By this time Copple had been permitted a long breathing spell, and now

began a tale calculated to outdo the Arabian Nights. I envied his most

remarkable imagination. His story had to do with hunting meat for a

mining camp in Mexico. He got so expert with a rifle that he never aimed

at deer. Just threw his gun, as was a habit of gun-fighters! Once the

camp was out of meat, and also he was out of ammunition. Only one shell

left! He came upon a herd of deer licking salt at a deer lick. They were

small deer and he wanted several or all of them. So he manoeuvred around

and waited until five of the deer had lined up close together. Then, to

make sure, he aimed so as to send his one bullet through their necks.

Killed the whole five in one shot!

We were all reduced to a state of mute helplessness and completely at

Copple's mercy. Next he gave us one of his animal tales. He was hunting

along the gulf shore on the coast of Sonora, where big turtles come out

to bask in the sun and big jaguars come down to prowl for meat. One

morning he saw a jaguar jump on the back of a huge turtle, and begin to

paw at its neck. Promptly the turtle drew in head and flippers, and was

safe under its shell. The jaguar scratched and clawed at a great rate,

but to no avail. Then the big cat turned round and seized the tail of

the turtle and began to chew it. Whereupon the turtle stuck out its

head, opened its huge mouth and grasped the tail of the jaguar. First to

give in was the cat. He let go and let out a squall. But the turtle

started to crawl off, got going strong, and dragged the jaguar into the

sea and drowned him. With naive earnestness Copple assured his mute

listeners that he could show them the exact spot in Sonora where this

happened.

Retribution inevitably overtakes transgressors. Copple in his immense

loquaciousness was not transgressing much, for he really was no greater

dreamer than I, but the way he put things made us want to see the mighty

hunter have a fall.

We rested the hounds next day, and I was glad to rest myself. About

sunset Copple rode up to the rim to look for his mules. We all heard him

shoot eight times with his rifle and two with his revolver. Everybody

said: "Turkeys! Ten turkeys--maybe a dozen, if Copple got two in line!"

And we were all glad to think so. We watched eagerly for him, but he did

not return till dark. He seemed vastly sore at himself. What a

remarkable hard luck story he told! He had come upon a flock of turkeys,

and they were rather difficult to see. All of them were close, and

running fast. He shot eight times at eight turkeys and missed them all.

Too dark--brush--trees--running like deer. Copple had a dozen excuses.

Then he saw a turkey on a log ten feet away. He shot twice. The turkey

was a knot, and he had missed even that.

Thereupon I seized my opportunity and reminded all present how Copple

had called out: "Turkey number one! Turkey number two!" the day I had

missed so many. Then I said:

"Ben, you must have yelled out to-night like this." And I raised my

voice high.

"Turkey number one--Nix!... Turkey number two--missed, by Gosh!...

Turkey number three--never touched him!... Turkey number four--No!...

Turkey number five--_Aw, I'm shootin' blank shells_!... Turkey number

six on the log--BY THUNDER, I CAN'T SEE STRAIGHT!"

We all had our fun at Copple's expense. The old bear hunter, Haught,

rolled on the ground, over and over, and roared in his mirth.

VII

Early next morning before the sun had tipped the pines with gold I went

down Barber Shop Canyon with Copple to look for our horses. During the

night our stock had been chased by a lion. We had all been awakened by

their snorting and stampeding. We found our horses scattered, the burros

gone, and Copple's mules still squared on guard, ready to fight. Copple

assured me that this formation of his mules on guard was an infallible

sign of lions prowling around. One of these mules he had owned for ten

years and it was indeed the most intelligent beast I ever saw in the

woods.

We found three beaver dams across the brook, one about fifty feet long,

and another fully two hundred. Fresh turkey tracks showed in places, and

on the top of the longer dam, fresh made in the mud, were lion tracks as

large as the crown of my hat. How sight of them made me tingle all over!

Here was absolute proof of the prowling of one of the great cats.

Beaver tracks were everywhere. They were rather singular looking tracks,

the front feet being five-toed, and the back three-toed, and webbed.

Near the slides on the bank the water was muddy, showing that the beaver

had been at work early. These animals worked mostly at night, but

sometimes at sunset and sunrise. They were indeed very cautious and

wary. These dams had just been completed and no aspens had yet been cut

for food. Beaver usually have two holes to their home, one under the

water, and the other out on the bank. We found one of these outside

burrows and it was nearly a foot wide.

Upon our return to camp with the horses Haught said he could put up that

lion for us, and from the size of its track he judged it to be a big

one. I did not want to hunt lions and R.C. preferred to keep after

bears. "Wal," said Haught, "I'll take an off day an' chase thet lion.

Had a burro killed here a couple of years ago."

So we rode out with the hounds on another bear hunt. Pyle's Canyon lay

to the east of Dude Creek, and we decided to run it that day. Edd and

Nielsen started down with the hounds. Copple and I followed shortly

afterward with the intention of descending mid-way, and then working

along the ridge crests and promontories. The other boys remained on the

rim to take up various stands as occasion called for.

I had never been on as steep slopes as these under the rim. They were

grassy, brushy, rocky, but it was their steepness that made them so hard

to travel. Right off, half way down, we started a herd of bucks. The

noise they made sounded like cattle. We found tracks of half a dozen.

"Lots of deer under the rim," declared Copple, his eyes gleaming.

"They're feedin' on acorns. Here's where you'll get your big buck."

After that I kept a sharp lookout, arguing with myself that a buck close

at hand was worth a lot of bears down in the brush.

Presently we changed a direct descent to work gradually along the slopes

toward a great level bench covered with pines. We had to cross gravel

patches and pits where avalanches had slid, and at last, gaining the

bench we went through the pine grove, out to a manzanita thicket, to a

rocky point where the ledges were toppling and dangerous. The stand here

afforded a magnificent view. We were now down in the thick of this

sloped and canyoned and timbered wildness; no longer above it, and aloof

from it. The dry smell of pine filled the air. When we finally halted to

listen we at once heard the baying of the hounds in the black notch

below us. We watched and listened. And presently across open patches we

saw the flash of deer, and then Rock and Buck following them. Thus were

my suspicions of Rock fully confirmed. Copple yelled down to Edd that

some of the hounds were running deer, but apparently Edd was too far

away to hear.

Still, after a while we heard the mellow tones of Edd's horn, calling in

the hounds. And then he blew the signal to acquaint all of us above that

he was going down around the point to drive the next canyon. Copple and

I had to choose between climbing back to the rim or trying to cross the

slopes and head the gorges, and ascend the huge ridge that separated

Pyle's Canyon from the next canyon. I left the question to Copple, with

the result that we stayed below.

We were still high up, though when we gazed aloft at the rim we felt so

far down, and the slopes were steep, stony, soft in places and slippery

in others, with deep cuts and patches of manzanita. No stranger was I to

this beautiful treacherous Spanish brush! I shared with Copple a dislike

of it almost equal to that inspired by cactus. We soon were hot, dusty,

dry, and had begun to sweat. The immense distances of the place were

what continually struck me. Distances that were deceptive--that looked

short and were interminable! That was Arizona. We covered miles in our

detours and we had to travel fast because we knew Edd could round the

base of the lower points in quick time.

Above the head of the third gorge Copple and I ran across an enormous

bear track, fresh in the dust, leading along an old bear trail. This

track measured twelve inches. "He's an old Jasper, as Haught says,"

declared Copple. "Grizzly. An' you can bet he heard the dogs an' got

movin' away from here. But he ain't scared. He was walkin'."

I forgot the arduous toil. How tight and cool and prickling the feel of

my skin! The fresh track of a big grizzly would rouse the hunter in any

man. We made sure how fresh this track was by observing twigs and sprigs

of manzanita just broken. The wood was green, and wet with sap. Old

Bruin had not escaped our eyes any too soon. We followed this bear

trail, evidently one used for years. It made climbing easy for us. Trust

a big, heavy, old grizzly to pick out the best traveling over rough

country! This fellow, I concluded, had the eye of a surveyor. His trail

led gradually toward a wonderful crag-crowned ridge that rolled and

heaved down from the rim. It had a dip or saddle in the middle, and rose

from that to the lofty mesa, and then on the lower side, rose to a bare,

round point of gray rock, a landmark, a dome-shaped tower where the gods

of that wild region might have kept their vigil.

Long indeed did it take us to climb up the bear trail to where it

crossed the saddle and went down on the other side into a canyon so deep

and wild that it was purple. This saddle was really a remarkable

place--a natural trail and outlet and escape for bears traveling from

one canyon to another. Our bear tracks showed fresh, and we saw where

they led down a steep, long, dark aisle between pines and spruces to a

dense black thicket below. The saddle was about twenty feet wide, and on

each side of it rose steep rocks, affording most effective stands for a

hunter to wait and watch.

We rested then, and listened. There was only a little wind, and often

it fooled us. It sounded like the baying of hounds, and now like the

hallooing of men, and then like the distant peal of a horn. By and bye

Copple said he heard the hounds. I could not be sure. Soon we indeed

heard the deep-sounding, wild bay of Old Dan, the course, sharp, ringing

bay of Old Tom, and then, less clear, the chorus from the other hounds.

Edd had started them on a trail up this magnificent canyon at our feet.

After a while we heard Edd's yell, far away, but clear: "Hi! Hi!" We

could see a part of the thicket, shaggy and red and gold; and a mile or

more of the opposite wall of the canyon. No rougher, wilder place could

have been imagined than this steep slope of bluffs, ledges, benches, all

matted with brush, and spotted with pines. Holes and caves and cracks

showed, and yellow blank walls, and bronze points, and green slopes, and

weathered slides.

Soon the baying of the hounds appeared to pass below and beyond us, up

the canyon to our right, a circumstance that worried Copple. "Let's go

farther up," he kept saying. But I was loath to leave that splendid

stand. The baying of the hounds appeared to swing round closer under us;

to ring, to swell, to thicken until it was a continuous and melodious,

wild, echoing roar. The narrowing walls of the canyon threw the echoes

back and forth.

Presently I espied moving dots, one blue, one brown, on the opposite

slope. They were Haught and his son Edd slowly and laboriously climbing

up the steep bluff. How like snails they climbed! Theirs was indeed a

task. A yell pealed out now and then, and though it seemed to come from

an entirely different direction it surely must have come from the

Haughts. Presently some one high on the rim answered with like yells.

The chase was growing hotter.

"They've got a bear up somewhere," cried Copple, excitedly. And I

agreed with him.

Then we were startled by the sharp crack of a rifle from the rim.

"The ball's open! Get your pardners, boys," exclaimed Copple, with

animation.

"Ben, wasn't that a.30 Gov't?" I asked.

"Sure was," he replied. "Must have been R.C. openin' up. Now look

sharp!"

I gazed everywhere, growing more excited and thrilled. Another shot from

above, farther off and from a different rifle, augmented our stirring

expectation.

Copple left our stand and ran up over the ridge, and then down under and

along the base of a rock wall. I had all I could do to keep up with him.

We got perhaps a hundred yards when we heard the spang of Haught's.30

Gov't. Following this his big, hoarse voice bawled out: "He's goin' to

the left--to the left!" That sent us right about face, to climbing,

scrambling, running and plunging back to our first stand at the saddle,

where we arrived breathless and eager.

Edd was climbing higher up, evidently to reach the level top of the

bluff above, and Haught was working farther up the canyon, climbing a

little. Copple yelled with all his might: "Where's the bear?"

"Bar everywhar!" pealed back Haught's stentorian voice. How the echoes

clapped!

Just then Copple electrified me with a wild shout. "_Wehow_! I see

him.... What a whopper!" He threw up his rifle:

_spang_--_spang_--_spang_--_spang_--_spang_.

His aim was across the canyon. I heard his bullets strike. I strained my

eyes in flashing gaze everywhere. "Where? Where?" I cried, wildly.

"There!" shouted Copple, keenly, and he pointed across the canyon. "He's

goin' over the bench--above Edd.... Now he's out of sight. Watch just

over Edd. He'll cross that bench, go round the head of the little

canyon, an' come out on the other side, under the bare bluff.... Watch

sharp-right by that big spruce with the dead top.... He's a grizzly an'

as big as a horse".

I looked until my eyes hurt. All I said was: "Ben, you saw game first

to-day". Suddenly a large, dark brown object, furry and grizzled, huge

and round, moved out of the shadow under the spruce and turned to go

along the edge in the open sunlight.

"Oh! look at him!" I yelled. A strong, hot gust of blood ran all over me

and I thrilled till I shook. When I aimed at the bear I could see him

through the circle of my peep sight, but when I moved the bead of the

front sight upon him it almost covered him up. The distance was

far--more than a thousand yards--over half a mile--we calculated

afterward. But I tried to draw a bead on the big, wagging brown shape

and fired till my rifle was empty.

Meanwhile Copple had reloaded. "You watch while I shoot," he said. "Tell

me where I'm hittin'."

Wonderful was it to see how swiftly he could aim and shoot. I saw a puff

of dust. "Low, Ben!" Spang rang his rifle. "High!" Again he shot, wide

this time. He emptied his magazine. "Smoke him now!" he shouted,

gleefully. "I'll watch while you shoot."

