A LITTLB BROWN BEAR 
 OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 ALLEN 
 
 **. • 
 
 rV .^J$L 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00022094458 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00022094458 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fuzzywuzzlittlebOOchaf 
 
Dapple would strike at her with her forefeet. 
 
 -Page 29 
 
FUZZY WUZZ 
 
 A Little Brown Bear of the Sierras 
 
 ALLEN CHAFFEE 
 
 Author of "Unexplored," "Lost River," "Twinkly 
 
 Eyes, the Little Black Bear," "Trail 
 
 and Tree Top," etc 
 
 Illustrated by 
 PETER DARU 
 
 MILTON RRADLEY COMPANY 
 
 SPRINGFIELD - - - MASSACHUSETTS 
 
Copyright, 1922 
 By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
 
 Springfield, Massachusetts 
 
 All rights rtservtd 
 
 BradtgrCMtpBoobs 
 
 PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
To 
 M. M. Soule 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 A LITTLE brown bear, no bigger than 
 a house eat, that the Ranger found 
 near drowning, is brought up with the or- 
 phaned fawn his children tamed, a rascally 
 young burro, a ring-tailed cat, an owl, a 
 tame canary, and a valiant yellow pup. 
 
 The scene is laid in the high Sierras, 
 where trout-filled streams cascade down 
 fragrant cedar slopes. 
 
 The author has turned natural science 
 into story form. With the enterprising 
 bear cub, we meet pine squirrels and painted 
 chipmunks, the pika of the snow-clad peaks 
 and the rattler of the sun-baked low-lands, 
 the weasel and the wapiti, and have at least 
 a glimpse of the cougar and the coyote. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Mother Brown Bear 1 
 
 II The Cinnamon Cub ...... 5 
 
 III The Young Screech Owl ... 8 
 
 IV "With the Eanger's Children . . 12 
 V Fuzzy Runs Away 16 
 
 VI The Coyotes 19 
 
 VII The Spotted Fawn ..... 22 
 
 VIII Wild Playmates 27 
 
 IX The Hunter 31 
 
 X Tiny Folk and Their Troubles . 34 
 
 XI Chuck and Chipper 38 
 
 XII Mother Chipmunk's Adventure . 43 
 
 XIII The Home Under the Rock ... 46 
 
 XIV The Cache ., 51 
 
 XV The Pine Nuts 54 
 
 XVI Fuzzy-Wuzz Plays Fate .... 58 
 
 XVII Bucky, the Burro 62 
 
 XVIII "As Stubborn as a Mule" . . . 66 
 
 XIX The Pinto Pony 70 
 
 XX The Pack-Horse Trd? .... 75 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI When the World Turned White . 79 
 
 XXII The King-Tailed Cat .-.-..,. 83 
 
 XXIII The Baby Canary 87 
 
 XXIV "Jest an Ornery Pup" .... 92 
 XXV A Regular Dog 97 
 
 XXVI Chums w w . ; . ....... 101 
 
 XXVII Pretty Paws, the Pine Squirrel . 105 
 
 XXVIII The Rattlesnake Den .... 110 
 
 XXIX Mother Brown Bear and the Bull 115 
 
 XXX Pika of the Peaks ...... 121 
 
 XXXI Fuzzy and the Weasel .... 125 
 
 XXXII Wapiti w , 129 
 
 XXXIII Dapple Disappears 133 
 
 XXXIV Dapple 's Secret 136 
 
 XXXV Old Friends . ,., ,.>,.>. 139 
 
FUZZY-WUZZ 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MOTHER BROWN BEAR 
 
 THE stars, twinkling like diamonds on a 
 black velvet sky, looked down that 
 night on a tender sight. A huge brown bear 
 lay in the mouth of her cave in the rocks 
 above the falls, nuzzling her babies to sleep. 
 
 A crafty old coyote also watched, his yel- 
 low eyes gleaming murderously at the tiny 
 balls of fur. Soon, he told himself, the 
 mother would have to go in search of her 
 own supper, leaving the cubs asleep in the 
 den. He licked his chops at the thought. 
 
 The littlest cub looked so tender and help- 
 less! His cinnamon-brown fur, that 
 matched the red-brown soil and the red- 
 brown trunks of the pines, was still as fuzzy 
 as a kitten's. 
 
 But it just happened that the cubs were 
 
2 Fuzzy i-Wuz% 
 
 not left alone that night. As the last red 
 flush had faded from the peak of Red Top, 
 their mother had had an unexpected feast. 
 A Forest Ranger, with his camp outfit on a 
 burro, had stopped at the foot of the falls to 
 cook a string of trout and other good things, 
 and had then pushed on up the trail to the 
 hot springs, where he had work to do. 
 
 The mother bear had scarcely waited till 
 the man was out of sight before she had 
 gobbled up the fish heads, the left-over flap- 
 jacks, the bacon rind, everything,— while 
 the burro, hobbled with a rope about his 
 heels, had snorted in alarm and browsed as 
 far away as he could get. 
 
 Now she could stay at home, at least till 
 daybreak,— for her clever nose had caught 
 the message that the breeze carried her, 
 from that sneaking little yellow wild dog, 
 and no coyote was going to steal a march on 
 her! Her teeth gleamed in a snarl as she 
 thought of the danger to her unweaned cubs. 
 
 Had she seen more of men, she would have 
 thought it strange that the Ranger should 
 leave his burro and pack behind. But this 
 was in the high Sierras, a steep mountain- 
 
Mother Brown Bear 3 
 
 side where few men passed, and she had seen 
 little of the strange creatures who always 
 walked on their hind legs and made mys- 
 terious fires. 
 
 In one way she was different from most 
 bears. She had three cubs instead of only 
 two. It was about all she could keep track 
 of. Of course they were obedient young- 
 sters. Wild babies have to be, if they are to 
 survive. 
 
 When their mother took the trail to the 
 river, they followed her in single file, the 
 biggest cub first, wee Fuzzy-Wuzz at the end 
 of the procession. If she heard something 
 she did not understand, and rose to her hind 
 legs to listen, the three little bears stood up 
 the same way, pricking their ears and trying 
 to hear what she heard. If she sniffed at a 
 strange scent, they sniffed; and if she turned 
 and ran, they turned and scrambled after 
 her as fast as their fat legs could carry them. 
 
 As it happened, the Ranger returned to 
 camp before the yellow moon had risen from 
 behind the lacework of the pines, and, gath- 
 ering an armful of springy fir boughs, made 
 his bed by the river, which slapped rhyth- 
 
4 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 micaUy against the rocks in the stealthy- 
 quiet. 
 
 It was just as he was watering the burro 
 in the chill of sun-up that the shaggy one 
 led her little family forth on an exploring 
 expedition. Plodding along with her nose 
 to the trail, she suddenly heard the sound 
 of footsteps. Instantly, with a startled 
 "Hoof I" she rose to her full height. In- 
 stantly three wee mimics rose to their hind 
 legs behind her, breathing each his startled 
 little "Hoof V 9 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CINNAMON CUB 
 
 HAD the man been nearer, mother brown 
 bear would have fought to save her 
 cubs. But there was time for escape. As 
 quick as lightning she turned and went rac- 
 ing back to the den, her cubs following at her 
 heels. 
 
 This region, so far up the glacier-polished 
 slopes, was so smooth that a burro could 
 hardly walk across it without slipping. As 
 the man turned to stare at the unaccustomed 
 motion in the landscape, the little family 
 was just disappearing behind the bowlder 
 that camouflaged the entrance to the den. 
 All but Fuzzy-Wuzz ! That fat, furry mite 
 slipped on the smooth granite slope, his 
 short hind legs slid out from under him, 
 and before he could get his balance, he was 
 rolling down, down, too surprised even to 
 
6 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 call for help. Indeed, the breath was all 
 knocked out of him and he couldn't have 
 squealed had he tried. 
 
 The river rolled at the foot of the slope, as 
 green as the woods that bordered it, save 
 where it churned in white foam over the up- 
 standing bowlders. The next thing Fuzzy 
 knew, splash ! He was in deep water ! 
 
 He struck out with all fours, like a pup, 
 trying to run through the water. Of course 
 he swam, as all young animals can when they 
 have to. But the water was icy from the 
 melting snows of the surrounding peaks. 
 Worse,.the current here above the falls was 
 so strong that soon it was all he could do to 
 keep his nose above water, to say nothing 
 of paddling back to the bank. 
 
 Had he let out a frightened whimper now, 
 his mother, with the two remaining cubs to 
 lead safely into the depths of the cave, 
 would not have heard him. The water 
 whirled the wee brown mite this way and 
 that. Choking and spluttering, he was soon 
 too tired to paddle. 
 
 At that climactic moment, something solid 
 went floating by his right fore paw, and 
 
Clinging to the raft so mysteriously flung to him, 
 Fuzzy- Wuzz was towed to shore. 
 
The Cinnamon Cub 7 
 
 with all his feeble might he grabbed for it. 
 It was a branch the Ranger had thrown in 
 after him, and the branch was tied to a rope. 
 
 Clinging, chilled and strangled, to the raft 
 so mysteriously flung to him, Fuzzy- Wuzz 
 was towed to shore. Had the little bear been 
 caught at any other time, he would have 
 done effective work with his needle-sharp 
 little teeth. But he was so nearly drowned 
 that he could make no protest when 'the 
 Ranger rubbed him down and fitted a leash 
 to his neck. 
 
 A pan of warm canned milk and water 
 won his trust, though the Ranger had to dip 
 his unaccustomed muzzle into the fluid be- 
 fore he saw that the thing to do was to plant 
 both fore paws firmly in the pan and suck 
 with a noise like a little pig. 
 
 The Ranger made him a bed on the top 
 of the pack that the burro carried, and tied 
 him so that he couldn't get down,— and 
 there he was shortly snoozing, while the 
 June sun dried his fur, and the trail climbed 
 higher and higher. Life had taken a new 
 turn for young Fuzzy-Wuzz. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE YOUNG SCEEEOH OWL 
 
 ALL that week the wee brown cub rode 
 on the pack the burro carried. 
 
 Every few hours the Ranger stopped to 
 give him a panful of warm milk, and at 
 night, when the mountain air turned chill, 
 he snuggled the little bear under the 
 blankets, though he never took him off the 
 leash. 
 
 Finally one day they came to a neat log 
 cabin beside a singing creek, where the pines 
 and cedars made spots of shade on the for- 
 est floor. The next thing Fuzzy knew, he 
 was inside the cabin, and two delighted man 
 cubs, a boy and a girl, were dancing around 
 him. This was so alarming that he crept 
 inside the Ranger's coat, crying, "Mu-uh! 
 Mu-uh!" in a frightened whimper. 
 
 The man cubs were told to keep very, very 
 
The Young Screech Owl 9 
 
 still and watch. Then Fuzzy was set on the 
 floor before his pan of milk, and after a few 
 minutes, when nothing seemed to hurt him, 
 he drank it thirstily. 
 
 After that he went on an exploring expe- 
 dition. He looked exactly like the brown 
 plush Teddy bear, only larger, for Fuzzy 
 was nearly as large as the cat. The children 
 watched with shining eyes as he poked into 
 every corner of the room, now climbing half 
 way up the screen door, now standing on his 
 fat hind legs under a chair, with his fore 
 paws on the rungs. 
 
 "Muh! Muh! M-m-mu-uh! ,, he wailed 
 every now and again. But no great furry 
 mother came, and at last he decided there 
 was nothing in that den to harm him, not 
 even the children. 
 
 Soon what fun they had! The children's 
 mother said he could have bread in his 
 milk, and the children even used to give him 
 bits of the gingerbread that they saved in 
 their pockets. It didn't take long for the 
 fuzzy mite to learn where that gingerbread 
 came from! He would climb all over them, 
 sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, till he found 
 
10 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 where it was hidden, then claw till he had 
 found the way into the pocket. These days, 
 he cared more for eating than anything else. 
 R Had Fuzzy been the only pet at the Rang- 
 er's cabin, all might have gone smoothly. 
 But he had one rival in the children's af- 
 fections,— and life was not to be all peace 
 and play for the newcomer. 
 
 One rainy day that spring, when the wind 
 had blown a limb off the old pine by the 
 corral, leaving the screech owl's nest ex- 
 posed to gaze, a wee, soft-feathered fledg- 
 ling had fallen to the ground and lay there, 
 nearly lifeless from his fall. 
 
 The Ranger's son, a curly-pate of nine, 
 had found this downy bird, and had taken 
 him home to warm and feed him. Thus the 
 owl had become a member of the family 
 circle. Clickety-Clack they named him, 
 from his habit of clicking his bill when 
 angry. 
 
 Given full freedom of the cabin, he gen- 
 erally perched by day just over the chamber 
 door, on a pair of antlers that hung there 
 for a hat rack. 
 
 But when the dusk began to fall Clickety- 
 
The Young Screech Owl 11 
 
 Clack would come floating down to the man- 
 tel shelf, soundless as a shadow on his soft- 
 feathered gray wings. There he would 
 claw at the toys and bits of sewing, the pipe 
 and match box, everything he found there. 
 He was a solemn-looking bird, with his great 
 round eyes, but he liked to play, for all that. 
 His great delight was to be given a sheet of 
 paper to claw into bits. 
 
 He was used to much attention, was 
 Clickety-Clack, riding around on the chil- 
 dren's shoulders and receiving the dainties 
 offered him with a clawed foot that solemnly 
 conveyed the morsel to his mouth. 
 
 For a time Fuzzy-Wuzz paid little atten- 
 tion to Clickety-Clack, as the owl generally 
 slept all day and the cub all night. But one 
 evening he made a sad, sad mistake, did 
 the little bear. As the owl floated down to 
 the hearth rug, Fuzzy made a playful pounce 
 for him. He caught the owl between his 
 fore paws. But as he opened his jaws to 
 take a nip at the feathered back, he got an 
 awful surprise. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WITH THE RANGER'S CHILDREN 
 
 FUZZY-WUZZ made a big mistake 
 when he tried to grab that owl. For 
 no sooner had he got a taste of the feathers 
 than Clickety-Clack was after him with 
 beak and claws. When they finally called 
 it off, the hearth rug bore a souvenir of 
 both fur and feathers. 
 
 After that the little bear made many a 
 playful, puppy-like dash at his fellow pet, 
 but if ever he came too near, he got as good 
 as he gave. It was tit for tat between them. 
 
 True, there were other ways in which 
 Fuzzy managed to have a good time. For 
 instance, he was always on the look-out for 
 a romp in the children's bed, if he was the 
 first one up of a morning. The children's 
 mother objected, until the Ranger suggested 
 a tubbing for the young bear. 
 
 12 
 
With the "Ranger's Children 13 
 
 This surprising thing,— a tub bath,— hap- 
 pened when Fuzzy- Wuzz had been a mem- 
 ber of the Eanger's family for about a week. 
 No sooner did he find himself in the wash- 
 tubful of warm, soapy water than he struck 
 out vigorously for shore and scrambled 
 over the edge of the tub. This process was 
 repeated till the Eanger took a hand. 
 
 In the end Fuzzy- Wuzz emerged as clean 
 a cub as any one could wish, but he stayed 
 clean just until he was put on his leash and 
 allowed to have a run outside. The Cali- 
 fornia dry season had begun, with its dust, 
 and the roly-poly rascal liked nothing bet- 
 ter than to roll on his back. 
 
 The great trouble with the Ranger's back- 
 yard, from Fuzzy 's point of view, was that 
 there were no trees to climb. The clothes 
 pole only went so far, and it had no bark and 
 was dreadfully hard to get one's claws 
 into ; but Fuzzy used to scramble up and 
 down that clothes pole for all he was worth, 
 pausing each time at the top to sit looking 
 down at the children. 
 
 As the weeks flew by and the little bear 
 grew stronger, he longed more and more 
 
14 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 for the freedom to climb and romp and 
 race the way Mother Nature meant him to. 
 It got to be mighty tiresome to live on the 
 end of a chain or be cooped up in the cabin. 
 He would gaze into the green woods behind 
 the house, and whimper and beg to be let 
 out, but it seemed as if no one under- 
 stood. 
 
