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Both of them disappeared. Then we climbed to the top of the ridge, and in scouting around along the heavily timbered edges we came to a ravine deep enough to be classed as a canyon. Here the forest was dark and still, with sunlight showing down in rays and gleams. While hunting I always liked to sit down here and there to listen and watch. Copple liked this too. So we sat down.
Copple thought I was hunting with him, but really, except to follow him, I did not think of the meaning of his slow wary advance. Only a few more days had I to roam the pine-scented forest. That ride up this deep gorge was rich in sensation. Sun and sky and breeze and forest encompassed me.
It's only we don't hold right. Aim a little coarse," said Copple. "Gee, ain't he some bear! 'No scared tall' as the Jap says.... He's one of the old sheep-killers. He'll weigh half a ton. Smoke him now!" My excitement was intense. It seemed, however, I was most consumed with admiration for that grizzly. Not in the least was he afraid.
I had not recovered my lost gun, and when night came my prospects of anything to hunt with appeared extremely slim. But we had visitors, and one of them was a stalwart, dark-skinned rider named Copple, who introduced himself by saying he would have come a good way to meet the writer of certain books he had profited by.
"They're on to me," he whispered and did not call again. At that moment a young gobbler ran swiftly down the slope and stopped to peer around, his long neck stretching. It was not a very long shot, and I, scorning to do less than Copple, tried to emulate him, and aimed at the neck of the gobbler. All I got, however, was a few feathers. Like a grouse he flew across the opening and was gone.
She make awful stink! She no 'fraid a tall. Next time I kill her sure!" The head of Gentry Canyon was about five miles from camp, and we reached it the following morning while the frost was still white and sparkling. We tied our horses. Copple said: "This is a deer day. I'll show you a buck sure. Let's stick together an' walk easy."
"Never knew what struck him!" exclaimed Copple, and he laid hold of the deer and hauled it out of the edge of the thicket. "Fine an' fat. Venison for camp, boys. One of you go after the horses an' the other help me hang him up."
Above the head of the third gorge Copple and I ran across an enormous bear track, fresh in the dust, leading along an old bear trail. This track measured twelve inches. "He's an old Jasper, as Haught says," declared Copple. "Grizzly. An' you can bet he heard the dogs an' got movin' away from here. But he ain't scared. He was walkin'." I forgot the arduous toil.
"Now look for your bear." "Listen Ben. The hounds are coming fast. There's Rock. There's Sue." "I see them. Old Dan what do you think of that old dog?... There! your red bear's still comin' ... He's bad hurt." Though Copple tried hard to show me where, and I strained my eyes, I could not see the bear. I could not locate the threshing of brush.
But my bear continued to crash through the brush. I shot again and yet again, missing both times. Apparently he was coming, faster now and then he showed dark almost at the foot of our slope. Trees were thick there. I could not see there, and I could not look for bear and reload at the same moment. My fingers were not very nimble. "Don't shoot," shouted Copple. "He's your bear.
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