As before we fell into a manzanita thicket and had to crawl.  Then we came out upon the rim of a box canyon where the echoes made such a din.  It was too steep to descend.  We had to head it, and Copple took chances.  Loose boulders tripped me and stout bushes saved me.  We knocked streams of rock and gravel down into this gorge, sending up a roar as of falling water.  But we got around.  A steep slope lay below, all pine needles and leaves.  From this point I saw Edd on the opposite slope.

“I stopped one bear,” I yelled.  “Hurry.  Look out for the dogs!”

Then, imitating Copple, I sat down and slid as on a toboggan for some thirty thrilling yards.  Some of my anatomy and more of my rags I left behind me.  But it was too exciting then to think of hurts.  I managed to protect at least my rifle.  Copple was charging into the thicket below.  I followed him into the dark gorge, where huge boulders lay, and a swift brook ran, and leaves two feet deep carpeted the shady canyon bed.  It was gloomy down into the lower part.  I saw where bear had turned over the leaves making a dark track.

“The hounds have quit,” called Copple suddenly.  “I told you he was your bear.”

We yelled.  Somebody above us answered.  Then we climbed up the opposite slope, through a dense thicket, crossing a fresh bear track, a running track, and soon came into an open rocky slide where my bear lay surrounded by the hounds, with Old Dan on guard.  The bear was red in color, with silky fur, a long keen head, and fine limbs, and of goodly size.

“Cinnamon,” declared Copple, and turning him over he pointed to a white spot on his breast.  “Fine bear.  About four hundred pounds.  Maybe not so heavy.  But he’ll take some packin’ up to the rim!”

Then I became aware of the other men.  Takahashi had arrived on the scene first, finding the bear dead.  Edd came next, and after him Pyle.

I sat down for a much needed rest.  Copple interested himself in examining the bear, finding that my first shot had hit him in the flank, and my second had gone through the middle of his body.  Next Copple amused himself by taking pictures of bear and hounds.  Old Dan came to me and lay beside me, and looked as if to say:  “Well, we got him!”

Yells from both sides of the canyon were answered by Edd.  R.C. was rolling the rocks on his side at a great rate.  But Nielsen on the other side beat him to us.  The Norwegian crashed the brush, sent the avalanches roaring, and eventually reached us, all dirty, ragged, bloody, with fire in his eye.  He had come all the way from the rim in short order.  What a performance that must have been!  He said he thought he might be needed.  R.C. guided by Edd’s yells, came cracking the brush down to us.  Pale he was and wet with sweat, and there were black brush marks across his face.  His eyes were keen and sharp.  He had started down for the same reason as Nielsen’s.  But he had to descend a slope so steep that he had to hold on to keep from sliding down.  And he had jumped a big bear out of a bed of leaves.  The bed was still warm.  R.C. said he had smelled bear, and that his toboggan slide down that slope, with bears all around for all he knew, had started the cold sweat on him.