 The Ranger was afraid if he let the cub go 
 some big animal would get him. There 
 were great yellow cougars (California 
 lions) in the mountains, and perhaps tim- 
 ber wolves. Besides, even a wildcat could 
 have made way with such a tiny cub, and no 
 telling but that even a pair of coyotes (slink- 
 ing yellow wild dogs that they are) might 
 harm him. These animals were all afraid 
 to come too near the cabin, for they were 
 cowardly where human beings were con- 
 cerned. But once let Fuzzy- Wuzz spend a 
 night in the woods and no telling if he would 
 ever see the morning. 
 
 Sometimes they could hear the coyotes' 
 bark, or the lion's cry. Then Fuzzy 's fur 
 would rise along his spine, and he would 
 
With the Ranger's Children 15 
 
 huddle closer to the children on the hearth 
 rug. But he never thought of that when the 
 sun shone through the forest and he longed 
 for freedom. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FUZZY KTOS AWAY 
 
 ONE day it came,— the chance he had 
 been longing for! 
 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz was now a four months' cub 
 and much, larger, 1 than when the Ranger 
 brought him home,— a bear as big as a 
 house cat. He made an armful for the chil- 
 dren. And where at first he had been 
 frightened in a world where no great furry 
 mother came to his whimper, he now began 
 to feel as if he could look out for himself. 
 
 One day the kitchen door was left ajar. 
 Fuzzy had longed often to go exploring in 
 those green woods that stretched behind the 
 cabin and up the mountainside. Now he 
 simply ran, and ran, and ran, deep into the 
 woods, climbing to the tops of the tallest 
 trees and exploring here and there and 
 everywhere. Here he nibbled at the green, 
 
 16 
 
Fuzzy Runs Away 17 
 
 growing things he found on the moist 
 meadows by the spring holes, and there he 
 took tiny cat-naps, all curled up into a 
 warm ball of brown fur. 
 
 Not once, all that glorious afternoon, did 
 he think of the coyotes and timber wolves, 
 the lions and the lynxes that might come 
 out of their dens when night came, and hunt 
 squirrels and rabbits, and perhaps stray 
 cubs who were young enough to make ten- 
 der eating. 
 
 Towards sundown he had an adventure. 
 He met a band of range cattle, and when the 
 foremost cow saw the runaway racing about 
 like a puppy, she took him for a dog and 
 made for him with her horns. It was only 
 by sheer luck that he escaped her lunge. 
 For in his surprise he simply tumbled over 
 backwards. Being near a clump of seed- 
 ling pines, he rolled right into the thick of 
 them, and the old cow's horns could not 
 reach him. 
 
 If any one had advised him what to do 
 when chased by a cow, he could not have 
 given better advice than to get in the midst 
 of a clump of saplings. 
 
18 Fuzzy-Wuz% 
 
 His natural fondness for climbing 
 prompted his next move, and again he did 
 the wisest thing. He made straight for the 
 nearest tree and scrambled out of reach. 
 After that the cattle wandered on and left 
 him in peace. 
 
 But now the yellow sun no longer gilded 
 the fir trees, and the woods became cool and 
 shadowy. The wind, that all day had blown 
 up the canyon of the creek bed, now turned 
 the other way and blew down into the val- 
 ley, chilled from the snow-clad mountain 
 peaks. Fuzzy shivered with the cold. K 
 horned owl solemnly boomed "whoo-whoo, 
 whoo-whoo!" 
 
 By the time the first stars peeped from 
 the blackening sky, he began to shiver from 
 fright as well. For down the canyon came 
 the long-drawn cry of the great, tawny, 
 man-size cat that Californians call the* 
 mountain lion. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE COYOTES 
 
 YES, sir! Fuzzy was a mighty fright- 
 ened bear cub as the cougar's cry 
 chilled the night. He waited in his tree-top 
 with straining ears. The cry had ceased, but 
 he dare not climb down, for what might not 
 lurk in the rustling darkness? 
 
 Colder and colder grew his airy perch. 
 Fuzzy curled up tight in the crotch of the 
 limb. The lion was away off on the moun- 
 tainside, and after awhile, when nothing 
 happened, the little bear fell asleep. 
 
 His dreams were broken by a weird, wail- 
 ing, high-pitched howl. He sprang awake 
 in the instant. Peering through the gray 
 darkness of the starry night, he tried to see 
 what was causing that sound. 
 
 On a rock ridge half-way down the slope 
 stood two animals that any one might have 
 
 19 
 
20 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 taken for yellow dogs, or perhaps for small- 
 sized wolves. As an actual fact, they were 
 cousins to both dog and wolf. They were 
 coyotes, in search of their supper,— and 
 Fuzzy- Wuzz had not forgotten the old 
 coyote that used to howl below his mother's 
 den. 
 
 These coyotes, as it happened, had a fam- 
 ily of fourteen little ones hidden in a cave 
 on the hillside. That meant that they had 
 to bring home a great many mice and rab- 
 bits for their family, which was still too 
 young to go hunting with them. 
 
 Had the Eanger known about them, he 
 would have made an end to them ; for many 
 a time they had robbed his chicken house, 
 or harried a new-born colt, for their meat 
 was anything too young and helpless to es- 
 cape their jaws. 
 
 Even had Mother Brown Bear not taught 
 her cubs to keep still and hide when the 
 coyote cried, Fuzzy would have been afraid, 
 with that weird cry in his ears. As it was, 
 he shivered into a still tighter ball of fur 
 and wished he were back in the Ranger's 
 cabin. 
 
The Coyotes 21 
 
 The coyotes must have got his scent with 
 their wonderful doggy noses, as the wind 
 blew down over his tree-top to them, for 
 they came circling nearer, and stood howl- 
 ing right up at his hiding place. But none 
 of the dog family can climb, and the cub 
 was safe. 
 
 After awhile they saw a rabbit and went 
 loping after it with all the speed of their 
 slender feet. Again Fuzzy fell asleep, and 
 when he awoke, it was a bar of silver sun- 
 light shining in his eyes that woke him. 
 
 The woods now looked as green and peace- 
 ful as they had the afternoon before, and it 
 did not seem possible that he could have been 
 so frightened in the night. But he was 
 hungry. 
 
CHAPTER YII 
 
 THE SPOTTED FAWN 
 
 BACKING down the tree trunk, the 
 runaway began looking about him for 
 something to eat. It was the little bear's 
 first experience at fending for himself. 
 Had he not been taken from his mother, he 
 would have learned from her how to find 
 the fat white grubs that hide under a fallen 
 tree trunk. He might have learned how to 
 dig out a hiding wood mouse, or where to 
 look for roots and berries. 
 
 As it was, he sampled a mouthful of bark, 
 but it was no good. He sniffed this way 
 and that through the pine woods, wriggling 
 his nose in the effort to find a breakfast. 
 And he thought of the pan of warm milk 
 that always awaited him after the morn- 
 ing's milking. 
 
 The children were just sitting down to 
 
The Spotted Fawn 23 
 
 their breakfast of oatmeal when a whine and 
 a scratching of claws sounded faintly 
 through the kitchen door. Now they had 
 cried themselves to sleep the night before, 
 thinking their pet was gone. 
 
 "It's Fuzzy- Wuzz!" j they shouted, tum- 
 bling over one another to let him in. My! 
 What a hugging he got! He wriggled and 
 squirmed to get away. Then the Ranger 
 brought in the foaming milk pails, and the 
 prodigal was soon planting both fat fore 
 paws in his feed pan. 
 
 After that they never put him on a leash, 
 and Fuzzy never stayed away after dark,— 
 at least not while he was such a tiny cub. 
 
 One morning the Ranger found that a 
 mountain lion had been down to the corral. 
 From the footprints he judged that the cows 
 had driven the great cat away with their 
 horns. But there was soon to be a new calf, 
 and he decided to spend that day in hunting 
 the lion. 
 
 The California mountain lion is a great, 
 tawny beast as long as a man is tall, and it 
 is fortunate that he is such a coward that 
 he runs when he sees a human being. For 
 
24 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 he can fell a deer at one stroke of his great 
 barbed paw. 
 
 But he kills sheep and calves every chance 
 he gets, and Uncle Sam asks his Forest 
 Rangers to kill every lion they find. 
 
 The Ranger took his gun and started fol- 
 lowing the footprints the giant cat had left 
 in the dust of the trail as it led up the moun- 
 tain side. Soon the animal had leapt aside 
 where only a scratch of its claws on a 
 rock here and there told the tale. 
 
 By and by the slim, pointed hoof prints 
 of a doe crossed the trail. The Ranger hur- 
 ried even faster now, for he did not want 
 another deer killed. 
 
 A gentle-eyed young doe had sought hid- 
 ing that morning in a leafy clump of deer 
 brush,— for in the evergreen forests of the 
 Sierras there is little of the thick under- 
 growth that one finds among the oaks and 
 elms and maples of the Eastern woodlands. 
 
 This doe had a reason for selecting a 
 good hiding-place, for that very morning 
 twin fawns were born to her, and she had 
 known they must be hidden away where 
 
The Spotted Fawn 25 
 
 neither lions nor coyotes could find the help- 
 less things. 
 
 The fawns had dappled coats, with milk- 
 white spots on their soft, rusty-colored fur ; 
 and the doe found a place where the sunlight 
 danced in patches on the rusty-colored 
 earth, and the fawns would not have been 
 noticed had one looked at the very spot,— 
 unless they moved. 
 
 Such innocent, soft-eyed babies as they 
 were, these firstlings of the rust-red doe! 
 Like their mother, they had long ears and 
 white tails with black tips. Their long, 
 slender legs were at first too fragile for them 
 to stand, and they lay on the soft moss as 
 she licked their fur, with her wild mother 
 love in her great eyes. 
 
 OfO on the mountain peak their father, a 
 great, handsome buck with branching ant- 
 lers, was in retreat, with half-a-dozen other 
 deer, while their horns were in velvet, for 
 this velvety fur that covers the new growth 
 of horn is tender, and the deer brush of the 
 lower slopes would hurt it. 
 
 But alas for the wild mother, who would 
 
26 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 willingly die fighting for her little ones! At 
 the very moment that she lay nuzzling them 
 so happily, the giant cat was crouched along 
 the limb of a fir tree watching, with yel- 
 low eyes blinking hungrily. The way the 
 wind blew, no taint of the lion reached her 
 nostrils, and she had no warning. 
 
 The mountain lion had been unsuccessful 
 in his last night's hunt; he had wandered 
 miles in search of prey. Suddenly gather- 
 ing all fours beneath him, he had made one 
 powerful leap at the doe. At this mo- 
 ment the Ranger, hurrying along his trail, 
 sighted the tawny form and sent a bullet 
 through its heart. 
 
 But so powerful had been the great cat's 
 leap that it did not stop even then, but still 
 clutching the doe, it went sliding and roll- 
 ing down the hillside till it crashed over a 
 ledge,— and one of the fawns with them. 
 
 It was too late to save the others, but the 
 Ranger took the remaining fawn in his 
 arms and carried it home to his children. 
 Thus Dapple, the fawn, became a fellow 
 member of Fuzzy 's household. 
 
The giant cat was crouched along the limb of a fir tree. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WILD PLAYMATES 
 
 HAD the bear cub and the fawn been 
 older, they would never have been 
 friends ; but these were both such babies 
 that the little bear much preferred his milk 
 to venison, and the fawn did not know to be 
 afraid. 
 
 Their strange friendship might not last, 
 as they grew older, but for the time there 
 was peace between them. 
 
 The fawn had to be brought up on a bot- 
 tle, and the children loved it first for its 
 very helplessness. 
 
 As Dapple grew stronger, her long, slim 
 legs developed the most amazing ability to 
 jump. She followed the children around 
 like a pup, for they were the only parents 
 she knew. And if they became separated, 
 
 27, 
 
28 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 she would go leaping after them with great, 
 graceful leaps that carried her straight over 
 the bushes. 
 
 * They used to like to run and hide from 
 her, just for the fun of seeing her come 
 bounding after them. She could overtake 
 them in a foot race, too. She enjoyed a 
 game of tag as much as they did, and every- 
 where the children went, the fawn would 
 follow after. 
 
 But though Fuzzy-Wuzz understood that 
 Dapple was under the children's protection, 
 the young rascal loved to chase her. He 
 never had the slightest chance of overtak- 
 ing her, for his short, fat legs and round, 
 flat feet were not built for speed. But some- 
 times he got her cornered and woofed at 
 her, as a puppy would a calf. 
 
 At such times she learned to take refuge 
 in the corral. Leaping lightly over the 
 three-log fence, she would trip her way into 
 the midst of the cattle, who would lower 
 their horns the instant the little bear came 
 near. 
 
 No matter if Dapple were lying down 
 when Fuzzy-Wuzz grew mischievous^ she 
 
Wild Playmates 29 
 
 took her afternoon nap with all four feet 
 under her, and when she made up her mind 
 to go, she rose like a Jack-in-the-box, and 
 away she leapt with a whistle, like a bit of 
 thistle-down. 
 
 After a time Dapple found still another 
 way to defend herself, when Fuzzy- Wuzz 
 grew mischievous. Her slender hoofs were 
 sharp as knives, and she would rear up on 
 her hind legs and strike at him with her 
 fore feet. He kept his distance. 
 
 Sometimes a deer will fight a snake that 
 way. 
 
 Now Dapple learned to follow the chil- 
 dren everywhere they went. Through the 
 corral and into the woods, and even up the 
 porch steps, would she trip after them. 
 Once she even came into the cabin, and she 
 would have every time, had the Ranger's 
 wife permitted. 
 
 She was like Mary's little lamb. But 
 there were no schools in this wilderness. 
 The children's mother taught them to read 
 and figure, and their father told them about 
 the trees and flowers and birds, the rocks 
 and clouds, and read them books about the 
 
30 Fuzzy -Wuzz 
 
 great world outside their Sierras. That 
 way, lessons were mostly play. Their play- 
 mates were the two wild children, Dapple 
 and Fuzzy- Wuzz. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE HUNTER 
 
 ONE morning a party of huntsmen 
 stopped at the Ranger's cabin. It 
 was open season for deer, and they meant 
 to make the most of those few weeks by 
 shooting what the law allowed them. 
 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz had to wear a red bow on 
 his neck these days, so that the huntsmen 
 would not mistake him for a wild bear. 
 For it was open season all the year around 
 for bears, and a hunter loves nothing bet- 
 ter than to kill a cub and have bear steak 
 for breakfast. But Dapple wore no collar, 
 as it was against the law to kill fawns at 
 any time of the year. 
 
 The children had been playing tag with 
 
 Dapple in the woods when they fell asleep 
 
 in the sunshine of an open hillside. Dap- 
 si 
 
32 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 pie, too, took a nap nearby, but instead of 
 lying right out in the open, as they did, her 
 instinct told her it was safer under the 
 dappled shade of a clump of bushes. 
 
 One of the huntsmen, peering over the 
 brow of the hill, saw a little movement in 
 Dapple 's clump of bushes, as Dapple awoke 
 and began cropping the leaves. Thinking 
 it was a porcupine that had set the bushes 
 swaying (and not being sportsman enough 
 to make sure), he fired. 
 
 Dapple gave a scream of pain, and went 
 bounding away on three legs. The chil- 
 dren, thus awakened, stared after her, then 
 started to follow her dainty hoof prints. 
 Soon they noticed drops of blood on the 
 stones. 
 
 At the same time the huntsman, seeing 
 the children, came on the run. "Oh, I 
 say!" he called, "I hope I didn't hurt any 
 one?" 
 
 "You've killed Dapple," sobbed the lit- 
 tle girl. 
 
 "You've shot Dapple!" shouted the boy. 
 And to his sister, "I'd like to shoot HIM 
 in the leg, and see how HE likes it!"- 
 
The Hunter 33 
 
 "Who's ' Dapple"?" gasped the hunts- 
 man, alarmed. 
 
