38 WAITING IN THE WILDERNESS 



arriving and that, of course, they will be in no 

 hurry about turning in. For two days I searched 

 the mountains for bear tracks. The snow was 

 dotted and splashed with tracks deer, sheep, 

 mice, and birds. A snowshoe rabbit made a 

 track large enough for a lion; while a cottontail 

 and a magpie left record of their misfortune, each 

 had lost a foot. Late afternoon of the second 

 day I found a fresh bear track and on the way 

 home another the track of a grizzly. Now a 

 grizzly is one of the wisest fellows in the woods, 

 and the fact that he had not heard that there 

 was to be a long, cold winter was almost enough 

 to cause me to doubt the signs said to have been 

 made by many other wild people. 



Old Jim had complete confidence in the 

 weather wisdom of the ground-hog, as did every- 

 one else whom I had ever heard mention him, 

 so I quietly resolved to keep track of his doings 

 and to pick up ground-hog information even 

 though I neglected a number of good books 

 which people had been kind enough to loan me. 

 The ground-hog weather lore says that on Feb- 

 ruary second this animal wakes from his hiber- 

 nating sleep and comes out of the den. If he 

 sees his shadow on the snow there will be six 

 weeks more of winter; if he does not see his 

 shadow winter is practically over. 



Every near-by ground-hog den was located. 



