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 black snout all purple-streaked with the juices of the berries it had been devouring. Yes, it was clear the bear was sleeping soundly, well stuffed with food and well content with the warm sun. The Homeless One had never before enjoyed such a chance to examine a bear at close quarters. It almost looked to him as if that bear was dead. A shrewd blue jay in a neighboring bush shrieked a note of warning. It was ignored. The Homeless One hopped closer and closer, investigating the monster with eyes and nose alike intensely interested. All at once, a huge, black paw, armed with mighty claws, swept down upon him with the speed of a trained boxer's fist. But the Homeless One was no such fool as the blue jay had taken him to be. When that murderous paw descended he was no longer just there but some seven or eight feet away and waving his long ears innocently. The bear, trying to look unconcerned, fell to munching blueberries again; and the Homeless One hopped off with his curiosity quite satisfied.

It was not until November came, with its biting sleet showers, its snows that fell, rested a few days, and vanished, its spells of sharp frost and sudden, bone-reaching cold, that the Homeless One began really to suffer the penalties of his inherited incapacity to make or find himself a