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.