"It's too far, Ben," I replied, as I jammed the last shell in the

receiver.

"No--no. It's only we don't hold right. Aim a little coarse," said

Copple. "Gee, ain't he some bear! 'No scared tall' as the Jap says....

He's one of the old sheep-killers. He'll weigh half a ton. Smoke him

now!"

My excitement was intense. It seemed, however, I was most consumed with

admiration for that grizzly. Not in the least was he afraid. He walked

along the rough places, trotted along the ledges, and here and there he

halted to gaze below him. I waited for one of these halts, aimed a

trifle high, and fired. The grizzly made a quick, angry movement and

then jumped up on a ledge. He jumped like a rabbit.

"You hit close that time," yelled Ben. "Hold the same way--a little

coarser."

My next bullet struck a puff from rock above the bear, and my third,

hitting just in front of him, as he was on a yellow ledge, covered him

with dust. He reared, and wheeling, sheered back and down the step he

had mounted, and disappeared in a clump of brush. I shot into that. We

heard my bullet crack the twigs. But it routed him out, and then my last

shot hit far under him.

Copple circled his mouth with his hands and bellowed to the Haughts:

"Climb! Climb! Hurry! Hurry! He's just above you--under that bluff."

The Haughts heard, and evidently tried to do all in their power, but

they moved like snails. Then Copple fired five more shots, quick, yet

deliberate, and he got through before I had reloaded; and as I began my

third magazine Copple was so swift in reloading that his first shot

mingled with my second. How we made the welkin ring! Wild yells pealed

down from the rim. Somewhere from the purple depths below Nielsen's

giant's voice rolled up. The Haughts opposite answered with their deep,

hoarse yells. Old Dan and Old Tom bayed like distant thunder. The young

hounds let out a string of sharp, keen yelps. Copple added his Indian

cry, high-pitched and wild, to the pandemonium. But I could not shoot

and screech at one and the same time.

"Hurry, Ben," I said, as I finished my third set of five shots, the

last shot of which was my best and knocked dirt in the face of the

grizzly.

Again he reared. This time he appeared to locate our direction. Above

the bedlam of yells and bays and yelps and echoes I imagined I heard the

grizzly roar. He was now getting farther along the base of the bluff,

and I saw that he would escape us. My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My

fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last

chance had fled! But Copple's big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his

magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the

base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap

forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had

reloaded. Some of these hit close to our quarry. The old grizzly slowed

up, and looked across, and wagged his huge head.

"My gun's on fire all right," said Copple, grimly, as he loaded still

more rapidly. Carefully he aimed and pulled trigger. The grizzly gave a

spasmodic jerk as if stung and suddenly he made a prodigious leap off a

ledge, down into a patch of brush, where he threshed like a lassoed

elephant.

"Ben, you hit him!" I yelled, excitedly.

"Only made him mad. He's not hurt.... See, he's up again.... Will you

look at that!"

The grizzly appeared to roll out of the brush, and like a huge furry

ball of brown, he bounced down the thicketed slope to an open slide

where he unrolled, and stretched into a run. Copple got two more shots

before he was out of sight.

"Gone!" ejaculated Copple. "An' we never fetched him!... He ain't hurt.

Did you see him pile down an' roll off that slope?... Let's see. I got

twenty-three shots at him. How many had you?"

"I had fifteen."

"Say, it was some fun, wasn't it--smokin' him along there? But we ought

to have fetched the old sheep-killer.... Wonder what's happened to the

other fellows."

We looked about us. Not improbably the exciting moments had been few in

number, yet they seemed long indeed. The Haughts had gotten to the top

of the bluff, and were tearing through the brush toward the point Copple

had designated. They reached it too late.

"Where is he?" yelled Edd.

"Gone!" boomed Copple. "Runnin' down the canyon. Call the dogs an' go

down after him."

When the Haughts came out into the open upon that bench one of the pups

and the spotted hound, Rock, were with them. Old Dan and old Tom were

baying up at the head of the canyon, and Sue could be heard yelping

somewhere else. Bear trails seemingly were abundant near our

whereabouts. Presently the Haughts disappeared at the back of the bench

where the old grizzly had gone down, and evidently they put the two

hounds on his trail.

"That grizzly will climb over round the lower end of this ridge,"

declared Copple. "We want to be there."

So we hurriedly left our stand, and taking to the South side of the

ridge, we ran and walked and climbed and plunged down along the slope.

Keeping up with Copple on foot was harder than riding after Edd and

George. When soon we reached a manzanita thicket I could no longer keep

Copple in sight. He was so powerful that he just crashed through, but I

had to worm my way, and walk over the tops of the bushes, like a

tight-rope performer. Of all strong, thick, spiky brush manzanita was

the worst.

In half an hour I joined Copple at the point under the dome-topped end

of the ridge, only to hear the hounds apparently working back up the

canyon. There was nothing for us to do but return to our stand at the

saddle. Copple hurried faster than ever. But I had begun to tire and I

could not keep up with him. But as I had no wild cravings to meet that

old grizzly face to face all by myself in a manzanita thicket I did

manage by desperate efforts to keep the Indian in sight. When I reached

our stand I was wet and exhausted. After the hot, stifling, dusty glare

of the yellow slope and the burning of the manzanita brush, the cool

shade was a welcome change.

Somewhere all the hounds were baying. Not for some time could we locate

the Haughts. Finally with the aid of my glass we discovered them perched

high upon the bluff above where our grizzly had gone round. It appeared

that Edd was pointing across the canyon and his father was manifesting a

keen interest. We did not need the glass then to tell that they saw a

bear. Both leveled their rifles and fired, apparently across the canyon.

Then they stood like statues.

"I'll go down into the thicket," said Copple. "Maybe I can get a shot.

An' anyway I want to see our grizzly's tracks." With that he started

down, and once on the steep bear trail he slid rather than walked, and

soon was out of my sight. After that I heard him crashing through

thicket and brush. Soon this sound ceased. The hounds, too, had quit

baying and the wind had lulled. Not a rustle of a leaf! All the hunters

were likewise silent. I enjoyed a lonely hour there watching and

listening, not however without apprehensions of a bear coming along.

Certain I was that this canyon, which I christened Bear Canyon, had been

full of bears.

At length I espied Copple down on the edge of the opposite slope. The

way he toiled along proved how rough was the going. I watched him

through my glasses, and was again impressed with the strange difference

between the semblance of distance and the reality. Every few steps

Copple would halt to rest. He had to hold on to the brush and in the

bare places where he could not reach a bush he had to dig his heels into

the earth to keep from sliding down. In time he ascended to the place

where our grizzly had rolled down, and from there he yelled up to the

Haughts, high above him. They answered, and soon disappeared on the far

side of the bluff. Copple also disappeared going round under the wall of

yellow rock. Perhaps in fifteen minutes I heard them yell, and then a

wild clamor of the hounds. Some of the pack had been put on the trail of

our grizzly; but gradually the sound grew farther away.

This was too much for me. I decided to go down into the canyon.

Forthwith I started. It was easy to go down! As a matter of fact it was

hard not to slide down like a streak. That long, dark, narrow aisle

between the spruces had no charm for me anyway. Suppose I should meet a

bear coming up as I was sliding down! I sheered off and left the trail,

and also Copple's tracks. This was a blunder. I came out into more open

slope, but steeper, and harder to cling on. Ledges cropped out, cliffs

and ravines obstructed my passage and trees were not close enough to

help me much. Some long slopes of dark, mossy, bare earth I actually ran

down, trusting to light swift steps rather than slow careful ones. It

was exhilarating, that descent under the shady spruces. The lower down I

got the smaller and more numerous the trees. I could see where they left

off to the dense thicket that choked the lower part of the v-shaped

canyon. And I was amazed at the size and density of that jungle of scrub

oaks, maples and aspens. From above the color was a blaze of scarlet and

gold and green, with bronze tinge.

Presently I crossed a fresh bear track, so fresh that I could see the

dampness of the dark earth, the rolling of little particles, the

springing erect of bent grasses. In some places big sections of earth, a

yard wide had slipped under the feet of this particular bear. He

appeared to be working down. Right then I wanted to go up! But I could

not climb out there. I had to go down. Soon I was under low-spreading,

dense spruces, and I had to hold on desperately to keep from sliding.

All the time naturally I kept a keen lookout for a bear. Every stone and

tree trunk resembled a bear. I decided if I met a grizzly that I would

not annoy him on that slope. I would say: "Nice bear, I won't hurt you!"

Still the situation had some kind of charm. But to claim I was not

frightened would not be strictly truthful. I slid over the trail of that

bear into the trail of another one, and under the last big spruce on

that part of the slope I found a hollow nest of pine needles and leaves,

and if that bed was not still warm then my imagination lent considerable

to the moment.

Beyond this began the edge of the thicket. It was small pine at first,

so close together that I had to squeeze through, and as dark as

twilight. The ground was a slant of brown pine needles, so slippery,

that if I could not have held on to trees and branches I never would

have kept my feet. In this dark strip I had more than apprehensions.

What a comfortable place to encounter an outraged or wounded grizzly

bear! The manzanita thicket was preferable. But as Providence would have

it I did not encounter one.

Soon I worked or wormed out of the pines into the thicket of scrub oaks,

maples and aspens. The change was welcome. Not only did the slope

lengthen out, but the light changed from gloom to gold. There was half a

foot of scarlet, gold, bronze, red and purple leaves on the ground, and

every step I made I kicked acorns about to rustle and roll. Bear sign

was everywhere, tracks and trails and beds and scratches. I kept going

down, and the farther down I got the lighter it grew, and more

approaching a level. One glade was strangely luminous and beautiful with

a blending of gold and purple light made by the sun shining through the

leaves overhead down upon the carpet of leaves on the ground. Then I

came into a glade that reminded me of Kipling's moonlight dance of the

wild elephants. Here the leaves and fern were rolled and matted flat,

smooth as if done by a huge roller. Bears and bears had lolled and slept

and played there. A little below this glade was a place, shady and cool,

where a seep of water came from under a bank. It looked like a herd of

cattle had stamped the earth, only the tracks were bear tracks. Little

ones no longer than a child's hand, and larger, up to huge tracks a foot

long and almost as wide. Many were old, but some were fresh. This little

spot smelled of bear so strongly that it reminded me of the bear pen in

the Bronx Park Zoological Garden. I had been keen for sight of bear

trails and scent of bear fur, but this was a little too much. I thought

it was too much because the place was lonely and dark and absolutely

silent. I went on down to the gully that ran down the middle of the

canyon. It was more open here. The sun got through, and there were some

big pines.

I could see the bluff that the Haughts had climbed so laboriously, and

now I understood why they had been so slow. It was straight up, brush

and jumbled rock, and two hundred feet over my head. Somewhere above

that bluff was the bluff where our bear had run along.

I rested and listened for the dogs. There was no wind to deceive me, but

I imagined I heard dogs everywhere. It seemed unwise for me to go on

down the canyon, for if I did not meet the men I would find myself lost.

As it was I would have my troubles climbing out.

I chose a part of the thicket some distance above where I had come down,

hoping to find it more open, if not less steep, and not so vastly

inhabited with bears. Lo and behold it was worse! It was thicker,

darker, wilder, steeper and there was, if possible, actually more bear

sign. I had to pull myself up by holding to the trees and branches. I

had to rest every few steps. I had to watch and listen all the time.

Half-way up the trunks of the aspens and oaks and maples were all bent

down-hill. They curved out and down before the rest of the tree stood

upright. And all the brush was flat, bending down hill, and absolutely

almost impassable. This feature of tree and brush was of course caused

by the weight of snow in winter. It would have been more interesting if

I had not been so anxious to get up. I grew hotter and wetter than I had

been in the manzanitas. Moreover, what with the labor and worry and

exhaustion, my apprehensions had increased. They increased until I had

to confess that I was scared. Once I heard a rustle and pad on the

leaves somewhere below. That made matters worse. Surely I would meet a

bear. I would meet him coming down-hill! And I must never shoot a bear

coming down-hill! Buffalo Jones had cautioned me on that score, so had

Scott Teague, the bear hunter of Colorado, and so had Haught. "Don't

never shoot no ole bar comin' down hill, 'cause if you do he'll just

roll up an' pile down on you!"

I climbed until my tongue hung out and my heart was likely to burst.

Then when I had to straddle a tree to keep from sliding down I got

desperate and mad and hoped an old grizzly would happen along to make an

end to my misery.

It took me an hour to climb up that part of the slope which constituted

the thicket of oak, maple and aspen. It was half-past three when finally

I reached the saddle where we had shot at the grizzly. I rested as long

as I dared. I had still a long way to go up that ridge to the rim, and

how did I know whether or not I could surmount it.

However, a good rest helped to revive strength and spirit. Then I

started. Once above the saddle I was out clear in the open, high above

the canyons, and the vast basin still farther below, yet far indeed

under the pine-fringed rim above. This climb was all over stone. The

ridge was narrow-crested, yellow, splintered rock, with a few dwarf

pines and spruces and an occasional bunch of manzanita. I did not hear a

sound that I did not make myself. Whatever had become of the hounds, and

the other hunters? The higher I climbed the more I liked it. After an

hour I was sure that I could reach the rim by this route, and of course

that stimulated me. To make sure, and allay doubt, I sat down on a high

backbone of bare rock and studied the heave and bulge of ridge above me.

