It was true that I had feared man instinctively from the first, but familiarity with him had for a while overcome that fear. Now it returned, and with the fear was mingled another feeling--a feeling of definite hatred. Originally, though afraid of him, I had borne man no ill-will whatever, and would have been entirely content to go on living beside him in peace and friendliness, just as we lived with the deer and the beaver. Man himself made that impossible; and now I no longer wished it. I hated him--hated him thoroughly. Had it not been for dread of the thunder-sticks, I should have gone down into the town and attacked the first man that I met. I would have persuaded other bears to go with me to range through the buildings, destroying every man that we could find; and though this was impossible, I made up my mind that it would be a bad day for any man whom I might meet alone, when unprotected by the weapon that gave him so great an advantage. Meanwhile my present business was, somehow and somewhere, to go on living. On that first evening, amid my conflict of emotions, it was some time before I could bring myself to turn my back definitely upon the town; for it was difficult to realize at once that there was in truth no longer any Kahwa there, nor any reason for my going again among the buildings, and it was late in the night before I finally started to look for my father and mother. I went, of course, to the place where I had left them, and where the fight with the stranger had taken place. They were not there when I arrived, but I saw that they had spent the preceding day at home, and would, in all probability, be back soon after it was light. So I stayed in the immediate neighborhood, and before sunrise they returned. My mother was glad to see me, but I do not think I can say as much for my father. I told them where I had been, and of my visits to the town, and of poor Kahwa's death; and though at the time father did not seem to pay much attention to what I said, next day he suggested that we should move farther away from the neighborhood of men. The following afternoon we started, making our way back along the stream by which we had descended, and soon finding ourselves once more in the region that had been swept by fire. It was still desolate, but the two months that had passed had made a wonderful difference. It was covered by the bright red flowers of a tall plant standing nearly as high as a bear's head, which shoots up all over the charred soil whenever a tract of forest is burned. Other undergrowth may come up in the following spring, but for the first year nothing appears except the red "fireweed," and that grows so thickly that the burnt wood is a blaze of color, out of which the blackened trunks of the old trees stand up naked and gaunt.