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 attracted the children’s curiosity, then went bounding off with joyful yelps.
“What can it be?” wondered the little girl. “He never ran away and left us like that before.”
“Let’s go along and find out,” 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 underneath. Then off he would race again, nose to the ground, uttering happy yelps and whimpers.
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 lumbering 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.
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!