104 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
In case of danger or when leaving on a long 
foraging expedition the mother usually sends 
her cubs up a tree. They faithfully remain in 
the tree until she returns. One day in Wild 
Basin, Colorado, while watching a mother and 
two cubs feeding on travelling ants, the mother 
quietly raised her head then pointed her nose 
at the cubs. Though there was not a sound 
the cubs instantly, though unwillingly, started 
toward the foot of a tree. The mother raised 
her forepaws as though to go toward them. At 
that the cubs made haste toward the tree. At 
the bottom they hesitated; then the mother 
with rush and champing Whoof! simply sent 
them flying up the trunk. Then she walked 
away into the woods. 
In the treetop the cubs remained for hours, 
not once descending to the earth. It was a 
lodgepole pine sixty or seventy feet away and 
several feet lower than my stand, on the side 
of a moraine. For some minutes the cubs stood 
on the branches looking in the direction in which 
their mother had disappeared. They explored 
the entire tree, climbing everywhere on the 
branches, then commenced racing and playing 
through the treetop. 
At times their actions were very cat-like; 
now and then squirrel-like; frequently they were 
very monkey-like; but at all times lively, inter- 
