70 TRUE BEAR STORIES. 



a short story. We found our fat, bent- 

 legged editor from the city fairly broiling 

 in the little railroad town, away down at 

 the bottom of the hill in the yellow golden 

 fields of the Sacramento; and he was so 

 limp and so lazy that we had to lay hold 

 of him and get him out of the heat and up 

 into the heart of the Sierras by main force. 

 Only one hour of climbing and we got 

 up to where the little mountain streams 

 come tumbling out -of snow-banks on every 

 side. The Sacramento, away down below 

 and almost under us, from here looks 

 dwindled to a brawling brook; a foamy 

 white thread twisting about the boulders 

 as big as meeting houses, plunging for 

 ward, white with fear, as if glad to get 

 away as if there was a bear back there 

 where it came from. We did not register. 

 No, indeed. This place here on Square 

 Creek, among the clouds, where the water 

 bursts in a torrent from the living rock, 

 we have named Mount Sinai. We own the 

 whole place for one mile square the tall 



