24 TRUE BEAR STORIES.

posed to tarry. In another second he had
Swung to the ground and was making a
thousand graceful curves in the swift
water for the further bank.

The world, even the world of books,
seems to know nothing at all about the
wonderful snakes that live in the woods.
The woods rattlesnake is as large as at
least twenty ordinary rattlesnakes; and
Indians say it is entirely harmless. The
enormous black snake, I know, is entirely
without venom. In all my life, spent most-
ly in the camp, I have seen only three of
those monstrous yellow woods rattle-
snakes; one in Indiana, one in Oregon and
the other on this occasion here on the
banks of the McCloud. Such bright eyes!
It was hard to stop looking at them.

Meantime a good many bears had come
and gone. The bear is a good swimmer,
and takes to the water without fear. He
is, in truth, quite a fisherman; so much of
a fisherman, in fact, that in salmon season
here his flesh is unfit for food. The pitiful