by Zane Grey
When we reached our old camp in Barber Shop Canyon we were all glad to see Haught’s lost burro waiting for us there. Not a scratch showed on the shaggy lop-eared little beast. Haught for once unhobbled a burro and set it free without a parting kick. Nielsen too had observed this omission on Haught’s part. Nielsen was a desert man and he knew burros. He said prospectors were inclined to show affection for burros by sundry cuffs and kicks. And Nielsen told me a story about Haught. It seemed the bear hunter was noted for that habit of kicking burros. Sometimes he was in fun and sometimes, when burros were obstinate, he was in earnest. Upon one occasion a big burro stayed away from camp quite a long time—long enough to incur Haught’s displeasure. He needed the burro and could not find it, and all he could do was to hunt for it. Upon returning to camp there stood the big gray burro, lazy and fat, just as if he had been perfectly well behaved. Haught put a halter on the burro, using strong language the while, and then he proceeded to exercise his habit of kicking burros. He kicked this one until its fat belly gave forth sounds exceedingly like a bass drum. When Haught had ended his exercise he tied up the burro. Presently a man came running into Haught’s camp. He appeared alarmed. He was wet and panting. Haught recognized him as a miner from a mine nearby. “Hey Haught,” panted the miner, “hev you seen—your gray burro—thet big one—with white face?”
“Shore, there he is,” replied Haught. “Son of a gun jest rustled home.”
The miner appeared immensely relieved. He looked and looked at the gray burro as if to make sure it was there, in the solid flesh, a really tangible object. Then he said: “We was all afeared you’d kick the stuffin’s out of him!… Not an hour ago he was over at the mine, an’ he ate five sticks of dynamite! Five sticks! For Lord’s sake handle him gently!”
Haught turned pale and suddenly sat down. “Ahuh!” was all he said. But he had a strange hunted look. And not for a long time did he ever again kick a burro!
Hunting conditions at Dude Creek had changed greatly to our benefit. The trappers had pulled up stakes and gone to some other section of the country. There was not a hunting party within fifteen miles of our camp. Leaves and acorns were all down; trails were soft and easy to travel; no dust rose on the southern slopes; the days were cold and bright; in every pocket and ravine there was water for the dogs; from any stand we could see into the shaggy thickets where before all we could see was a blaze of color.
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 Rock and Old Tom had given up. This track was six inches wide and ten inches long. The bear that had made it had come down this very morning from over the ridge east of Bear Canyon. I trailed him up this ridge, over the steepest and roughest and wildest part of it, marveling at the enormous steps and jumps he made, and at the sagacity which caused him to choose this route instead of the saddle trail where I had waited so long. His track led up nearly to the rim and proved how he had climbed over the most rugged break in the ridge. Indeed he was one of the wise old scoundrels. When I reached camp I learned that Sue and several more of the hounds had held a bear for some time in the box of the canyon just beyond where I had to give up. Edd and Nielsen were across this canyon, unable to go farther, and then yelled themselves hoarse, trying to call some of us. I asked Edd if he saw the bear. “Sure did,” replied Edd. “One of them long, lean, hungry cinnamons.” I had to laugh, and told how near I had come to meeting a bear that was short, fat, and heavy: “One of the old Jasper scoundrels!”
That night at dark the wind still blew a gale, and seemed more bitterly cold. We hugged the camp-fire. My eyes smarted from the smoke and my face grew black. Before I went to bed I toasted myself so thoroughly that my clothes actually burned me as I lay down. But they heated the blankets and that made my bed snug and soon I was in the land of dreams. During the night I awoke. The wind had lulled. The canopy above was clear, cold, starry, beautiful. When we rolled out the mercury showed ten above zero. Perhaps looking at the thermometer made us feel colder, but in any event we would have had to move about to keep warm. I built a fire and my hands were blocks of ice when I got the blaze stirring.
That day, so keen and bright, so wonderful with its clarity of atmosphere and the breath of winter through the pines, promised to be as exciting as it was beautiful. Maybe this day R.C. would bag a bear!
When we reached the rim the sunrise was just flushing the purple basin, flooding with exquisite gold and rose light the slumberous shadows. What a glorious wilderness to greet the eye at sunrise! I suffered a pang to realize what men missed—what I had to miss so many wonderful mornings.
