Second, I have ascribed to that one animal the adventures of several
of his kind.
The aim of the story is to picture the life of a Grizzly with the
added glamour of a remarkable Bear personality. The intention is to
convey the known truth. But the fact that liberties have been taken
excludes the story from the catalogue of pure science. It must be
considered rather an historical novel of Bear life.
Many different Bears were concerned in the early adventures here
related, but the last two chapters, the captivity and the despair of
the Big Bear, are told as they were told to me by several witnesses,
including my friends the two mountaineers.
I. THE TWO SPRINGS
High above Sierra's peaks stands grim Mount Tallac. Ten thousand feet
above the sea it rears its head to gaze out north to that vast and
wonderful turquoise that men call Lake Tahoe, and northwest, across a
piney sea, to its great white sister, Shasta of the Snows; wonderful
colors and things on every side, mast-like pine trees strung with
jewelry, streams that a Buddhist would have made sacred, hills that an
Arab would have held holy. But Lan Kellyan's keen gray eyes were
turned to other things. The childish delight in life and light for
their own sakes had faded, as they must in one whose training had been
to make him hold them very cheap. Why value grass? All the world is
grass. Why value air, when it is everywhere in measureless immensity?
Why value life, when, all alive, his living came from taking life? His
senses were alert, not for the rainbow hills and the gem-bright lakes,
but for the living things that he must meet in daily rivalry, each
staking on the game, his life.
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