a bear trail, and no other trail
crossed it they would stick, and in fact lead the pack till' the bear
got away. Once Big Foot came whimpering into camp with porcupine quills
in his nose. Of all the whipped and funny pups!

Bobby was the dog I liked best. He was a curly black half-shepherd,
small in size; and he had a sharp, intelligent face, with the brightest
hazel eyes. His manner of wagging his tail seemed most comical yet
convincing. Bobby wagged only the nether end and that most emphatically.
He would stand up to me, holding out his forepaws, and beg. What an
appealing beggar he was! Bobby's value to Haught was not
inconsiderable. He was the only dog Haught ever had that would herd the
pigs. On a bear hunt Bobby lost his shepherd ways and his kindly
disposition, and yelped fiercely, and hung on a trail as long as any of
the pack. He had no fear of a bear, for which reason Haught did not like
to run him.

All told then we had a rather nondescript and poor pack of hounds; and
the fact discouraged me. I wanted to hunt the bad cinnamons and the
grizzly sheep-killers, with which this rim-rock country was infested. I
had nothing against the acorn-eating brown or black bears. And with this
pack of hounds I doubted that we could hold one of the vicious fighting
species. But there was now nothing to do but try. No one could tell. We
might kill a big grizzly. And the fact that the chances were against us
perhaps made for more determined effort. I regretted, however, that I
had not secured a pack of trained hounds somewhere.

Frost was late this fall. The acorns had hardly ripened, the leaves had
scarcely colored; and really good bear hunting seemed weeks off. A storm
and then a cold snap would help matters wonderfully, and for these we
hoped. Indeed the weather had not settled; hardly a day had been free of
clouds. But despite conditions we decided to start in bear hunting every
other day, feeling that at least we could train the pack, and get them
and ourselves in better shape for a favorable time when it arrived.

Accordingly next day we sallied forth for Horton Thicket, and I went
down with Edd and George. It was a fine day, sunny and windy at
intervals. The new trail the boys had made was boggy. From above Horton
Thicket looked dark, green, verdant, with scarcely any touch of autumn
colors; from below, once in it, all seemed a darker green, cool and
damp. Water lay in all low places. The creek roared bankfull of cle