We had no fear and ranged the hillsides, ravines and pine-woods eager and unafraid.
"High up the mountains we blundered on a bear's den with two cubs in it.
They were old enough to be playful and young enough not to be fierce or dangerous.

I was for carrying them off, but Hedulio said that if the mother returned before we were well on our way home she would certainly catch us before we could reach a place of safety and we should certainly be killed.
"'We had better stop playing with these fascinating little brutes,' he said, 'and be as far off as possible before she comes back.' "Just as he said it we heard twigs snapping, the crash of rent underbrush, and I looked up and saw the bear coming.
"I had never seen a wild bear till then.

She looked to me as big as a half grown calf, and as fat as a six-year-old sow.

She came like a race-horse.
Besides my instantaneous sense of her size, weight and speed, I saw only her great red mouth, wide-open, set round with gleaming white teeth, from which came a snarl like the roar of a cataract.
"I sprang to the nearest tree which promised a refuge, caught the lowest boughs and scrambled up, the angry snarls of the bear filling my ears.

As I reached the first strong branch the snarls stopped.
"I settled myself and looked down.
"The bear was standing still, some paces from her den, peering at it and snuffing the air, working her nose it seemed to me, and moving her head from side to side.
"Hedulio had not moved.