THE PINTO PONY
FUZZY-WUZZ, like all bears, old or young, was fond of trout, and these
autumn days it was his great delight to fish the creek.
Earlier in the year the stream had been so high that he could not have
done this, but now it came no more than neck high along the banks, as
he stood with barbed paw outspread, ready to spear the first fingerling
that came along.
He was there fishing the day that Bucky, the young burro, got his first
swimming lesson. Where the bridge crossed the creek it was deeper. It
was where the children came to swim. This time Bucky protested as he
had before when they came to the bridge. Then he got the surprise of
his life. The Ranger simply picked the little gray beast up in his
arms and flung him overboard into the pool.
You never in all your life saw such a surprised animal as young Bucky.
But did he drown? Not a bit of it. Every animal--except the human--can
swim if it has to, and Bucky simply struck out for shore with all fours.
Always thereafter he crossed the bridge willingly enough.
(How it did make Fuzzy’s little black eyes twinkle. For he had not
forgotten when Bucky bucked him off.)
Another thing interested him, too. (For there is nothing in all the
woods so curious as a bear cub). That was when the Ranger taught the
pinto pony to walk a log.
Away off there in the high Sierras, it is often necessary for a man’s
horse to make his way up and down steep slopes, over fallen tree trunks
and over streams where there is no bridge. Sometimes a horse can swim,
but where there is a log across a stream, those mountain-bred ponies
are taught to cross the log.
First the Ranger found a log that had fallen on a bit of level
ground,--a big log that would have been wide enough for two ponies to
walk abreast upon. Over this he led Pinto,--as he had named the pony
from the large white patches on his brown coat. That log did not seem
alarming.
Next the Ranger laid a log across a shallow arm of the creek where, if
Pinto had fallen off, he would not have wetted more than his ankles.
That was all right, too, thought Pinto.
As the final stage in his training, the Ranger led him along a log that
crossed one end of the old swimming hole, where it was really deep. But
Pinto had by this time learned to trust both his master and the logs,
and he crossed unafraid.
Now Fuzzy-Wuzz had followed the creek up-stream till he was so high
up the mountain side that the stony creek bed was all dry except for
a mere trickle, and an occasional pool. He now proceeded to explore
down-stream.
Here the rocks were all hollowed out in smooth, round bowls, some of
them as big as wash tubs, some only the size of finger bowls, and a
few as large around as a dining-table.
When the snows melted in the spring, bringing with them a flood of
rushing water and grinding stones, the stones had been swirled around
and around till they had ground out these rock basins. The swimming
hole was just a huge rock basin.
As Fuzzy came to deeper water, he met every here and there a
make-believe waterfall. Sometimes he plunged over it head foremost, and
sometimes his feet slipped out from under him before he was ready, and
over the falls he went, landing in the pool beneath, and being swirled
around in the rushing waters till he was half drowned.
But even a small cub is a good swimmer, and most of the time he really
enjoyed the excitement.
These autumn days, however, he was to learn a new way of swimming. Now
that the worst danger of forest fires was over and the Ranger had more
leisure, he took two weeks off and the whole family went on a camping
trip to a grove of Big Trees, and Fuzzy-Wuzz went with them.
Dapple was left to browse with the cattle, and Clickety-Clack was
given the freedom of the barn; while the Ranger, his wife and boy
rode horseback, and the little girl behind her father. The brown bear
cub was placed on top of the pack Bucky’s mother carried. Young Bucky
followed after.