 " She's our tame fawnP yelled the boy 
 angrily. 
 
 "I'm so sorry," apologized the hunts- 
 man. "I thought it was a porcupine." 
 
 "Oh, then you didn't mean to do it," for- 
 gave the little girl. 
 
 It was decided that the huntsman had 
 better not go with the children lest he 
 frighten the fawn still further away. 
 
 "Dapple! Come, Dapple!" they called 
 gently, as they traced the staggering foot- 
 prints. They came upon the little creature 
 lying on her side. Tenderly the boy car- 
 ried her home in his arms, and the Eanger 
 removed the bullet and bound the wound up 
 properly. 
 
 Such an appealing invalid as Dapple 
 made, with her great, reproachful eyes, 
 that Fuzzy felt himself neglected. The 
 day came, though, when the wounded leg 
 was well. That day Dapple was allowed to 
 follow them into the cabin, and even Fuzzy- 
 Wuzz gave her a lick with his warm, moist 
 tongue. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 TINY FOLK AND THEIR TROUBLES 
 
 ONE thing that always interested the 
 little bear was the robin who used to 
 bring her fat fledglings, nearly as big as 
 herself, to the Sanger's lawn. 
 
 She had made her big clay nest on a beam 
 of the porch, where the young birds would 
 be sheltered from wind and rain. The 
 young robins would flop to the ground, 
 when she urged them, then hop around 
 after Mrs. Red-breast as she pulled grubs 
 and worms from the ground for them. 
 They soon learned to look for the crumbs 
 the children threw them. Fuzzy would 
 watch, and sometimes make a playful dash 
 at them; but at such times they would sud- 
 denly find they could fly out of reach. 
 
 Another time a humming-bird flew in 
 
 34 
 
Tiny Folk and Their Troubles 35 
 
 through the open window and began sip- 
 ping nectar from the bunch of wild flowers 
 the children had brought for the dining- 
 table. Tiniest of birds, he made as much 
 noise as any airplane that size could have 
 made. The children held as still as mice 
 while they watched. 
 
 One day Fuzzy was put on his leash just 
 as some one left a bunch of grapes on the 
 porch rail, for the Ranger had ridden down 
 to the valley settlement for supplies the day 
 before, and brought home a basket of the 
 luscious fruit. My, how he wanted those 
 grapes! But he could not reach them. 
 There was nothing left to do but to watch 
 the young robins flying, for their tails had 
 grown longer, and so they could keep their 
 balance better in the air. 
 
 When he looked back at the grapes again, 
 an orange-breasted oriole was plunging his 
 beak thirstily into a grape. He only ate 
 one this time, and flew away. But soon he 
 was back again, eating another grape. 
 Fuzzy watched anxiously. Again the oriole 
 came, and the little bear watched the grapes 
 disappear, one by one. When the children 
 
finally let him off Ms leash, there was noth- 
 ing left of those grapes but the stems. 
 
 Never mind, there were lizards and field 
 mice all about the place. This afternoon, 
 while the reddening sun still shone warm on 
 the bowlders, the tiny gray lizards with 
 beady eyes on the alert for flies darted hither 
 and thither among the gray rocks. The in- 
 stant they saw Fuzzy watching, they would 
 freeze motionless, or rise on their crooked 
 legs till their orange breasts showed, watch 
 him till he came too near, then race into a 
 crack between two stones. 
 
 Fuzzy spent much time chasing field 
 mice, or digging them out of their tunnels. 
 One night the family was just sitting down 
 to supper when a clawing at the door an- 
 nounced that Fuzzy wanted to come in. 
 Coming proudly straight to the little girl, 
 Fuzzy laid his catch in her lap. It was a 
 fat field mouse ! 
 
 The young mouse had not been hurt by 
 Fuzzy ? s jaws, and the instant he found him- 
 self free, he leaped to the table and raced 
 across it and away, and not even Fuzzy 
 could find him after that. But the next 
 
Tiny Folk and Their Troubles 37 
 
 morning he was sitting trembling in the 
 mouse trap in the pantry, which was one of 
 these round wire affairs that has a hole on 
 top that lets a mouse get in, but won't let 
 him out. 
 
 How he trembled when the little girl 
 found him. Fuzzy watched to see if the 
 prisoner would be given to him to dispose 
 of. But no, the little girl took the trap out 
 into the woods and there opened the door 
 and let the mouse find a hiding-place in the 
 woods where he belonged. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CHUCK AND CHIPPER 
 
 THE little brown bear spent much of 
 his first summer chasing chipmunks, 
 but these squirrel-like orange and black 
 striped fellows were too quick for Fuzzy- 
 Wuzz. 
 
 The pretty creatures lived along the rock 
 ledges and manzanita bushes that sur- 
 rounded the Ranger's cabin. Chuck and 
 Chipper were two young chipmunks who 
 had been born that spring. Now their 
 mother had a second brood and left them 
 pretty much to themselves. 
 
 My, what fun they had playing tag and 
 stuffing their cheeks with everything good 
 to eat they could find! Their cheeks were 
 built like pockets and extended away down 
 the sides of their necks. All the long, 
 sunny days they explored the interesting 
 
Chuck and Chipper 39 
 
 world in which they found themselves,— a 
 world of good things to eat. 
 
 So tiny and mouselike were they that 
 Fuzzy would have liked a taste of them, 
 even if there were plenty of green things 
 to eat, but the awkward, flat-footed, four 
 months' cub could not catch them. 
 
 The children, too, tried to capture a chip- 
 munk, just for the fun of holding it in their 
 hands for a minute. The boy had a cracker 
 box that he placed upside down on the 
 ground, then propped it open a crack with 
 a stick. To this stick he tied a long string. 
 Strewing the ground under the box with 
 peanuts, he waited behind a tree till a chip- 
 munk came and began stuffing his cheeks 
 with the nuts. Then he jerked the string, 
 and the box came down and made a pris- 
 oner of him. It was Chuck, who went 
 about all day with his cheerful "chuck, 
 chuck, chuck V 1 
 
 The boy, holding his cloth hat in readi- 
 ness, lifted the box a crack and Chuck 
 dashed from under, but only to find him- 
 self in the hat crown. The next thing he 
 knew, the boy was stroking his back with 
 
4Q Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 one finger. Did he bite ? Not the least lit- 
 tle bit in the world. Chuck never tries to 
 fight any one. His safety lies in running 
 away when danger threatens. He only 
 cowered down, quaking, with fear, his 
 warm, furry sides panting hotly. 
 
 Until he could make a cage, the boy 
 tethered him out on a leash, on a string as 
 long as the cabin kitchen, and left him with 
 a handful of peanuts. But the prisoner 
 was too frightened to eat. He was even 
 more so when he was turned loose in the 
 cracker box, across the open side of which 
 the boy had tacked a piece of screen wire. 
 He only crept to the darkest corner, under 
 a lettuce leaf, and wondered if he were ever 
 again to go racing through the green woods 
 in the sunshine. 
 
 The boy did not mean to keep him a pris- 
 oner, but the little captive did not under- 
 stand. 
 
 Curiously Chuck's brother, Chipper, 
 peered at him from the top of a stump. "I 
 told you not to go into that box, 12 he chip- 
 pered in a frightened chirp. "Now what 
 
Chuck and Chipper 41 
 
 are you going to do?" Just then he saw 
 the little girl coming, and he whisked away 
 under a stone. 
 
 All would have been well, she would not 
 even have looked his way, had he not lost 
 his nerve at the very moment she was pass- 
 ing, and begun his frightened chippering. 
 Quick as a flash she had thrown her sun- 
 bonnet over rocks and all, and the next 
 thing he knew, she had put him in the box 
 with Chuck. 
 
 "Well, at least there are two of us," 
 Chuck tried to find a bright spot in the sit- 
 uation. And he felt so much better that he 
 began to eat and drink. Then the night 
 grew chilly, and they wadded the paper 
 with which the box was carpeted into a sort 
 of hay stack of paper wads, and burrowed 
 inside it, all cuddled together into a ball to 
 keep warm. 
 
 But Chipper did not have the heart to 
 eat. Three days later he was so feeble from 
 lack of food and exercise that he could 
 hardly crawl. The boy, seeing this, 
 opened the cage door and let them out. 
 
42 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 After all, he told his sister, they had not 
 been half so much fun as when they had 
 been racing mischievously all over the 
 place. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE Ranger was leading his horse down 
 a steep trail one day, the dust rising 
 yellowly in the noon-day calm, when he 
 came to an inviting bit of shade and took 
 out his lunch. For a time he munched his 
 cheese sandwiches with his mind on his 
 work. His horse neighed thirstily, and he 
 led him to the spring, which trickled 
 from the hillside. 
 
 As he turned back, he saw a chipmunk 
 nervously gathering up his crumbs. Stand- 
 ing so still that he hardly breathed, so as 
 not to frighten her, he watched while she 
 darted forward, stopped to study him with 
 her beady eyes, then dared a few steps far- 
 ther. At last she picked up a big cracker 
 crumb, and taking it in her handlike fore 
 paws, began nibbling as if she were starved. 
 
 43 
 
44 Fuzzy-Wuz% 
 
 K slight movement on the Ranger's part 
 sent her instantly to her hole, but in a few 
 minutes she was back again, eating raven- 
 ously and stuffing her cheeks with crumbs 
 to take home. But the crumbs had all been 
 cracker. The Ranger now threw her a 
 morsel of cheese. This she found delicious. 
 Never in all her life had she tasted any- 
 thing so good. And it seemed as if she 
 never could get enough to eat these days, 
 for she had a family of wee baby chipmunks 
 that she nursed as a cat does her kittens. 
 
 Next the Ranger held a piece of cheese 
 between his thumb and finger. She wrig- 
 gled her nose longingly, and hesitated, dart- 
 ing forward a few inches, now stopping in 
 affright at what she had done, then getting 
 up courage for another step. 
 
 Long minutes the Ranger waited, with 
 that inviting bit of cheese held out to her 
 at arm's-length. So timid was she that he 
 dared not even turn his head. Closer, 
 closer she crept, till at last she could just 
 get a frightened nibble. My, how good it 
 was ! Closer still she came, till she was eat- 
 ing it out of his hand. She ate until he 
 
Mother Chipmunk's 'Adventure 45 
 
 could feel her warm, furry nose against his 
 finger. 
 
 Making a sudden grab, he closed his hand 
 around her. He hadn't meant to, but the 
 temptation had been too much. He wanted 
 first to stroke her silky fur. Then he 
 thought there could be no harm in taking 
 her home in his pocket to show the children. 
 For he had been away when they caught 
 Chuck and Chipper. Of course he didn't 
 know about her babies. 
 
 Mother Chipmunk gave one shrill squeak 
 of despair. Then she was buttoned fast in 
 the Ranger's pocket, and he was riding 
 farther and farther away from those wee, 
 helpless babes of hers in the hole under the 
 rock. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE HOME UNDEB THE BOOK 
 
 BUT what of the babies left behind, when 
 Mother Chipmunk rode away in the 
 Ranger's pocket? 
 
 From an entrance hole under a rock just 
 large enough to let her in, and not large 
 enough for a weasel, Mother Chipmunk had 
 built a branching tunnel that led for many 
 feet under the pine needles of the forest 
 floor. Three feet under-ground was the 
 nursery cave, as big around as a dinner 
 plate, all softly lined with dry leaves and 
 moss. 
 
 Out of the main tunnel opened a smaller 
 cave in which refuse was placed. There 
 were also three storage caves or pantries, 
 where in winter Mother Chipmunk kept her 
 nuts and berries, dried grasshoppers and 
 
 46 
 
The Home Under the Bock 47 
 
 other delicacies for the long months when 
 it is white and cold out of doors. 
 
 Just now the nursery cave was occu- 
 pied by four of the most cunning baby chip- 
 munks that ever were,— helpless at this age, 
 without teeth. When Mother Chipmunk 
 washed them, she would stand on her hind 
 legs and take one up on her arms so that 
 she could smooth its fur with her tongue. 
 
 Now these helpless babies would starve to 
 death, she told herself. She must find a 
 way to escape, if her life depended on it. 
 And she must find it quickly, or she could 
 never travel back all those miles the Ranger 
 was taking her. 
 
 She struggled and struggled, there in the 
 Ranger's pocket. But he had fastened it 
 shut. On they went, jogging slowly down 
 the rocky trail. She couldn't see a thing, 
 but she felt the rhythmic jolting at each 
 step of the horse. At last it seemed as if 
 she must be standing on her head. The 
 Ranger had leapt to the ground, and was 
 stooping to drink at a spring. As he bent, 
 the pocket came unbuttoned. Out she 
 squeezed, straight into the icy water. 
 
48 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 "Well, I never !" exclaimed the Banger, 
 as she struck out with all her might, swim- 
 .ming across the pool till she could scramble 
 to shore. Hiding under a stone till she was 
 sure he had gone, she started racing back 
 along the way she had come. She reached 
 home to find her babies crying for her. 
 
 Chipmunks are easy to tame, if one does 
 not try to keep them prisoner. Before the 
 summer was over, the children had Chuck 
 and Chipper so that they came around every 
 meal time for something good to eat, and if 
 the window was left open, they would come 
 right into the cabin for it. Once they nearly 
 buried themselves by jumping into the cold 
 ashes of the fireplace. 
 
 They used to drink from the water pail 
 when it was full enough for them to reach 
 the water from the rim. One day Chipper 
 reached too far, fell in, and had to swim for 
 it. But when he reached the side of the 
 granite pail, it was too smooth for his claws 
 and he could not get out. The children 
 found him near drowning. 
 
 Now Fuzzy had a real grievance, for al- 
 ways before, anything the children had in 
 
The Home Under the Rock 49 
 
 their pockets to eat was for him. Now 
 Chuck and Chipper searched them first. 
 Fuzzy was more eager than ever to catch 
 the impudent rascals. 
 
CHAPTER XIY 
 
 THE CACHE 
 
 CHUCK and Chipper were mighty busy 
 chipmunks, filling their cache,— to use 
 the Western term that rhymes with to-day, 
 meaning a hiding-place for food supplies. 
 
 The season was short, here in the high 
 Sierras. Ordinarily it snowed as late as 
 May, and as early as October. By the last 
 of August one expected frost to tint the 
 mountain sides. Day followed perfect, 
 sunny day, and night succeeded cool, star- 
 strewn night without a hint of rain; but 
 Chuck and Chipper knew that before the 
 moon was full again, the snow would be sil- 
 vering the pine trees,— promise of the fif- 
 teen-foot drifts to come. 
 
 They must have enough in their cache to 
 live on till spring. 
 
 Chipmunks do not hibernate in the way 
 
 50 
 
The Cache 51 
 
 that bears do. They sleep a good deal, but 
 they do not go into an all-winter sleep, and 
 when they wake, there in their caves away 
 under-ground where the cold cannot reach 
 them, they must eat. 
 
 Everywhere among the brush and fallen 
 timber and along the rock ledges they 
 searched for food to store away for winter. 
 Racing briskly forth each morning, as soon 
 as the sun began to slant warmingly through 
 the fir trees, Chuck and Chipper vied with 
 each other to see which could harvest the 
 most nuts. And Fuzzy- Wuzz vied with 
 both to see if he could catch them. 
 
 Always they were too alert for him. 
 Their black, beady eyes would spy him out, 
 no matter how softly he came padding 
 along, and then they would climb into the 
 top of some bush he could not climb and 
 scold him and mock at him with their bird- 
 like chirp. 
 
 Wild gooseberries were one of their fa- 
 vorite foods,— as they were the little bear's, 
 for they could bite on* the prickers, and 
 Fuzzy didn't mind them. 
 
 They also collected thistle seed in their 
 
52 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 cheek pockets, to say nothing of thimble 
 berries, dogwood seed, and other seeds and 
 -berries. But where Fuzzy envied them was 
 when it came to pine nuts. Every pine cone, 
 from the yellow pine that grew so tall, to the 
 dwarfed nut pine that the Indians love, is 
 full of seeds. But the cones are also cov- 
 ered with sharp thorns, and so long as the 
 cones were green, the nuts were safe from 
 the little bear. He would have to wait till 
 they turned brown and opened of their 
 own accord. 
 