Using my glasses I made sure that I could climb out. It would be a task

equal to those of lion-hunting days with Jones, and it made me happy to

realize that despite the intervening ten years I was still equal to the

task.

Once assured of this I grew acute to the sensations of the hour. This

was one of my especial joys of the open--to be alone high on some

promontory, above wild and beautiful scenery. The sun was still an hour

from setting, and it had begun to soften, to grow intense, and more

golden. There were clouds and lights that promised a magnificent sunset.

So I climbed on. When I stopped to rest I would shove a stone loose and

watch it heave and slide, and leap out and hurtle down, to make the

dust fly, and crash into the thickets, and eventually start an avalanche

that would roar down into the canyon.

The Tonto Basin seemed a vast bowl of rolling, rough, black ridges and

canyons, green and dark and yellow, with the great mountain ranges

enclosing it to south and west. The black-fringed promontories of the

rim, bold and rugged, leagues apart, stood out over the void. The colors

of autumn gleamed under the cliffs, everywhere patches of gold and long

slants of green and spots of scarlet and clefts of purple.

The last benches of that ridge taxed my waning strength. I had to step

up, climb up, pull myself up, by hand and knee and body. My rifle grew

to weigh a ton. My cartridge belt was a burden of lead around my waist.

If I had been hot and wet below in the thicket I wondered what I grew on

the last steps of this ridge. Yet even the toil and the pain held a keen

pleasure. I did not analyze my feelings then, but it was good to be

there.

The rim-rock came out to a point above me, seeming unscalable, all grown

over with brush and lichen, and stunted spruce. But by hauling myself

up, and crawling here, and winding under bridges of rock there, and

holding to the brush, at last, panting and spent, I reached the top.

I was ready to drop on the mats of pine needles and lie there,

unutterably grateful for rest, when I heard Old Tom baying, deep and

ringing and close. He seemed right under the rim on the side of the

ridge opposite to where I had climbed. I looked around. There was

George's horse tied to a pine, and farther on my own horse Stockings.

Then I walked to the rim and looked down into the gold and scarlet

thicket. Actually it seemed to me then, and always will seem, that the

first object I clearly distinguished was a big black bear standing in

an open aisle at the upper reach of the thicket close to the cliff. He

shone black as shiny coal. He was looking down into the thicket, as if

listening to the baying hound.

I could not repress an exclamation of surprise and thrilling excitement,

and I uttered it as I raised my rifle. Just the instant I saw his

shining fur through the circle of my rear sight he heard me and jumped,

and my bullet missed him. Like a black flash he was gone around a corner

of gray ledge.

"Well!" I ejaculated, suddenly weak. "After all this long day--to get a

chance like that--and miss!"

All that seemed left of that long day was the sunset, out of which I

could not be cheated by blunders or bad luck. Westward a glorious golden

ball blazed over the rim. Above that shone an intense belt of

color--Coleridge's yellow lightning--and it extended to a bank of cloud

that seemed transparent purple, and above all this flowed a sea of

purest blue sky with fleecy sails of pink and white and rose,

exquisitely flecked with gold.

Lost indeed was I to weariness and time until the gorgeous

transformation at last ended in dull gray. I walked along the rim, back

to where I had tied my horse. He saw me and whinnied before I located

the spot. I just about had strength enough left to straddle him. And

presently through the twilight shadows I caught a bright glimmer of our

camp-fire. Supper was ready; Takahashi grinned his concern away; all the

men were waiting for me; and like the Ancient Mariner I told my tale. As

I sat to a bountiful repast regaling myself, the talk of my companions

seemed absolutely satisfying.

George Haught, on a stand at the apex of the canyon, had heard and seen

a big brown bear climbing up through the thicket, and he had overshot

and missed. R.C. had espied a big black bear walking a slide some four

hundred yards down the canyon slope, and forgetting that he had a heavy

close-range shell in his rifle instead of one of high trajectory, he had

aimed accordingly, to undershoot half a foot and thus lose his

opportunity. Nielsen had been lost most of the day. It seemed everywhere

he heard yells and bays down in the canyon, and once he had heard a loud

rattling crash of a heavy bear tearing through the thicket. Edd told of

the fearful climb he and his father had made, how they had shot at the

grizzly a long way off, how funny another bear had rolled around in his

bed across the canyon. But the hounds got too tired to hold the trails

late in the day. And lastly Edd said: "When you an' Ben were smokin' the

grizzly I could hear the bullets hit close above us, an' I was sure

scared stiff for fear you'd roll him down on us. But father wasn't

scared. He said, 'let the old Jasper roll down! We'll assassinate him!'"

When the old bear hunter began to tell his part in the day's adventures

my pleasure was tinglingly keen and nothing was wanting on the moment

except that my boy Romer was not there to hear.

"Wal, shore it was an old bar day," said Haught, with quaint

satisfaction. His blue shirt, ragged and torn and black from brush,

surely attested to the truth of his words. "All told we seen five bars.

Two blacks, two browns an' the old Jasper. Some of them big fellars,

too. But we missed seein' the boss bar of this canyon. When Old Dan

opened up first off I wanted Edd to climb thet bluff. But Edd kept goin'

an' we lost our chance. Fer pretty soon we heard a bustin' of the brush.

My, but thet bar was rockin' her off. He knocked the brush like a wild

steer, an' he ran past us close--not a hundred yards. I never heard a

heavier bar. But we couldn't see him. Then Edd started up, an' thet

bluff was a wolf of a place. We was half up when I seen the grizzly thet

you an' Ben smoked afterward. He was far off, but Edd an' I lammed a

couple after him jest for luck. One of the pups was nippin' his heels.

Think it was Big Foot.... Wal, thet was all of thet. We plumb busted

ourselves gettin' on top of the bench to head off your bar. Only we

hadn't time. Then we worried along around to the top of thet higher

bluff an' there I was so played-out I thought my day had come. We kept

our eyes peeled, an' pretty soon I spied a big brown bar actin' queer in

an open spot across the canyon. Edd seen him too, an' we argued about

what thet bar was doin'. He lay in a small open place at the foot of a

spruce. He wagged his head slow an' he made as if to roll over, an' he

stretched his paws, an' acted shore queer. Edd said: 'Thet bar's

crippled. He's been shot by one of the boys, an' he's tryin' to get up.'

But I shore didn't exactly agree with Edd. So I was for watchin' him

some more. He looked like a sick bar--raisin' his head so slow an'

droppin' it so slow an' sort of twistin' his body. He looked like his

back had been broke an' he was tryin' to get up, but somehow I couldn't

believe thet. Then he lay still an' Edd swore he was dead. Shore I got

almost to believin' thet myself, when he waked up. An' then the old

scoundrel slid around lazy like a torn cat by the fire, and sort of

rolled on his back an' stretched. Next he slapped at himself with his

paws. If he wasn't sick he was shore actin' queer with thet canyon full

of crackin' guns an' bayin' hounds an' yellin' men. I begun to get

suspicious. Shore he must be a dyin' bear. So I said to Edd: 'Let's bast

him a couple just fer luck.' Wal, when we shot up jumped thet sick bar

quicker'n you could wink. An' he piled into the thicket while I was

goin' down after another shell.... It shore was funny. Thet old Jasper

never heard the racket, an' if he heard it he didn't care. He had a bed

in thet sunny spot an' he was foolin' around, playin' with himself like

a kitten. Playin'! An' Edd reckoned he was dyin' an' I come shore near

bein' fooled. The old Jasper! We'll assassinate him fer thet!"

VIII

Five more long arduous days we put in chasing bears under the rim from

Pyle's Canyon to Verde Canyon. In all we started over a dozen bears. But

I was inclined to think that we chased the same bears over and over from

one canyon to another. The boys got a good many long-range shots, which,

however, apparently did no damage. But as for me, the harder and farther

I tramped and the longer I watched and waited the less opportunity had I

to shoot a bear.

This circumstance weighed heavily upon the spirits of my comrades. They

wore their boots out, as well as the feet of the hounds, trying to chase

a bear somewhere near me. And wherever I stayed or went there was the

place the bears avoided. Edd and Neilsen lost flesh in this daily toil.

Haught had gloomy moments. But as for me the daily ten-or fifteen-mile

grind up and down the steep craggy slopes had at last trained me back to

my former vigorous condition, and I was happy. No one knew it, not even

R.C., but the fact was I really did not care in the least whether I shot

a bear or not. Bears were incidental to my hunting trip. I had not a

little secret glee over the praise accorded me by Copple and Haught and

Nielsen, who all thought that the way I persevered was remarkable. They

would have broken their necks to get me a bear. At times R.C. when he

was tired fell victim to discouragement and he would make some caustic

remark: "I don't know about you. I've a hunch you like to pack a rifle

because it's heavy. And you go dreaming along! Sometime a bear will rise

up and swipe you one!"

Takahashi passed from concern to grief over what he considered my bad

luck: "My goodnish! No see bear to-day?... Maybe more better luck

to-morrow." If I could have had some of Takahashi's luck I would

scarcely have needed to leave camp. He borrowed Nielsen's 30-40 rifle

and went hunting without ever having shot it. He rode the little

buckskin mustang, that, remarkable to state, had not yet thrown him or

kicked him. And on that occasion he led the mustang back to camp with a

fine two-point buck on the saddle. "Camp need fresh meat," said the Jap,

with his broad smile. "I go hunt. Ride along old road. Soon nice fat

deer walk out from bush. Twenty steps away--maybe. I get off. I no want

kill deer so close, so I walk on him. Deer he no scared. He jump off few

steps--stick up his ears--look at horse all same like he thought him

deer too. I no aim gun from shoulder. I just shoot. No good. Deer he

run. I aim then--way front of him--shoot--deer he drop right down

dead.... Aw, easy to get deer!"

I would have given a great deal to have been able to describe Haught's

face when the Jap finished his story of killing that deer. But such feat

was beyond human ingenuity. "Wal," ejaculated the hunter, "in all my

days raslin' round with fools packin' guns I never seen the likes of

thet. No wonder the Japs licked the Russians!" This achievement of

Takahashi's led me to suggest his hunting bear with us. "Aw sure--I kill

bear too," he said. Takahashi outwalked and outclimbed us all. He never

made detours. He climbed straight up or descended straight down. Copple

and Edd were compelled to see him take the lead and keep it. What a

wonderful climber! What a picture the sturdy little brown man made,

carrying a rifle longer than himself, agile and sure-footed as a goat,

perfectly at home in the depths or on the heights! I took occasion to

ask Takahashi if he had been used to mountain climbing in Japan. "Aw

sure. I have father own whole mountain more bigger here. I climb

high--saw wood. Leetle boy so big." And he held his hand about a foot

from the ground. Thus for me every day brought out some further

interesting or humorous or remarkable feature pertaining to Takahashi.

The next day added to the discouragement of my party. We drove Verde

Canyon and ran the dogs into a nest of steel-traps. Big Foot was caught

in one, and only the remarkable size and strength of his leg saved it

from being broken. Nielsen found a poor, miserable, little fox in a

trap, where it had been for days, and was nearly dead. Edd found a dead

skunk in another. He had to call the hounds in. We returned to camp.

That night was really the only cheerless one the men spent around the

fire. They did not know what to do. Manifestly with trappers in a

locality there could be no more bear chasing. Disappointment perched

upon the countenances of the Haughts and Copple and Nielsen. I let them

all have their say. Finally Haught spoke up: "Wal, fellars, I'm

figgerin' hard an' I reckon here's my stand. We jest naturally have to

get Doc an' his brother a bear apiece. Shore I expected we'd get 'em a

couple. Now, them traps we seen are all small. We didn't run across no

bear traps. An' I reckon we can risk the dogs. We'll shore go back an'

drive Verde Canyon. We can't do no worse than break a leg for a dog. I'd

hate to see thet happen to Old Dan or Tom. But we'll take a chance."

After that there fell a moment's silence. I could see from Edd's face

what a serious predicament this was. Nothing was plainer than his

fondness for the hounds. Finally he said: "Sure. We'll take a chance."

Their devotion to my interest, their simple earnestness, warmed me to

them. But not for all the bears under the rim would I have been

wittingly to blame for Old Dan or Old Tom breaking a leg.

"Men, I've got a better plan," I said. "We'll let the bears here rest

for a spell. Supplies are about gone. Let's go back to Beaver Dam camp

for a week or so. Rest up the hounds. Maybe we'll have a storm and a

cold snap that will improve conditions. Then we'll come back here. I'll

send Haught down to buy off the trappers. I'll pay them to spring their

traps and let us have our hunt without risk of the hounds."

Instantly the men brightened. The insurmountable obstacles seemed to

melt away. Only Haught demurred a little at additional and unreasonable

expense for me. But I cheered him over this hindrance, and the last part

of that evening round the camp-fire was very pleasant.

