Copple and I started down over and around the crags, going carefully until we reached the open slope under the rim-rock.  It seemed this morning that I was fresh, eager, agile like a goat on my feet.  In my consciousness of this I boasted to Copple that I would dislodge fewer stones and so make less noise than he.  The canyon sloped at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and we slid, stepped, jumped and ran down without starting an avalanche.

When we descended to the first bare cape of projecting rock the hour was the earliest in which I had been down under the rim.  All the canyon and the great green gulf below were unusually fresh and beautiful.  I heard the lonely call of strange birds and the low murmur of running water.  An eagle soared in the sunlight.  High above us to the east rose the magnificent slope of Dude Canyon.  I gazed up to the black and green and silver ascent, up to the gold-tipped craggy crest where R.C. had his stand.  I knew he could see me, but I could not see him.  Afterward he told me that my red cap shone clearly out of green and gray, so he had no difficulty in keeping track of my whereabouts.  The thickets of aspens and oaks seemed now to stand on end.  How dark in the shade and steely and cold they looked!  That giant ridge still obstructed the sun, and all on this side of it, under its frowning crest and slope was dark and fresh and cool in shadow.  The ravines were choked black with spruce trees.  Here along this gray shady slant of wall, in niches and cracks, and under ledges, and on benches, were the beds of the bears.  Even as I gazed momentarily I expected to see a bear.  It looked two hundred yards across the canyon from where we stood, but Copple declared it was a thousand.  On our other side capes and benches and groves were bright in sunshine, clear across the rough breaks to the west wall of Dude Canyon.  I saw a flock of wild pigeons below.  Way out and beyond rolled the floor of the basin, green and vast, like a ridged sea of pines, to the bold black Mazatzals so hauntingly beckoning from the distance.  Copple spoke now and then, but I wanted to be silent.  How wild and wonderful this place in the early morning!

But I had not long to meditate and revel in beauty and wildness.  Far down across the mouth of the canyon, at the extreme southern end of that vast oak thicket, the hounds gave tongue.  Old Dan first!  In the still cool air how his great wolf-bay rang out the wildness of the time and place!  Already Edd and Pyle had rounded the end of the east ridge and were coming up along the slope of Dude Canyon.

“Hounds workin’ round,” declared Copple.  “Now I’ll tell you what.  Last night a bear was feedin’ along that end of the thicket.  The hounds are millin’ round tryin’ to straighten out his trail....  It’s a dead cinch they’ll jump a bear an’ we’ll see him.”

“Look everywhere!” I cautioned Copple, and my eyes roved and strained over all that vast slope.  Suddenly I espied the flash of something black, far down the thicket, and tried to show it to my comrade.