They are very small and helpless things, and it is some
time after she leaves her winter home before they can follow her for any
distance. They stay with her throughout the summer and the fall, leaving
her when the cold weather sets in. By this time they are well grown;
and hence, especially if an old male has joined the she, the family may
number three or four individuals, so as to make what seems like quite a
little troop of bears. A small ranchman who lived a dozen miles from me
on the Little Missouri once found a she-bear and three half-grown cubs
feeding at a berry-patch in a ravine. He shot the old she in the small
of the back, whereat she made a loud roaring and squealing. One of the
cubs rushed towards her; but its sympathy proved misplaced, for she
knocked it over with a hearty cuff, either out of mere temper, or
because she thought her pain must be due to an unprovoked assault from
one of her offspring. The hunter then killed one of the cubs, and the
other two escaped. When bears are together and one is wounded by a
bullet, but does not see the real assailant, it often falls tooth and
nail upon its comrade, apparently attributing its injury to the latter.
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