night, a bear had rubbed the bark 

 off that tree, scratching his back, a 

 close inspection disclosed some hairs 

 sticking to it; black bear, brown or 

 grizzly, small or large, which way 

 going, all this he knew at a glance, 

 arriving at the result by knowledge 

 and deduction. 



At last on a sun-baked hillside we 

 dropped to rest in a huckleberry 

 patch, wonderful child of a forest 

 fire. Never in the hot-houses of 

 Midas have I seen such berries as 

 nature provides here for the taking. 

 Acres of huckleberries as big as one's 

 thumb, juicy and sweet, hanging 

 in luscious luxuriance, sharp con- 

 trast to the spiny manzanita and 

 rocky arid stretches. While they last 

 the bears gorge themselves, and we 

 gorged ourselves without the effort 

 even of rising. To be Irish al- 

 though we were lying down, we were 

 practically sitting up, the hillside was 

 so steep. I felt like the lazy man of 

 Bagdad who reclined under a fig tree, 

 all his life, nourished by the fruit that 

 dropped into his mouth. 



Nimrod's keen eye was scanning 

 an opposite ridge not two hundred 



