Then he bluntly complimented me upon my eyesight.  That at least was consolation for my poor shooting.  We rested there, and after a while heard a turkey cluck.  Copple had no turkey-caller, but he clucked anyhow.  We heard answers.  The flock evidently was trying to get together again, and some of them were approaching us.  Copple continued to call.  Then I appreciated how fascinating R.C. had found this calling game.  Copple got answers from all around, growing closer.  But presently the answers ceased.  “They’re on to me,” he whispered and did not call again.  At that moment a young gobbler ran swiftly down the slope and stopped to peer around, his long neck stretching.  It was not a very long shot, and I, scorning to do less than Copple, tried to emulate him, and aimed at the neck of the gobbler.  All I got, however, was a few feathers.  Like a grouse he flew across the opening and was gone.  We lingered there a while, hoping to see or hear more of the flock, but did neither.  Copple tried to teach me how to tell the age of turkeys from their feet, a lesson I did not think I would assimilate in one hunting season.  He tied their legs together and hung them over his shoulder, a net weight of about fifty pounds.

All the way up that valley we saw elk tracks, and once from over the ridge I heard a bugle.  On our return toward camp we followed a rather meandering course, over ridge and down dale, and through grassy parks and stately forests, and along the slowly coloring maple-aspen thickets.  Copple claimed to hear deer running, but I did not.  Many tired footsteps I dragged along before we finally reached Beaver Dam Canyon.  How welcome the sight of camp!  R.C. had ridden miles with Edd, and had seen one deer that they said was still enjoying his freedom in the woods.  Takahashi hailed sight of the turkeys with:  “That fine!  That fine!  Nice fat ones!”

But tired as I was that night I still had enthusiasm enough to visit Haught’s camp, and renew acquaintance with the hounds.  Haught had not been able to secure more than two new hounds, and these named Rock and Buck were still unknown quantities.

Old Dan remembered me, and my heart warmed to the old gladiator.  He was a very big, large-boned hound, gray with age and wrinkled and lame, and bleary-eyed.  Dan was too old to be put on trails, or at least to be made chase bear.  He loved a camp-fire, and would almost sit in the flames.  This fact, and the way he would beg for a morsel to eat, had endeared him to me.

Old Tom was somewhat smaller and leaner than Dan, yet resembled him enough to deceive us at times.  Tom was gray, too, and had crinkly ears, and many other honorable battle-scars.  Tom was not quite so friendly as Dan; in fact he had more dignity.  Still neither hound was ever demonstrative except upon sight of his master.  Haught told me that if Dan and Tom saw him shoot at a deer they would chase it till they dropped; accordingly he never shot at anything except bear and lion when he had these hounds with him.