 But Chuck and Chipper had no such 
 trouble. They could nibble the cone apart 
 and get at the sweet kernels as easily as 
 anything. Fuzzy used to watch them en- 
 viously. Then an idea came to him. He 
 watched narrowly as the chipmunks filled 
 their cheeks and scuttled away to their un- 
 der-ground store-rooms. 
 
 Sniffing and snuffing this way and that, 
 along the way they had gone, his wonderful 
 nose finally told him just where their cache 
 was located. Digging down about three 
 feet, he scratched the roof off it while Chip- 
 
The Cache 53 
 
 per chucked wrathfully and Chuck chip- 
 pered in his fright. 
 
 What a find for the bear cub! Fully a 
 peck of the delicious pine nuts lay before 
 him,— and how he did feast! How his little 
 black eyes twinkled at thought that he had 
 outwitted the impudent things! 
 
 But for Chuck and Chipper it meant that 
 half their harvest work was gone for noth- 
 ing, and winter now too near for them to 
 gather more. Then Chipper had a big idea. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE PIKE NUTS 
 
 4 4TT is the queerest thing!" exclaimed 
 A the Ranger's wife, "what can have 
 become of those pine nuts I was saving for 
 Christmas. I had fully a peck in that 
 basket on the top shelf. ' - She looked doubt- 
 fully at Fuzzy- Wuzz. 
 
 "The cub never could have done it," the 
 Ranger said. "If he had climbed up there, 
 he would have knocked down a lot of stuff." 
 
 "No, but what can have become of the 
 nuts? There isn't a sign of mice, either. 
 And we never have a human thief, away up 
 here in the mountains. Besides, what a 
 funny thing it would be for a thief just to 
 take the pine nuts and nothing else." 
 
 "The thief must be some one of our furry 
 friends, some one who is especially fond of 
 nuts," suggested the Ranger. 
 
 64, 
 
The Pine Nuts 55 
 
 "There is a tiny hole gnawed in the wall 
 up there. I thought it might be a mouse, 
 but they always leave some sign." 
 
 •"'Let's see, now, if there aren't some foot- 
 prints to tell the story," and the Ranger 
 climbed up on the window sill and began 
 peering about with a lighted match. "Ho, 
 ho!" he called. 
 
 For there, faintly outlined by the dust, 
 was a footprint like that of a tiny squirrel, 
 —the print of a long, hind foot, with its five 
 delicate toe marks. And on the edge of the 
 hole the Banger's sharp eyes had spied a 
 hair,— a single hair of some one's orange 
 colored fur. 
 
 "It's a chipmunk, and he must have sat 
 up here on his hind legs to sample a nut be- 
 fore he stuffed his cheeks. But imagine how 
 many trips he must have had to make to 
 carry away all those nuts!" 
 
 "Perhaps there was more than one." 
 
 "That's right. But there are so many 
 tracks running through the dust that this 
 is the only clear one I see. Must have been 
 made just this morning, for no dust has set- 
 tled in it yet. Well, now, the nuts are gone. 
 
56 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 And I don't believe they'll come for any- 
 thing more. That frost last night will send 
 them into winter quarters. n 
 
 The Ranger was right about the chip- 
 munks. But he little dreamed what had 
 driven them to it. Had Fuzzy- Wuzz not 
 found and gobbled up the nuts they had 
 gathered for themselves, Chuck and Chip- 
 per never would have gotten up the cour- 
 age to come so often to the cabin, where 
 Clickety-Clack, the owl, prowled about the 
 dark corners looking for just such tid-bits 
 as they would make for him. 
 
 As it was, Chuck and Chipper were going 
 to have a well-stocked cache that winter. 
 
 "As an actual fact," said the Ranger 
 that evening, when they had told the chil- 
 dren about it, "I don't begrudge the little 
 rascals what they have taken, they are such 
 good foresters. " j 
 
 "Foresters!" exclaimed the boy, drag- 
 ging his father to the arm chair by the fire 
 and snuggling against his knees, for he 
 scented a story. 
 
 "You see," his father told him, "they 
 bury so many nuts that they often forget 
 
The Pine Nuts 51 
 
 where they put them, and these nuts that 
 are planted that way grow into trees." 
 
 "My!" exclaimed the boy, "wouldn't a 
 chipmunk be surprised if he knew he planted 
 trees V 2 
 
 "He doesn't know it. It is just a part of 
 Mother Nature's wonderful plan for keep- 
 ing this old world going." 
 
 The children's mother suddenly laughed. 
 "What do you think I saw to-day?" she 
 asked them. " Fuzzy- Wuzz curled up 
 asleep under a tree and looking so much like 
 a hump of earth that a chipmunk hopped 
 off the trunk and landed square on his nose. 
 I don't know which was the more surprised, 
 the cub or the chipmunk," 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FTTZZY-WUZZ PLAYS FATE 
 
 FUZZY-WJIZZ lay basking in the late 
 September sunshine. The mountains 
 had blossomed forth since the frost with 
 patches of berries that gleamed handsomely 
 against the evergreens. 
 
 He had followed the children to a sandy 
 place among the granite ledges back of the 
 cabin, where they found a colony of the 
 giant black ants. The children had been 
 having a lot of fun with these ants. First 
 they laid a piece of leaf over the entrance 
 to an ant hill. Promptly one of the in- 
 mates poked his head forth to see what had 
 so suddenly shut off the light. 
 
 Seeing the leaf, he went back and got 
 help, and about a dozen ants came out and 
 took hold of one edge of the leaf, and pulled, 
 while the first ant stood on the stem and 
 
Fuzzy-Wuzz Plays Fate 59 
 
 directed operations. That way, they had 
 their entrance clear again in no time. 
 
 The next thing, the children laid a bit of 
 bark over their front door. This time they 
 shoved the obstruction from underneath till 
 they had turned it over, out of their way. 
 
 Then the children laid a pebble over the 
 hole. That was almost too much for the lit- 
 tle colony. At first they couldn't even get 
 out. Then they tunneled a way past the 
 edge of the stone, and began studying the 
 situation. Some clambered over the peb- 
 ble while others walked around it, measur- 
 ing. Then they tried pushing, but it was 
 too heavy for them. 
 
 They tried pulling, but with no result. 
 They tried getting underneath and shoving, 
 but still they could not budge it. And at 
 last the children got tired of waiting for 
 them, and went away, deciding to come back 
 later and take away the pebble if the ants 
 had not succeeded in so doing. 
 
 Meantime Fuzzy- Wuzz had gone to sleep. 
 His dreams were cut short by the awfullest 
 pinching on the sensitive tip of his nose. 
 The ants had finally tunneled a new opening 
 
60 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 beside the pebble, though it had meant a 
 long afternoon's work for them. Seeing 
 the cub asleep so near, they naturally de- 
 cided that he must be responsible for all 
 their trouble, and appointed a co mmit tee to 
 drive him away. 
 
 But because of his thick fur, they couldn't 
 find a spot where they could reach him with 
 their pincers except on the nose. 
 
 "Gee! I always get the worst of things!" 
 rumbled the little brown bear, as he swept 
 them off: with one swipe of his furry paw, 
 and would have shuffled away but for the 
 sight that met his gaze. 
 
 Chuck, the chipmunk, stood there before 
 him, paralyzed with fright. Coiled in 
 front of him swayed an enormous bull 
 snake, with red jaws open to swallow him. 
 
 If the snake had been stretched out full 
 length, he would have been as long as the 
 Ranger was tall. Just now he looked like 
 a coil of thick rope, with his ugly head com- 
 ing up out of the middle of the coil and 
 pointing his forked red tongue straight at 
 the young chipmunk. 
 
 He was a white snake, with brownish 
 
Fuzzy-Wuzz Plays Fate 61 
 
 stripes that seemed to mark his back in 
 squares. As is true of most snakes, he was 
 not a kind that would do any harm to a 
 child, but he swallowed chipmunks whole, 
 and poor Chuck knew it. 
 
 It seemed to Chuck as if his legs had 
 frozen too stiff to run away, yet if he did 
 not run, the snake would swallow him. 
 
 At that fateful moment, Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 caught sight of them. One pounce and the 
 fat cub had the snake writhing between his 
 jaws. Then the snake had wriggled away 
 and was making for his hole, the chipmunk 
 forgotten. 
 
 "That certainly squares the matter of tne 
 pine nuts,'' Chuck told his partner when 
 he was safe back home. For the cinnamon 
 cub had certainly played the role of Fate, 
 though without realizing it. For him the 
 snake had only meant a bit of sport. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BTTCKY, THE BUKKO 
 
 FTJZZY-WUZZ had learned to ride a 
 burro away back there when the 
 Ranger had rescued him from x drowning. 
 
 He had traveled on top of the pack as the 
 Ranger went his rounds. After awhile he 
 learned to leap to the little donkey's back 
 whenever he wanted to ride. The burro 
 never minded. 
 
 She was mighty useful to the Ranger, was 
 the donkey, for she could carry a pack over 
 the narrowest mountain trail. No matter 
 how rocky and dangerous it was, she never 
 missed her footing. (A horse sometimes 
 slipped and fell over the canyon wall.) She 
 also possessed the ability to go without 
 water when it was necessary. Her compact 
 little hoofs were just built for rocky trails, 
 and her ancestors had lived in Egypt and 
 
Bucky, the Burro 63 
 
 the dry mountainous regions of Mexico, 
 where a good drink every night after the 
 day's work is over, often has to suffice. 
 That makes a burro especially useful dur- 
 ing the long California dry season. 
 
 Then, too, a pack burro can live, and 
 fatten on the dry grass and leaves she can 
 find for herself during the months when no 
 rain falls. That is more than a horse can 
 do. The Ranger kept a couple of saddle 
 horses, which he had to treat with especial 
 care, but for the long trips into the back 
 country, or down to the settlement and back 
 for supplies, he relied on his burros. 
 
 Jack and Bucky, as he called them, had 
 even carried the furniture of the cabin 
 twenty miles on their backs. And so obe- 
 dient were they that one day, when the 
 Ranger wanted to send supplies home but 
 could not leave the settlement himself for 
 several days yet, he simply gave the shaggy 
 little animals a slap and pointed their noses 
 along the home trail, and they went back 
 all alone. 
 
 But they had one fault. They were as 
 stubborn as could be. If they made up 
 
64 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 their minds to stop, no amount of urging, 
 nor beating, even, could make them change 
 their minds. If the Ranger accidentally- 
 put too heavy a pack on their backs, or one 
 that didn't fit comfortably, they would sim- 
 ply lie down, or else leap into the air with 
 bowed backs and buck it off. 
 
 Now that spring a baby burro had been 
 born in the corral. Young Bucky, they 
 called the gray rascal. Such a cunning 
 baby as he was, too, with his long, waggling 
 ears, and almost hairless tail with just a 
 tassel on the end of it. 
 
 At first he was so shy that every time 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz came near, he would run for 
 all he was worth. But gradually he got 
 used to the fat brown cub. 
 
 The pack burros were gone on a trip to 
 the settlement when it occurred to Fuzzy- 
 Wuzz that he would like to take a little ride 
 around the corral. Seeing no one but 
 young Bucky, he leapt to his back. 
 
 The next thing Fuzzy knew, he was sail- 
 ing into the air, for Bucky, objecting to 
 such a passenger, had simply given one big 
 jump that sent the little bear flying off over 
 
The next thing Fuzzy knew, he was sailing into the air. 
 
Bucky, the Burro 65 
 
 his head. Nor did he stop at that. Com- 
 ing with all four of his neat hoofs together, 
 his back bowed, he leapt again and again, 
 shaking his head angrily and grunting with 
 the effort he had made. 
 
 After that, if Fuzzy came too near, he 
 simply struck out at him with his hind feet, 
 and it was only luck on Fuzzy 's part that 
 he did not get a good kick. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 4 irV\ HERE is nothing like starting 
 A early," said the Ranger one day, 
 "when it comes to training animals and 
 children. I am going to break young 
 Bucky to the pack saddle." 
 
 The little donkey was accordingly fitted 
 with a pair of kyacks, almost empty to start 
 with. So far, so good. But Bucky would 
 not budge. 
 
 Meekly he stood there, his long ears 
 pointed inquiringly at the Ranger and his 
 eyes rolling till the whites showed. He 
 made no protest, but neither could he be 
 made to move. The Ranger did not believe 
 in beating him. Besides, he knew from 
 watching others that it would do no good. 
 A burro will die under your blows, but he 
 will not give in. 
 
"As Stubborn as a Mule" 67 
 
 The Banger tried coaxing, he tried com- 
 manding, he tried pulling on the halter rope 
 and shoving from behind, but still that mite 
 of a donkey stood with hoofs braced and 
 refused to go one step with that pack sad- 
 dle on his back. 
 
 It occurred to the Ranger that perhaps 
 he had tried too heavy a load, for a burro 
 knows better than any man what he can 
 carry. He emptied the kyacks entirely. 
 Sure enough, they had been too heavy,— 
 light as they were.— Bucky now followed 
 him with ears wagging peacefully, back and 
 forth, back and forth, as is the way of bur- 
 ros. 
 
 He followed the Ranger, as docile' as a 
 puppy, planting his small hoofs carefully 
 on the rocky trail. After perhaps half an 
 hour he stopped. The Ranger coaxed him 
 with a biscuit from his lunch, but the burro 
 would not budge; he switched his heels, 
 but Bucky would not move. He simply 
 felt that it was time for a rest, and he used 
 the one argument at his command. When 
 he had rested long enough, he started on 
 again of his own accord. 
 
68 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 " 'He's as stubborn as a mule,' : " laughed 
 the Ranger. "But I guess he knows better 
 than I do when he's had enough. I would- 
 n't urge him beyond his strength for any- 
 thing. 1 " 
 
 Bucky certainly had a mind of his own. 
 Fuzzy had been frog hunting down along 
 the creek one day when the Ranger came 
 along on horseback, with the big burros and 
 young Bucky following after. He was on 
 his way to bring in firewood from a clear- 
 ing where he had chopped up a fallen tree, 
 and though Bucky was not to carry more 
 than one stick on each side, he thought it 
 good training for him to go along and learn 
 to follow a pack train. 
 
 They came to a corduroy bridge across 
 the creek. Now burros are afraid of water. 
 Their ancestors were desert animals, and 
 every last donkey of them has to be taught 
 to cross a bridge. It was no different with 
 young Bucky. 
 
 Tripping daintily along behind his 
 mother, he stopped when he came to the 
 first log of that bridge, and planted his 
 fore hoofs firmly against it. 
 
"As Stubborn as a Mule" 69 
 
 The Ranger was prepared to offer him 
 an apple, but Bucky would only stretch his 
 neck toward the fruit and beg without 
 being willing to come one inch nearer for 
 it. Then the Ranger tried to pull him by 
 his halter rope, but he tugged and he pulled 
 till he was afraid he would pull the rascal's 
 head off, without being able to budge him. 
 
 The Ranger set his wits to work once 
 more. He had heard of people actually 
 lighting a fire under the stubborn animals, 
 but though the flame singed their fur, they 
 were more afraid of the bridge. 
 
 At last, in disgust, he simply took the 
 young burro on his back by getting under 
 him and drawing his fore legs over his 
 shoulders, and carried him across. 
 
 Fuzzy, watching, enjoyed it hugely. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE PINTO PONY 
 
 FTJZZY-WUZZ, like all bears, old 013 
 young, was fond of trout, and these 
 autumn days it was his great delight to fish 
 the creek. 
 
 Earlier in the year the stream had been 
 so high that he could not have done this, but 
 now it came no more than neck high along 
 the banks, as he stood with barbed paw out- 
 spread, ready to spear the first fingerling 
 that came along. 
 