The following morning we broke camp, and all rode off, except Haught and

his son George, who remained to hunt a strayed burro. "Reckon thet lion

eat him. My best burro. He was the one your boy was always playin' with.

I'm goin' to assassinate thet lion."

On the way back to Beaver Dam camp I happened to be near Takahashi when

he dismounted to shoot at a squirrel. Returning to get back in the

saddle the Jap forgot to approach the mustang from the proper side.

There was a scuffle between Takahashi and the mustang as to which of

them should possess the bridle. The Jap lost this argument. Edd had to

repair the broken bridle. I watched Takahashi and could see that he did

not like the mustang any better than the mustang liked him. Soon the

struggle for supremacy would take place between this ill assorted rider

and horse. I rather felt inclined to favor the latter; nevertheless it

was only fair to Takahashi to admit that his buckskin-colored mustang

had some mean traits.

In due time I arrived at our permanent camp, to be the last to get in.

Lee and his father welcomed us as familiar faces in a strange land. As I

dismounted I heard heavy thuds and cracks accompanied by fierce

utterances in a foreign tongue. These sounds issued from the corral.

"I'll bet the Jap got what was coming to him," declared Lee.

We all ran toward the corral. A bunch of horses obstructed our view, and

we could not see Takahashi until we ran round to the other side. The Jap

had the buckskin mustang up in a corner and was vigorously whacking him

with a huge pole. Not by any means was the mustang docile. Like a mule,

he kicked. "Hey George," yelled Lee, "don't kill him! What's the

matter?"

Takahashi slammed the mustang one parting blow, which broke the club,

and then he turned to us. We could see from dust and dirt on his person

that he had lately been in close relation to the earth. Takahashi's face

was pale except for a great red lump on his jaw. The Jap was terribly

angry. He seemed hurt, too. With a shaking hand he pointed to the bruise

on his jaw.

"Look what he do!" exclaimed Takahashi. "He throw me off!... He kick me

awful hard! I kill him sure next time."

Lee and I managed to conceal our mirth until our irate cook had gotten

out of hearing. "Look--what--he--do!" choked Lee, imitating Takahashi.

Then Lee broke out and roared. I had to join him. I laughed till I

cried. My family and friends severely criticise this primitive trait of

mine, but I can not help it. Later I went to Takahashi and asked to

examine his jaw, fearing it might have been broken. This fear of mine,

however, was unfounded. Moreover the Jap had recovered from his pain and

anger. "More better now," he said, with a grin. "Maybe my fault anyhow."

Next day we rested, and the following morning was so fine and clear and

frosty that we decided to go hunting. We rode east on the way to See

Lake through beautiful deep forest.

I saw a deer trotting away into the woods. I jumped off, jerked out my

gun, and ran hard, hoping to see him in an opening. Lo! I jumped a herd

of six more deer, some of them bucks. They plunged everywhere. I tried

frantically to get my sights on one. All I could aim at was bobbing

ears. I shot twice, and of course missed. R.C. shot four times, once at

a running buck, and three at a small deer that he said was flying!

Here Copple and Haught caught up with us. We went on, and turned off the

road on the blazed trail to See Lake. It was pretty open forest, oaks

and scattered pines, and a few spruce. The first park we came to was a

flat grassy open, with places where deer licked the bare earth. Copple

left several pounds of salt in these spots. R.C. and I went up to the

upper end where he had seen deer before. No deer this day! But saw three

turkeys, one an old gobbler. We lost sight of them.

Then Copple and R.C. went one way and Haught and I another. We went

clear to the rim, and then circled around, and eventually met R.C. and

Copple. Together we started to return. Going down a little draw we found

water, and R.C. saw where a rock had been splashed with water and was

still wet. Then I saw a turkey track upon this rock. We slipped up the

slope, with me in the lead. As I came out on top, I saw five big

gobblers feeding. Strange how these game birds thrilled me! One saw me

and started to run. Like a streak! Another edged away into pines. Then I

espied one with his head and neck behind a tree and he was scratching

away in the pine needles. I could not see much of him, but that little

was not running, so I drew down upon him, tried to aim fine, and fired.

He leaped up with a roar of wings, sending the dust and needles flying.

Then he dropped back, and like a flash darted into a thicket.

Another flew straight out of the glade. Another ran like an ostrich in

the same direction. I tried to get the sights on him. In vain!

R.C. and Copple chased these two speeding turkeys, and Haught and I went

the other way. We could find no trace of ours. And we returned to our

horses.

Presently we heard shots. One--two--three--pause--then several more. And

finally more, to a total number of fifteen. I could not stand that and I

had to hurry back into the woods. I saw one old gobbler running wildly

around as if lost, but I did not shoot at him because he seemed to be in

line with the direction which R.C. and Copple had taken. I should have

run after him until he went some other way.

I could not find the hunters, and returned to our resting place, which

they had reached ahead of me. They had a turkey each, gobblers about two

years old Copple said.

R.C. told an interesting story of how he had run in the direction the

two turkeys had taken, and suddenly flushed thirty or forty more, some

big old gobblers, but mostly young. They scattered and ran. He followed

as fast as he could, shooting a few times. Copple could not keep up with

him, but evidently had a few shots himself. R.C. chased most of the

flock across several small canyons, till he came to a deep canyon. Here

he hoped to make a killing when the turkeys ran up the far slope. But

they flew across! And he heard them clucking over there. He crossed, and

went on cautiously. Once he saw three turkey heads sticking above a log.

Wise old gobblers! They protected their bodies while they watched for

him. He tried to get sidewise to them but they ran off. Then he followed

until once more he heard clucking.

Here he sat down, just beyond the edge of a canyon, and began to call

with his turkey wing. It thrilled him to hear his calls answered on all

sides. Here was a wonderful opportunity. He realized that the turkeys

were mostly young and scattered, and frightened, and wanted to come

together. He kept calling, and as they neared him on all sides he felt

something more than the zest of hunting. Suddenly Copple began to shoot.

Spang! Spang! Spang! R.C. saw the dust fly under one turkey. He heard

the bullet glance. The next shot killed a turkey. Then R.C. yelled that

he was no turkey! Then of that scattering flock he managed to knock over

one for himself.

Copple had been deceived by the call of an amateur. That flattered R.C.,

but he was keenly disappointed that Copple had spoiled the situation.

During the day the blue sky was covered by thin flying clouds that

gradually thickened and darkened. The wind grew keener and colder, and

veered to the southwest. We all said storm. There was no sunset Darker

clouds rolled up, obliterating the few stars.

We went to bed. Long after that I heard the swell and roar and crash and

lull of the wind in the pines, a sound I had learned to love in Buckskin

Forest with Buffalo Jones. At last I fell asleep.

Sometime in the night I awoke. A fine rain was pattering on the tent.

It grew stronger. After a while I went to sleep again. Upon awakening I

found that the storm had struck with a vengeance. It was dull gray

daylight, foggy, cold, windy, with rain and snow.

I got up, built a fire, puttered around the tents to loosen the ground

ropes, and found that it was nipping cold. My fingers ached. The storm

increased, and then we fully appreciated the tent with stove. The rain

roared on the tent roof, and all morning the wind increased, and the air

grew colder. I hoped it would turn to snow.

Soon indeed we were storm bound. On the third day the wind reached a

very high velocity. The roar in the pines was stupendous. Many times I

heard the dull crash of a falling tree. With the ground saturated by the

copious rain, and the fury of the storm blast, a great many trees were

felled. That night it rained all night, not so hard, but steadily, now

low, now vigorously. After morning snow began to fall. But it did not

lay long. After a while it changed to sleet. At times the dark,

lowering, scurrying clouds broke to emit a flare of sunshine and to show

a patch of blue. These last however were soon obscured by the scudding

gray pall. Every now and then a little shower of rain or sleet pattered

on the tents. We looked for a clearing up.

That night about eight o'clock the clouds vanished and stars shone. In

the night the wind rose and roared. In the morning all was dark, cloudy,

raw, cold. But the wind had died out, and there were spots of blue

showing. These spots enlarged as the morning advanced, and about nine

the sun, golden and dazzling, beautified the forest. "Bright sunny days

will soon come again!"

It was good to have hope and belief in that.

All the horses but Don Carlos weathered the storm in good shape. Don

lost considerable weight. He had never before been left with hobbled

feet to shift for himself in a prolonged storm of rain, sleet and snow.

He had cut himself upon brush, and altogether had fared poorly. He

showed plainly that he had been neglected. Don was the only horse I had

ever known of that did not welcome the wilderness and companionship with

his kind.

We rested the following day, and on the next we packed and started back

to Dude Creek. It was a cold, raw, bitter day, with a gale from the

north, such a day as I could never have endured had I not become

hardened. As it was I almost enjoyed wind and cold. What a

transformation in the woods! The little lakes were all frozen over;

pines, moss, grass were white with frost. The sear days had come. Not a

leaf showed in the aspen and maple thickets. The scrub oaks were shaggy

and ragged, gray as the rocks. From the rim the slopes looked steely and

dark, thinned out, showing the rocks and slides.

When we reached our old camp in Barber Shop Canyon we were all glad to

see Haught's lost burro waiting for us there. Not a scratch showed on

the shaggy lop-eared little beast. Haught for once unhobbled a burro and

set it free without a parting kick. Nielsen too had observed this

omission on Haught's part. Nielsen was a desert man and he knew burros.

He said prospectors were inclined to show affection for burros by sundry

cuffs and kicks. And Nielsen told me a story about Haught. It seemed the

bear hunter was noted for that habit of kicking burros. Sometimes he was

in fun and sometimes, when burros were obstinate, he was in earnest.

Upon one occasion a big burro stayed away from camp quite a long

time--long enough to incur Haught's displeasure. He needed the burro and

could not find it, and all he could do was to hunt for it. Upon

returning to camp there stood the big gray burro, lazy and fat, just as

if he had been perfectly well behaved. Haught put a halter on the burro,

using strong language the while, and then he proceeded to exercise his

habit of kicking burros. He kicked this one until its fat belly gave

forth sounds exceedingly like a bass drum. When Haught had ended his

exercise he tied up the burro. Presently a man came running into

Haught's camp. He appeared alarmed. He was wet and panting. Haught

recognized him as a miner from a mine nearby. "Hey Haught," panted the

miner, "hev you seen--your gray burro--thet big one--with white face?"

"Shore, there he is," replied Haught. "Son of a gun jest rustled home."

The miner appeared immensely relieved. He looked and looked at the gray

burro as if to make sure it was there, in the solid flesh, a really

tangible object. Then he said: "We was all afeared you'd kick the

stuffin's out of him!... Not an hour ago he was over at the mine, an' he

ate five sticks of dynamite! Five sticks! For Lord's sake handle him

gently!"

Haught turned pale and suddenly sat down. "Ahuh!" was all he said. But

he had a strange hunted look. And not for a long time did he ever again

kick a burro!

* * * * *

Hunting conditions at Dude Creek had changed greatly to our benefit. The

trappers had pulled up stakes and gone to some other section of the

country. There was not a hunting party within fifteen miles of our camp.

Leaves and acorns were all down; trails were soft and easy to travel; no

dust rose on the southern slopes; the days were cold and bright; in

every pocket and ravine there was water for the dogs; from any stand we

could see into the shaggy thickets where before all we could see was a

blaze of color.

In three days we drove Pyle's Canyon, Dude Creek, and the small

adjoining canyons, chasing in all nine bears, none of which ran anywhere

near R.C. or me. Old Dan gave out and had to rest every other day. So

the gloom again began to settle thick over the hopes of my faithful

friends. Long since, as in 1918, I had given up expectations of bagging

a bear or a buck. For R.C., however, my hopes still held good. At least

I did not give up for him. But he shared somewhat the feelings of the

men. Still he worked harder than ever, abandoning the idea of waiting on

one of the high stands, and took to the slopes under the rim where he

toiled down and up all day long. It pleased me to learn, presently, that

this activity, strenuous as it was, became a source of delight to him.

How different such toil was from waiting and watching on the rim!

On November first, a bitter cold morning, with ice in the bright air, we

went back to Pyle's Canyon, and four of us went down with Edd and the

hounds. We had several chases, and about the middle of the forenoon I

found myself alone, making tracks for the saddle over-looking Bear

Canyon. Along the south side of the slope, in the still air the sun was

warm, but when I got up onto the saddle, in an exposed place, the wind

soon chilled me through. I would keep my stand until I nearly froze,

then I had to go around to the sunny sheltered side and warm up. The

hounds finally got within hearing again, and eventually appeared to be

in Bear Canyon, toward the mouth. I decided I ought to go round the

ridge on the east side and see if I could hear better. Accordingly I set

off, and the hard going over the sunny slope was just what I needed.

When I reached the end of the ridge, under the great dome, I heard the

hounds below me, somewhat to my left. Running and plowing down through

the brush I gained the edge of the bluff, just in time to see some of

the hounds passing on. They had run a bear through that thicket, and if

I had been there sooner I would have been fortunate. But too late! I

worked around the head of this canyon and across a wide promontory.

