In three days we drove Pyle’s Canyon, Dude Creek, and the small adjoining canyons, chasing in all nine bears, none of which ran anywhere near R.C. or me.  Old Dan gave out and had to rest every other day.  So the gloom again began to settle thick over the hopes of my faithful friends.  Long since, as in 1918, I had given up expectations of bagging a bear or a buck.  For R.C., however, my hopes still held good.  At least I did not give up for him.  But he shared somewhat the feelings of the men.  Still he worked harder than ever, abandoning the idea of waiting on one of the high stands, and took to the slopes under the rim where he toiled down and up all day long.  It pleased me to learn, presently, that this activity, strenuous as it was, became a source of delight to him.  How different such toil was from waiting and watching on the rim!

On November first, a bitter cold morning, with ice in the bright air, we went back to Pyle’s Canyon, and four of us went down with Edd and the hounds.  We had several chases, and about the middle of the forenoon I found myself alone, making tracks for the saddle over-looking Bear Canyon.  Along the south side of the slope, in the still air the sun was warm, but when I got up onto the saddle, in an exposed place, the wind soon chilled me through.  I would keep my stand until I nearly froze, then I had to go around to the sunny sheltered side and warm up.  The hounds finally got within hearing again, and eventually appeared to be in Bear Canyon, toward the mouth.  I decided I ought to go round the ridge on the east side and see if I could hear better.  Accordingly I set off, and the hard going over the sunny slope was just what I needed.  When I reached the end of the ridge, under the great dome, I heard the hounds below me, somewhat to my left.  Running and plowing down through the brush I gained the edge of the bluff, just in time to see some of the hounds passing on.  They had run a bear through that thicket, and if I had been there sooner I would have been fortunate.  But too late!  I worked around the head of this canyon and across a wide promontory.  Again I heard the hounds right under me.  They came nearer, and soon I heard rolling rocks and cracking brush, which sounds I believed were made by a bear.  After a while I espied Old Tom and Rock working up the canyon on a trail.  Then I was sure I would get a shot.  Presently, however, Old Tom left the trail and started back.  Rock came on, climbed the ridge, and hearing me call he came to me.  I went over to the place where he had climbed out and found an enormous bear track pointing in the direction the hounds had come.  They had back-trailed him.  Rock went back to join Old Tom.  Some of the pack were baying at a great rate in the mouth of the next canyon.  But an impassable cliff prevented me from working around to that point.  So I had to address myself to the long steep climb upward.  I had not gone far when I crossed the huge bear track that