Ted had decided to seize the week's interlude as a fine time to go over the camp from top to bottom, but there was little to do. Nels would never write a learned dissertation about Shakespeare, or come up with a startling new aspect of the nuclear fission theory, but whoever hired him got all they paid for, plus a substantial bonus. Working by the day, in Nels' opinion, meant working twenty-four hours, if that were necessary. The cabin was spotless. Even the blankets had been aired. With time heavy on his hands, Ted fretted. He collected the six grouse to which he was entitled and put them in the freezer. For lack of something else to do, he went twice more to the three sycamores near Glory Rock, the scene of Smoky Delbert's shooting. He didn't find anything, but he hadn't really expected to discover any new evidence or clues. Looking for them had helped kill time while he waited anxiously for the bear hunters. Deer were not especially hard to get, if all one wanted was venison; there were does and young deer that wouldn't even run from hunters. But the big old bucks with acceptable racks of antlers got big because they were wary and they were difficult to bring down. Woodcock were sporting and who hunted grouse successfully had every right to call himself a hunter. Squirrels were fun, providing one hunted them with a rifle instead of a shotgun. But unless one used dogs to bring them to bay--and it was against the law to use dogs on any big game in the Mahela--black bears were far and away the most difficult game of all. Keen-nosed and sharp-eared, they almost always knew when hunters were about. Wise, they were well aware of the best ways to preserve their own hides. As circumstances prescribed, they could slink like ghosts or run like horses and they laid some heartbreaking trails. Fifty miles was no unusual distance for a black bear to cover in a day and they were full of tricks. Ted himself had followed black bears on snow and come to where the trail ended abruptly. The bears had walked backwards, stepping exactly in the tracks they had made running forward, and made a long sidewise jump that always delayed their pursuer and sometimes baffled him. Some men who'd spent their lives in black bear country had yet to see their first one. It took hunters of the highest caliber to get them, and thus Ted looked forward to those who would occupy his camp. But while he waited there was little else to do and he spent some of his time in Lorton.