Presently George Haught joined us, having come down the bed of the canyon.

“We knew you’d got a bear,” said George.  “Father heard the first two bullets hit meat.  An’ I heard him rollin’ down the slope.”

“Well!” exclaimed R.C.  “That’s what made those first two shots sound so strange to me.  Different from the last two.  Sounded like soft dead pats!  And it was lead hitting flesh.  I heard it half a mile away!”

This matter of the sound of bullets hitting flesh and being heard at a great distance seemed to me the most remarkable feature of our hunt.  Later I asked Haught.  He said he heard my first two bullets strike and believed from the peculiar sound that I had my bear.  And his stand was fully a mile away.  But the morning was unusually still and sound carried far.

The men hung my bear from the forks of a maple.  Then they decided to give us time to climb up to our stands before putting the hounds on the other fresh trail.

Nielsen, R.C., and I started to climb back up to the points.  Only plenty of time made it possible to scale those rugged bluffs.  Nielsen distanced us, and eventually we became separated.  The sun grew warm.  The bees hummed.  After a while we heard the baying of the hounds.  They were working westward under the bases of the bluffs.  We rimmed the heads of several gorges, climbed and crossed the west ridge of Dude Canyon, and lost the hounds somewhere as we traveled.

R.C. did not seem to mind this misfortune any more than I. We were content.  Resting a while we chose the most accessible ridge and started the long climb to the rim.  Westward under us opened a great noble canyon full of forests, thicketed slopes, cliffs and caves and crags.  Next time we rested we again heard the hounds, far away at first, but gradually drawing closer.  In half an hour they appeared right under us again.  Their baying, however, grew desultory, and lacked the stirring note.  Finally we heard Edd calling and whistling to them.  After that for a while all was still.  Then pealed up the clear tuneful melody of Edd’s horn, calling off the chase for that day and season.

“All over,” said R.C.  “Are you glad?”

“For Old Dan’s sake and Tom’s and the bears—­yes,” I replied.

“Me, too!  But I’d never get enough of this country.”

We proceeded on our ascent over and up the broken masses of rock, climbing slowly and easily, making frequent and long rests.  We liked to linger in the sun on the warm piny mossy benches.  Every shady cedar or juniper wooed us to tarry a moment.  Old bear tracks and fresh deer tracks held the same interest, though our hunt was over.  Above us the gray broken mass of rim towered and loomed, more formidable as we neared it.  Sometimes we talked a little, but mostly we were silent.

[Illustration:  MEAT IN CAMP]

[Illustration:  (2) MEAT IN CAMP]