Again I heard the hounds right under me. They came nearer, and soon I

heard rolling rocks and cracking brush, which sounds I believed were

made by a bear. After a while I espied Old Tom and Rock working up the

canyon on a trail. Then I was sure I would get a shot. Presently,

however, Old Tom left the trail and started back. Rock came on, climbed

the ridge, and hearing me call he came to me. I went over to the place

where he had climbed out and found an enormous bear track pointing in

the direction the hounds had come. They had back-trailed him. Rock went

back to join Old Tom. Some of the pack were baying at a great rate in

the mouth of the next canyon. But an impassable cliff prevented me from

working around to that point. So I had to address myself to the long

steep climb upward. I had not gone far when I crossed the huge bear

track that Rock and Old Tom had given up. This track was six inches wide

and ten inches long. The bear that had made it had come down this very

morning from over the ridge east of Bear Canyon. I trailed him up this

ridge, over the steepest and roughest and wildest part of it, marveling

at the enormous steps and jumps he made, and at the sagacity which

caused him to choose this route instead of the saddle trail where I had

waited so long. His track led up nearly to the rim and proved how he had

climbed over the most rugged break in the ridge. Indeed he was one of

the wise old scoundrels. When I reached camp I learned that Sue and

several more of the hounds had held a bear for some time in the box of

the canyon just beyond where I had to give up. Edd and Nielsen were

across this canyon, unable to go farther, and then yelled themselves

hoarse, trying to call some of us. I asked Edd if he saw the bear. "Sure

did," replied Edd. "One of them long, lean, hungry cinnamons." I had to

laugh, and told how near I had come to meeting a bear that was short,

fat, and heavy: "One of the old Jasper scoundrels!"

That night at dark the wind still blew a gale, and seemed more bitterly

cold. We hugged the camp-fire. My eyes smarted from the smoke and my

face grew black. Before I went to bed I toasted myself so thoroughly

that my clothes actually burned me as I lay down. But they heated the

blankets and that made my bed snug and soon I was in the land of dreams.

During the night I awoke. The wind had lulled. The canopy above was

clear, cold, starry, beautiful. When we rolled out the mercury showed

ten above zero. Perhaps looking at the thermometer made us feel colder,

but in any event we would have had to move about to keep warm. I built a

fire and my hands were blocks of ice when I got the blaze stirring.

That day, so keen and bright, so wonderful with its clarity of

atmosphere and the breath of winter through the pines, promised to be as

exciting as it was beautiful. Maybe this day R.C. would bag a bear!

When we reached the rim the sunrise was just flushing the purple basin,

flooding with exquisite gold and rose light the slumberous shadows. What

a glorious wilderness to greet the eye at sunrise! I suffered a pang to

realize what men missed--what I had to miss so many wonderful mornings.

We had made our plan. The hounds had left a bear in the second canyon

east of Dude. Edd started down. Copple and Takahashi followed to hug the

lower slopes. Nielsen and Haught and George held to the rim to ride east

in case the hounds chased a bear that way. And R.C. and I were to try to

climb out and down a thin rock-crested ridge which, so far as Haught

knew, no one had ever been on.

Looked at from above this ridge was indeed a beautiful and rugged

backbone of rock, sloping from the rim, extending far out and down--a

very narrow knife-edge extended promontory, green with cedar and pine,

yellow and gray with its crags and rocks. A craggy point comparable to

some of those in the Grand Canyon! We had to study a way to get across

the first deep fissures, and eventually descended far under the crest

and climbed back. It was desperately hard work, for we had so little

time. R.C. was to be at the middle of that ridge and I at the end in an

hour. Like Trojans we worked. Some slippery pine-needle slopes we had to

run across, for light quick steps were the only means of safe travel.

And that was not safe! When we surmounted to the crest we found a jumble

of weathered rocks ready to slide down on either side. Slabs, pyramids,

columns, shale, rocks of all shapes except round, lay toppling along the

heaved ridge. It seemed the whole ridge was ready to thunder down into

the abyss. Half a mile down and out from the rim we felt lost, marooned.

But there was something splendidly thrilling in our conquest of that

narrow upflung edge of mountain. Twice R.C. thought we would have to

abandon further progress, but I found ways to go on. How lonely and wild

out there! No foot save an Indian's had ever trod those gray rocks or

brown mats of pine needles.

Before we reached the dip or saddle where R.C. was to make his stand the

hounds opened up far below. The morning was perfectly still, an unusual

occurrence there along the rim. What wild music! Then Edd's horn pealed

out, ringing melody, a long blast keen and clear, telling us above that

he had started a bear. That made us hurry. We arrived at the head of an

incline leading down to R.C.'s stand. As luck would have it the place

was ideal for a bear, but risky for a hunter. A bear could come four

ways without being seen until he was close enough to kill a man. We

hurried on. At the saddle there was a broad bear trail with several

other trails leading into it. Suddenly R.C. halted me with a warning

finger. "Listen!"

I heard a faint clear rifle shot. Then another, and a fainter yell. We

stood there and counted eleven more shots. Then the bay of the hounds

seemed to grow closer. We had little time to pick and choose stands. I

had yet to reach the end of the ridge--a task requiring seven-league

boots. But I took time to choose the best possible stand for R.C. and

that was one where a bear approaching from only the east along under the

ridge could surprise him. In bad places like this we always tried to

have our minds made up what to do and where to get in case of being

charged by a wounded grizzly. In this instance there was not a rock or a

tree near at hand. "R.C. you'll have to stand your ground and kill him,

that's all," I declared, grimly. "But it's quiet. You can hear a bear

coming. If you do hear one--wait--and make sure your first shot lets him

down."

"Don't worry. I could hear a squirrel coming over this ground," replied

R.C.

Then I went on, not exactly at ease in mind, but stirred and thrilled to

the keen charged atmosphere. I had to go around under the base of a

rocky ledge, over rough ground. Presently I dropped into a bear trail,

well trodden. I followed it to a corner of cliff where it went down.

Then I kept on over loose rock and bare earth washed deep in ruts. I had

to leap these. Perhaps in ten minutes I had traveled a quarter of a mile

or less. Then _spang_! R.C.'s rifle-shot halted me. So clear and sharp,

so close, so startling! I was thrilled, delighted--he had gotten a

shot. I wanted to yell my pleasure. My blood warmed and my nerves

tingled. Swiftly my thoughts ran--bad luck was nothing--a man had only

to stick at a thing--what a fine, sharp, wonderful day for adventure!

How the hounds bayed! Had R.C. sighted a bear somewhere below? Suddenly

the still air split--_spang_! R.C.'s second shot gave me a shock. My

breast contracted. I started back. "Suppose it was a grizzly--on that

bad side!" I muttered. _Spang_!... I began to run. A great sweeping wave

of emotion charged over me, swelling all my veins to the bursting point.

_Spang_! My heart came to my throat. Leaping the ruts, bounding like a

sheep from rock to rock, I covered my back tracks. All inside me seemed

to flutter, yet I felt cold and hard--a sickening sense of reproach that

I had left my brother in a bad position. _Spang_! His fifth and last

shot followed swiftly after the fourth--too swift to be accurate. So

hurriedly a man would act in close quarters. R.C. now had an empty

rifle!... Like a flash I crossed that slope leading to the rocks, and

tore around the cliff at such speed that it was a wonder I did not pitch

down and break my neck. How long--how terribly long I seemed in reaching

the corner of cliff! Then I plunged to a halt with eyes darting

everywhere.

R.C. was not in sight. The steep curved neck of slope seemed all rocks,

all trees, all brush. Then I heard a wild hoarse bawl and a loud

crashing of brush. My gaze swerved to an open spot. A patch of manzanita

seemed to blur round a big bear, standing up, fighting the branches,

threshing and growling. But where was R.C.? Fearfully my gaze peered

near and all around this wounded bear. "Hey there!" I yelled with all my

might.

R.C.'s answer was another _spang_. I heard the bullet hit the bear. It

must have gone clear through him for I saw bits of fur and manzanita

fly. The bear plunged out of the bushes--out of my sight. How he crashed

the brush--rolled the rocks! I listened. Down and down he crashed. Then

the sound changed somewhat. He was rolling. At last that thumping sound

ceased, and after it the roll of rocks.

"Are you--all right?" I shouted.

Then, after a moment that made me breathless, I heard R.C. laugh, a

little shakily. "Sure am.... Did you see him?"

"Yes. I think he's your bear."

"I'm afraid he's got away. The hounds took another bear down the canyon.

What'll we do?"

"Come on down," I said.

Fifty yards or more down the slope we met. I showed him a great splotch

of blood on a flat stone. "We'll find him not far down," I said. So we

slid and crawled, and held to brush and rocks, following that bloody

trail until we came to a ledge. From there I espied the bear lodged

against a manzanita bush. He lay on his back, all four paws extended,

and he was motionless. R.C. and I sat down right there on the ledge.

"Looks pretty big--black and brown--mostly brown," I said. "I'm glad,

old man, you stuck it out."

"Big!..." exclaimed R.C. with that same peculiar little laugh. "He

doesn't look big now. But up there he looked like a hill.... What do you

think? He came up that very way you told me to look out for. And if I

hadn't had ears he'd got right on me. As it was, when I heard little

rolling stones, and then saw him, he was almost on a level with me. My

nerve was all right. I knew I had him. And I made sure of my first shot.

I knocked him flat. But he got up--let out an awful snarl--and plunged

my way. I can't say I know he charged me. Only it was just the same as

if he had!... I knocked him down again and this time he began to kick

and jump down the slope. That was my best shot. Think I missed him the

next three. You see I had time to get shaky. If he had kept coming at

me--good night!... I had trouble loading. But when I got ready again I

ran down and saw him in that bush. Wasn't far from him then. When he let

out that bawl he saw me. I don't know much about bears, but I know he

wanted to get at me. And I'm sure of what he'd have done.... I didn't

miss my last shot."

We sat there a while longer, slowly calming down. Wonderful indeed had

been some of the moments of thrill, but there had been others not

conducive to happiness. Why do men yearn for adventure in wild moments

and regret the risks and spilled blood afterward?

IX

The hounds enjoyed a well-earned rest the next day. R.C. and I, behind

Haught's back, fed them all they could eat. The old hunter had a fixed

idea that dogs should be kept lean and hungry so they would run bears

the better. Perhaps he was right. Only I could not withstand Old Dan and

Old Tom as they limped to me, begging and whining. Yet not even sore

feet and hunger could rob these grand old hounds of their dignity. For

an hour that morning I sat beside them in a sunny spot.

In the afternoon Copple took me on a last deer hunt for that trip. We

rode down the canyon a mile, and climbed out on the west slope. Haught

had described this country as a "wolf" to travel. He used that word to

designate anything particularly tough. We found the ridge covered with a

dense forest, in places a matted jungle of pine saplings. These thickets

were impenetrable. Heavy snows had bent the pines so that they grew at

an angle. We found it necessary to skirt these thickets, and at that,

sometimes had to cut our way through with our little axes. Hunting was

scarcely possible under such conditions. Still we did not see any deer

tracks.

Eventually we crossed this ridge, or at least the jungle part of it, and

got lower down into hollows and swales full of aspens. Copple recognized

country he had hunted before. We made our way up a long shallow hollow

that ended in an open where lay the remains of an old log cabin, and

corrals. From under a bluff bubbled a clear beautiful spring. Copple

looked all around slowly, with strange expression, and at last,

dismounting he knelt to drink of the spring.

"Ah-h-good!" he exclaimed, after a deep draught. "Get down an' drink.

Snow water an' it never goes dry."

Indeed it was so cold it made my teeth ache, and so pure and sweet that

I drank until I could hold no more. Deer and cat and bear tracks showed

along the margin of clean sand. Lower down were fresh turkey tracks. A

lonely spring in the woods visited by wild game! This place was

singularly picturesque and beautiful. The purest drinking water is found

in wild forest or on mountains. Men, cities, civilization contaminate

waters that are not isolated.

Copple told me a man named Mitchell had lived in that lonely place

thirty years ago. Copple, as a boy, had worked for him--had ridden wild

bronchos and roped wild steers in that open, many and many a day.

Something of unconscious pathos showed in Copple's eyes as he gazed

around, and in his voice. We all hear the echoing footsteps of the past

years! In those days Copple said the ranch was overrun by wild game, and

wild horses too.

We rode on westward, to come out at length on the rim of a magnificent

canyon. It was the widest and deepest and wildest gorge I had come

across in this country. So deep that only a faint roar of running water

reached our ears! The slopes were too steep for man, let alone a horse;

and the huge cliffs and giant spruces gave it a singularly rugged

appearance. We saw deer on the opposite slope. Copple led along the

edge, searching for traces of an old trail where Mitchell used to drive

cattle across. We did not find a trail, but we found a place where

Copple said one used to be. I could see no signs of it. Here leading his

horse with one hand and wielding his little axe with the other Copple

started down. For my part I found going down remarkably easy. The only

trouble I had was to hold on, so I would not go down like a flash.

Stockings, my horse, had in a few weeks become a splendid traveler in

the forest. He had learned to restrain his spirit and use his

intelligence. Wherever I led he would go and that without any fear.

