had killed a mother grizzly. He had searched for her cubs, which he thought must be near by, but had failed to discover them. The hunter said he had come upon her unexpectedly in a thicket and she had at once charged, probably thinking herself cornered. One well-aimed shot in the head had dropped her.

The following morning I went with the hunter to bring in the grizzly. She was a beautiful silver-tip of about four hundred pounds. We made another thorough search for the cubs without finding them. Just as the hunter was about to start skinning the bear I caught sight of a cub peeping from beneath large slide rocks not thirty feet away. Then another frightened cub face appeared.

After hesitating for a moment both cubs came out and stood looking intently toward us and their dead mother. After a stare, as we did not move, they took a few steps toward us. Hesitating again, they stopped, rose up and looked around, and then hastily retreated to the rocks. Evidently their mother had trained them to stay wherever she left them until she returned.

But they had waited long. For a while they stood and whimpered very much like hungry, forsaken children. They could scent their mother, and see her, too, and were too hungry and lonesome to endure without her longer. Again they started slowly toward us, walking closely side by side. When very near they paused, rose on hind legs, and looked intently at us and in wonder and longing at their lifeless mother. Then they went to her. One little cub sniffed in a bewildered, puzzled way over her cold, still body. He gently stroked her fur with his paw and then sat down and began to whimper and cry.

THE CHALLENGE
The Cub on the Right is an Alaskan Grizzly of the Big Brown Bear Type

The other little cub stood looking with awe into his mother’s moveless face, but at last shook off his fright and smelled her bloody head. Then, all forlorn, he turned to look eagerly into the face of the hunter, who had been watching the little cub all this while with big tears upon his cheeks. After a moment he took a step toward him, rose up, and trustingly put fore paws upon his knee, looking seriously, confidingly into his face. We carried these little orphans to camp, and the hunter raised them. Their mother was the last animal that he ever shot.

The cubs are born in the hibernating cave in January, February, or March, probably the majority in February. The number at birth commonly is two, but sometimes there are three and occasionally even four. Each is about the size of a chipmunk, weighing from ten to twenty ounces.

Generally the mother does not come forth for either food or drink for some weeks after the cubs are born. She stays in the den a month longer than bears without cubs. Curled around the little bears in the den, she nourishes them from her store of fat. The cubs grow slowly, and on leaving the den are often only a trifle larger than a cotton-tail rabbit, weighing from ten to fifteen pounds. The grizzly appears to give birth to cubs only every second year. Though yearlings have been seen with a mother and cubs, it is likely that they did not belong to her.

In proportion to the size of the mother, the grizzly is one of the smallest of animals at birth, weigh ing about one fifth of one per cent of her weight. A baby kangaroo at birth is even smaller proportionally, however, and is said to weigh less than one tenth of one per cent of the mother’s weight. A baby blue whale is about four per cent of the weight of the mother and sometimes weighs three tons and has a length of twenty-five feet.

Why is the young grizzly so small? It will readily be seen that while hibernating, neither eating nor drinking for a few months, the mother grizzly would not be able to nourish two or more very lusty youngsters. It is probable that in the process of evolution Nature selected the small grizzly cubs to perpetuate the species.

While visiting the Blackfeet Indians in western Montana one February, I saw a young Indian woman nursing two baby grizzly bears. The mother grizzly had been killed a day or two before and the cubs taken from the den. They were little bits of warm, pink life, scantily covered with hair. Each weighed not more than one pound. They were blind and toothless, but had sharp tiny claws. They had their eyes open in about fourteen days, and early began to cut their teeth. For several days the Indian woman suckled the cubs, then she fed them on cow’s milk and succeeded in raising them.

Many are the colors of grizzlies. I once saw a mother with four cubs, each of a different color. She herself was cream-colored, but one of the cubs was nearly black, another gray, the third brown, and the fourth black and white. A grizzly may be a blond, or a brunette, or one of half a dozen in-between shades. Often, as he ages, he becomes a "silver-tip." Probably dark gray is the prevailing color.

From the time the mother and cubs emerge from the winter den in the spring until they enter a den to hibernate the next winter, they are on the move much of the time. Only occasionally does the old bear leave the cubs behind, and this as a rule is not for long. She is constantly watchful for their safety and makes haste to place herself between the cubs and any possible danger. In retreating she usually leads the way, the cubs following closely, but if nearly cornered she is likely to act as rear guard.

Crossing the mountains one stormy spring day, I paused in a whirl of mist and wet snow to look for the trail. Peering ahead, I beheld a grizzly bear emerging from the gloom only a few yards away. Close behind her were two small cubs. Mother Grizzly, as much surprised as I, instantly retreated. With an impatient expression and a growl of anger she wheeled quickly about and boxed the cubs right and left like a nervous mother. Urged on with spanks from behind, the youngsters turned back in the direction they had come from, and all vanished in the falling snow.

Though gentle and patient, the grizzly mother uses a limited amount of cuffing and spanking with the cubs, especially if they are in danger. One day from far across a cañon I was watching two cubs walking along a wild-life trail in front of their mother, when a pack outfit appeared on my side of the cañon. The mother and the cubs saw it, and she at once turned up a gulch, pushing the cubs before her. But the youngsters were interested in the pack-animals and, standing still, forgot everything in their eager watching. The mother went from one to the other, pushing them forward. The instant she left one, the cub stopped and turned to look back in eager curiosity at the strange sight across the cañon. Without any show of temper the mother pushed one ahead a few yards and then returned to the other and urged it forward.

The mother protects her cubs at any cost. Many a grizzly mother has died in defense of her offspring, and I do not know of an instance of a mother’s running away when her cubs were exposed to danger.

At Grand Lake, Colorado, one June day, I went with a trapper on his rounds, thinking that he might have trapped a grizzly. He had a cub trapped by a fore paw. As we approached the spot, I chanced to climb over a pile of fallen timber and from the top of this I saw Mother Grizzly lying in wait a short distance in front of the cub. She had dug out a place behind a log and was lying there concealed, unmistakably waiting for the trapper.

One morning late in May,