irsty. When Edd got
his breath he said: "Right off we struck a hot trail. Bear with
eleven-inch track. He'd come down to drink last night. Hounds worked up
thet yeller oak thicket, an' somewhere Sue an' Rock jumped him out of
his bed. He run down, an' he made some racket. Took to the low slopes
an' hit up lively all the way down Dude, then crossed, climbed around
under thet bare point of rock. Here some of the hounds caught up with
him. We heard a pup yelp, an' after a while Kaiser Bill come sneakin'
back. It was awful thick down in the canyon so we climbed the east side
high enough to see. An' we were workin' down when the pack bayed the
bear round thet bare point. It was up an' across from us. Nielsen an' I
climbed on a rock. There was an open rock-slide where we thought the
bear would show. It was five hundred yards. We ought to have gone across
an' got a stand higher up. Well, pretty soon we saw him come paddlin'
out of the brush--a big grizzly, almost black, with a frosty back. He
was a silvertip all right. Niels an' I began to shoot. An' thet bear
began to hump himself. He was mad, too. His fur stood up like a ruffle
on his neck. Niels got four shots an' I got three. Reckon one of us
stung him a little. Lordy, how he run! An' his last jump off the slide
was a header into the brush. He crossed the canyon, an' climbed thet
high east slope of Dude, goin' over the pass where father killed the big
cinnamon three years ago. The hounds stuck to his trail. It took us an
hour or more to climb up to thet pass. Broad bear trail goes over. We
heard the hounds 'way down in the canyon on the other side. Niels an' I
worked along the ridge, down an' around, an' back to Dude Creek. I kept
callin' the hounds till they all came back. They couldn't catch him. He
sure was a jack-rabbit for runnin'. Reckon thet's all.... Now who was
smokin' shells up on the rim?"

When all was told and talked over Haught said: "Wal, you can just bet we
put up two brown bears an' one black bear, an' thet old Jasper of a
silvertip."

How hungry and thirsty and tired I was when we got back to camp! The day
had been singularly rich in exciting thrills and sensorial perceptions.
I called to the Jap: "I'm starv-ved to death!" And Takahashi, who had
many times heard my little boy Loren yell that, grinned all over his
dusky face. "Aw, lots good things pretty soon!"

After supper we lounged around a cheerful, crackling camp-fire. The
blaze roared in the bree