 He was there fishing the day that Bucky, 
 the young burro, got his first swimming les- 
 son. Where the bridge crossed the creek 
 it was deeper. It was where the children 
 came to swim. This time Bucky protested 
 as he had before when they came to the 
 bridge. Then he got the surprise of his 
 life. The Ranger simply picked the little 
 
 70 
 
The Pinto Pony 71 
 
 gray beast up in his arms and flung him 
 overboard into the pool. 
 
 You never in all your life saw such a sur- 
 prised animal as young Bucky. But did 
 he drown? Not a bit of it. Every animal 
 —except the human— can swim if it has to, 
 and Bucky simply struck out for shore with 
 all fours. 
 
 Always thereafter he crossed the bridge 
 willingly enough. 
 
 (How it did make Fuzzy 's little black 
 eyes twinkle. For he had not forgotten 
 when Bucky bucked him off.) 
 
 Another thing interested him, too. (For 
 there is nothing in all the woods so curious 
 as a bear cub) . That was when the Ranger 
 taught the pinto pony to walk a log. 
 
 Away off there in the high Sierras, it is 
 often necessary for a man's horse to make 
 his way up and down steep slopes, over 
 fallen tree trunks and over streams where 
 there is no bridge. Sometimes a horse can 
 swim, but where there is a log across a 
 stream, those mountain-bred ponies are 
 taught to cross the log. 
 
 First the Ranger found a log that had 
 
72 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 fallen on a bit of level ground,— a big log 
 that would have been wide enough for two 
 ponies to walk abreast upon. Over this he 
 led Pinto,— as he had named the pony from 
 the large white patches on his brown coat. 
 That log did not seem alarming. 
 
 Next the Ranger laid a log across a shal- 
 low arm of the creek where, if Pinto had 
 fallen off, he would not have wetted more 
 than his ankles. That was all right, too, 
 thought Pinto. 
 
 As the final stage in his training, the 
 Ranger led him along a log that crossed one 
 end of the old swimming hole, where it was 
 really deep. But Pinto had by this time 
 learned to trust both his master and the logs, 
 and he crossed unafraid. 
 
 Now Fuzzy- Wuzz had followed the creek 
 up-stream till he was so high up the moun- 
 tain side that the stony creek bed was all 
 dry except for a mere trickle, and an oc- 
 casional pool. He now proceeded to explore 
 down-stream. 
 
 Here the rocks were all hollowed out in 
 smooth, round bowls, some of them as big 
 as wash tubs, some only the size of finger 
 
The Pinto Pony 73 
 
 bowls, and a few as large around as a dining- 
 table. 
 
 When the snows melted in the spring, 
 bringing with them a flood of rushing water 
 and grinding stones, the stones had been 
 swirled around and around till they had 
 ground out these rock basins. The swim- 
 ming hole was just a huge rock basin. 
 
 As Fuzzy came to deeper water, he met 
 every here and there a make-believe water- 
 fall. Sometimes he plunged over it head 
 foremost, and sometimes his feet slipped 
 out from under him before he was ready, 
 and over the falls he went, landing in the 
 pool beneath, and being swirled around in 
 the rushing waters till he was half drowned. 
 
 But even a small cub is a good swimmer, 
 and most of the time he really enjoyed the 
 excitement. 
 
 These autumn days, however, he was to 
 learn a new way of swimming. Now that 
 the worst danger of forest fires was over and 
 the Ranger had more leisure, he took two 
 weeks off and the whole family went on a 
 camping trip to a grove of Big Trees, and 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz went with them. 
 
74k Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 Dapple was left to browse with the cattle, 
 and Clickety-Clack was given the freedom 
 of the barn ; while the Ranger, his wife and 
 boy rode horseback, and the little girl behind 
 her father. The brown bear cub was placed 
 on top of the pack Bucky's mother carried. 
 Young Bucky followed after. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE PACK-HORSE TRIP 
 
 EVERY one enjoyed the camping trip, 
 from the Ranger's little girl, whose 
 first long trip it was on horseback, to Fuzzy- 
 Wnzz, whose natural love of exploring made 
 it a real treat to ride all day atop the burro's 
 pack. 
 
 The sun felt good on one's fur in the crisp 
 autumn weather, as they threaded the clean 
 aisles of pine and fir,— and my what appe- 
 tites they had! Then the starlit evenings 
 around the bon-fire, when the little bear was 
 allowed to snooze on the saddle blankets ! 
 
 He got himself in bad one night, though", 
 by helping himself to a plate of flapjacks 
 before the family had had their share. If 
 it hadn't been for that— but wait! 
 
 Bucky, the young burro, was also fond of 
 flapjacks. In fact, he was fond of anything 
 that could be eaten, and he was everlast- 
 
 75 
 
76 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 ingly fond of eating. The Eanger used to 
 say there was no bottom to his stomach,— 
 the more he put into it, the more he wanted. 
 But then, he was growing fast. 
 
 That little gray donkey would eat any- 
 thing from a thistle to a piece of paper 
 smeared with bacon grease. As each night 
 two or three cans of vegetables were opened, 
 he would eat the paper off the cans for the 
 flour paste with which they had been pasted 
 on. 
 
 He chewed the Ranger's shoe, one night, 
 just to sample the flavor. He loved potato 
 parings, and raised his voice and sang for 
 the bacon rinds. 
 
 Oh, what a voice he had! "Hee-haw, hee- 
 haw, hee-haw!" he would bray till some 
 one came to feed him. "It's worth while 
 giving him something to eat, just to keep 
 him quiet," declared the Ranger's wife. 
 
 On the trail young Bucky, like his par- 
 ents, expressed most of his feelings with his 
 ears. When all was going well, their long 
 ears swayed forward and backward, for- 
 ward and backward, with each step they 
 took. If something startled them, forward 
 
The Pack-Horse Trip 77 
 
 would prick those great, listening ears till 
 their curiosity had been satisfied. But if 
 they got stubborn, back they would lay their 
 ears as flat as they could plaster them. 
 
 One night every one was extra tired, and 
 they all forgot and left the flour bag open. 
 It was the night they arrived at the Big 
 Trees, and they were too filled with awe and 
 wonder to think of anything practical. The 
 next morning Fuzzy happened to wake 
 early, and went on 2 on an exploring expedi- 
 tion of his own. That wonderful nose of his 
 had told him that there was a nest of field 
 mice somewhere about there, and he meant 
 to dig them out. 
 
 Meantime the family arose, bathed in the 
 river, and started breakfast preparations. 
 "While the boy brought in wood for the fire 
 the little girl carried water from the spring, 
 and the Ranger rounded up the stock,— as 
 they say out West when they go to drive 
 back the horses, who often stray in the 
 night,— his wife made ready to bake biscuit. 
 
 She looked for the big twenty-five-pound 
 flour sack. It was half empty, and flour was 
 strewn all over the ground ! 
 
78 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 The two big burros were always hobbled, 
 like the horses, over night, so that they could 
 browse in the little mountain meadows with- 
 out wandering too far. Young Bucky was 
 left free. Just now he was nowhere in 
 sight. 
 
 "Children," called their mother sharply, 
 "see what that bear of yours has done!" 
 And Fuzzy, returning at that moment, won- 
 dered why every one scolded. 
 
 When the Eanger came in with the pack 
 train, young Bucky 's muzzle was white with 
 flour and his sides puffed out amazingly. 
 "Here's the culprit," he sang out. "Trust 
 a burro for raiding camp every chance he 
 gets. Nothing but a donkey could pull 
 through after a spree like what he's been 
 on. y 
 
 "Then Fuzzy didn't do a thing, n and 
 the boy flung his arms around the brown 
 cub. 
 
 "Perhaps not this time, but if he hadn't 
 stolen those flapjacks, he wouldn't have been 
 misjudged." 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "WHEN THE WOELD TURNED WHITE 
 
 IT certainly was hard, thought Fuzzy- 
 Wuzz, for a cub bear to keep out of 
 trouble. 
 
 Back from the camping trip, the Ranger's 
 children spent much time in the great log 
 barn, and Fuzzy with them. How he did 
 love to turn somersaults in the hay-mow! 
 Like a furry clown, he would tumble about 
 as if he hadn't a bone in his body. 
 
 Sometimes the hens did not lay in their 
 boxes, and the children used to be sent to 
 hunt eggs, which they would find here and 
 there in the hay. Fuzzy, too, learned to 
 hunt for eggs, though those he found were 
 never seen again, save for the smears of egg 
 yolk on his jaws. 
 
 He soon found it was great sport to chase 
 the hens and send them squawking, feathers 
 
 79 
 
80 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 flying as he caught a mouthful of tail plum- 
 age. 
 
 He also delighted in coming around at 
 milking time. At first the cows were so un- 
 easy with the little bear around that they 
 would kick their pails over and lower their 
 horns at him. So the Ranger tried to drive 
 him away by milking a stream of milk at 
 him as one would turn on the hose. 
 
 Was Fuzzy driven away? On the con- 
 trary, he just opened his mouth wide and 
 drank it down. After that he used to come 
 and beg to have them milk into his mouth. 
 
 But Fuzzy was finally banished from the 
 barn. The mischievous young rascal caught 
 a pig one day and hugged him till the pig 
 squealed as if he were being killed. A lit- 
 tle more and he would have been, for a bear 
 has a powerful hug. It certainly was hard 
 for a fun-loving little bear to keep out of 
 trouble. 
 
 At last Fuzzy disappeared. The children 
 searched and searched, but they could find 
 him nowhere. They set all his favorite dain- 
 ties out on the back porch for him,— bacon, 
 and honey, and wild gooseberries,— every- 
 
When the World Turned White 81 
 
 thing they could think of that he especially 
 loved. 
 
 They called him, they searched the woods 
 for some trace of his footprints in the soft 
 ground left by the early rains, but nowhere 
 could they find hide nor hair of him. 
 
 "Do you suppose a lion's got him?- they 
 worried. 
 
 * * No, ' '• laughed the Ranger. * i I shouldn 't 
 be the least bit surprised if he had gone to 
 hibernating. You know a bear always sleeps 
 the winter away. He can't find anything 
 more to eat, with the snow deep on the 
 ground, and he can't keep warm unless he 
 eats, so he just creeps off into some hole and 
 curls up into a ball, with his toes inside, and 
 sleeps till spring." 
 
 " Fuzzy didn't need to. We would have 
 fed him." 
 
 "Yes, but you see, bears have had to hi- 
 bernate for so many, many years that it 
 has become their nature to. I guess he 
 couldn't help himself: he just got to feeling 
 so sleepy that nothing else mattered. 10 
 
 "But where is he hibernating? I just 
 wish we knew where he was. raa 
 
82 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 "Oh, probably in some cave in the hill- 
 side, or under a big bowlder where he would 
 be sheltered from the wind; or perhaps he 
 has just crawled under some fallen tree, 
 where the snow will bank around him and 
 make a cave, and keep the cold wind on: 
 him, and his breath will melt an air-hole. ,J 
 
 Then one afternoon, when the sun had 
 been blotted out by the big white flakes of 
 their first real, lasting snow, the boy was 
 pitching hay from the mow for the horses 
 when something round and furry tumbled 
 out and into a horse stall. It was wee 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz, who had been pried from the 
 warm corner he had selected for his win- 
 ter's sleep. 
 
 He blinked and yawned a few times. 
 Then he disappeared again, and it was not 
 till the following spring that they found 
 him snoozing away in the far corner of the 
 haymow. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE RING-TAILED OAT 
 
 THE children missed Fuzzy- Wuzz these 
 days, the more so as Dapple, the fawn, 
 had to spend the winter in the barn with the 
 cows. They could not have her indoors, of 
 course. 
 
 The Ranger found a litter of ring-tailed 
 kittens. The kits are generally born in 
 June, and this was October, so that they 
 were half grown. Their mother and the two 
 larger kittens ran away as the Ranger 
 reached into their den in the hollow tree, 
 but the littlest one was not quick enough. 
 
 Now the Ranger remembered his grand- 
 father telling of the days of Forty-nine, 
 when he joined the gold rush to California. 
 He had had a ring-tailed cat for a pet. 
 
 Building his rude log cabin somewhere 
 about these very mountains while he washed 
 
84 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 the precious metal out of the gravel of the 
 creek beds, he noticed that his supplies were 
 being pilfered, and thinking it must be a 
 fox, he set a trap. 
 
 He was awakened in the middle of the 
 night by the most curious sound,— half the 
 bark a small dog makes, and half yowl. 
 Looking to see what he had in his trap, that 
 he could put it out of its misery, he found 
 an animal that he at first took to be a house 
 cat. Then he noticed that it was longer, 
 and had a much longer tail, and shorter 
 legs. The most curious part of it was that 
 the tail was striped black and white, like a 
 'coon's. Its face, too, was pointed like that 
 of a raccoon. Instead of the mischievous 
 eyes peering from a black mask that a 'coon 
 seems to have, this animal had large, gentle 
 looking eyes and looked scared to death. 
 
 He learned later that it was a 'coon cat, 
 or civet, more commonly called the ring-tail 
 cat. 
 
 "There, there, pussy," he soothed her, as 
 he released her from the trap and carried 
 her into his cabin. "You just come on in 
 here and have some fish, and we'll bury the 
 
The 'Ring-tailed Cat 85 
 
 hatchet. I need a cat to keep the field mice 
 out of my grub," and he straightway 
 adopted her. 
 
 She was easy to tame. She generally 
 slept all day and chased mice all night,— 
 of which an abundance were attracted by 
 his pantry shelf. She also showed her like- 
 ness to the raccoon by her fondness for fruit 
 and sugar. 
 
 The Ranger, remembering this pet his 
 grandfather used to tell about, decided to 
 take the ring-tail cat home to the children. 
 And my, how pleased they were! At first 
 they had to keep her in a cage, or she would 
 have run away. And when they placed 
 food before her, she would cower to the 
 furthest corner as if terrified. 
 
 After a couple of days of this, the Ranger 
 told his boy that if he really meant to tame 
 her, he would have to make her eat from 
 his hand. After that, though she had a pan 
 of drinking water in her cage, she got no 
 -food till she was willing to eat it out of his 
 hand. 
 
 For several days she refused to touch 
 what he offered her. Then the tempting 
 
86 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 odor of a piece of wild goose liver held be- 
 tween the boy's fingers proved too much for 
 her and she came up and ate it while he 
 held it. A few days more and they could 
 let her out of her cage. 
 
 Ring-tail, as he named her, soon became 
 the pet of the household,— to Clickety- 
 Clack's disgust, for the owl liked attention 
 too. She would play like any other kitten, 
 and she ate all kinds of table scraps, figs 
 and prunes being her especial fondness. 
 
 She was no end graceful, was Ring-tail, 
 with her long, plumy tail and her pointed 
 face. And she responded to all the old kit- 
 ten tricks, from chasing her tail to wres- 
 tling with one's hand, tooth and claw. She 
 craved affection, too, like any house cat. 
 
 There was just one trouble. They could 
 not trust her in the same room with the 
 canary. 
 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz had never bothered the bird, 
 for though he could climb, he was too 
 clumsy to reach into the cage as it hung 
 there above the window box. But with 
 Ring-tail it was different. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE BABY CANARY 
 
 AWAY back last spring, before the 
 Ranger found the little bear, the ca- 
 naries had started a nest of five pretty eggs, 
 and there the mother bird had sat, keeping 
 them warm, while her mate sang to her. 
 
 By and by the children noticed a move- 
 ment under the mother bird's wing. Then 
 a tiny yellow head came poking out through 
 her feathers. When she got off the next 
 day to eat, they noticed a hole no bigger 
 than a pin head in the shell of one of the re- 
 maining eggs, then a yellow bill was thrust 
 through, and withdrawn again. After that 
 there was a pecking and a struggling inside 
 the shell, and the next thing they knew, out 
 came the funniest baby they had ever seen, 
 with pieces of the shell still sticking to him. 
 
88 Fuzzy-JVuzz 
 
 Naked he was, with eyes not yet open, 
 and a head so large for his slender neck that 
 he could hardly hold it up. His legs 
 sprawled weakly from beneath him, and his 
 toes were so fragile that it seemed as if they 
 must break if he tried to stand on them. 
 
