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Updated: May 19, 2025
I aimed at him, feeling as I did so how Romer quivered beside me, but I had no confidence in Copple's rifle. The sights were wrong for me. The stock did not fit me. So, hoping for a closer and better shot, I let this opportunity pass. Of course I should have taken it. The gobbler clucked and began to trot up the ridge, with the others after him.
"Turkey number one Nix!... Turkey number two missed, by Gosh!... Turkey number three never touched him!... Turkey number four No!... Turkey number five Aw, I'm shootin' blank shells!... Turkey number six on the log BY THUNDER, I CAN'T SEE STRAIGHT!" We all had our fun at Copple's expense. The old bear hunter, Haught, rolled on the ground, over and over, and roared in his mirth.
Men, cities, civilization contaminate waters that are not isolated. Copple told me a man named Mitchell had lived in that lonely place thirty years ago. Copple, as a boy, had worked for him had ridden wild bronchos and roped wild steers in that open, many and many a day. Something of unconscious pathos showed in Copple's eyes as he gazed around, and in his voice.
He bounced like a rubber ball. My second shot went over him, and Copple's hit between his legs. Then with another prodigious bound he disappeared in a thicket. "By golly! we missed him," declared Copple. "But you must have shaved him that first time. Biggest lynx I ever saw." We crossed the canyon and hunted for him, but without success.
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.
Suppose I should meet a bear coming up as I was sliding down! I sheered off and left the trail, and also Copple's tracks. This was a blunder. I came out into more open slope, but steeper, and harder to cling on. Ledges cropped out, cliffs and ravines obstructed my passage and trees were not close enough to help me much.
Copple's horse, startled by my shot, began to snort and plunge. "Good shot," yelled Copple. "He's our meat." What possessed me I knew not, but I ran ahead of Copple. My eyes searched avidly the bush-dotted ground for my quarry. The rifle felt hot in my tight grip. All inside me was a tumult eager, keen, wild excitement.
Copple's advice brought home to me what could happen even with the advantage on my side. Also it brought the cold tight prickle to my skin, the shudder that was not a thrill, the pressure of blood running too swiftly, I did not feel myself shake, but the rifle was unsteady. I rested an elbow on my knee, yet still I had difficulty in keeping the sight on him.
My rifle barrel was hot as fire. My fingers were all thumbs. I jammed a shell into the receiver. My last chance had fled! But Copple's big, brown, swift hands fed shells to his magazine as ears of corn go to a grinder. He had a way of poking the base of a shell straight down into the receiver and making it snap forward and down. Then he fired five more shots as swiftly as he had reloaded.
Then, to make sure, he aimed so as to send his one bullet through their necks. Killed the whole five in one shot! We were all reduced to a state of mute helplessness and completely at Copple's mercy. Next he gave us one of his animal tales. He was hunting along the gulf shore on the coast of Sonora, where big turtles come out to bask in the sun and big jaguars come down to prowl for meat.
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