PREFACE. 3

the marshes at the mouth of the Mississippi
River. You will read of an encounter with
him further on.

I know very well that there exists a good
deal of bad feeling between boys and bears,
particularly on the part of boys. The trou-
ble began, I suppose, about the time when
that old she bear destroyed more than forty
boys at a single meeting, for poking fun
at a good old prophet. And we read that
David, when a boy, got very angry at a
she bear and slew her single-handed and
alone for interfering with his flock. So
you see the feud between the boy and bear
family is an old one indeed.

But I am bound to say that I have found
much that is pathetic, and something that is
almosthalf-human, in this poor, shaggy, shuf-
fling hermit. He doesn’t want much, only
the wildest and most worthless parts of the
mountains or marshes, where, if you will
let him alone, he will let you alone, as a
rule. Sometimes, out here in California,
he loots a pig-pen, and now and then he gets
among the bees. Only last week, a little
black bear got his head fast in a bee-hive
that had been improvised from a nail-keg,
and the bee-farmer killed him with a pitch-