There is something fine in constant association with an intelligent

horse under such circumstances. In bad places Stockings braced his

forefeet, sat on his haunches, and slid, sometimes making me jump to get

out of his way. We found the canyon bed a narrow notch, darkly rich and

green, full of the melody of wild birds and murmuring brook, with huge

rocks all stained gold and russet, and grass as high as our knees. Frost

still lingered in the dark, cool, shady retreat; and where the sun

struck a narrow strip of the gorge there was warm, sweet, dry breath of

the forest. But for the most part, down here all was damp, dank, cool

shadow where sunshine never reached, and where the smells were of dead

leaves and wet moss and ferns and black rich earth.

Impossible we found it to ascend the other slope where we had seen the

deer, so we had to ride up the canyon, a matter greatly to my liking.

Copple thought I was hunting with him, but really, except to follow him,

I did not think of the meaning of his slow wary advance. Only a few more

days had I to roam the pine-scented forest. That ride up this deep gorge

was rich in sensation. Sun and sky and breeze and forest encompassed me.

The wilderness was all about me; and I regretted when the canyon lost

its splendid ruggedness, and became like the others I had traversed, and

at last grew to be a shallow grassy ravine, with patches of gray aspens

along the tiny brook.

As we climbed out once more, this time into an open, beautiful pine

forest, with little patches of green thicket, I seemed to have been

drugged by the fragrance and the color and the beauty of the wild. For

when Copple called low and sharp: "Hist!" I stared uncomprehendingly at

him.

"Deer!" he whispered, pointing. "Get off an' smoke 'em up!"

Something shot through me--a different kind of thrill. Ahead in the open

I saw gray, graceful, wild forms trotting away. Like a flash I slid off

my horse and jerked out my rifle. I ran forward a few steps. The deer

had halted--were gazing at us with heads up and ears high. What a wild

beautiful picture! As I raised my rifle they seemed to move and vanish

in the green. The hunter in me, roused at last, anathematized my

miserable luck. I ran ahead another few steps, to be halted by Copple.

"Buck!" he called, sharply. "Hurry!" Then, farther on in the open, out

in the sunlight, I saw a noble stag, moving, trotting toward us. Keen,

hard, fierce in my intensity, I aligned the sights upon his breast and

fired. Straight forward and high he bounded, to fall with a heavy thud.

Copple's horse, startled by my shot, began to snort and plunge. "Good

shot," yelled Copple. "He's our meat."

What possessed me I knew not, but I ran ahead of Copple. My eyes

searched avidly the bush-dotted ground for my quarry. The rifle felt hot

in my tight grip. All inside me was a tumult--eager, keen, wild

excitement. The great pines, the green aisles leading away into the

woods, the shadows under the thickets, the pine-pitch tang of the air,

the loneliness of that lonely forest--all these seemed familiar, sweet,

beautiful, things mine alone, things seen and smelled and felt before,

things ... Then suddenly I ran right upon my deer, lying motionless,

dead I thought. He appeared fairly large, with three-point antlers. I

heard Copple's horse thudding the soft earth behind me, and I yelled: "I

got him, Ben." That was a moment of exultation.

It ended suddenly. Something halted me. My buck, now scarcely fifteen

feet from me, began to shake and struggle. He raised his head, uttering

a choking gasp. I heard the flutter of blood in his throat. He raised

himself on his front feet and lifted his head high, higher, until his

nose pointed skyward and his antlers lay back upon his shoulders. Then a

strong convulsion shook him. I heard the shuddering wrestle of his whole

body. I heard the gurgle and flow of blood. Saw the smoke of fresh blood

and smelled it! I saw a small red spot in his gray breast where my

bullet had struck. I saw a great bloody gaping hole on his rump where

the.30 Gov't expanding bullet had come out. From end to end that bullet

had torn! Yet he was not dead. Straining to rise again!

I saw, felt all this in one flashing instant. And as swiftly my spirit

changed. What I might have done I never knew, but most likely I would

have shot him through the brain. Only a sudden action of the stag

paralyzed all my force. He lowered his head. He saw me. And dying, with

lungs and heart and bowels shot to shreds, he edged his stiff front feet

toward me, he dragged his afterquarters, he slid, he flopped, he

skittered convulsively at me. No fear in the black, distended, wild

eyes!

Only hate, only terrible, wild, unquenchable spirit to live long enough

to kill me! I saw it, He meant to kill me. How magnificent, how horrible

this wild courage! My eyes seemed riveted upon him, as he came closer,

closer. He gasped. Blood sputtered from his throat. But more terrible

than agony, than imminent death was the spirit of this wild beast to

slay its enemy. Inch by inch he skidded closer to me, with a convulsive

quivering awful to see. No veil of the past, no scale of civilization

between beast and man then! Enemies as old as the earth! I had shot him

to eat, and he would kill me before he died. For me the moment was

monstrous. No hunter was I then, but a man stricken by the spirit and

mystery of life, by the agony and terror of death, by the awful strange

sense that this stag would kill me.

But Copple galloped up, and drawing his revolver, he shot the deer

through the head. It fell in a heap.

"Don't ever go close to a crippled deer," admonished my comrade, as he

leaped off his horse. "I saw a fellow once that was near killed by a

buck he'd taken for dead.... Strange the way this buck half stood up.

Reckon he meant bad, but he was all in. You hit him plumb center."

"Yes, Ben, it was--strange," I replied, soberly. I caught Copple's keen

dark glance studying me. "When you open him up--see what my bullet did,

will you?"

"All right. Help me hang him to a snag here," returned Copple, as he

untied his lasso.

When we got the deer strung up I went off into the woods, and sat on a

log, and contended with a queer sort of sickness until it passed away.

But it left a state of mind that I knew would require me to probe into

myself, and try to understand once and for all time this bloodthirsy

tendency of man to kill. It would force me to try to analyze the

psychology of hunting. Upon my return to Copple I found he had the buck

ready to load upon his horse. His hands were bright red. He was wiping

his hunting-knife on a bunch of green pine needles.

"That 150-grain soft-nose bullet is some executioner," he declared,

forcefully. "Your bullet mushroomed just after it went into his breast.

It tore his lung to pieces, cut open his heart, made a mess of kidneys

an' paunch, an' broke his spine.... An' look at this hole where it came

out!"

I helped Copple heave the load on his saddle and tie it securely, and I

got my hands red at the job, but I did not really look at the buck

again. And upon our way back to camp I rode in the lead all the way. We

reached camp before sunset, where I had to endure the felicitations of

R.C. and my comrades, all of whom were delighted that at last I had

gotten a buck. Takahashi smiled all over his broad brown face. "My

goodnish! I awful glad! Nice fat deer!"

That night I lay awake a long time, and though aware of the moan of the

wind in the pines and the tinkle of the brook, and the melancholy hoot

of an owl, and later the still, sad, black silence of the midnight

hours, I really had no pleasure in them. My mind was active.

Boys are inherently cruel. The games they play, at least those they

invent, instinctively partake of some element of brute nature. They

chase, they capture, they imprison, they torture, and they kill. No

secret rendezvous of a boy's pirate gang ever failed to be soaked with

imaginary blood! And what group of boys have not played at being

pirates? The Indian games are worse--scalping, with red-hot cinders

thrown upon the bleeding head, and the terrible running of the gauntlet,

and burning at the stake.

What youngster has not made wooden knives to spill the blood of his

pretended enemies? Little girls play with dolls, and with toy houses,

and all the implements of making a home; but sweet and dear as the

little angels are they love a boy's game, and if they can through some

lucky accident participate in one it is to scream and shudder and fight,

indeed like the females of the species. No break here between these

little mothers of doll-babies and the bloody mothers of the French

Revolution, or of dusky, naked, barbarian children of a primitive day!

Boys love the chase. And that chase depends upon environment. For want

of wild game they will harry a poor miserable tom-cat with sticks and

stones. I belonged once to a gang of young ruffians who chased the

neighbor's chickens, killed them with clubs, and cooked them in tin

cans, over a hidden fire. Boys love nothing so much as to chase a

squirrel or a frightened little chipmunk back and forth along a rail

fence. They brandish their sticks, run and yell, dart to and fro, like

young Indians. They rob bird's nests, steal the eggs, pierce them and

blow them. They capture the young birds, and are not above killing the

parents that fly frantically to the rescue. I knew of boys who ground

captured birds to death on a grindstone. Who has not seen a boy fling

stones at a helpless hop-toad?

As boys grow older to the age of reading they select, or at least love

best, those stories of bloodshed and violence. Stevenson wrote that boys

read for some element of the brute instinct in them. His two wonderful

books _Treasure Island_ and _Kidnapped_ are full of fight and the

killing of men. _Robinson Crusoe_ is the only great boy's book I ever

read that did not owe its charm to fighting. But still did not old

Crusoe fight to live on his lonely island? And this wonderful tale is

full of hunting, and has at the end the battle with cannibals.

When lads grow up they become hunters, almost without exception, at

least in spirit if not in deed. Early days and environment decide

whether or not a man becomes a hunter. In all my life I have met only

two grown men who did not care to go prowling and hunting in the woods

with a gun. An exception proves a great deal, but all the same most men,

whether they have a chance or not, love to hunt. Hunters, therefore,

there are of many degrees. Hunters of the lowly cotton-tail and the

woodland squirrel; hunters of quail, woodcock, and grouse; hunters of

wild ducks and geese; hunters of foxes--the red-coated English and the

homespun clad American; hunters--which is a kinder name for trappers--of

beaver, marten, otter, mink, all the furred animals; hunters of deer,

cat, wolf, bear, antelope, elk, moose, caribou; hunters of the barren

lands where the ice is king and where there are polar bears, white

foxes, musk-ox, walrus. Hunters of different animals of different

countries. African hunters for lion, rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo,

eland, hartebeest, giraffe, and a hundred species made known to all the

world by such classical sportsmen as Selous, Roosevelt, Stewart Edward

White.

But they are all hunters and their game is the deadly chase in the open

or the wild. There are hunters who hate action, who hate to walk and

climb and toil and wear themselves out to get a shot. Such men are

hunters still, but still not men! There are hunters who have game driven

up to them. I heard a story told by an officer whom I believe. In the

early days of the war he found himself somewhere on the border between

Austria and Germany. He was invited to a hunt by personages of high

degree. They motored to a sequestered palace in the forest, and next day

motored to a shooting-lodge. At daylight he was called, and taken to the

edge of a forest and stationed in an open glade. His stand was an

upholstered divan placed high in the forks of a tree. His guide told him

that pretty soon a doe would come out of the forest. But he was not to

shoot it. In fifteen minutes a lame buck would come out. But he was not

to shoot that one either. In ten more minutes another buck would come

out, and this third deer he was to kill. My informant told me this was

all very seriously meant. The gun given him was large enough in calibre

to kill an elephant. He walked up the steps to the comfortable divan and

settled himself to await events. The doe trotted out exactly on schedule

time. So did the lame buck. They came from the woods and were not

frightened. The third deer, a large buck, was a few moments late--three

minutes to be exact. According to instructions the American killed this

buck--a matter that took some nerve he said, for the buck walked out

like a cow. That night a big supper was given in the guest's honor. He

had to eat certain parts of the buck he had killed, and drink flagons of

wine. This kind of hunting must be peculiarly German or Austrian, and

illustrates the peculiar hunting ways of men.

A celebrated bear hunter and guide of the northwest told me that for

twenty years he had been taking eastern ministers--preachers of the

gospel--on hunting trips into the wild. He assured me that of all the

bloody murderers--waders in gore, as he expressed it--these teachers of

the gospel were the worst. The moment they got out into the wild they

wanted to kill, kill, kill. He averred their natures seemed utterly to

change.

In reading the books of hunters and in listening to their talks at

Camp-fire Club dinners I have always been struck with the expression of

what these hunters felt, what they thought they got out of hunting. The

change from city to the open wilderness; the difference between noise,

tumult, dirt, foul air, and the silence, the quiet, the cleanness and

purity; the sweet breath of God's country as so many called it; the

beauty of forest and mountain; the wildness of ridge and valley; the

wonder of wild animals in their native haunts; and the zest, the joy,

the excitement, the magnificent thrill of the stalk and the chase. No

one of them ever dwelt upon the kill! It was mentioned, as a result, an

end, a consummation. How strange that hunters believed these were the

attractions of the chase! They felt them, to be sure, in some degree, or

they would not remember them. But they never realized that these

sensations were only incidental to hunting.

Men take long rides, hundreds and thousands of miles, to hunt. They

endure hardships, live in camps with absolute joy. They stalk through

the forest, climb the craggy peaks, labor as giants in the building of

the pyramids, all with a tight clutch on a deadly rifle. They are keen,

intent, strained, quiveringly eager all with a tight clutch on a deadly

rifle. If hunters think while on a stalk--which matter I doubt

considerably--they think about the lay of the land, or the aspect of it,

of the habits and possibilities of their quarry, of their labor and

chances, and particularly of the vague unrealized sense of comfort,

pleasure, satisfaction in the moment. Tight muscles, alert eyes,

stealthy steps, stalk and run and crawl and climb, breathlessness, a hot

close-pressed chest, thrill on thrill, and sheer bursting riot of nerve

and vein--these are the ordinary sensations and actions of a hunter. No

ascent too lofty--no descent too perilous for him then, if he is a man

as well as a hunter!

