of 



Bedraggled and limping, I made slow progress 

 down the slope. Just at twilight a mother bear 

 and her two cubs met me. They probably were 

 climbing up to winter-quarters. I stood still to 

 let them pass. When a few yards distant the bear 

 rose up and looked at me with a combination of 

 curiosity, astonishment, and perhaps contempt. 

 With Woof! Woof! more in a tone of disgust than 

 of fear or anger, she rushed off, followed by the 

 cubs, and the three disappeared in the darken- 

 ing, snow-filling forest aisles. 



The trees were snow-laden and dripping, but 

 on and on I went. Years of training had given 

 me great physical endurance, and this, along 

 with a peculiar mental attitude that Nature had 

 developed in me from being alone in her wild 

 places at all seasons, gave me a rare trust in her 

 and an enthusiastic though unconscious confi- 

 dence in the ultimate success of whatever I at- 

 tempted to accomplish out of doors. 



About two o'clock in the morning I at last 

 descended to the river. The fresh debris on my 

 side of the stream so hampered traveling that it 

 became necessary to cross. Not finding any 



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