Free Mountain Storms by Max Brand

such an amazing amount of ground.
    The strange thing was that the cubs could keep pace, but it seemed to require no particular effort of them, whereas Tommy was completely winded before the first hour had ended. Something must be done. A roll in the grass had cleaned the mud from the bruin’s back, and that suggested an expedient to Tommy. He approached her, when she was starting on after a slight pause during which she had ripped a rotten log to pieces and hunted for grubs inside it, to small purpose. When he dropped a hand on her back, she stopped short and swung her great head around. And when, cautiously, he slipped onto her back, she shrugged her shoulders and shook the loose skin so violently that he was promptly knocked on the farther side.
    He got up a little bewildered and found her turned about, sniffing him curiously. Once more he tried the experiment, and this time she allowed him to sit astride her without objection. So, strangely mounted, up the slope they went together, swinging on at a gait that covered the ground with an amazing rapidity.
    The heart swelled in Tommy. Surely he was the first who had ever been able to mount so strange a charger! To be sure, once or twice she paused and swung her head back at him with a growl of annoyance, but on the whole that burden was too small to impede her, and finally she went on contentedly. When she paused to dig for roots, or when she scented a woodchuck and began to claw through the dirt to rout the little fellow out of his hole, Tommy slipped down from her back and stood aside to watch. But, when she climbed on again up a slope, he resumed his place at her back. There was no objection.
    For one thing, food was coming the way of the bruin thick and fast that morning. New scents, mingled scents of food trails, were crowding upon her. Besides, there was deeply engraved in her mind the memory that he had fed her when she was helpless. Freedom and food, the two main essentials of existence, had come to her from his hand, and even the brute intelligence of the bear could not forget.
    That was the first of a hundred expeditions with the bruin. During the hundred days Tommy felt that the bear must have covered easily thirty miles a day, in spite of all her pauses. She was a tireless traveler, rarely breaking out of her ordinary, scuffling walk, but swinging on at an astonishing rate, even in that walk. An unending hunger urged her to continue that journey so long as she remained unwearied. But weariness seemed to be no part of her makeup. Tommy saw her once work a whole hour digging out a woodchuck on a mountainside, tearing out the loose stones and standing up and piling the stones with her paws as deftly as a man could have done—stones that a man could not have budged. So, tearing out the stones and piling them, digging out the dirt with her powerful claws, she worked down until she had moved a carload of heavy material—and the reward of all that tremendous labor was a single little wood-chuck wriggling out of the dirt—a single mouthful for the big bear.
    But it was food, and every mouthful of food was worth working for. Tommy learned something from that—something to stir his gratitude. Wise and patient forager she was, it took a day’s work to supply her with provisions, but he, at a stroke, could supply himself with a meal. There was one serious impediment. He could not carry a gun with him when he went traveling with the bruin. If he carried the revolver, she would permit him to attend, but he could not ride her up the hills. The scent of the detested steel would make her rear up, growling terrific threats, if he attempted to come too near. So he left the gun behind him. All he carried was matches. During the day, it was usually possible to rescue part of a rabbit from the grizzly after she had surprised one. It sometimes angered her, to be sure, but Tommy learned to pick his time, and, if it were after she had been foraging long and