SWIMMING WITH A BEAR. 57

of the lion; dandelion. Get down your
botany, now, find the Anglo-Asian name of
the flower, and fix this fact on your mind
before you read further.

I know of three men, all old men now,
who have their left hands all covered with
scars. One is due to the wolf; the others
owe their scars to the red mouths of black
bears.

You see, in the old days, out here in Cal-
ifornia, when the Sierras were full of bold
young fellows hunting for gold, quite a
number of them had hand-to-hand battles
with bears. For when we came out here
“the woods were full of ’em.”

Of course, the first thing a man does
when he finds himself face to face with a
bear that won’t run and he has no gun—
and that is always the time when he finds
a bear—why, he runs, himself; that is, if
the bear will let him.

But it is generally a good deal like the
old Crusader who “caught a Tartar” long