[Illustration]

They seemed to understand Grizzly Wahb. The first time they met, Wahb
reared up on his hind legs, and the wicked green lightnings began to
twinkle in his small eyes. The elder man said to his mate:

"Let him alone, and he won't bother you."

"Ain't he an awful size, though?" replied the other, nervously.

Wahb was about to charge, but something held him back--a something that
had no reference to his senses, that was felt only when they were still;
a something that in Bear and Man is wiser than his wisdom, and that
points the way at every doubtful fork in the dim and winding trail.

Of course Wahb did not understand what the men said, but he did feel
that there was something different here. The smell of man and iron was
there, but not of that maddening kind, and he missed the pungent odor
that even yet brought back the dark days of his cubhood.

The men did not move, so Wahb rumbled a subterranean growl, dropped down
on his four feet, and went on.

Late the same year Wahb ran across the red-nosed Blackbear. How that
Bear did keep on shrinking! Wahb could have hurled him across the
Graybull with one tap now.

But the Blackbear did not mean to let him try. He hustled his fat, podgy
body up a tree at a rate that made him puff. Wahb reached up nine feet