I walked with the Haughts from our camp across the brook to theirs, where we sat down in the warm sunshine.  I made light of this hunting trip in which it had turned out I had no gun, no horse, no blankets, no rain-proof tent, no adequate amount of food supplies, and no good luck, except the wonderful good luck of being well, of seeing a magnificent country, of meeting some more fine westerners.  But the Haughts appeared a little slow to grasp, or at least to credit my philosophy.  We were just beginning to get acquainted.  Their regret was that they had been unable to see me get a bear, a deer, a lion, and some turkeys.  Their conviction, perhaps formed from association with many sportsman hunters, was that owing to my bad luck I could not and would not want to come again.

“See here, Haught,” I said.  “I’ve had a fine time.  Now forget about this hunt.  It’s past.  We’ll plan another.  Will you save next fall for me?”

“I shore will,” he replied.

“Very well, then, it’s settled.  Say by August you and the boys cut a trail or two in and out of Horton Thicket.  I’ll send you money in advance to pay for this work, and get new hounds and outfit.  I’ll leave Flagstaff on September fifteenth.  Meet you here September twenty-first, along about noon.”

We shook hands upon the deal.  It pleased me that the Haughts laughed at me yet appeared both surprised and happy.  As I left I heard Edd remark:  “Not a kick!...  Meet him next year at noon!  What do you know about thet?” This remark proved that he had paid me a compliment in eastern slang most likely assimilated from R.C. and Romer.

The rest of the afternoon our camp resembled a beehive, and next morning it was more like a bedlam.  The horses were fresh, spirited, and they had tender backs; the burros stampeded because of some surreptitious trick of Romer’s.  But by noon we had all the outfit packed in the wagon.  Considering the amount of stuff, and the long, rough climb up to the wagon, this was a most auspicious start.  I hoped that it augured well for us, but while I hoped I had a gloomy foreboding.  We bade good-bye to Haught and his son George.  Edd offered to go with us as far as he knew the country, which distance was not many miles.  So we set out upon our doubtful journey, our saddle-horses in front of the lumbering wagon.

We had five miles of fairly level road through open forest along the rim, and then we struck such a rocky jumble of downhill grade that the bundles fell off the wagon.  They had to be tied on.  When we came to a long slow slant uphill, a road of loose rocks, we made about one mile an hour.  This slow travel worked havoc upon my mind.  I wanted to hurry.  I wanted to get out of the wilds.  That awful rumor about influenza occupied my mind and struck cold fear into my heart.  What of my family?  No making the best of this!  Slowly we toiled on.  Sunset overtook us at a rocky ledge which had to be surmounted.  With lassos on saddle