Realizing that the cubs would stay in the tree, no matter what happened, I concluded to capture them. Though they had been having lively exercise for two hours they were anything but exhausted. Climbing into the tree I chased them round from the bottom to the top; from the top out on limbs, and from limbs to the bottom--but was unable to get within reach of them. Several times I drove one out on top of a limb and then endeavoured to shake him off and give him a tumble to the earth. A number of times I braced myself on a near-by large limb and shook with all my might. Often I was able to move the end of the limb rapidly back and forth, but the cubs easily clung on. At times they had hold with only one paw--occasionally with only a single claw; but never could I shake them free. The affair ended by my cutting a limb--to which a cub was clinging--nearly off with my hatchet. Suddenly breaking the remaining hold of the limb I tossed it and the tenacious little cub out, tumbling toward the earth. The cub struck the earth lightly, and before I had fully recovered from nearly tumbling after him came scrambling up the tree trunk beneath me! One spring day while travelling in the mountains I paused in a whirl of mist and wet snow to look for the trail. I could see only a few feet ahead. As I looked closely a bear emerged from the gloom heading straight for me. Behind her were two cubs. I caught an impatient expression when she first saw me. She stopped, and with a growl of anger wheeled and boxed the cubs right and left like a worried, unpoised mother. They vanished in the direction from which they had come, the cubs being urged on with lively spanks. Like most animals, the black bear has a local habitation. His territory is twenty miles or less in circumference. In this territory he is likely to spend his years, but in springtime he may descend to feed on the earliest wild gardens of the foothills. I have tracked black bears across mountain passes, and on one occasion I found a bear track on the summit of Long’s Peak. The black bear eats everything that is edible, although his food is mainly that of a vegetarian. He digs out rich willow and aspen roots in the shallow and soft places, and tears up numerous plants for their roots or tubers. He eats grass and devours hundreds of juicy weeds. In summer he goes miles to berry patches and with the berries browses off a few inches of thorny bush; he bites off the end of a plum-tree limb and consumes it along with its leaves and fruit.