The Happy Hooligan 109 



with two cubs and determined to take her picture. As 

 soon as she saw us she ordered her cubs up a tree but, 

 by a quick movement, I managed to get to them in 

 time to intercept the second cub before it had a chance 

 to obey. It then rejoined its mother and I placed 

 myself between them and the treed cub and thus had 

 things just as I wanted them, knowing that the old 

 bear would not go far away and leave her youngster 

 (who was bawling lustily from the branches) to its 

 possible fate. 



But when I called Kerfoot, who had the camera, 

 to come forward and get some pictures, he was rather 

 shy about it. He explained that he had come out to 

 photograph bears, and that if this one had been by 

 herself, he would not have minded her; but that he 

 had always understood that an old bear with cubs was 

 about the most dangerous thing on four legs, and that 

 to interpose himself between her and her bawling off- 

 spring looked to him a good deal like suicide. I finally 

 persuaded him that there was no danger, however, and 

 he moved up to within fifty feet or so of the old bear. 

 But he had no more than taken a step or two when she 

 turned toward him with a coughing snarl that made 

 him think his last hour had come. I could not help 

 laughing at the old bluffer, for she had never so much 

 as shown me a tooth, but had rather assumed toward 

 me what you might call a ^'put upon" expression — 

 whining and walking nervously back and forth and 



