The Little People in the forest of ferns beneath were not such gay birds, and they did not have such high-flown ideas as these feathered folk in the branches. They didn't talk such foolishness and small talk from dawn to dark. They didn't wear gay clothes that weren't a particle of good to them in cold weather. You can imagine them as being good, substantial, middle-class people, much more sober-minded, tending strictly to business and working hard, and among other things they saw no need of flitting down to southern resorts for the cold season. These people--being mostly ground squirrels and gophers and chipmunks and rabbits--had not been fitted by nature for wide travel and had made all arrangements for a pleasant winter at home. You could almost see a smile on the fat face of a plump old gopher when he came out and found the frost upon the ground; for he knew that for months past he had been putting away stores for just this season. In the snows that would follow he would simply retire into the farthest recesses of his burrow and let the winds whistle vainly above him. The larger creatures, however, were less complacent. The wolves--if animals have any powers of foresight whatever--knew that only hard days, not luscious nuts and roots, were in store for them. There would be many days of hunger once the snow came over the land. The black bear saw the signs and began a desperate effort to lay up as many extra pounds of fat as possible before the snows broke. Ashur's appetite was always as much with him as his bobbed-off excuse for a tail, and as he was more or less indifferent to a fair supply of dirt, he always managed to put away considerable food in a rather astonishingly short period of time; and now he tried to eat all the faster in view of the hungry days to come. He would have need of the extra flesh. The time was coming when all sources of food would be cut off by the snows, and he would have to seek the security of hibernation. He had already chosen an underground abode for himself and there he could doze away in the cold-trance through the winter months, subsisting on the supplies of fat that he had stored next to his furry hide. The greatest of all the bears, the Killer, knew that some such fate awaited him also. But he looked forward to it with wretched spirit. He was master of the forest, and perhaps he did not like to yield even to the spirit of winter. His savagery grew upon him every day, and his dislike for men had turned to a veritable hatred. But he had found them out. When he crossed their trails again, he would not wait to stalk. They were apt to slip away from him in this case and sting him unmercifully with bullets. The thing to do was charge quickly and strike with all his power. The three minor wounds he had received--two from pistol bullets and one from Bruce's rifle--had not lessened his strength at all. They did, however, serve to keep his blood-heat at the explosive stage most of the day and night.