We returned to camp early, and I took occasion to scrape acquaintance with the dogs.  It was a strangely assorted pack—­four Airedales, one bloodhound and seven other hounds of mixed breeds.  There were also three pup hounds, white and yellow, very pretty dogs, and like all pups, noisy and mischievous.  They made friends easily.  This applied also to one of the Airedales, a dog recently presented to Teague by some estimable old lady who had called him Kaiser and made a pet of him.  As might have been expected of a dog, even an Airedale, with that name, he was no good.  But he was very affectionate, and exceedingly funny.  When he was approached he had a trick of standing up, holding up his forepaws in an appealing sort of way, with his head twisted in the most absurd manner.  This was when he was chained—­otherwise he would have been climbing up on anyone who gave him the chance.  He was the most jealous dog I ever saw.  He could not be kept chained very long because he always freed himself.  At meal time he would slip noiselessly behind some one and steal the first morsel he could snatch.  Bill was always rapping Kaiser with pans or billets of firewood.

Next morning was clear and cold.  We had breakfast, and then saddled up to ride to Big Fish Lake.  For an hour we rode up and down ridges of heavy spruce, along a trail.  We saw elk and deer sign.  Elk tracks appeared almost as large as cow tracks.  When we left the trail to climb into heavy timber we began to look for game.  The forest was dark, green and brown, silent as a grave.  No squirrels or birds or sign of life!  We had a hard ride up and down steep slopes.  A feature was the open swaths made by avalanches.  The ice and snow had cut a path through the timber, and the young shoots of spruce were springing up.  I imagined the roar made by that tremendous slide.

We found elk tracks everywhere and some fresh sign, where the grass had been turned recently, and also much old and fresh sign where the elk had skinned the saplings by rubbing their antlers to get rid of the velvet.  Some of these rubs looked like blazes made by an axe.  The Airedale Fox, a wonderful dog, routed out a she-coyote that evidently had a den somewhere, for she barked angrily at the dog and at us.  Fox could not catch her.  She led him round in a circle, and we could not see her in the thick brush.  It was fine to hear the wild staccato note again.

We crossed many little parks, bright and green, blooming with wild asters and Indian paint brush and golden daisies.  The patches of red and purple were exceedingly beautiful.  Everywhere we rode we were knee deep in flowers.  At length we came out of the heavy timber down upon Big Fish Lake.  This lake was about half a mile across, deep blue-green in color, with rocky shores.  Upon the opposite side were beaver mounds.  We could see big trout swimming round, but they would not rise to a fly.  R.C. went out in an old boat and paddled to the head of