I remembered hearing that it was sure death to run from a grizzly bear, so I put on a bold front and backed slowly into the lodge. I started to build a fire; I thought the light might drive him off. But I was so excited it seemed ages before I could find either matches or knife. Had I my rifle I might have tried to shoot him; but we were in such close quarters and in the dark, he might have killed me. No sooner had I a fire burning, than I heard his heavy footsteps; he was coming towards the lodge, but stopped near the door to examine my saddle. For a moment he stood sniffing and grunting; then came close to the side of the tepee, where we had the provisions stored. He raised himself on his hind legs, with front paws against the poles. I was directly underneath him; I saw the canvas press in and heard his heavy breathing. It seemed like a nightmare; again my hair stood on end. I shouted; and the sound of my own voice in that dimly lighted tepee sounded strange and far away. Then the bear got down on all fours and went back to his feast at my outside kitchen. Believing the crisis was now past and that the old grizzly would do me no harm, I began to take a friendly interest and watched him through an opening in the door. He knocked a cover from a mess of trout; finished a bowl of delicious peaches and tore open bags of flour and sugar. At last he came to our “dutch oven,” a heavy iron kettle for baking bread. In it I had stored, for safe-keeping, my greatest delicacy—a small piece of butter. For a moment his efforts were vain; the heavy iron lid held fast. Then he became angry; with his powerful forepaw he struck the kettle such a blow that the cover flew off; and I heard his rough tongue lick up the last of my provisions. At the first sign of dawn, my dangerous visitor departed suddenly into the forest and I saw him no more. When the scout returned from his hunt, I showed him the tracks of the grizzly’s huge feet and the marks of his long claws in the soft earth. They measured thirteen inches in length, seven inches across the toe and six at the heel. The scout said a grizzly of that size would weigh as much as a large horse. By the lodge-fire that night, he told me about the origin of the “Medicine Grizzly.” STORY OF THE MEDICINE GRIZZLY “The things I now tell you happened many years ago, when Mad Wolf, your Indian father, was a young man. He was the war chief of an expedition that went across the Rocky Mountains against the Flathead Indians. Two of his brothers were with him; but they both turned back before they reached the Flathead country. Mad Wolf and his warriors returned later by Cutbank Pass.