We climbed and rode to the high point, and coming out upon the summit
of the mountain we all heard the deep, hoarse baying of the pack. They
were in the canyon down a bare grassy slope and over a wooded bench
at our feet. Teague yelled as he spurred down. R.C. rode hard in his
tracks.
But my horse was new to this bear chasing. He was mettlesome, and he
did not want to do what I wanted. When I jabbed the spurs into his
flanks he nearly bucked me off. I was looking for a soft place to
light when he quit. Long before I got down that open slope Teague and
R.C. had disappeared. I had to follow their tracks. This I did at a
gallop, but now and then lost the tracks, and had to haul in to find
them. If I could have heard the hounds from there I would have gone on
anyway. But once down in the jack-pines I could hear neither yell or
bay. The pines were small, close together, and tough. I hurt my hands,
scratched my face, barked my knees. The horse had a habit of suddenly
deciding to go the way he liked instead of the way I guided him, and
when he plunged between saplings too close together to permit us both
to go through, it was exceedingly hard on me. I was worked into a
frenzy. Suppose R.C. should come face to face with that old grizzly
and fail to kill him! That was the reason for my desperate hurry. I
got a crack on the head that nearly blinded me. My horse grew hot and
began to run in every little open space. He could scarcely be held in.
And I, with the blood hot in me too, did not hold him hard enough.
It seemed miles across that wooded bench. But at last I reached
another slope. Coming out upon a canyon rim I heard R.C. and Teague
yelling, and I heard the hounds fighting the grizzly. He was growling
and threshing about far below. I had missed the tracks made by Teague
and my brother, and it was necessary to find them. That slope looked
impassable. I rode back along the rim, then forward. Finally I found
where the ground was plowed deep and here I headed my horse. He had
been used to smooth roads and he could not take these jumps. I went
forward on his neck. But I hung on and spurred him hard. The mad
spirit of that chase had gotten into him too. All the time I could
hear the fierce baying and yelping of the hounds, and occasionally I
heard a savage bawl from the bear. I literally plunged, slid, broke a
way down that mountain slope, riding all the time, before I discovered
the footprints of Teague and R.C. They had w
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