Take the Brazilian hunter of the jungle. He is solitary. He is

sufficient to himself. He is a survival of the fittest. The number of

his tribe are few. Nature sees to that. But he must eat, and therefore

he hunts. He spears fish and he kills birds and beasts with a blow-gun.

He hunts to live. But the manner of his action, though more skilful, is

the same as any hunter's. Likewise his sensations, perhaps more vivid

because hunting for him is a matter of life or death. Take the Gaucho of

Patagonia--the silent lonely Indian hunter of the Pampas. He hunts with

a _bola_, a thin thong or string at each end of which is a heavy

leather-covered ball of stone or iron. This the Gaucho hurls through the

air at the neck or legs of his quarry. The balls fly round--the thong

binds tight--it is a deadly weapon. The user of it rides and stalks and

sees and throws and feels the same as any other hunter. Time and place,

weapon and game have little to do with any differences in hunters.

Up to this 1919 hunting trip in the wilds I had always marveled at the

fact that naturalists and biologists hate sportsmen. Not hunters like

the Yellow Knife Indians, or the snake-eating Bushmen of Australia, or

the Terra-del-Fuegians, or even the native country rabbit-hunters--but

the so-called sportsmen. Naturalists and biologists have simply learned

the truth why men hunt, and that when it is done in the name of sport,

or for sensation, it is a degenerate business. Stevenson wrote beautiful

words about "the hunter home from the hill," but so far as I can find

out he never killed anything himself. He was concerned with the romance

of the thought, with alliteration, and the singular charm of the

truth--sunset and the end of the day, the hunter's plod down the hill to

the cottage, to the home where wife and children awaited him. Indeed it

is a beautiful truth, and not altogether in the past, for there are

still farmers and pioneers.

Hunting is a savage primordial instinct inherited from our ancestors.

It goes back through all the ages of man, and farther still--to the age

when man was not man, but hairy ape, or some other beast from which we

are descended. To kill is in the very marrow of our bones. If man after

he developed into human state had taken to vegetable diet--which he

never did take--he yet would have inherited the flesh-eating instincts

of his animal forebears. And no instinct is ever wholly eradicated. But

man was a meat eater. By brute strength, by sagacity, by endurance he

killed in order to get the means of subsistence. If he did not kill he

starved. And it is a matter of record, even down to modern times, that

man has existed by cannibalism.

The cave-man stalked from his hole under a cliff, boldly forth with his

huge club or stone mace. Perhaps he stole his neighbor's woman, but if

so he had more reason to hunt than before--he had to feed her as well as

himself. This cave-man, savagely descended, savagely surrounded, must

have had to hunt all the daylight hours and surely had to fight to kill

his food, or to keep it after he killed it. Long, long ages was the

being called cave-man in developing; more long ages he lived on the

earth, in that dim dark mystic past; and just as long were his

descendants growing into another and higher type of barbarian. But they

and their children and grandchildren, and all their successive,

innumerable, and varying descendants had to hunt meat and eat meat to

live.

The brain of barbarian man was small, as shown by the size and shape of

his skull, but there is no reason to believe its construction and use

were any different from the use of other organs--the eye to see

with--the ear to hear with--the palate to taste with. Whatever the brain

of primitive man was it held at birth unlimited and innumerable

instincts like those of its progenitors; and round and smooth in

babyhood, as it was, it surely gathered its sensations, one after

another in separate and habitual channels, until when manhood arrived it

had its convolutions, its folds and wrinkles. And if instinct and

tendency were born in the brain how truly must they be a part of bone,

tissue, blood.

We cannot escape our inheritance. Civilization is merely a veneer, a

thin-skinned polish over the savage and crude nature. Fear, anger, lust,

the three great primal instincts are restrained, but they live

powerfully in the breast of man. Self preservation is the first law of

human life, and is included in fear. Fear of death is the first

instinct. Then if for thousands, perhaps millions of years, man had to

hunt because of his fear of death, had to kill meat to survive--consider

the ineradicable and permanent nature of the instinct.

The secret now of the instinctive joy and thrill and wildness of the

chase lies clear.

Stealing through the forest or along the mountain slope, eyes roving,

ears sensitive to all vibrations of the air, nose as keen as that of a

hound, hands tight on a deadly rifle, we unconsciously go back. We go

back to the primitive, to the savage state of man. Therein lies the joy.

How sweet, vague, unreal those sensations of strange familiarity with

wild places we know we never saw before! But a million years before that

hour a hairy ancestor of ours felt the same way in the same kind of a

place, and in us that instinct survives. That is the secret of the

wonderful strange charm of wild places, of the barren rocks of the

desert wilderness, of the great-walled lonely canyons. Something now in

our blood, in our bones once danced in men who lived then in similar

places. And lived by hunting!

The child is father to the man. In the light of this instinct how easy

to understand his boyish cruelty. He is true to nature. Unlimited and

infinite in his imagination when he hunts--whether with his toys or

with real weapons. If he flings a stone and kills a toad he is

instinctively killing meat for his home in the cave. How little

difference between the lad and the man! For a man the most poignantly

exciting, the most thrillingly wild is the chase when he is weaponless,

when he runs and kills his quarry with a club. Here we have the essence

of the matter. The hunter is proudest of his achievement in which he has

not had the help of deadly weapons. Unconsciously he will brag and glow

over that conquest wherein lay greatest peril to him--when he had

nothing but his naked hands. What a hot gush of blood bursts over him!

He goes back to his barbarian state when a man only felt. The savage

lived in his sensations. He saw, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, but

seldom thought. The earthy, the elemental of eye and ear and skin

surrounded him. When the man goes into the wilderness to change into a

hunter that surviving kinship with the savage revives in his being, and

all unconsciously dominates him with driving passion. Passion it is

because for long he has been restrained in the public haunts of men. His

real nature has been hidden. The hunting of game inhibits his thoughts.

He feels only. He forgets himself. He sees the track, he hears the

stealthy step, he smells the wild scent; and his blood dances with the

dance of the ages. Then he is a killer. Then the ages roll back. Then he

is brother to the savage. Then all unconsciously he lives the chase, the

fight, the death-dealing moment as they were lived by all his ancestors

down through the misty past.

What then should be the attitude of a thoughtful man toward this

liberation of an instinct--that is to say, toward the game or sport or

habit of hunting to kill? Not easily could I decide this for myself.

After all life is a battle. Eternally we are compelled to fight. If we

do not fight, if we do not keep our bodies strong, supple, healthy, soon

we succumb to some germ or other that gets a hold in our blood or lungs

and fights for its life, its species, until it kills us. Fight therefore

is absolutely necessary to long life, and Alas! eventually that fight

must be lost. The savages, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks all

worshipped physical prowess in man. Manhood, strength--the symbols of

fight! To be physically strong and well a man must work hard, with

frequent intervals of change of exercise, and he must eat meat. I am not

a great meat eater, but I doubt if I could do much physical labor or any

brain work on a vegetable diet. Therefore I hold it fair and manly to go

once a year to the wilderness to hunt. Let that hunt be clean hard toil,

as hard as I can stand! Perhaps nature created the lower animals for the

use of man. If I had been the creator I think I would have made it

possible for the so-called higher animal man to live on air.

Somewhere I read a strange remarkable story about monkeys and priests in

the jungle of India. An old order of priests had from time out of mind

sent two of their comrades into the jungle to live with the monkeys, to

tame them, feed them, study them, love them. And these priests told an

incredible story, yet one that haunted with its possibilities of truth.

After a long term of years in which one certain priest had lived with

the monkeys and they had learned truly he meant them no harm and only

loved them, at rare moments an old monkey would come to him and weep and

weep in the most terrible and tragic manner. This monkey wanted to tell

something, but could not speak. But the priest knew that the monkey was

trying to tell him how once the monkey people had been human like him.

Only they had retrograded in the strange scale of evolution. And the

terrible weeping was for loss--loss of physical stature, of speech,

perhaps of soul.

What a profound and stunning idea! Does evolution work backward? Could

nature in its relentless inscrutable design for the unattainable

perfection have developed man only to start him backward toward the dim

ages whence he sprang? Who knows! But every man can love wild animals.

Every man can study and try to understand the intelligence of his horse,

the loyalty of his dog. And every hunter can hunt less with his

instinct, and more with an understanding of his needs, and a

consideration for the beasts only the creator knows.

X

The last day of everything always comes. Time, like the tide, waits for

no man. Anticipation is beautiful, but it is best and happiest to enjoy

the present. Live while we may!

On this last day of my hunt we were up almost before it was light enough

to see. The morning star shone radiant in the dark gray sky. All the

other stars seemed dimmed by its glory. Silent as a grave was the

forest. I started a fire, chopped wood so vigorously that I awakened

Nielsen who came forth like a burly cave-man; and I washed hands and

face in the icy cold brook. By the time breakfast was over the gold of

the rising sun was tipping the highest pines on the ridges.

We started on foot, leaving the horses hobbled near camp. All the hounds

appeared fit. Even Old Dan trotted along friskily. Pyle, a neighbor of

Haught's, had come to take a hunt with us, bringing two dogs with him.

For this last day I had formulated a plan. Edd and one of the boys were

to take the hounds down on the east side of the great ridge that made

the eastern wall of Dude Canyon. R.C. was to climb out on this ridge,

and take his position at the most advantageous point. We had already

chased half a dozen bears over this saddle, one of which was the big

frosty-coated grizzly that Edd and Nielsen had shot at. The rest of us

hurried to the head of Dude Canyon. Copple and I were to go down to the

first promontories under the rim. The others were to await developments

and go where Haught thought best to send them.

Copple and I started down over and around the crags, going carefully

until we reached the open slope under the rim-rock. It seemed this

morning that I was fresh, eager, agile like a goat on my feet. In my

consciousness of this I boasted to Copple that I would dislodge fewer

stones and so make less noise than he. The canyon sloped at an angle of

about forty-five degrees, and we slid, stepped, jumped and ran down

without starting an avalanche.

When we descended to the first bare cape of projecting rock the hour was

the earliest in which I had been down under the rim. All the canyon and

the great green gulf below were unusually fresh and beautiful. I heard

the lonely call of strange birds and the low murmur of running water. An

eagle soared in the sunlight. High above us to the east rose the

magnificent slope of Dude Canyon. I gazed up to the black and green and

silver ascent, up to the gold-tipped craggy crest where R.C. had his

stand. I knew he could see me, but I could not see him. Afterward he

told me that my red cap shone clearly out of green and gray, so he had

no difficulty in keeping track of my whereabouts. The thickets of aspens

and oaks seemed now to stand on end. How dark in the shade and steely

and cold they looked! That giant ridge still obstructed the sun, and

all on this side of it, under its frowning crest and slope was dark and

fresh and cool in shadow. The ravines were choked black with spruce

trees. Here along this gray shady slant of wall, in niches and cracks,

and under ledges, and on benches, were the beds of the bears. Even as I

gazed momentarily I expected to see a bear. It looked two hundred yards

across the canyon from where we stood, but Copple declared it was a

thousand. On our other side capes and benches and groves were bright in

sunshine, clear across the rough breaks to the west wall of Dude Canyon.

I saw a flock of wild pigeons below. Way out and beyond rolled the floor

of the basin, green and vast, like a ridged sea of pines, to the bold

black Mazatzals so hauntingly beckoning from the distance. Copple spoke

now and then, but I wanted to be silent. How wild and wonderful this

place in the early morning!

But I had not long to meditate and revel in beauty and wildness. Far

down across the mouth of the canyon, at the extreme southern end of that

vast oak thicket, the hounds gave tongue. Old Dan first! In the still

cool air how his great wolf-bay rang out the wildness of the time and

place! Already Edd and Pyle had rounded the end of the east ridge and

were coming up along the slope of Dude Canyon.

"Hounds workin' round," declared Copple. "Now I'll tell you what. Last

night a bear was feedin' along that end of the thicket. The hounds are

millin' round tryin' to straighten out his trail.... It's a dead cinch

they'll jump a bear an' we'll see him."

"Look everywhere!" I cautioned Copple, and my eyes roved and strained

over all that vast slope. Suddenly I espied the flash of something

black, far down the thicket, and tried to show it to my comrade.

"Let's go around an' down to that lower point of rock. It's a better

stand than this. Closer to the thicket an' commands those.... By Golly,

I see what you see! That's a bear, slippin' down. Stay with me now!"

