'That must be a pretty strong grin,' said Alvin Maker. 'My name's Alvin. I'm a journeyman blacksmith.'

'Ain't much call for a smith in these parts. Plenty of better land farther west, more settlers, you ought to try it.' The fellow was still talking through his grin.

'I might,' said Alvin. 'What's your name?'

'Hold still now,' says the grinning man. 'Stay right where you are. He's a-coming down.'

The bear yawned, then clambered down the trunk and rested on all fours, his head swinging back and forth, keeping time to whatever music it is that bears hear. The fur around his mouth was shiny with honey and dotted with dead bees. Whatever the bear was thinking, after a while he was done, whereupon he stood on his hind legs like a man, his paws high, his mouth open like a baby showing its mama it swallowed its food.

The grinning man rose up on his hind legs, then, and spread his arms, just like the bear, and opened his mouth to show a fine set of teeth for a human, but it wasn't no great shakes compared to bear's teeth. Still, the bear seemed convinced. It bent back down to the ground and ambled away without complaint into the brush.

'That's my tree now,' said the grinning man.

'Ain't much of a tree,' said Alvin.

'Honey's about all et up,' added Arthur Stuart.

'My tree and all the land round about,' said the grinning man.

'And what you plan to do with it? You don't look to be a farmer.'

'I plan to sleep here,' said the grinning man. 'And my intention was to sleep without no bear coming along to disturb my slumber. So I had to tell him who was boss.'

'And that's all you do with that knack of yours?' asked Arthur Stuart. 'Make bears get out of the way?'

'I sleep under bearskin in winter,' said the grinning man. 'So when I grin a bear, it stays grinned till I done what I'm doing.'