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[Illustration: HOW I TUMBLED DOWNHILL.]




  THE LIFE STORY OF
  A BLACK BEAR


  BY
  H. PERRY ROBINSON


  LONDON
  ADAM·&·CHARLES·BLACK
  1913




FOREWORD


There is always tragedy when man invades the solitudes of the earth,
for his coming never fails to mean the destruction of the wild
things. But, surely, nowhere can the pathos be greater than when,
in the western part of North America, there is a discovery of new
gold-diggings. Then from all points of the compass men come pouring
into the mountains with axe and pick, gold-pan and rifle, breaking
paths through the forest wildernesses, killing and driving before them
the wild animals that have heretofore held the mountains for their own.

Here in these rocky, tree-clad fastnesses the bears have kinged it for
centuries, ruling in right of descent for generation after generation,
holding careless dominion over the coyote and the beaver, the wapiti,
the white-tailed and the mule-eared deer. Except for the occasional
rebellion of a mutinous lieutenant of a puma, there has been none to
dispute their lordship from year to year and century to century. Each
winter they have laid themselves down (or sat themselves up--for a bear
does not lie down when hibernating) to sleep through the bitter months,
in easy assurance that when they awoke they would find the sceptre
still by their side.

But a spring comes when they issue from their winter lairs and new
sounds are borne to them on the keen, resin-scented mountain air. The
hills ring to the chopping of axes; and the voices of men--a new and
terrible sound--reach their ears. The earth, soft with the melting
snows, shows unaccustomed prints of heavy heels. The coyote and the
deer and all the forest folk have gone; the beaver-dams are broken, and
the builders vanished.

Dimly wondering at the strangeness of it all, the bears go forth,
blundering and half awake, down the new-made pathways, not angry,
but curious and perplexed, and by the trail-side they meet man--man
with a rifle in his hand. And, still not angry, still only
wondering and fearing nothing--for are they not lords of all the
mountain-sides?--they die.


    H. P. R.


_First published September, 1905_

_Reissued Autumn, 1910; reprinted July, 1913_




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
     I. HOW I TUMBLED DOWNHILL                                1

    II. CUBHOOD DAYS                                          9

   III. THE COMING OF MAN                                    25

    IV. THE FOREST FIRE                                      39

     V. I LOSE A SISTER                                      57

    VI. LIFE IN CAMP                                         71

   VII. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS                              93

  VIII. ALONE IN THE WORLD                                  105

    IX. I FIND A COMPANION                                  120

     X. A VISIT TO THE OLD HOME                             134

    XI. THE TROUBLES OF A FATHER                            147

   XII. WIPING OUT OLD SCORES                               163

  XIII. THE TRAP                                            176

   XIV. IN THE HANDS OF MAN                                 194




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  'HOW I TUMBLED DOWNHILL'                            _Frontispiece_

                                                         FACING PAGE

  'THE FATHER BEAR ASKED MY FATHER IF WE WERE NOT
  GOING TOO'                                                 49

  'SLOWLY, YARD BY YARD, SHE WAS BEING DRAGGED AWAY
  FROM US'                                                   64