88 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER . 
decayed relics of forest gentry now displaced 
by the democracy of poplars and birches. 
These stumps bore no axe marks; they had 
fallen at the command of the tornado, not of 
the lumber thief. On their sides were long 
scratches which looked like claw marks. Had 
“Sis Wildcat” been trying her claws there? 
No; but “Brer Bar” had been. Near by was 
a small grove of oaks, not one of which was 
more than a foot in diameter. Their sides 
were deeply scored by Bruin’s claws, and their 
highest branches hung down upon the rest of 
their limbs, broken and dying. There is 
hardly an oak on Chocorua which has not been 
climbed by bears in acorn time, and disfigured 
by the great brutes in their attempts to reach 
the coveted nuts. 
Towering close above the oaks we could see 
the abrupt faces of the West Ledges. We 
seemed to be at the foot of a great feudal castle 
whose gray walls needed scaling ladders to be 
conquered. Ferns grew in the crevices in the 
rock; tiny streams of water trickled down its 
sides and fed mosses and lichens; honeysuckle, 
mountain ash, wild Solomon’s seal, and striped 
maple sprang in luxuriant tangles from its feet, 
and tripped us as we skirted the castle’s base 
and sought a break in its smooth walls. Pres¬ 
ently we found one, — a rift made originally by 
