BEN; THE STORY OE A CUB. 



hoist it, and shoot under as if he 

 had been fired from a gun ; and there 

 he would stay until the trouble was 

 over. Occasionally he would stick 

 his head out from under his shelter, 

 look carefully about the camp and lis- 

 ten. When assured there was no fur- 

 ther danger, he would come out and 

 resume his play, or feeding - , or what- 

 ever he might have to do. 



or high bush huckleberries, or any- 

 thing such ground might furnish. He 

 would occasionally dig up a bulbous 

 plant of some kind and eat the root ; 

 and we never knew him to dig up a 

 plant that did not have an edible root. 

 He knew from the first, much better 

 than we did, what plants grew his 

 favorite breakfast. 

 It is evidently the habit of mother 



RUSTLING FOR BREAKFAST. 



As I have said, he was only a few 

 days old when we got him, but from 

 the start he seemed to know what kind 

 of food bears live on, how to find it, 

 and how to go about getting it. 

 When he was a month old, and began 

 to eat solid food, if we camped on a 

 hillside where huckleberries or rose 

 bushes grew, he would go foraging 

 among them. When he found a bush 

 of the kind that bore fruit to his lik- 

 ing, he would bend it down and ex- 

 amine it, and he never, from the first, 

 pulled down any bush that does not, 

 in season, bear fruit of some kind. 

 If we camped near a swamp he would 

 go into this and hunt for cranberries, 



bears to feed their young at frequent 

 intervals, at least during the night. 

 Ben seemed to know this. Further- 

 more, he was blessed with a ravenous 

 appetite and a rapid digestion. We 

 would feed him as soon as we got in 

 camp, and before we had our supper. 

 Then we would feed him again before 

 we went to bed. By the time we had 

 slept an hour or 2, Ben's second sup- 

 per would seem to be digested and 

 he would get hungry and set up a 

 howl. Someone would have to crawl 

 out and feed him. Then he would 

 curl up in his gunny sack and go to 

 sleep. We hit on a plan of wrapping 

 him up in the gunny sack, hoping 