 The bird hatched the day before was the 
 same. The next day came another, and the 
 day after that, another. The fifth egg did 
 not hatch, and the mother bird shoved it out 
 of the nest with her foot. 
 
 My, how busy those four fledglings did 
 keep their parents for the Tiext two weeks! 
 Opening their wide mouths till one could 
 see right down their throats, they would 
 just sit there in the nest all day long eat- 
 ing what their parents brought them,— 
 chopped egg and cracker, and baby bird 
 seed, which the big birds first cracked for 
 them in their own bills. It seemed as if 
 there was no getting those young canaries 
 filled. Every time one got a mouthful, he 
 would flap his pin-feathery wings and cry 
 " tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet, " till one won- 
 dered how so much voice could issue from 
 such a tiny bird. 
 
The Baby Canary 89 
 
 By the time the little ones were able to 
 stand on the roost in a row, there were only 
 three, for one had lost his balance as he 
 stood on the edge of the nest, and all the 
 flapping of his nearly naked wings had not 
 served to break his fall. 
 
 Chirping their high-pitched food call, the 
 remaining birdlings would flap wings that 
 just began to show a row of teeny, pale yel- 
 low feathers along the edges. 
 
 Then a dreadful thing happened. A 
 great brown butcher bird lived in a thorn 
 bush not far away. This horrid creature 
 lived on mice and little birds, and like the 
 witch of the fairy tale, hung his victims on 
 the thorns till he was ready to eat them. 
 
 One day the children thought the canaries 
 would like to be out of doors, and hung the 
 cage in a pine tree. An hour later that 
 butcher bird had reached in through the 
 bars of the cage and bitten the heads off 
 the whole canary family save one little one. 
 He had been in the nest out of reach. 
 
 The little girl cried her heart out. But 
 they decided they would do their best to 
 bring that fledgling up by hand. By this 
 
90 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 time he was just about big enough to have 
 gone to bed in a teaspoon. His wings were 
 fringed with pale yellow, and he would 
 perch on a fore finger and open his mouth 
 for them to feed him, chirping shrilly and 
 flapping his wings with all his might to keep 
 from falling off. 
 
 The boy gave him just the tiniest bits at 
 a time on the end of a flattened twig. Soon 
 he was able to eat for himself. At night 
 he had to be snuggled into a warm nest 
 made of an old piece of flannel, and every 
 day his cage was set in the sunshine and he 
 was given a saucer of clean, warm water to 
 bathe in. My, how he did love to splash. 
 
 The children wondered if he were going 
 to be a singer, like his father. He was three 
 months old before he really tried very hard 
 to show them. Then what a golden voice 
 had that golden yellow bird! At first he 
 had been pale yellow, but the larger he grew, 
 the yellower became his plumage. They 
 named him Caruso. 
 
 Sometimes the children would let him out 
 of his cage in the living room. How he 
 loved the freedom of it ! How he explored 
 
The Baby Canary 91 
 
 the plants in the south window, and the sil- 
 ver spoons on the table! He loved every- 
 thing bright and shiny. 
 
 As he had never known what fear was 
 (except the time the butcher bird came), 
 he would ride about on the children's shoul- 
 ders and eat out of their hands. 
 
 They taught him to come when they called 
 him, and it was a common sight to see the 
 children doing their lessons around the 
 lamp of an evening and Caruso perching on 
 their fingers or picking at their pencil 
 points. 
 
 Any sudden movement startled him, but 
 until the other pets came, a more trustful 
 little bird you never saw. That is why, un- 
 less Eing-tail and Fuzzy- Wuzz and Click- 
 ety-Clack were shut out of the room, he had 
 always had to stay in his cage. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV, 
 
 SOMETIMES the Ranger took the chil- 
 dren snow-shoeing through the winter 
 woods. Their game was to find and name 
 as many footprints as they could, of the 
 many they saw criss-crossing the snow. 
 Sometimes they could read a story in those 
 footprints, like the time they followed the 
 delicate mouse tracks till those of a fox told 
 the end of the story. 
 
 They soon learned to know the difference 
 between the pointed tracks of the deer and 
 the manlike footprints of the mice and 
 squirrels, raccoons and hears. Then there 
 were the doglike prints of the foxes and 
 coyotes, and the catlike marks of the wild 
 cats,— those handsome gray striped Bay 
 lynxes that looked so much like big house 
 cats except for their tasseled ears and big 
 
"Jest an Ornery Pup" 93 
 
 feet, bobbed tails and the fur that bung 
 down from tbeir cheeks in points. Once 
 they caught a glimpse of one crouched on 
 the limb of a tree,— a beauty of a great, 
 fierce cat with his round yellow eyes. 
 
 Once they even came across the giant cat- 
 like track of a mountain lion, and their 
 father made them go back while he followed 
 with his gun. 
 
 He could tell whether an animal had been 
 walking or running, whether it had been 
 chasing something or was being chased, or 
 whether it was a deer or a doe. It made 
 these winter walks mighty interesting to the 
 children. 
 
 Just before Christmas the Eanger went 
 to the settlement on his snow-shoes to get 
 the mail. When he came back, out of his 
 coat pocket tumbled a yellow ball of fur. 
 
 "A dog!" his wife exclaimed. 
 
 " 'Jest an ornery pup/ the grocer says. 
 But I figured he might came in handy with 
 our small fry, ,? by which he meant the chil- 
 dren. "They're missing that cub so might- 
 ily ." 
 
 "I don't believe anything will ever crowd 
 
94 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz out of their affections, 112 she 
 smiled back. 
 
 "Well, I'll feel safer about them, any- 
 how, if we have a dog about the place." 
 
 The children welcomed him ardently. 
 He was a friendly, wriggling fellow, was 
 Wiggledy,— as they promptly named him. 
 Just a yellow puppy, part terrier and part 
 something else, the Ranger thought him. 
 But a love-hungry heart beat in that furry 
 chest. He was soon pals with both chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Young animals can generally be trained 
 to eat out of the same dish. But Ring-tail 
 was a half grown cat when Wiggledy ar- 
 rived, and it was too late, so far as she was 
 concerned, to make friends between them. 
 
 Wiggledy soon came to look upon every- 
 thing the children owned as under his 
 especial guardianship. One day when he 
 and Ring-tail had been shut in the barn 
 while the children had their lessons, he 
 barked so hard that their mother sent them 
 to see what the trouble was. 
 
 They opened the barn door and called 
 
" Jest an Ornery Pup" 95 
 
 him, but he would not come. Instead, he 
 kept running to the rain water barrel in 
 the far corner of the vacant horse stall, and 
 back again. "Hush your noise !" scolded 
 the little girl. But he only set his teeth in 
 her skirt and tried to pull her after him. 
 At last she came with him. 
 
 Dragging her to the water barrel, he 
 stood on his hind legs, and with fore paws 
 against the barrel, began barking harder 
 than ever. 
 
 She peered within. It was dusk in that 
 corner of the barn, and at first she could 
 see nothing. At last her eyes made out a 
 movement in the water. Peering closer, 
 she saw, just above the water line, which 
 was half way down the barrel, the pointed 
 face of the ring-tail cat. Ring-tail often 
 drank from the barrel, reaching down while 
 she clung with hind feet on the barrel rim. 
 This time she had lost her balance and 
 fallen in. She was swimming feebly. A 
 moment more and she suddenly sank out of 
 sight. 
 
 At his sister's cry, the boy came running, 
 
96 Fuzzy -Wuzz 
 
 and fished out the drowning animal. Ring- 
 tail's eyes were shut and her body felt stiff 
 and cold. 
 
 Tearfully they carried her into the cabin, 
 where their mother gave her a swallow of 
 something hot and laid her behind the 
 kitchen stove in a warm blanket. Anx- 
 iously the yellow pup watched and waited, 
 every now and then giving her wet face a 
 lick, and whimpering inquiringly. 
 
 When at last she began to move her claws 
 feebly and to open her eyes a crack, my ! how 
 joyously he barked. 
 
 "I vow that pup deserves a medal for life- 
 saving," declared the Eanger, giving Wig- 
 gledy a ham bone. 
 
 But at that moment Ring-tail, having 
 fully revived, snatched his bone away.— She 
 was certainly feeling better. 
 
 r • 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A REGULAR DOG 
 
 WIGGLEDY loved nothing better than 
 to go snow-shoeing with the Ran- 
 ger's children. 
 
 Of course the fat pup was helpless in the 
 deep snow, but he would go plunging into 
 their snow-shoe tracks, leaping from one 
 to another with the most joyous barking 
 and wriggling and flapping of ears. 
 
 Sometimes he caught up with them. 
 Then he would try to steal a ride on the 
 back of a snow-shoe, till they discovered 
 why it was so hard to lift that foot. 
 
 After awhile they taught him to help 
 them bring in the fire-wood. Giving him 
 just one small stick at a time to take be- 
 tween his jaws, they had him trotting ahead 
 of them, every trip they made. 
 
 Later they made him a harness and 
 
 97 
 
98 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 taught him to drag their light sled over the 
 snow crust, though he would have to grow 
 a lot before he could bring in wood that way. 
 To both the children and the pup it was all 
 just fun. They wouldn't have enjoyed it 
 a bit if they had had to do it. 
 
 "I do believe that pup's going to pan out 
 a regular dog,-' the Ranger decided. "I 
 tell you what, it takes these mongrels for 
 just plain, ordinary brains,— not the kind 
 that bird dogs have, nor fighting dogs, nor 
 any special kind, but just plain all- 'round 
 brains. 2 ' 
 
 "And heart," added his wife softly, 
 watching the children romping with Wig- 
 gledy on the hearth rug. "I'll feel now, 
 if anything happened to the children when 
 they're out snow-shoeing, he'll come and 
 tell me, or die fighting for them." 
 
 "I hadn't noticed that he was particu- 
 larly scrappy.*- 3 
 
 "Ho, ho! You haven't seen him chas- 
 ing Clickety-Clack. I wonder how he'll hit 
 it off with the little bear." 
 
 "That we shall see when spring comes. " J 
 
 Now Ring-tail had formed the habit of 
 
A Regular Dog 99 
 
 sleeping on the children's bed. When 
 Wiggledy first came, lie was so tiny and so 
 lonesome that he, too, was taken under 
 cover. About this time the excitement be- 
 gan. 
 
 When the two animals were kept on op- 
 posite sides of the bed, there was peace. 
 But let Wiggledy come too near and King- 
 tail promptly boxed his ears. Then he 
 would yelp and scuttle closer to the chil- 
 dren. And sometimes they were awakened 
 by a regular cat and dog fight,— in which 
 the pup, being the youngest, generally got 
 the worst of it. 
 
 If the pup were banished, he howled for- 
 lornly till they took him back to the warmth 
 of their beds and hearts. Finally it came 
 to be understood between them that Wig- 
 gledy was to sleep down at the foot, under 
 a fold of blanket, while King-tail took the 
 head, where the feather-bed billowed out 
 above the children's heads, and where she 
 could come and go without disturbing any 
 one,— for she was still a prowler of the 
 night. 
 
 If the children overslept and Wiggledy 
 
100 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 got hungry, he would simply pull the covers 
 off them. 
 
 The question was what would happen 
 when Fuzzy-Wuzz came back. 
 
CHAPTER XXtfl 
 
 CHUMS 
 
 IT was still damp on the forest floor, with 
 here and there a patch of melting snow, 
 when Fuzzy- Wuzz awoke from his winter 
 sleep in the haymow. 
 
 But down on the rocks where the lake 
 lapped over pebbly levels, the sun shone hot 
 and still. Here the little bear was basking 
 when the yellow pup first sighted him. 
 
 "How-wowT' j exclaimed Wiggledy, the 
 force of his bark raising him clear off his 
 feet. 
 
 "Hoof V-' asked the cub, rising on his fat 
 hind legs inquiringly. 
 
 The children, who had been watching, ar- 
 rived at that moment, and explained to the 
 pair that they must be friends, though this 
 would hardly have been necessary. The 
 
 two young animals were soon romping de- 
 101 
 
102 Fuzzy -Wuzz 
 
 lightedly together. Inside a week they 
 were chums. 
 
 Lizards basked on the warm rocks, and 
 the new-made comrades, tired of wrestling 
 and playing tag, sprawled out side by side 
 one day to watch them. By and by they 
 began to notice that the rocks and sandy 
 shallows all around them were alert with 
 little goggle eyes that peered up at them 
 with an unwinking stare. 
 
 The eyes were set in round bodies mot- 
 tled brown and deeper brown, just the size 
 of bantam's eggs with long, fish-like tails 
 attached. What could they be, asked Wig- 
 gledy with a soft rumble in his throat.— 
 Fuzz, being near-sighted, did not see them 
 till they moved. The eyes were set in 
 heavy, protruding lids. 
 
 They were bull-frog babies, and the two 
 watchers crept down over their bowlder, 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz with paw outstretched ready 
 to make a grab at them. The fat tad-poles 
 would wait saucily till his claws were just 
 above them, then with a sudden flirt of their 
 fleshy tails, they would flip away, just 
 barely out of reach. Then they would 
 
Chums 103 
 
 turn and ogle the little bear with their 
 bulging eyes again. It was tantalizing. 
 
 Sometimes Fuzzy would feel a soft body 
 slip past his paw, but before he could clutch 
 it, the prize would be far away, and circling 
 teasingly back again. 
 
 Finding a precarious footing on the tip 
 of a rock just above one of the thickest col- 
 onies, Fuzzy made a sudden grab,— but 
 quick as thought, they had slapped their 
 way in a solid body just far enough to be 
 out of reach,— and there they ogled him 
 again, maliciously. 
 
 The fat cub now moved to another rock 
 to try the trick. This time, splash! he 
 slipped into the slimy water. My, how dis- 
 gusted he was at that ! 
 
 With one swift bat of his good right paw, 
 he flipped through the water. This time he 
 sent one flying out on shore. Clambering 
 out himself, he examined his prize drip- 
 pingly. 
 
 Soft and round as an egg without a shell, 
 the tad-pole displayed the buds of feet, 
 where later would sprout as plump a pair 
 of frog's legs as ever graced a frying pan. 
 
104 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 His brown back Mother Nature bad tinted 
 to look like the rocks to any creature hunt- 
 ing from above. 
 
 With cautious paw, the cub flopped him 
 over on his back, displaying the shining 
 nether side that would look so like water to 
 any fish foe hunting from below him. 
 
 The pink gills were wide open and gasp- 
 ing, for he was drowning as surely on land 
 as a cub would have drowned under water. 
 With a snap of his jaws, Fuzzy finished the 
 life story of that young frog-to-be. 
 
 The chums spent much of their time, the 
 next few weeks, hunting bull-frog tad-poles 
 and field mice together. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 PBETTT PAWS, THE PINE SQUIEEEL 
 
 ONE hot day Fuzzy-Wuzz had gone to 
 sleep in a pine tree when he was 
 awakened by a little high pitched bark, like 
 the yap of a young fox. 
 
 He opened one eye cautiously. There on 
 a limb higher up stood a squirrel, scolding 
 him for all she was worth. But she was not 
 like the gray squirrels he had seen. She 
 was dark brown, and her under side, and all 
 four paws were a rich orange color. Her 
 tail was bordered with yellow. 
 
 It was Pretty Paws, the pine squirrel. 
 She was a member of the Douglas squir- 
 rel tribe, (named after the man who dis- 
 covered them). She must have considered 
 the little bear an intruder, the way she 
 scolded. Was this her particular pine tree, 
 he wondered? 
 
 105 
 
106 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 His little black eyes twinkling, he climbed 
 a little higher,— though he was pretty near 
 the top for even his small weight. At that 
 she scolded more angrily than ever, fairly 
 rising into the air with the ferocity of her 
 barking. She was joined by her mate, who 
 also barked at Fuzzy. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" thought the little bear, "there 
 must be a reason for all this noise they are 
 making. I must find out what it is." And 
 he wondered if such small creatures could 
 really hurt a bear cub, as they were surely 
 threatening to do. 
 
