ocated us. Then he began to
run, choosing the open slope by which he had come. I got five more
shots at him as he crossed this space, and the last bullet puffed
up dust under him, making him take a header down the slope into
the thicket. Whereupon we all had a good laugh. Nielsen appeared
particularly pleased over his first shots at a real live bear.

"Say, why didn't you think to ride round there?" queried R.C.
thoughtfully. "He didn't see us. He wasn't scared. In a few minutes
you could have been on the rim of that slope right over him. Got him
sure!"

"R.C. why didn't you think to tell me to do that?" I retorted. "Why
don't we ever think the right thing before it is too late?"

"That's our last chance this year--I feel it in my bones," declared
R.C. mournfully.

His premonition turned out to be correct. Upon our arrival at camp we
heard some very disquieting news. A neighbor of Haught's had taken the
trouble to ride up to inform us about the epidemic of influenza. The
strange disease was all over the country, in the cities, the villages,
the cow-camps, the mines--everywhere. At first I thought Haught's
informant was exaggerating a mere rumor. But when he told of the
Indians dying on the reservations, and that in Flagstaff eighty
people had succumbed in a few weeks--then I was thoroughly alarmed.
Imperative was it indeed for me to make a decision at once. I made it
instantly. We would break camp. So I told the men. Doyle was relieved
and glad. He wanted to get home to his family. The Haughts, naturally,
were sorry. My decision once arrived at, the next thing was to
consider which way to travel. The long ten-day trip down into the
basin, round by Payson, and up on the rim again, and so on to
Flagstaff was not to be considered at all. The roads by way of Winslow
and Holbrook were long and bad. Doyle wanted to attempt the old army
road along the rim made by General Crook when he moved the captured
Apaches to the reservation assigned to them. No travel over this road
for many years! Haught looked dubious, but finally said we could chop
our way through thickets, and haul the wagon empty up bad hills. The
matter of decision was left to me. Decisions of such nature were not
easy to make. The responsibility was great, but as the hunt had been
for me it seemed incumbent upon me to accept responsibility. What made
me hesitate at all was the fact that I had ridden five miles or more
along the old Crook road. I remembered. I