“That bear was as reasonable as any I ever see, but I had more trouble with a big feller up toward Crescent Lake.  I got sleepy that afternoon, for I ‘d been settin’ up watchin’ fer bear the night before.  So I put my gun an’ a snack I had on a stump and went to sleep.  When I waked up there was a big brown bear nosin’ my lunch and tryin’ to open the bundle with his paw.  I picked up some pine cones—­Pinus pondyrosy it was I was sleepin’ under” (he rolled this out with the slyest glance at a professor from an Eastern college who had joined his little audience)—­“an’ begun peltin’ ’em at him just so’s to tip his ears and his tail.  Sunday, he ’d travelled off somewhere and missed this fun.  Then I started in to abusin’ that bear.  My!  I called him everything I could lay my tongue to.  He ‘d stop an’ listen a minute, cock up one ear and wink, and then he ’d go to work at that lunch passel ag’in.  I jest kept on swearin’ harder and harder at him till I could taste brimstone.  And at last it got too much for ’im.  He took his paws down off ‘n that stump an’ marched off as dignified as a woman who ‘s heard you say somethin’ you did n’t mean her to.

“But the cheekiest thing I ever did with a bear was one night over in Devil’s Gulch.  A big storm come up just about dark an’ I found a sort o’ cave to crawl into.  A big tree, a Pinus Lamberteeny” (another sly glance at the professor), “had fell alongside o’ some rocks an’ made a fine dry den.  A lot of dry leaves was made into a bed, an’ I says to Sunday:  ’Reckon we ’ll have company before long.  Wonder whether it ’ll be a brown or a grizzly.’  Sunday, he curled up an’ went to sleep, an’ I was settin’ down at the mouth of the den lookin’ out into the dark when up come a big, black thing.  I knew ‘t was the bear, an’ it was too dark to see if it was a grizzly.  But it just made me mad to think of that bear comin’ to turn me out into the rain, an’ I up with my fist an’ give ’im a cuff.  ‘Git out o’ this, you ole tramp,’ says I.  ’I was here first, an’ there ain’t no room fer you.’  An’ I belted him on the other ear.  That bear jest turned tail an’ walked off as meek as Moses, an’ me an’ Sunday had the den to ourselves all night.

“Yes, sir,” and he shook his head and chuckled in delighted remembrance of his waggishness, “that was jest about the cheekiest joke I ever played on a bear!”

Posey’s mirthful spirits make him always a welcome visitor in the cabins that, tucked away among trees and bowlders, shelter the lone mountaineers.  But of all those who live within the circuit of his peregrinations his particular chum is Win Davis—­“J.  Winthrop Davis” is the name painted in big, black letters on a pine board nailed to his cabin door, although nobody ever takes the trouble to call him anything but “Win.”  After seeing that doorplate, you will hardly need to hear his nasal intonation to know that he came from the land of the tutelary codfish.