That night a storm-wind roared mightily in the pines.  How wonderful to lie snug in bed, down in the protected canyon, and hear the marching and retreating gale above in the forest!  Next day we expected rain or snow.  But there was only wind, and that quieted by afternoon.  So I took Romer off into the woods.  He carried his rifle and he wore his chaps.  I could not persuade him to part with these.  They rustled on the brush and impeded his movements, and particularly tired him, and made him look like a diminutive cowboy.  How eager, keen, boyishly vain, imaginative!  He was crazy to see game, to shoot anything, particularly bears.  But it contented him to hunt turkeys.  Many a stump and bit of color he mistook for game of some kind.  Nevertheless, I had to take credence in what he thought he saw, for his eyesight was unusually quick and keen.

That afternoon Edd and Doyle arrived, reporting an extremely rough, roundabout climb up to the rim, where they had left the wagon.  As it was impossible to haul the supplies down into the canyon they were packed down to camp on burros.  Isbel had disapproved of this procedure, a circumstance that struck me with peculiar significance, which Lee explained by telling me Isbel was one of the peculiar breed of cowboys, who no sooner were they out on the range than they wanted to go back to town again.  The truth was I had not met any of that breed, though I had heard of them.  This peculiarity of Isbel’s began to be related in my mind to his wastefulness as a cook.  He cooked and threw away as much as we ate.  I asked him to be careful and to go easy with our supplies, but I could not see that my request made any difference.

After supper this evening R.C. heard a turkey call up on the hill east of camp.  Then I heard it, and Romer also.  We ran out a ways into the open to listen the better.  R.C.’s ears were exceptionally keen.  He could hear a squirrel jump a long distance in the forest.  In this case he distinctly heard three turkeys fly up into trees.  I heard one.  Romer declared he heard a flock.  Then R.C. located a big bronze and white gobbler on a lower limb of a huge pine.  Presently I too espied it.  Whereupon we took shot-gun and rifle, and sallied forth sure of fetching back to camp some wild turkey meat.  Romer tagged at our heels.

Hurrying to the slope we climbed up at least three-quarters of the way, as swiftly as possible.  And that was work enough to make me wet and hot.  The sun had set and twilight was upon us, so that we needs must hurry if we were to be successful.  Locating the big gobbler turned out to be a task.  We had to climb over brush and around rocks, up a steep slope, rather open; and we had to do it without being seen or making noise.  Romer, despite his eagerness, did very well indeed.  At last I espied our quarry, and indeed the sight was thrilling.  Wild turkey gobblers to me, who had hunted them enough to learn how sagacious and cunning and difficult to stalk they were, always seemed as provocative of excitement as larger game.  This big fellow hopped up from limb to limb of the huge dead pine, and he bobbed around as if undecided, and tried each limb for a place to roost.  Then he hopped farther up until we lost sight of him in the gnarled net-work of branches.