Presently I espied moving dots, one blue, one brown, on the opposite slope.  They were Haught and his son Edd slowly and laboriously climbing up the steep bluff.  How like snails they climbed!  Theirs was indeed a task.  A yell pealed out now and then, and though it seemed to come from an entirely different direction it surely must have come from the Haughts.  Presently some one high on the rim answered with like yells.  The chase was growing hotter.

“They’ve got a bear up somewhere,” cried Copple, excitedly.  And I agreed with him.

Then we were startled by the sharp crack of a rifle from the rim.

“The ball’s open!  Get your pardners, boys,” exclaimed Copple, with animation.

“Ben, wasn’t that a.30 Gov’t?” I asked.

“Sure was,” he replied.  “Must have been R.C. openin’ up.  Now look sharp!”

I gazed everywhere, growing more excited and thrilled.  Another shot from above, farther off and from a different rifle, augmented our stirring expectation.

Copple left our stand and ran up over the ridge, and then down under and along the base of a rock wall.  I had all I could do to keep up with him.  We got perhaps a hundred yards when we heard the spang of Haught’s.30 Gov’t.  Following this his big, hoarse voice bawled out:  “He’s goin’ to the left—­to the left!” That sent us right about face, to climbing, scrambling, running and plunging back to our first stand at the saddle, where we arrived breathless and eager.

Edd was climbing higher up, evidently to reach the level top of the bluff above, and Haught was working farther up the canyon, climbing a little.  Copple yelled with all his might:  “Where’s the bear?”

“Bar everywhar!” pealed back Haught’s stentorian voice.  How the echoes clapped!

Just then Copple electrified me with a wild shout. “Wehow!  I see him....  What a whopper!” He threw up his rifle:  spang—­spang—­spang
—­spang—­spang.

His aim was across the canyon.  I heard his bullets strike.  I strained my eyes in flashing gaze everywhere.  “Where?  Where?” I cried, wildly.

“There!” shouted Copple, keenly, and he pointed across the canyon.  “He’s goin’ over the bench—­above Edd....  Now he’s out of sight.  Watch just over Edd.  He’ll cross that bench, go round the head of the little canyon, an’ come out on the other side, under the bare bluff....  Watch sharp-right by that big spruce with the dead top....  He’s a grizzly an’ as big as a horse”.

I looked until my eyes hurt.  All I said was:  “Ben, you saw game first to-day”.  Suddenly a large, dark brown object, furry and grizzled, huge and round, moved out of the shadow under the spruce and turned to go along the edge in the open sunlight.

“Oh! look at him!” I yelled.  A strong, hot gust of blood ran all over me and I thrilled till I shook.  When I aimed at the bear I could see him through the circle of my peep sight, but when I moved the bead of the front sight upon him it almost covered him up.  The distance was far—­more than a thousand yards—­over half a mile—­we calculated afterward.  But I tried to draw a bead on the big, wagging brown shape and fired till my rifle was empty.