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Retribution inevitably overtakes transgressors. Copple in his immense loquaciousness was not transgressing much, for he really was no greater dreamer than I, but the way he put things made us want to see the mighty hunter have a fall. We rested the hounds next day, and I was glad to rest myself. About sunset Copple rode up to the rim to look for his mules.
I should have run after him until he went some other way. I could not find the hunters, and returned to our resting place, which they had reached ahead of me. They had a turkey each, gobblers about two years old Copple said.
Their relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed a detestation of her lot.
Help me hang him to a snag here," returned Copple, as he untied his lasso. When we got the deer strung up I went off into the woods, and sat on a log, and contended with a queer sort of sickness until it passed away. But it left a state of mind that I knew would require me to probe into myself, and try to understand once and for all time this bloodthirsy tendency of man to kill.
The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court there were a number of young people gathered in the lot.
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.
Thereupon I seized my opportunity and reminded all present how Copple had called out: "Turkey number one! Turkey number two!" the day I had missed so many. Then I said: "Ben, you must have yelled out to-night like this." And I raised my voice high.
I saw a plump, woolly beast walk out upon the edge of the opposite slope and stand in the shade. "Copple, is that a sheep?" I whispered, pointing. "Lion no, big lynx," he replied. I aimed and shot just a little too swiftly. Judging by the puff of dust my bullet barely missed the big cat. He leaped fully fifteen feet. Copple fired, hitting right under his nose as he alighted. That whirled him back.
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.
It seemed this morning that I was fresh, eager, agile like a goat on my feet. In my consciousness of this I boasted to Copple that I would dislodge fewer stones and so make less noise than he. The canyon sloped at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and we slid, stepped, jumped and ran down without starting an avalanche.
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