“He’ll go dig pretty soon now,” said Leo. “Ketch ’um gopher.”
“You’re mistaken, Leo,” said Uncle Dick, “about two of those bears. I can see them all plainly with the glasses now, and those lowest down in the brush are black bears. The upper ones are grizzlies, and mighty good ones, too.”
“Oh, ho!” said Leo. “No see ’um good at first. Yes, two black bear—he won’t go close to grizzlum. Him scare’ of grizzlum. Me no like ’um black bear there. S’pose we go after grizzlum, them little black bear, he’ll ron off and scare grizzlum.”
They sat watching the bears from their place in the middle of the valley. The largest one began to advance deliberately toward the middle of the slide, where they could see little heaps of yellow earth thrown up by the burrowing gophers. The bear would look at these idly and paw at them curiously now and then, but it was some time before he began to dig in earnest.
The second grizzly, lower down on the slide, went earnestly to work, and apparently was interested in something which he thought was underneath a certain large rock. They later found that this rock must have weighed three or four hundred pounds at least, although they saw where the bear, putting his mighty forearm under it, had rolled it out of its bed as easily as though it had been a pebble. There is no animal in the world more powerful for its size than the mountain grizzly.
Leo continued to express his dislike of the little black bears.
“S’pose grizzlum ketch plenty gopher, he stay sometam. We heap shoot ’um. But me no like ’um black bears. No get around ’um; they ron off sure.”
“Well, we’ll wait awhile,” said Uncle Dick, “and see what’ll happen.”