On another occasion, however, when three bears came trundling down after our supper was over, I approached one with some bread, which he very gently took from my fingers, and I scratched his nose and put myself on speaking terms. “Curious,” said I to Vachel, “is it not? These are the same bears which used to figure so largely in adventure stories of the Rocky Mountains. It follows they are ready to be good citizens of the forest if treated ‘good.’” You’d have had a different experience had they been grizzlies, we were told later. Maybe. But St. Seraphim himself did not tackle grizzlies. [Illustration] _So we’ve met the bear: The bear has snuffed at us And wondered what we were. Humans with a forest smell to us, No doubt quite game; Sleeping out too, very quietly. Good to eat no doubt, Dare one, dare a poor bear take a bite? Would they mind? I’ve bitten most of the animals in the wood Except them-- In my time._ [Illustration: ELEMENTS OF GOOD COFFEE MOSQUITO NETTING WATERFALL COFFEE POT FIR TREE COFFEE BEANS STONE PYRE LOVE] XVII. LINDSAY’S STONE COFFEE THE wind blew all night long, a wind that seemed to be cleaning up and burnishing all the spaces between the stars. The rock wall against which I leaned my back kept stealing away the warmth from my blanket. Vachel slept off the level on the ferns, at a forty-five degree tilt downward. We both looked out to the mountains and the stars, and it was an epical summer night on the Rockies. The mountains were compact and black and clear, and a dim light behind them glorified each. A young moon arose and poised herself above us, and only slowly and very unobtrusively crept across the sky. It was a night of persistent gale but of a steadfast starry universe. It seemed to call for rain, but there never came a cloud, only the metallic interstellar spaces grew lustrous and more lustrous, and the mountains more and more romantic. Our eyes were religiously and adoringly spellbound. Our hands--our feet--that is a different tale. Their hearts were pure, Their hands were horribly red, as Balzac said of two young ladies of France. Vachel, who had tied the tassels of his old steamer rug together and made a sleeping-bag, was meditative of Peary and Shackleton and their companions, and though he had procured an extra flannel shirt and had tied himself up in all he possessed, he still could not find the temperature at which corn ripens in central Illinois. We heard the waters of the creek pouring down below, we heard movements among the trees, and the idea of a bear coming to us was not unsuggested. Vachel picked up his steamer rug and came across to my rock and laid him down nearer to me. We slept then till dawn, slept with one eye open and one shut; one ear alert, the other muffled. * * * * *