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 strengt