SINCE I had heard of the Bear's Night, I wanted to know more about these animals and their habits. After our supper, I said to Jakob, "Talk about bears to me—tell me about them." "All right," he replied. "I will tell you all I know about them."

"At the end of the summer and before the first fall of snow," he began, "the bears are very fat, for they have had plenty of berries and roots to eat. They are so fat that they can stand the long fast during the Bear's Night; but when they go out in the spring from their snow cover, they are very lean. We dread the bear more in the spring than during any part of the summer, for he is voraciously hungry all the time and goes after cattle, horses, sheep, or reindeer."

"I do not wonder at their being hungry, for the poor bear has to make up for his long fast," I said.

Jakob continued: "The bear chooses a place in which he can lie comfortably, such as under boulders or fallen trees, where he can be protected from the snow. He becomes suspicious after he has chosen the place for his Winter's Night, and for days he walks round and round to see that there is no danger and to make sure that no enemy can see him. He wants to feel perfectly safe before he goes into winter quarters. By walking round wherever the wind blows, he is sure to scent danger, and if he does he moves away and goes to seek some other place. The bear is very wary; it is almost impossible in summer to pursue him without dogs, for he is so quick of foot and always on the alert, that when a hunter sees one he has to be more wary than the bear to approach within shooting distance of him. When badly wounded he attacks his enemy suddenly."

After Jakob had done speaking, I said to him, in my turn: "Let me tell you a bear story. One autumn day when I had crossed the mountains by the great Sulitelma glacier and was descending the eastern slope on my way to the Gulf of Bothnia, my Lapp guide and I saw a big brown bear in the distance, but as it was almost dark we decided not to go after him, for the country was very stony. We camped that day in a forest of pines, in order to be sheltered from the wind, for we were to sleep without a fire so as not to make the bear suspicious. After taking our frugal meal of hard bread and butter, my Lapp said to me, 'To-morrow we shall see the bear; it is late in the season, and I am sure that he is looking for his winter quarters in the neighborhood, and at the first indication of a big snowstorm he will make ready for his long sleep, for the bears know when a snowstorm is coming.'

"'How can they know?' I inquired.

"'I cannot tell you, for I do not know,' he replied, 'for I am not a bear; but they do know. Do not the swallows and other migrating birds know the approach of winter and then fly southward?'

"'They do,' I replied.

"That day we were very tired, for we had been tramping all day, down and up hills and leaping over boulders which covered the country in many places, and the wonder to me was that we did not break our necks.

"The place we had chosen for the night was by a big boulder almost as large as a small house. There we could be sheltered against the cold wind of the night that came through the trees. I picked out a stone for a pillow, then stretched myself by the side of the boulder on thick lichen that grew over the barren soil, and made a comfortable bed. My guide did likewise. Then we bade each other good-night and soon fell asleep.

"The next morning we wandered in the neighborhood where we had seen the bear, but that day we did not find him; then we moved in the direction whither we thought he had gone. That evening we saw another boulder some twelve or fifteen feet high. 'This will be a fine place of shelter for the night,' I said to the Lapp. He replied, 'It is just the place we want. If the wind shifts we will shift also, so as to be protected.'

"I lay flat along the boulder on the thick reindeer moss, the Lapp did likewise, and soon after we fell asleep with the pure bracing wind of the mountains blowing over our faces.

"The next morning we saw the bear; he was a long way from us. The Lapp said to me, 'I think the bear expects to winter round here; we must watch him and follow him.' Soon after the bear disappeared.

"'Do you think he has scented us?' I asked. 'I do not see how he could,' my guide replied, 'the wind is in the wrong direction for that. He has gone for some reason of his own, you may be sure. There may have been people on the other side of the hill and he has scented them.'

"We moved all round our boulder to scan the country, but there was no bear in sight as far as our eyes could reach. After a while I noticed a small black spot on the top of a hill. It was the bear; he was looking all round. He then walked away and disappeared. Soon he appeared again, and we saw him walk round and round a cluster of pines. The Lapp said: 'The bear is walking, making a ring in that manner. He tries to find out if there is any danger for him, and by walking round he is sure to get the wind, no matter from what direction it comes. Sometimes the bear will try a number of places for several days before he selects one.'

"'How clever the bears are to walk around in that manner,' I said.

"Suddenly the bear disappeared. 'He has scented us,' said the Lapp, 'and I think he will never come back here. We have eaten all the food we have with us. We shall have to feed on berries the rest of our way. This bear will probably remain in this region and take up his winter quarters around here somewhere. I will find out where he will lie. Come to me early in the spring, before the snow melts, and we will kill him.'

"'All right,' I replied; but the following spring, I regret to say, I was travelling in another part of the country, but I heard that Bruin met his fate at the hands of my Lapp when he aroused himself from his long sleep and came out from under the snow."

The bears in Sweden, Norway, and Finland are very fine animals and attain great size. They vary in the color of their fur, some being almost black, but generally they are of different shades of brown. I think they rank in size next to the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains. They are sometimes dangerous, but not so much so as the grizzly.