40 TRUE BEAR STORIES. 



Indians say he was first a man and walked 

 upright with a club on his shoulder, but 

 sinned and fell. As evidence of this, they 

 show that he can still stand up and fight 

 with his fists when hard pressed, but more 

 of this later on. 



This huge brute before me looked almost 

 white in the tawny twilight as he stumbled 

 down through the steep tangle of cha- 

 parral into the opening on the stony bar 

 of the river. 



He had evidently been terribly tangled 

 up and disgusted while in the bush and 

 jungle, and now, well out of it, with the 

 foamy, rumbling, roaring Sacramento 

 River only a few rods beyond him, into 

 which he could plunge with his glossy coat, 

 he seemed to want to turn about and shake 

 his huge fists at the crescent of fire in the 

 pine-quills that had driven him down the 

 mountain. He threw his enormous bulk 

 back on his haunches and rose up, and 

 rose up, and rose up! Oh, the majesty of 

 this king of our continent, as he seemed 



