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 anot