We had made our plan. The hounds had left a bear in the second canyon east of Dude. Edd started down. Copple and Takahashi followed to hug the lower slopes. Nielsen and Haught and George held to the rim to ride east in case the hounds chased a bear that way. And R.C. and I were to try to climb out and down a thin rock-crested ridge which, so far as Haught knew, no one had ever been on.
Looked at from above this ridge was indeed a beautiful and rugged backbone of rock, sloping from the rim, extending far out and down—a very narrow knife-edge extended promontory, green with cedar and pine, yellow and gray with its crags and rocks. A craggy point comparable to some of those in the Grand Canyon! We had to study a way to get across the first deep fissures, and eventually descended far under the crest and climbed back. It was desperately hard work, for we had so little time. R.
C. was to be at the middle of that ridge and I at the end in an hour. Like Trojans we worked. Some slippery pine-needle slopes we had to run across, for light quick steps were the only means of safe travel. And that was not safe! When we surmounted to the crest we found a jumble of weathered rocks ready to slide down on either side. Slabs, pyramids, columns, shale, rocks of all shapes except round, lay toppling along the heaved ridge. It seemed the whole ridge was ready to thunder down into the abyss. Half a mile down and out from the rim we felt lost, marooned. But there was something splendidly thrilling in our conquest of that narrow upflung edge of mountain. Twice R.C. thought we would have to abandon further progress, but I found ways to go on. How lonely and wild out there! No foot save an Indian’s had ever trod those gray rocks or brown mats of pine needles.
Before we reached the dip or saddle where R.C. was to make his stand the hounds opened up far below. The morning was perfectly still, an unusual occurrence there along the rim. What wild music! Then Edd’s horn pealed out, ringing melody, a long blast keen and clear, telling us above that he had started a bear. That made us hurry. We arrived at the head of an incline leading down to R.C.’s stand. As luck would have it the place was ideal for a bear, but risky for a hunter. A bear could come four ways without being seen until he was close enough to kill a man. We hurried on. At the saddle there was a broad bear trail with several other trails leading into it. Suddenly R.C. halted me with a warning finger. “Listen!”
I heard a faint clear rifle shot. Then another, and a fainter yell. We stood there and counted eleven more shots. Then the bay of the hounds seemed to grow closer. We had little time to pick and choose stands. I had yet to reach the end of the ridge—a task requiring seven-league boots. But I took time to choose the best possible stand for R.C. and that was one where a bear approaching from only the east along under the ridge could surprise him. In bad places like this we always tried to have our minds made up what to do and where to get in case of being charged by a wounded grizzly. In this instance there was not a rock or a tree near at hand. “R.C. you’ll have to stand your ground and kill him, that’s all,” I declared, grimly. “But it’s quiet. You can hear a bear coming. If you do hear one—wait—and make sure your first shot lets him down.”
“Don’t worry. I could hear a squirrel coming over this ground,” replied R.C.
Then I went on, not exactly at ease in mind, but stirred and thrilled to the keen charged atmosphere. I had to go around under the base of a rocky ledge, over rough ground. Presently I dropped into a bear trail, well trodden. I followed it to a corner of cliff where it went down. Then I kept on over loose rock and bare earth washed deep in ruts. I had to leap these. Perhaps in ten minutes I had traveled a quarter of a mile or less. Then spang! R.C.’s rifle-shot halted me. So clear and sharp, so close, so startling! I was thrilled, delighted—he had gotten a shot. I wanted to yell my pleasure. My blood warmed and my nerves tingled. Swiftly my thoughts ran—bad luck was nothing—a man had only to stick at a thing—what a fine, sharp, wonderful day for adventure! How the hounds bayed! Had R.C. sighted a bear somewhere below? Suddenly the still air split—spang! R.C.’s second shot gave me a shock. My breast contracted. I started back. “Suppose it was a grizzly—on that bad side!” I muttered. Spang!… I began to run. A great sweeping wave of emotion charged over me, swelling all my veins to the bursting point. Spang! My heart came to my throat. Leaping the ruts, bounding like a sheep from rock to rock, I covered my back tracks. All inside me seemed to flutter, yet I felt cold and hard—a sickening sense of reproach that I had left my brother in a bad position. Spang! His fifth and last shot followed swiftly after the fourth—too swift to be accurate. So hurriedly a man would act in close quarters. R.C. now had an empty rifle!… Like a flash I crossed that slope leading to the rocks, and tore around the cliff at such speed that it was a wonder I did not pitch down and break my neck. How long—how terribly long I seemed in reaching the corner of cliff! Then I plunged to a halt with eyes darting everywhere.
