right or left. Once he stopped 



125 



