The Happy Hooligan 119 



another animal of about its own size appeared some 

 distance along the side hill and, somewhat to my sur- 

 prise, began to walk threateningly toward it, I became 

 very much interested. The first bear, however, did 

 not seem to share my interest. He paid, or pretended 

 to pay, no attention whatever to the newcomer. And 

 the latter, very deliberate but very determined, came 

 straight toward him. When he arrived at the other 

 side of the small tree (it was not more than six inches 

 thick) he half drew back on his haunches, half raised 

 his fore-quarters from the ground, lifted one paw as 

 if to strike, and uttered the coughing snarl ending in a 

 rapid champing of the jaws that is the Black Bear's 

 ultimate expression of wrath. I thought that I was 

 going to have a reserved seat at a prize fight. But my 

 original bear continued to lean against his tree and look 

 about lazily as though waiting for something interest- 

 ing to turn up. He did not seem to so much as suspect 

 that there was another bear in that neck of the woods. 

 And the challenger turned round and walked away as 

 deliberate, as dignified, and as unconcerned as though 

 nothing whatever had happened. 



The actions of these two bears, moreover, illustrate 

 another characteristic of the tribe. You never watch 

 Black Bear when they are quite at home and undis- 

 turbed without being made to feel that they are hard 

 put to it to know what to do with themselves. A 

 grizzly '^ knows his business" in every sense of the ex- 



