Before very long a large Blackbear came quietly out of the woods to
the pile, and began turning over the garbage and feeding. He was very
nervous, sitting up and looking about at each slight sound, or running
away a few yards when startled by some trifle. At length he cocked his
ears and galloped off into the pines, as another Blackbear appeared. He
also behaved in the same timid manner, and at last ran away when I shook
the bushes in trying to get a better view.

At the outset I myself had been very nervous, for of course no man is
allowed to carry weapons in the Park; but the timidity of these Bears
reassured me, and thenceforth I forgot everything in the interest of
seeing the great, shaggy creatures in their home life. [Illustration]

Soon I realized I could not get the close insight I wished from that
bush, as it was seventy-five yards from the garbage-pile. There was none
nearer; so I did the only thing left to do: I went to the garbage-pile
itself, and, digging a hole big enough to hide in, remained there all
day long, with cabbage-stalks, old potato-peelings, tomato-cans, and
carrion piled up in odorous heaps around me. Notwithstanding the
opinions of countless flies, it was not an attractive place. Indeed, it
was so unfragrant that at night, when I returned to the Hotel, I was not
allowed to come in until after I had changed my clothes in the woods.

It had been a trying ordeal, but I surely did see Bears that day. If
I may reckon it a new Bear each time one came, I must have seen over
forty. But of course it was not, for the Bears were coming and going.
And yet I am certain of this: there were at least thirteen Bears, for I
had thirteen about me at one time.

All that day I used my sketch-book and journal. Every Bear that came was