 The wind, which had been blowing 
 through the tree top, came to a rest, and 
 with that, Fuzzy caught a delightful odor. 
 It was the odor of mushrooms. Where could 
 they be, away up here in the tree top, he 
 asked himself? He meant to find out, for 
 of all the plants that grew in those woods, 
 he loved mushrooms best. He climbed a 
 few steps higher. The squirrels leapt to 
 a branch below. They were now facing 
 him, and threatening to eat him alive. 
 
 He made a sudden rush at them, with a 
 deep throated "Woof!" |They backed 
 
Chums 107 
 
 away. !A.t that, his eyes twinkled more than 
 ever. They were only bluffing. 
 
 He climbed to the next limb,— the tree 
 top swaying with his weight. There, 
 spread out along the limb in the sunshine, 
 drying, he saw what had smelled so won- 
 derful—a whole row of mushrooms. But 
 how could they have gotten away up there ? 
 For they were mushrooms that he had 
 found on the ground. He gobbled them 
 greedily. 
 
 He thought he understood now why the 
 squirrels had scolded so. These were the 
 mushrooms they had collected, and laid out 
 to dry for winter use. But they had been 
 his mushrooms, he told himself, when they 
 grew on the ground beneath the tree. 
 Never mind, he would make them his again. 
 
 The children, attracted by the barking in 
 the tree top, called their father to tell them 
 what it was. These pine squirrels, he ex- 
 plained, were cousins to the red squirrels of 
 the East. 
 
 Just now Pretty Paws and her mate were 
 calling loudly for all their friends and rela- 
 tives to come and help them scare the cub 
 
108 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 away. But Fuzzy munched right on, enjoy- 
 ing each mushroom in turn. 
 
 Almost instantly the woods resounded 
 with the call notes of neighboring pine 
 squirrels, who were coming to see what the 
 trouble was all about,— for squirrels are 
 mighty curious about all that is going on 
 about them. Some of them helped scold 
 Fuzzy, others sang and trilled almost like 
 birds. 
 
 The first litters of young were out that 
 afternoon, and some of these orange- 
 breasted sprites became so excited that they 
 simply rushed up and down their tree 
 trunks, playing tag in joyous excitement. 
 
 "I'll catch you, if you don't shut up!" 
 Fuzzy woofed at them as he finished his 
 feast and descended awkwardly, tail end 
 first, till he could drop from a lower branch 
 like a fat little bag of flour. 
 
 But though he spent all that afternoon, 
 and many another, chasing Pretty Paws and 
 her friends, as they came down to gather 
 pine seeds and insect larvae, he never once 
 succeeded in getting so much as a mouthful 
 of fur. Before he could grab them, they 
 
Chums 109 
 
 were safe on a limb, flirting their tails sauc- 
 ily at him and calling him all sorts of names. 
 
 Later he saw Pretty Paws racing through 
 the tree tops with a great brown creature 
 in hot pursuit. It was a pine marten, or 
 sable,— a rare animal for even those moun- 
 tains. Fuzzy didn't believe the squirrel 
 had a chance in the world. 
 
 He watched while Pretty Paws went 
 leaping from branch to branch, and from 
 tree to tree, and the marten after her. As 
 agile as herself, for all his great size, was 
 that marten. How it ended Fuzzy never 
 knew, for he could not follow fast enough. 
 But if it wasn't Pretty Paws herself who 
 barked at him next day, it was her twin 
 sister. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE KATTLESNAKE DEN 
 
 FUZZY often wandered far down the 
 mountain side. 
 
 One hot week in July his restless wander- 
 ing carried him almost down to the valley. 
 He had been chasing a jack rabbit through 
 the tall grass when he was startled by a 
 sound like the rustling of a dry leaf, only 
 ever so many times louder. He jumped out 
 of the way till he could find out what it 
 would be that could make such a queer 
 sound. 
 
 As he did so, a great snake shot from its 
 
 coil to the spot where he had been but an 
 
 instant before. Its mouth was open and it 
 
 displayed two long, sharp fangs. Its scaly 
 
 back was mottled with cross-wise stripes, 
 
 dark, reddish brown, with yellow edges to 
 
 the lighter spots. 
 
 Euzzy's fur rose along the back of his 
 uo 
 
The Rattlesnake Den 111 
 
 neck. He had caught many a snake and 
 eaten it with relish, but not this kind. This 
 one was different. This must be what had 
 made that ominous rattling sound. He had 
 nearly stepped on it. 
 
 He started to climb between two bowlders 
 and go on his way, but no sooner had he set 
 foot on the spot than there came another of 
 those peculiar rattling sounds, then another, 
 and another. He had stepped into a den of 
 rattlesnakes. 
 
 Now the rattler always plays fair. It 
 gives warning before it strikes. As an 
 actual fact, it will not strike at all unless 
 some one comes near stepping on it or makes 
 it fear for its life. But the unfortunate 
 Fuzzy- Wuzz had actually stepped into the 
 retreat of a whole colony of baby snakes. 
 And the babies themselves were equipped 
 with poison fangs. There must have been 
 other mothers there, too, the way they rat- 
 tled. And now the first snake was all coiled 
 ready to spring again, her ugly flat head 
 rising straight up out of the middle of the 
 coil and her tail again rattling its buttons 
 warningly. 
 
112 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 The little bear leapt for his life, but he 
 was not quite quick enough. One of the 
 snakes, (he never knew which one,) struck 
 his left hind foot a terrific blow, driving its 
 fangs in till it had squeezed the little poison 
 bag that lies at the root of each fang, so that 
 the poison ran down a groove in the fang. 
 
 Fuzzy ran till he was safely away from 
 that dangerous neighborhood, then he began 
 to feel the effects of the poison. His foot 
 swelled, and he felt as if he could lie right 
 down and die. 
 
 A great many animals would have died. 
 A man who has been struck by a rattler can 
 only be saved by drawing all the poison out 
 of the wound, and other mighty serious 
 treatment. 
 
 It was a mighty serious matter with the 
 little bear. But bears are hardy specimens. 
 They can survive a great many things that 
 other animals cannot. He was pretty ill for 
 a time, but three weeks later he came limp- 
 ing back to the Banger's cabin. 
 
 My, how glad the children were to see 
 him! How they hugged and feasted him! 
 
The Rattlesnake Den 113 
 
 He liked it, too. He had been through a lot 
 since last he went exploring. 
 
 Wiggledy was just as glad to greet his 
 chum. Every one was glad except Clickety- 
 Clack, the little screech owl, whom he was 
 soon chasing as merrily as ever, and Dapple, 
 the yearling fawn, who had never had much 
 to do with him. After that for several days 
 the pup and the bear dug quietly for ground 
 squirrels. 
 
 These ground squirrels were skimpy 
 tailed and stupid, and lived in holes that 
 they dug for themselves and their large lit- 
 ters of young along the edges of the moun- 
 tain meadows. Several families of them 
 had home-steaded in one corner of the 
 Ranger's garden patch, where they ate 
 things as fast as they grew. The Ranger 
 was mighty glad when he saw Fuzzy after 
 them. 
 
 The chums would each select a hole and 
 see which could dig out a squirrel the quick- 
 est, dog or bear. But Fuzzy always won, 
 for his long claws were much better digging 
 implements than the pup's. 
 
114 Fu%zy-Wu%% 
 
 There were mice, too, to be found under 
 the fallen logs farther back in the woods. 
 These mice of the high Sierras were red- 
 backed fellows whose coats so matched the 
 reddish soil that they were hard to see, even 
 when they sat right out in plain sight. 
 Fuzzy depended more on his nose than his 
 eyes when he followed their run-ways 
 around the stumps and rocks that hid their 
 homes. 
 
 Sometimes he would find a whole mossy 
 nestful of them in some hollow stump or 
 under a rock. Then the young mice, if they 
 were old enough to run, would race in all di- 
 rections, and Fuzzy-Wuzz could only turn 
 around and around, wondering which one 
 to chase first, while Wiggledy barked and 
 hopped about in wild excitement. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 MOTHER BROWN" BEAR AND THE BULL 
 
 FUZZY-WUZZ had grown by now to be 
 as fine a yearling brown bear as you 
 will find in the Sierras. 
 
 The quaking aspens along the creek were 
 beginning to turn scarlet when he yielded 
 to a restless feeling that often came, and 
 started on a journey that took him back over 
 the way the Ranger had come the year be- 
 fore, when Fuzzy rode on top of the burro's 
 pack. 
 
 When at last he came to the rapids where 
 he had so nearly drowned, something about 
 the place seemed familiar. As if repeating 
 a lesson he had learned when he was very, 
 very young, he turned and walked up the 
 glacier-smoothed granite slope to where a 
 giant bowlder blocked the mouth of the den. 
 
 115 
 
116 Fuzzy-Wuzx 
 
 He sniffed. It was the cave in which he had 
 been born. 
 
 It was empty now, but from the odor of 
 warm fur he judged that it had not been 
 empty more than a few minutes. With his 
 nose to the ground, he started following up 
 the trail they had left,— a trail pungent of 
 warm fur to his understanding nose. 
 
 It led straight to a patch of wild goose- 
 berry bushes, and from there to a flower- 
 dotted mountain meadow where range cat- 
 tle browsed. Fuzzy hesitated. He never 
 saw a range cow now but he looked for the 
 nearest tree. There was no tree anywhere 
 near. 
 
 Just as he was about to turn back, he 
 Caught a glimpse of a huge furry form 
 that he knew to be his mother. 
 
 Cautiously he approached. Would she be 
 glad to see him, after so long, or had she 
 given him up for drowned, and would she 
 chase him away as she would a strange cub I 
 
 He came a little nearer,— then he stared. 
 Waddling along flat-footedly behind her 
 were two wee cubs, brown balls of fur as 
 
Mother Brown Bear and the Bull 117 
 
 tiny as he had been when the Ranger found 
 him. 
 
 He whimpered joyously. Just then a 
 range bull turned, caught sight of the wee 
 cubs, and doubtless taking them for dogs, 
 charged them with lowered horns. 
 
 Mother Brown Bear rose to her great hind 
 feet with a growl. Then seeing that the bull 
 still came on, she bounded to a point mid- 
 way between him and her babies, and waited. 
 The next instant he was opposite her. 
 
 "With one twist of his ugly horns he could 
 have torn her half in two, but she never hesi- 
 tated, not where the safety of her babies was 
 concerned. She would have died fighting 
 for those helpless mites if need be. 
 
 With one sweep of her great, steel-strong 
 fore arm she delivered a blow on the back 
 of his neck. It felled him flat, for his spine 
 was broken. Such is the strength of a full 
 grown brown bear. Lucky he is a good 
 natured animal when no one molests 
 him. 
 
 Calling gently to her cub's to follow, she 
 now hastened back to the den. Fuzzy 
 
118 Fuzzy-Wusz 
 
 stepped into view as she neared him, whin- 
 ing an eager greeting. But she only growled 
 out a warning not to come near her babies. 
 Fuzzy thought best to obey. Slowly he wan- 
 dered back to the river, then on home to the 
 Ranger's cabin. 
 
 It had certainly been pretty fine to have 
 his freedom, but he was always mighty glad 
 to come back to the children and the good 
 things they always feasted him with. 
 
 For awhile he was content to play around 
 with the pup. One day, towards sun-down, 
 the children heard an unusual commotion 
 in the woods. Wiggledy was barking 
 madly, while Fuzzy-Wuzz stood on his hind 
 legs sniffing at something that hung from a 
 limb. 
 
 At first it looked like a great leaf. Then 
 the children saw that the leaf had a mouse- 
 like body covered with red-brown fur, and 
 the face of a big-eared gnome. It was a bat, 
 with great, leathery wings. She hung by 
 the edge of one wing, on a hooked-nail that 
 would have been her thumb nail, had it been 
 her arm and outstretched fingers that 
 formed the ribs of her wing. 
 
Mother Brown Bear and the Bull 119 
 
 There she hung, in the full glow of the set- 
 ting sun. But the oddest thing about her 
 was this.— Clinging to her were three baby 
 bats, wee things that she was nursing as 
 they clung to her teats. 
 
 Presently she saw a moth and flew after 
 it, snapping her teeth in it hungrily after a 
 short chase. And when she flew, she carried 
 the babies clinging to her, just as they had 
 been before. (For she had no place to leave 
 them in safety.) 
 
 She hung herself up on another tree, and 
 once more began watching for her prey. 
 The children tried to catch her, for a closer 
 look at so strange a creature, and finally suc- 
 ceeded in cornering her in an angle of the 
 barn. The boy,— who knew how to handle 
 animals,— grabbed her by the scruff of the 
 neck where she could not reach out to bite 
 him. 
 
 My, how furiously she squeaked! How 
 she ground her teeth and struggled to turn 
 her head and get a nip at him ! But he held 
 her tight, careful neither to hurt the valiant 
 little mother nor to get hurt himself, while 
 they examined her funny, big-eared, almost 
 
120 Fuzzy -Wuzz 
 
 human face. Then they let her go, and she 
 disappeared into the dusk. 
 
 Fuzzy was disgusted to think they had 
 not given her to him. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 PIKA OF THE PEAKS 
 
 ALL that summer Fuzzy wandered, wan- 
 dered everywhere in search of adven- 
 ture. There was hardly a spot within miles 
 of the Ranger's cabin that he had not ex- 
 plored. For he was looking for a range that 
 he could call his own. Sometimes he found 
 an inviting bit of country, but some other 
 bear had already made his home on it. 
 
 One mellow day that autumn he climbed 
 to the very tree line. Coming out on a wind- 
 swept height where the only trees were the 
 twisted junipers whose branches clung to 
 the ledge, he was just about to drink at a 
 trickle of water that welled out of a crack in 
 the rocks when he heard the queerest sound. 
 
 It sounded like a giant cricket, " cheep, 
 
 cheep, cheep," high-pitched and plaintive. 
 
 He looked about to see where it came from, 
 
 for a cricket would make fine eating. 
 121 
 
122 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 First the sound seemed to come from be- 
 hind him, then from the side ; then it sounded 
 for all the world as if it must be in the rocks 
 around on the other side. Fuzzy was mys- 
 tified. 
 
 Like a gray shadow, something glided to 
 the top of a stone not far away. It looked 
 like a small rabbit, except that it had big, 
 round ears rimmed with white. It was a 
 pika. 
 
 The little bear had never seen a pika. He 
 knew nothing of its ways. That is why he 
 made a dash for this one. Had he known, 
 he might have saved himself a lot of trou- 
 ble. For no sooner had he moved than the 
 little creature had disappeared from the 
 stone. What had become of it he could not 
 imagine. 
 
 Again came that long-drawn cricket 
 sound, echoing from somewhere underneath 
 the rocks. Madly he started digging into 
 the slide-rock, near where the bunny-like 
 creature had disappeared. He might as 
 well have tried to dig a hole through the 
 mountain for all the results he got. The 
 pika was not there. 
 
Pika of the Peaks 123 
 
 Pausing to get his breath and cool off, he 
 suddenly espied, sitting calmly watching 
 him, the same gray shadow on the same gray 
 stone. 
 
 This time he made an even swifter dash, 
 but again the pika was not there. When 
 Fuzzy became quite worn out, and had 
 curled up in a furry ball to take a nap, the 
 little dweller of the mountain peaks went 
 calmly to work getting in his winter food 
 supply. 
 
 Nibbling through the stems of as many 
 flowers and grasses as he could carry in his 
 mouth, he would lay the little bundle neatly 
 on a rock in the sunshine and spread it out 
 to dry. After awhile, when the sun no 
 longer shone on those rocks, he carried his 
 hay to one where it did. 
 
 That way, he worked steadily on, all alone 
 on the mountain top. Soon, he knew, would 
 come the biting cold and the banking snow, 
 and he would need enough hay to keep him 
 fat and warm in his den in the rocks. 
 
