Biography of a Grizzly | Page 7

was very scarce
for a couple of months, and after the Elk was eaten, Wahb lost all the
fat he had when he awoke. One day he climbed over the Divide into the
Warhouse Valley. It was warm and sunny there, vegetation was well
advanced, and he found good forage. He wandered down toward the
thick timber, and soon smelled the smell of another Grizzly. This grew
stronger and led him to a single tree by a Bear-trail. Wahb reared up on
his hind feet to smell this tree. It was strong of Bear, and was plastered
with mud and Grizzly hair far higher, than he could reach; and Wahb
knew that it must have been a very large Bear that had rubbed himself
there. He felt uneasy. He used to long to meet one of his own kind, yet
now that there was a chance of it he was filled with dread.
No one had shown him anything but hatred in his lonely, unprotected
life, and he could not tell what this older Bear might do. As he stood in
doubt, he caught sight of the old Grizzly himself slouching along a
hillside, stopping from time to time to dig up the quamash-roots and
wild turnips.
He was a monster. Wahb instinctively distrusted him, and sneaked
away through the woods and up a rocky bluff where he could watch.
Then the big fellow came on Wahb's track and rumbled a deep growl of

anger; he followed the trail to the tree, and rearing up, he tore the bark
with his claws, far above where Wahb had reached. Then he strode
rapidly along Wahb's trail. But the cub had seen enough. He fled back
over the Divide into the Meteetsee Cañon, and realized in his dim,
bearish way that he was at peace there because the Bear-forage was so
poor.
As the summer came on, his coat was shed. His skin got very itchy, and
he found pleasure in rolling in the mud and scraping his back against
some convenient tree. He never climbed now: his claws were too long,
and his arms, though growing big and strong, were losing that
suppleness of wrist that makes cub Grizzlies and all Blackbears great
climbers. He now dropped naturally into the Bear habit of seeing how
high he could reach with his nose on the rubbing-post, whenever he
was near one.
He may not have noticed it, yet each time he came to a post, after a
week or two away, he could reach higher, for Wahb was growing fast
and coming into his strength.
Sometimes he was at one end of the country that he felt was his, and
sometimes at another, but he had frequent use for the rubbing-tree, and
thus it was that his range was mapped out by posts with his own mark
on them.
One day late in summer he sighted a stranger on his land, a glossy
Blackbear, and he felt furious against the interloper. As the Blackbear
came nearer Wahb noticed the tan-red face, the white spot on his breast,
and then the bit out of his ear, and last of all the wind brought a whiff.
There could be no further doubt; it was the very smell: this was the
black coward that had chased him down the Piney long ago. But how
he had shrunken! Before, he had looked like a giant; now Wahb felt he
could crush him with one paw. Revenge is sweet, Wahb felt, though he
did not exactly say it, and he went for that red-nosed Bear. But the
Black one went up a small tree like a Squirrel. Wahb tried to follow as
the other once followed him, but somehow he could not. He did not
seem to know how to take hold now, and after a while he gave it up and
went away, although the Blackbear brought him back more than once
by coughing in derision. Later on that day, when the Grizzly passed
again, the red-nosed one had gone.
[Illustration]

As the summer waned, the upper forage-grounds began to give out, and
Wahb ventured down to the Lower Meteetsee one night to explore.
There was a pleasant odor on the breeze, and following it up, Wahb
came to the carcass of a Steer. A good distance away from it were some
tiny Coyotes, mere dwarfs compared with those he remembered. Right
by the carcass was another that jumped about in the moonlight in a
foolish way. For some strange reason it seemed unable to get away.
Wahb's old hatred broke out. He rushed up. In a flash the Coyote bit
him several times before, with one blow of that great paw, Wahb
smashed him into a limp, furry rag; then broke in all his ribs with a