Seldom would she charge a group of four or more people. The threat to her and hers was perceived as too great to overcome and she would run away. That was why the park suggested backpackers never hike alone.

The bear under discussion had been surprised by two hikers, charged them, mauled them-"Couldn't be too bad," Joan said, "they walked out"-then fled up the trail and smack into unfortunate hiker number three.

"Nobody died," Joan pointed out. "If the bear wanted them dead, they'd be dead. If the bear wanted to eat them, they'd be dragged off and eaten, their remains cached in a shallow hole and covered over for later. Ergo,the bear did not want to kill them. Ergo, the bear did not want to eat them."

From the look on Rory's face, all he'd heard was "kill them and eat them." Since they'd been on the trail he'd been peering into the woods like a man being stalked.

If a bear had been watching or following, there was no doubt in Anna's mind that they'd never know it was there. Because Glacier was blessed with a heavy snowpack in winter and afternoon rains throughout the short summer, it lacked the open, cathedral aspect of the woods on the eastern slope of the Sierra or the southern tip of the Cascades. In Glacier, the forest floor was thick with dead and down trees, never burned, never logged, fallen in places as thick as pick-up sticks in the child's game. Fern, huckleberry, bearberry, service berry, the shoulder-high broad-leafed thimbleberry, and a plethora of plants Anna couldn't put a name to, tangled in the cross-hatching of rotting timber.