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Before we reached the dip or saddle where R.C. was to make his stand the hounds opened up far below. The morning was perfectly still, an unusual occurrence there along the rim. What wild music! Then Edd's horn pealed out, ringing melody, a long blast keen and clear, telling us above that he had started a bear. That made us hurry. We arrived at the head of an incline leading down to R.C.'s stand.

After that for a while all was still. Then pealed up the clear tuneful melody of Edd's horn, calling off the chase for that day and season. "All over," said R.C. "Are you glad?" "For Old Dan's sake and Tom's and the bears yes," I replied. "Me, too! But I'd never get enough of this country."

Edd's going to call them with a caller made out of a turkey's wing-bone." And I said: "But they've gone now." Whereupon he subsided: "Darned old boots! I heard Edd and Uncle Rome. I'd been ready if I could have got into my darned old boots.... See here, Dad, I'm gonna wear moccasins."

Copple yelled down to Edd that some of the hounds were running deer, but apparently Edd was too far away to hear. Still, after a while we heard the mellow tones of Edd's horn, calling in the hounds. And then he blew the signal to acquaint all of us above that he was going down around the point to drive the next canyon.

I could see from Edd's face what a serious predicament this was. Nothing was plainer than his fondness for the hounds. Finally he said: "Sure. We'll take a chance." Their devotion to my interest, their simple earnestness, warmed me to them. But not for all the bears under the rim would I have been wittingly to blame for Old Dan or Old Tom breaking a leg. "Men, I've got a better plan," I said.

Edd had started them on a trail up this magnificent canyon at our feet. After a while we heard Edd's yell, far away, but clear: "Hi! Hi!" We could see a part of the thicket, shaggy and red and gold; and a mile or more of the opposite wall of the canyon. No rougher, wilder place could have been imagined than this steep slope of bluffs, ledges, benches, all matted with brush, and spotted with pines.

R.C. guided by Edd's yells, came cracking the brush down to us. Pale he was and wet with sweat, and there were black brush marks across his face. His eyes were keen and sharp. He had started down for the same reason as Nielsen's. But he had to descend a slope so steep that he had to hold on to keep from sliding down. And he had jumped a big bear out of a bed of leaves. The bed was still warm.