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Updated: June 3, 2025


When he called again there was some little difference, I don't know what, unless it was his call sounded more like a real turkey. They answered. They were gathering in front of us, and I made sure were coming into the glade. Edd stopped calling. Then he whispered: 'Ready now. Look out!... Sure I was looking all right. This was my first experience calling turkeys and I simply shook all over.

Significant it was that this juniper had broken branches where bears had climbed to eat the fruit, and all around on the ground beneath was bear sign. Edd said the tracks were cold, but all the same he had to be harsh with the hounds to hold them in. I counted twenty piles of bear manure under one juniper, and many places where bears had scraped in the soft earth and needles.

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.

We had to head it, and Copple took chances. Loose boulders tripped me and stout bushes saved me. We knocked streams of rock and gravel down into this gorge, sending up a roar as of falling water. But we got around. A steep slope lay below, all pine needles and leaves. From this point I saw Edd on the opposite slope. "I stopped one bear," I yelled. "Hurry. Look out for the dogs!"

"He got away down in the breaks," replied Edd. "George is tryin' to call the hounds back. What happened to you? I heard you shoot." "My horse didn't care much for me or the brush," I replied. "He left me rather suddenly. And I took a shot at what I thought was a bear." "I seen him once," said Edd, with eyes flashing. "Was just goin' to smoke him up when he jumped out of sight."

We took the hounds over to See Canyon, and while Edd and Nielsen went down with them, the rest of us waited above for developments. Scarcely had they more than time enough to reach the gorge below when the pack burst into full chorus. Haught led the way then around the rough rim for better vantage points.

Indeed these last facts have been religiously kept secret until chronicled here. Shortly afterward, as I was making a lame and slow headway toward Horton Thicket, where I hoped to find a trail out, I heard Edd yelling, and I answered. Presently we met. He was leading my horse, and some of the hounds, notably Old Tom and Dan, were with him. "Where's the bear?" I asked.

Next day, in defiance of a thing which never should be considered luck I took Haught's rifle again, and my lazy, sullen, intractable horse, and rode with Edd and George down into Horton Thicket. At least I could not be cheated out of fresh air and beautiful scenery.

After a while the country grew so rough that fast riding was impossible; the thickets tore and clutched at us until they finally stopped the horses. We got off. Edd climbed to a ridge-top. "Pack gone way round," he called. "I'll walk. Take my horse back." I decided to let George take my horse also, and I hurried to catch up with Edd.

It pleased me to learn, presently, that this activity, strenuous as it was, became a source of delight to him. How different such toil was from waiting and watching on the rim! On November first, a bitter cold morning, with ice in the bright air, we went back to Pyle's Canyon, and four of us went down with Edd and the hounds.

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