Staying with Copple was a matter of utter disregard of clothes, limbs,

life. He plunged off that bare ledge, slid flat on his back, and wormed

feet first under manzanita, and gaining open slope got up to run and

jump into another thicket. By staying with him I saw that I would have a

way opened through the brush, and something to fall upon if I fell. He

rimmed the edge of a deep gorge that made me dizzy. He leaped cracks. He

let himself down over a ledge by holding to bushes. He found steps to

descend little bluffs, and he flew across the open slides of weathered

rock. I was afraid this short cut to the lower projecting cape of rock

would end suddenly on some impassable break or cliff, but though the

travel grew rough we still kept on. I wore only boots, trousers, and

shirt, and cap, with cartridge belt strapped tight around me. It was a

wonder I was not stripped. Some of my rags went to decorate the wake we

left down that succession of ledges. But we made it, with me at least,

bruised and ragged, dusty and choked, and absolutely breathless. My body

burned as with fire. Hot sweat ran in streams down my chest. At last we

reached the bare flat projecting cape of rock, and indeed it afforded an

exceedingly favorable outlook. I had to sink down on the rock; I could

not talk until I got my breath; but I used my eyes to every advantage.

Neither Copple nor I could locate the black moving object we had seen

from above. We were much closer to the hounds, though they still were

baying a tangled cross trail. Fortunate it was for me that I was given

these few moments to rest from my tremendous exertions.

My eyes searched the leaf-covered slope so brown and sear, and the

shaggy thickets, and tried to pierce the black tangle of spruce

patches. All at once, magically it seemed, my gaze held to a dark

shadow, a bit of dense shade, under a large spruce tree. Something

moved. Then a big bear rose right out of his bed of leaves, majestically

as if disturbed, and turned his head back toward the direction of the

baying hounds. Next he walked out. He stopped. I was quivering with

eagerness to tell Copple, but I waited. Then the bear walked behind a

tree and peeped out, only his head showing. After a moment again he

walked out.

"Ben, aren't you ever going to see him?" I cried at last.

"What?" ejaculated Copple, in surprise.

"Bear!" and I pointed. "This side of dead spruce."

"No!... Reckon you see a stump.... By Golly! I see him. He's a dandy.

Reddish color.... Doc, he's one of them mean old cinnamons."

"Watch! What will he do?--Ben, he hears the hounds."

How singularly thrilling to see him, how slowly he walked, how devoid of

fear, how stately!

"Sure he hears them. See him look back. The son-of-a-gun! I'll bet he's

given us the bear-laugh more than once."

"Ben, how far away is he?" I asked.

"Oh, that's eight hundred yards," declared Copple. "A long shot. Let's

wait. He may work down closer. But most likely he'll run up-hill."

"If he climbs he'll go right to R.C.'s stand," I said, gazing upward.

"Sure will. There's no other saddle."

Then I decided that I would not shoot at him unless he started down. My

excitement was difficult to control. I found it impossible to attend to

my sensations, to think about what I was feeling. But the moment was

full of suspense. The bear went into a small clump of spruces and

stayed there a little while. Tantalizing moments! The hounds were hot

upon his trail, still working to and fro in the oak thicket. I judged

scarcely a mile separated them from the bear. Again he disappeared

behind a little bush. Remembering that five pairs of sharp eyes could

see me from the points above I stood up and waved my red cap. I waved it

wildly as a man waves a red flag in moments of danger. Afterward R.C.

said he saw me plainly and understood my action. Again the bear had

showed, this time on an open slide, where he had halted. He was looking

across the canyon while I waved my cap.

"Ben, could he see us so far?" I asked.

"By Golly, I'll bet he does see us. You get to smokin' him up. An' if

you hit him don't be nervous if he starts for us. Cinnamons are bad

customers. Lay out five extra shells an' make up your mind to kill him."

I dropped upon one knee. The bear started down, coming towards us over

an open slide. "Aim a little coarse an' follow him," said Copple. I did

so, and tightening all my muscles into a ball, holding my breath, I

fired. The bear gave a savage kick backwards. He jerked back to bite at

his haunch. A growl, low, angry, vicious followed the echoes of my

rifle. Then it seemed he pointed his head toward us and began to run

down the slope, looking our way all the time.

"By Golly!" yelled Copple. "You stung him one an' he's comin'!... Now

you've got to shoot some. He can roll down-hill an' run up-hill like a

jack rabbit. Take your time--wait for open shots--an' make sure!"

Copple's advice brought home to me what could happen even with the

advantage on my side. Also it brought the cold tight prickle to my skin,

the shudder that was not a thrill, the pressure of blood running too

swiftly, I did not feel myself shake, but the rifle was unsteady. I

rested an elbow on my knee, yet still I had difficulty in keeping the

sight on him. I could get it on him, but could not keep it there. Again

he came out into the open, at the head of a yellow slide, that reached

to a thicket below. I must not hurry, yet I had to hurry. After all he

had not so far to come and most of the distance was under cover. Through

my mind flashed Haught's story of a cinnamon that kept coming with ten

bullets in him.

"Doc, he's paddin' along!" warned Copple. "Smoke some of them shells!"

Straining every nerve I aimed as before, only a little in advance, held

tight and pulled at the same instant. The bear doubled up in a ball and

began to roll down the slide. He scattered the leaves. Then into the

thicket he crashed, knocking the oaks, and cracking the brush.

"Some shot!" yelled Copple. "He's your bear!"

But my bear continued to crash through the brush. I shot again and yet

again, missing both times. Apparently he was coming, faster now--and

then he showed dark almost at the foot of our slope. Trees were thick

there. I could not see there, and I could not look for bear and reload

at the same moment. My fingers were not very nimble.

"Don't shoot," shouted Copple. "He's your bear. I never make any

mistakes when I see game hit."

"But I see him coming!"

"Where?... By Golly! that's another bear. He's black. Yours is red....

Look sharp. Next time he shows smoke him!"

I saw a flash of black across an open space--I heard a scattering of

gravel. But I had no chance to shoot. Then both of us heard a bear

running in thick leaves.

"He's gone down the canyon," said Copple. "Now look for your bear."

"Listen Ben. The hounds are coming fast. There's Rock.--There's Sue."

"I see them. Old Dan--what do you think of that old dog?... There!--your

red bear's still comin' ... He's bad hurt."

Though Copple tried hard to show me where, and I strained my eyes, I

could not see the bear. I could not locate the threshing of brush. I

knew it seemed close enough for me to be glad I was not down in that

thicket. How the hounds made the welkin ring! Rock was in the lead. Sue

was next. And Old Dan must have found the speed of his best days.

Strange he did not bay all down that slope! When Rock and Sue headed the

bear then I saw him. He sat up on his haunches ready to fight, but they

did not attack him. Instead they began to yelp wildly. I dared not shoot

again for fear of hitting one of them. Old Dan just beat the rest of the

pack to the bear. Up pealed a yelping chorus. I had never heard Old Dan

bay a bear at close range. With deep, hoarse, quick, wild roars he

dominated that medley. A box canyon took up the bays, cracking them back

in echo from wall to wall.

From the saddle of the great ridge above pealed down R.C.'s: "Waahoo!"

I saw him silhouetted dark against the sky line. He waved and I

answered. Then he disappeared.

Nielsen bellowed from the craggy cape above and behind us. From down the

canyon Edd sent up his piercing: "Ki Yi!" Then Takahashi appeared

opposite to us, like a goat on a promontory. How his: "Banzai!" rang

above the baying of the hounds!

"We'd better hurry down an' across," said Copple. "Reckon the hounds

will jump that bear or some one else will get there first. We got to

skedaddle!"

As before we fell into a manzanita thicket and had to crawl. Then we

came out upon the rim of a box canyon where the echoes made such a din.

It was too steep to descend. We had to head it, and Copple took chances.

Loose boulders tripped me and stout bushes saved me. We knocked streams

of rock and gravel down into this gorge, sending up a roar as of falling

water. But we got around. A steep slope lay below, all pine needles and

leaves. From this point I saw Edd on the opposite slope.

"I stopped one bear," I yelled. "Hurry. Look out for the dogs!"

Then, imitating Copple, I sat down and slid as on a toboggan for some

thirty thrilling yards. Some of my anatomy and more of my rags I left

behind me. But it was too exciting then to think of hurts. I managed to

protect at least my rifle. Copple was charging into the thicket below. I

followed him into the dark gorge, where huge boulders lay, and a swift

brook ran, and leaves two feet deep carpeted the shady canyon bed. It

was gloomy down into the lower part. I saw where bear had turned over

the leaves making a dark track.

"The hounds have quit," called Copple suddenly. "I told you he was your

bear."

We yelled. Somebody above us answered. Then we climbed up the opposite

slope, through a dense thicket, crossing a fresh bear track, a running

track, and soon came into an open rocky slide where my bear lay

surrounded by the hounds, with Old Dan on guard. The bear was red in

color, with silky fur, a long keen head, and fine limbs, and of goodly

size.

"Cinnamon," declared Copple, and turning him over he pointed to a white

spot on his breast. "Fine bear. About four hundred pounds. Maybe not so

heavy. But he'll take some packin' up to the rim!"

Then I became aware of the other men. Takahashi had arrived on the

scene first, finding the bear dead. Edd came next, and after him Pyle.

I sat down for a much needed rest. Copple interested himself in

examining the bear, finding that my first shot had hit him in the flank,

and my second had gone through the middle of his body. Next Copple

amused himself by taking pictures of bear and hounds. Old Dan came to me

and lay beside me, and looked as if to say: "Well, we got him!"

Yells from both sides of the canyon were answered by Edd. R.C. was

rolling the rocks on his side at a great rate. But Nielsen on the other

side beat him to us. The Norwegian crashed the brush, sent the

avalanches roaring, and eventually reached us, all dirty, ragged,

bloody, with fire in his eye. He had come all the way from the rim in

short order. What a performance that must have been! He said he thought

he might be needed. R.C. guided by Edd's yells, came cracking the brush

down to us. Pale he was and wet with sweat, and there were black brush

marks across his face. His eyes were keen and sharp. He had started down

for the same reason as Nielsen's. But he had to descend a slope so steep

that he had to hold on to keep from sliding down. And he had jumped a

big bear out of a bed of leaves. The bed was still warm. R.C. said he

had smelled bear, and that his toboggan slide down that slope, with

bears all around for all he knew, had started the cold sweat on him.

Presently George Haught joined us, having come down the bed of the

canyon.

"We knew you'd got a bear," said George. "Father heard the first two

bullets hit meat. An' I heard him rollin' down the slope."

"Well!" exclaimed R.C. "That's what made those first two shots sound so

strange to me. Different from the last two. Sounded like soft dead pats!

And it was lead hitting flesh. I heard it half a mile away!"

This matter of the sound of bullets hitting flesh and being heard at a

great distance seemed to me the most remarkable feature of our hunt.

Later I asked Haught. He said he heard my first two bullets strike and

believed from the peculiar sound that I had my bear. And his stand was

fully a mile away. But the morning was unusually still and sound carried

far.

The men hung my bear from the forks of a maple. Then they decided to

give us time to climb up to our stands before putting the hounds on the

other fresh trail.

Nielsen, R.C., and I started to climb back up to the points. Only plenty

of time made it possible to scale those rugged bluffs. Nielsen distanced

us, and eventually we became separated. The sun grew warm. The bees

hummed. After a while we heard the baying of the hounds. They were

working westward under the bases of the bluffs. We rimmed the heads of

several gorges, climbed and crossed the west ridge of Dude Canyon, and

lost the hounds somewhere as we traveled.

R.C. did not seem to mind this misfortune any more than I. We were

content. Resting a while we chose the most accessible ridge and started

the long climb to the rim. Westward under us opened a great noble canyon

full of forests, thicketed slopes, cliffs and caves and crags. Next time

we rested we again heard the hounds, far away at first, but gradually

drawing closer. In half an hour they appeared right under us again.

Their baying, however, grew desultory, and lacked the stirring note.

Finally we heard Edd calling and whistling to them. After that for a

while all was still. Then pealed up the clear tuneful melody of Edd's

horn, calling off the chase for that day and season.

"All over," said R.C. "Are you glad?"

"For Old Dan's sake and Tom's and the bears--yes," I replied.

"Me, too! But I'd never get enough of this country."

We proceeded on our ascent over and up the broken masses of rock,

climbing slowly and easily, making frequent and long rests. We liked to

linger in the sun on the warm piny mossy benches. Every shady cedar or

juniper wooed us to tarry a moment. Old bear tracks and fresh deer

tracks held the same interest, though our hunt was over. Above us the

gray broken mass of rim towered and loomed, more formidable as we neared

it. Sometimes we talked a little, but mostly we were silent.

[Illustration: MEAT IN CAMP]

[Illustration: (2) MEAT IN CAMP]

Like an Indian, at every pause, I gazed out into the void. How sweeping

and grand the long sloping lines of ridges from the rim down! Away in

the east ragged spurs of peaks showed hazily, like uncertain mountains

on the desert. South ranged the upheaved and wild Mazatzals. Everywhere

beneath me, for leagues and leagues extended the timbered hills of

green, the gray outcroppings of rocks, the red bluffs, the golden

patches of grassy valleys, lost in the canyons. All these swept away in

a vast billowy ocean of wilderness to become dim in the purple of

distance. And the sun was setting in a blaze of gold. From the rim I

took a last lingering look and did not marvel that I loved this

wonderland of Arizona.

[Illustration: BURROS PACKED FOR THE TRAIL]

[Illustration: THE DEADLY CHOLLA, MOST POISONOUS AND PAIN INFLICTING OF

THE CACTUS]