 Once a hawk spied him out as he worked, 
 and made a swoop for him. Yesterday it had 
 been a lion, the day before coyotes. But 
 
124 Fuzzy~Wuz% 
 
 Pika only slipped in between two rocks 
 where nothing could get at him, and waited 
 till the danger was gone. 
 
 When at last the sun grew cool and the 
 little bear awoke, and stretched, Pika was 
 sitting watching him like a gray shadow on 
 a gray rock, but so still he sat, and so si- 
 lently, that Fuzzy- Wuzz never even dreamed 
 how near he was, but went shambling off 
 down the mountain side in the gathering 
 dusk, while Pika once more sang his cricket 
 song. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 FUZZY AND THE WEASEL 
 
 OF all the curious furry folk that Fuzzy- 
 saw that summer, the weasel was the 
 most curious looking little beast. 
 
 At first glimpse he thought it was a black 
 snake that went gliding through the scarlet 
 fire-weed. The long, humped body with its 
 flat, almost earless head and long neck 
 ended in a tail nearly as long. Behind the 
 pointed nose, the blood-thirsty villain's red 
 eyes glowed cruelly. 
 
 The weasel was after a mouse, when the 
 little bear first saw him, and so slim was he 
 that he could follow that unhappy victim 
 straight down into his hole. He emerged in 
 two minutes licking his bloody jaws, for he 
 had not eaten the whole mouse, but only 
 quenched his thirst, as is the way with 
 
126 Fuz%y-Wu%% 
 
 Chuck and Chipper, and indeed the whole 
 chipmunk horde, had hidden in their fur- 
 thest dens at first glimpse of the blood- 
 sucker. Nor was that all: each was pre- 
 pared to flee for his life through his emer- 
 gency exit, should the killer start down their 
 front entryway. 
 
 The clumsy-looking ground squirrels de- 
 veloped a speed of which Fuzzy had not sup- 
 posed them capable, as the dark, snaky form 
 went twisting and turning through the un- 
 der-growth with his nose to the patch-work 
 of their trails. One old fellow took refuge 
 in a stone pile, but the weasel squirmed his 
 way after him, through every chink and 
 crevice, till Fuzzy heard his victim utter his 
 last unhappy squeal. 
 
 But did that stop the killer % Merely tast- 
 ing the warm blood, the weasel left his catch 
 uneaten and started after another. Now 
 most of the wild folk who kill at all, kill be- 
 cause they must eat. But the weasel is dif- 
 ferent : he kills for the love of killing. He 
 is the villain of the play. No mouse or chip- 
 munk whose trail he starts to follow ever 
 gets away from him. 
 
Fuzzy and the Weasel 127 
 
 Now there was a big rabbit that Fuzzy 
 had chased off and on all summer, but al- 
 ways the little animal flapped its ears sauc- 
 ily and got away. It was not afraid of 
 Fuzzy, and could easily outrun him. The 
 rabbit had been eating every green thing 
 that came up in the Banger's garden, and 
 Fuzzy had felt it his duty to rid the place 
 of the fellow. Besides, though mostly a veg- 
 etarian, he had often thought that rabbit 
 would be good eating. 
 
 To-day the rabbit was just settling down 
 to demolish a head of the Ranger's lettuce 
 when the weasel, running along with his nose 
 to the ground, crossed its trail. Sniffing 
 eagerly at the scent of warm fur, he raced 
 up to the flap-eared one. 
 
 Now a rabbit has perfectly good hind legs. 
 If its courage had been as good, no weasel 
 could have overtaken it in a race. At first 
 this particular rabbit, sniffing the air for 
 signs of an enemy, thought it was only the 
 little bear, and went right on eating, wag- 
 gling its ears saucily. 
 
 Then it saw the weasel. With one great 
 bound it was leaping away through the 
 
128 Fuzzy -Wuzz 
 
 woods, the little weasel after it, but losing 
 ground. 
 
 Then the foolish rabbit leapt high to see 
 where its enemy was. The weasel was 
 sneaking along in such a snake-like manner 
 that at first it couldn't see him, so the foolish 
 bunny circled back to make sure. 
 
 Now the weasel was just on the point of 
 giving up, seeing that here was one victim 
 he could not hope to overtake, when the rab- 
 bit suddenly came back, saw him still pur- 
 suing, and losing heart, squatted down, par- 
 alyzed with fear, uttering a squeal for 
 mercy. 
 
 Instantly the weasel was on the rabbit's 
 back, biting the cowardly beggar back of 
 the ear, where it killed it instantly. But 
 a taste of the hot blood and the weasel was 
 satisfied, and ran away to chase barn rats. 
 
 "Am I in luck?" Fuzzy asked himself, 
 licking his jaws hungrily. 
 
 The Banger also thought himself in luck, 
 for inside a week the weasel had rid the barn 
 of rats, and betaken himself away to new 
 hunting grounds. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 WAPITI 
 
 THE little bear felt more and more 
 strongly the call to go exploring. So 
 many things interested him, and he was so 
 apt to find something new and delicious to 
 eat. Besides, he felt it would soon be time 
 to hibernate again, and now that he was get- 
 ting so large, he wanted a home of his own, 
 —some rocky den where he could be entirely 
 by himself when he felt like it. 
 
 During the spring and summer the mule 
 deer, (Dapple 's tribe,) had been the largest 
 he had seen. But now that the larches had 
 turned old gold, he sometimes met a herd of 
 wapiti, or American elk, who had summered 
 high in the mountains, in the stunted forests 
 of timber-line where they could browse on 
 the foliage of the very tree tops and the lush 
 grass of the high alpine meadows. 
 
130 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 At the approach of winter they came 
 down to seek the shelter of the valleys. 
 
 Every herd had its patriarch, a huge old 
 bull wapiti, whose wide branching antlers 
 would suddenly appear on the sky-line while 
 he scanned the slopes. Then he would give 
 the signal to the herd of cow wapiti and 
 their calves who were under his protection, 
 to follow to the feeding-grounds he had se- 
 lected. 
 
 Fuzzy was afraid to come too near, for he 
 had disliked horns and antlers ever since his 
 experience with the range cow the year be- 
 fore. But his curiosity often drew him to 
 watch these strange creatures from the safe 
 shelter of some clump of brush. 
 
 After the first snow-fall, the wapiti would 
 paw the ground bare with their fore hoofs 
 till they could get at the mosses underneath. 
 At this time the herd was joined by several 
 others, and at night they always slept in a 
 circle, the bulls on the outside, the cows 
 next, and their calves in the very middle. 
 Fuzzy wondered and wondered why they did 
 it, till one night, when he had elected to sleep 
 away from home. 
 
Wapiti 131 
 
 It was starlight in the open spaces, 
 shadowy under the trees, when he was 
 awakened by a peculiar shiver that ran along 
 his spine and made the fur on the back of 
 his neck prickle. This, he knew, meant dan- 
 ger, though at first he could not see what it 
 was that menaced him. Then, suddenly, he 
 noticed a slinking, almost soundless move- 
 ment along the limb of a tree between him 
 and the wapiti on the creek bank. 
 
 Slowly, slowly the giant cat, a mere mov- 
 ing shadow in his tawny coat against the 
 shadows that didn't move, leapt to the 
 ground and began edging, inch by inch, 
 toward the sleeping herd. But was it sleep- 
 ing? Fuzzy thought he saw the gleam of 
 several pairs of eyes against their moveless 
 bulk. 
 
 The cat was edging around them watching 
 for some point where he might approach 
 them from behind. But on every side he 
 was faced by a barricade of pronged antlers 
 that could have pierced him through. Fi- 
 nally as he came too near, the bulls arose 
 and stood waiting— just waiting for him to 
 come closer. But at that the lion turned 
 
132 Fuzzy -Wuzz 
 
 and leapt into a tree, and though Fuzzy- 
 watched till he could no longer keep his eyes 
 open, he saw no movement in that tree, nor 
 was the lion in the tree when morning came. 
 Nor was the herd reduced by the loss of so 
 much as one calf. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 DAPPLE DISAPPEAES 
 
 AS her second summer came to an end, 
 Dapple was seen to be more and more 
 vain. Every day she licked her fur till it 
 shone. She had even made friends with a 
 young cow of almost equal vanity, who did 
 her the service of washing her neck where 
 she could not reach it, a service she returned 
 in kind. 
 
 Then one day she disappeared. The 
 children were mystified, but Fuzzy could 
 have told them what had become of her. 
 
 His wanderings had often taken him into 
 the haunts of the mule deer. Not that he 
 ever got very near them. Even had he 
 trusted the antlers of the bucks he saw sum- 
 mering together in the high country,— they 
 had prongs even before the tall branching 
 antlers came in September,— he could not 
 
 133 
 
134 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 have escaped observation, so keen were both 
 their eyes and their ears. 
 
 Then in the wooded valleys he had watched 
 the blacktail does with their dappled fawns. 
 
 Seeing in the little fellows something so 
 like what Dapple had been the year before, 
 he sometimes tried to play tag with them, 
 but no sooner would he make a movement 
 toward them than off they would bound in 
 great leaps that took them clear over the 
 tops of the bushes, and in two seconds they 
 were clear out of sight, doe and fawns to- 
 gether. 
 
 Not even when they slept could he sur- 
 prise them, for they slept with all four feet 
 under them, and at the slightest sound, crack 
 would go the brush about them, as they rose 
 into the air, then off they would bounce, like 
 so many rubber balls, thud, thud, thud! 
 
 It became a game that Fuzzy played with 
 himself, to try to catch them unawares, but 
 let him approach never so softly, with the 
 wind blowing his scent in entirely the other 
 direction, their big ears were sure to hear 
 him, though they had been sound asleep. 
 
 Yes, sir, Fuzzy could have told the chil- 
 
Dapple Disappears 135 
 
 dren what had become of Dapple. But he 
 didn't, and they mourned her as lost, finally- 
 deciding that she must have fallen victim to 
 a mountain lion. 
 
 He had seen the bucks come down from 
 the high country as autumn crisped the air, 
 their double branched antlers gleaming 
 proudly. He had watched them battling on 
 the lake shore o' moonlight nights, their 
 antlers clashing angrily at one another, 
 while the does— and Dapple— watched them 
 from safe covert. 
 
 And before ever he began his winter's 
 sleep he had seen them gather into herds, 
 does and bucks together,— and Dapple with 
 them,— as many as he had toes and fingers 
 put together, in a sheltered canyon where 
 they could winter. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 AS winter approached, and Fuzzy wan- 
 dered farther and farther afield, the 
 bullfrogs wriggled deep into the mud to 
 sleep the white months away, the trout he 
 had so often caught sought the deepest 
 water they could find, in the very bottom of 
 the ice-covered lake, the birds flew further 
 south, the chipmunks retired to the depths 
 of their well-stocked burrows, the pine 
 squirrels took to their hollow trees except 
 when the sun shone warmest, and the mice 
 crept so deep into the frozen ground that 
 Fuzzy could not dig them out. 
 
 The children still had the owl and the 
 canary, and one day they discovered Ring- 
 tail in the haymow with three kittens, but 
 Wiggledy, now a well-grown pup, was their 
 
Dapple' s Secret 137 
 
 chief comrade, for Fuzzy- Wuzz had also dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 He had not chosen the haymow this time 
 in which to sleep the winter away, for he had 
 found the most delightful den in the rocks,— 
 a regular cave, which he had lined with arm- 
 fuls of dry pine needles, till it was as snug 
 and warm as anything he could desire. 
 Moreover, he could hide away in it and no 
 one could disturb him. 
 
 Spring came, setting the streams to froth- 
 ing over their bowlder-strewn beds. The 
 banks of the quieter pools echoed to the 
 song of the re-awakened bullfrogs. Chip- 
 munks chattered through the tree-tops, 
 birds returned, filling the air with their love 
 songs, and mice scuttled through the new 
 green grass. But no Fuzzy came scratching 
 at the cabin door, and no Dapple came to 
 the children's call. 
 
 Then one early morning the boy, now a 
 well-grown lad of twelve, was out milking 
 the cows when a pale, tawny form in the 
 edge of the woodland attracted his eye. It 
 was a doe, and he held his breath for a good 
 look at her. She did not move. For long 
 
138 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 minutes he stared at the mild-eyed creature, 
 fearing if he moved, she would go bounding 
 away. Then— could his eyes deceive him t — 
 she came prancing straight toward him. 
 
 ' ' Dapple ! ' ' he called j oyously. ' i Dapple ! 
 Can it really be you ? ' ' And at the sound of 
 his voice, she came to his outstretched hand 
 and licked it. 
 
 Then a sharp sound of snapping twigs in 
 the underbrush behind her sent her bound- 
 ing back. The boy stared after her. There, 
 frightened to death at their close approach 
 to human kind, and ready to leap away at 
 the slightest danger, stood two tiny spotted 
 fawns, as like what Dapple herself had been 
 as anything that could be imagined, 
 
 A moment more they stood hesitant, then 
 as the boy took one step nearer, Dapple 
 went bouncing back into the thick woods, the 
 fawns following. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 OLD FEIENDS 
 
 THE children had climbed high that day 
 with their berry pails. 
 
 Wiggledy had gone bounding on ahead, 
 threatening every squirrel and chipmunk 
 with the most ferocious barks. Suddenly he 
 began sniffing at the ground in a way that at- 
 tracted the children's curiosity, then went 
 bounding on* with joyful yelps. 
 
 "What can it beV-' wondered the little 
 girl. "He never ran away and left us like 
 that before." 
 
 "Let's go along and find out, 3 ' proposed 
 the boy. 
 
 They had to run to keep the dog in sight. 
 Sometimes he would stop and peer into the 
 branches of a tree, then sniff about under- 
 neath. Then off he would race again, nose 
 to the ground, uttering happy yelps and 
 whimpers. 
 
 139 
 
140 Fuzzy <-Wuzz 
 
 The way he led them zig-zagged this way 
 and that, but always it took them higher. 
 At last they found themselves away up on 
 the mountain side almost to timber line. 
 Then Wiggledy disappeared in a berry patch 
 too thorny for them to follow. 
 
 As they stood waiting and calling for him 
 to come back, and filling their pails from the 
 berries within reach, the little girl began 
 staring at the rocks further up. When the 
 boy glimpsed her frightened eyes he, too, 
 stared in the direction she was gazing. 
 
 From behind a mammoth bowlder peered 
 a huge brown head, with a long yellowish 
 snout. 
 
 Slowly a huge, furry form came lumber- 
 ing forth, walking awkwardly flat-footed, 
 wagging its head from side to side. It was 
 headed straight toward them. 
 
 Now it arose to its full height, sniffing the 
 breeze and peering apparently right at them 
 with its near-sighted little eyes. Then down 
 on all fours again went the shaggy beast. It 
 was a brown bear,— the largest they had ever 
 seen. 
 
Old Friends 141 
 
 The children didn't know which way to 
 turn. Of course they knew, as their father 
 had often told them, that a brown bear will 
 not harm human kind, unless wounded or 
 cornered or trying to defend its young. 
 But how could they be sure this bear had 
 not been wounded, or had no cubs somewhere 
 hidden among the rocks and thought they 
 were after them! 
 
 The little .girl was in for running, but the 
 boy sternly bade her stay still and show no 
 fear. Wiggledy was still racing around in 
 the berry patch with his nose to the ground. 
 Just then the wind veered. With a frantic 
 yelp the dog went flying straight toward the 
 bear. 
 
 "Wiggledy! Come back!" called the 
 boy, frightened lest the bear would kill him. 
 But the dog raced on. 
 
 Then something happened that left them 
 speechless with amazement. The little dog 
 and the big bear began romping together 
 just as had the pup and the yearling cub the 
 year before. 
 
 "It IS Fuzzy-Wuzz!" cried the boy. 
 
142 Fuzzy-Wuzz 
 
 "Come here, you old rascal you," and he 
 fished a hunk of gingerbread from his pocket 
 and strode up to the bear. 
 
 The bear shambled toward him eagerly, 
 and took the tid-bit from his hand. It was 
 Fuzzy-Wuzz, his old friends not forgotten, 
 though he had taken to the wild where he 
 belonged. 
 
 THE END