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"Doc, he's paddin' along!" warned Copple. "Smoke some of them shells!" Straining every nerve I aimed as before, only a little in advance, held tight and pulled at the same instant. The bear doubled up in a ball and began to roll down the slide. He scattered the leaves. Then into the thicket he crashed, knocking the oaks, and cracking the brush. "Some shot!" yelled Copple. "He's your bear!"
Early next morning before the sun had tipped the pines with gold I went down Barber Shop Canyon with Copple to look for our horses. During the night our stock had been chased by a lion. We had all been awakened by their snorting and stampeding. We found our horses scattered, the burros gone, and Copple's mules still squared on guard, ready to fight.
"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.
When I aimed at the bear I could see him through the circle of my peep sight, but when I moved the bead of the front sight upon him it almost covered him up. The distance was far more than a thousand yards over half a mile we calculated afterward. But I tried to draw a bead on the big, wagging brown shape and fired till my rifle was empty. Meanwhile Copple had reloaded.
I cried at last. "What?" ejaculated Copple, in surprise. "Bear!" and I pointed. "This side of dead spruce." "No!... Reckon you see a stump.... By Golly! I see him. He's a dandy. Reddish color.... Doc, he's one of them mean old cinnamons." "Watch! What will he do? Ben, he hears the hounds." How singularly thrilling to see him, how slowly he walked, how devoid of fear, how stately!
"Wal, wal, I shore am glad to see you," he replied, with a keen flash in his hazel eyes and a smile on his craggy face. "I reckoned you'd make it. How are you? Look sort of fagged." "Just about all in, Haught," I replied, as we shook hands. Then Copple appeared, swaggering out of the aspens. He was the man I met in Payson and who so kindly had made me take his rifle.
We slipped along, each of us strung to be the first to hear or see some living creature of the wild. R.C., as might have been expected, halted us with a softly whispered: "Listen." But neither Copple nor I heard what R.C. heard, and presently we moved on as before. Presently again R.C. made us pause, with a like result. Somehow the forest seemed unusually wild. It provoked a tingling expectation.
Copple had been deceived by the call of an amateur. That flattered R.C., but he was keenly disappointed that Copple had spoiled the situation. During the day the blue sky was covered by thin flying clouds that gradually thickened and darkened. The wind grew keener and colder, and veered to the southwest. We all said storm. There was no sunset Darker clouds rolled up, obliterating the few stars.
R.C. told an interesting story of how he had run in the direction the two turkeys had taken, and suddenly flushed thirty or forty more, some big old gobblers, but mostly young. They scattered and ran. He followed as fast as he could, shooting a few times. Copple could not keep up with him, but evidently had a few shots himself.
R.C. took one side of a ridge, with Copple and me on the other, and we worked down toward where we had seen the sign. After half an hour of slow, stealthy glide through the forest we sat down at the edge of a park, expecting R.C. to come along soon. The white aspens were all bare, and oak leaves were rustling down. The wind lulled a while, then softly roared in the pines.
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