R.C. was not in sight. The steep curved neck of slope seemed all rocks, all trees, all brush. Then I heard a wild hoarse bawl and a loud crashing of brush. My gaze swerved to an open spot. A patch of manzanita seemed to blur round a big bear, standing up, fighting the branches, threshing and growling. But where was R.C.? Fearfully my gaze peered near and all around this wounded bear. “Hey there!” I yelled with all my might.
R.C.’s answer was another spang. I heard the bullet hit the bear. It must have gone clear through him for I saw bits of fur and manzanita fly. The bear plunged out of the bushes—out of my sight. How he crashed the brush—rolled the rocks! I listened. Down and down he crashed. Then the sound changed somewhat. He was rolling. At last that thumping sound ceased, and after it the roll of rocks.
“Are you—all right?” I shouted.
Then, after a moment that made me breathless, I heard R.C. laugh, a little shakily. “Sure am.… Did you see him?”
“Yes. I think he’s your bear.”
“I’m afraid he’s got away. The hounds took another bear down the canyon. What’ll we do?”
“Come on down,” I said.
Fifty yards or more down the slope we met. I showed him a great splotch of blood on a flat stone. “We’ll find him not far down,” I said. So we slid and crawled, and held to brush and rocks, following that bloody trail until we came to a ledge. From there I espied the bear lodged against a manzanita bush. He lay on his back, all four paws extended, and he was motionless. R.C. and I sat down right there on the ledge.
“Looks pretty big—black and brown—mostly brown,” I said. “I’m glad, old man, you stuck it out.”
“Big!…” exclaimed R.C. with that same peculiar little laugh. “He doesn’t look big now. But up there he looked like a hill.… What do you think? He came up that very way you told me to look out for. And if I hadn’t had ears he’d got right on me. As it was, when I heard little rolling stones, and then saw him, he was almost on a level with me. My nerve was all right. I knew I had him. And I made sure of my first shot. I knocked him flat. But he got up—let out an awful snarl—and plunged my way. I can’t say I know he charged me. Only it was just the same as if he had!… I knocked him down again and this time he began to kick and jump down the slope. That was my best shot. Think I missed him the next three. You see I had time to get shaky. If he had kept coming at me—good night!… I had trouble loading. But when I got ready again I ran down and saw him in that bush. Wasn’t far from him then. When he let out that bawl he saw me. I don’t know much about bears, but I know he wanted to get at me. And I’m sure of what he’d have done.… I didn’t miss my last shot.”
We sat there a while longer, slowly calming down. Wonderful indeed had been some of the moments of thrill, but there had been others not conducive to happiness. Why do men yearn for adventure in wild moments and regret the risks and spilled blood afterward?
IX
The hounds enjoyed a well-earned rest the next day. R.C. and I, behind Haught’s back, fed them all they could eat. The old hunter had a fixed idea that dogs should be kept lean and hungry so they would run bears the better. Perhaps he was right. Only I could not withstand Old Dan and Old Tom as they limped to me, begging and whining. Yet not even sore feet and hunger could rob these grand old hounds of their dignity. For an hour that morning I sat beside them in a sunny spot.
In the afternoon Copple took me on a last deer hunt for that trip. We rode down the canyon a mile, and climbed out on the west slope. Haught had described this country as a “wolf” to travel. He used that word to designate anything particularly tough. We found the ridge covered with a dense forest, in places a matted jungle of pine saplings. These thickets were impenetrable. Heavy snows had bent the pines so that they grew at an angle. We found it necessary to skirt these thickets, and at that, sometimes had to cut our way through with our little axes. Hunting was scarcely possible under such conditions. Still we did not see any deer tracks.
Eventually we crossed this ri
dge, or at least the jungle part of it, and got lower down into hollows and swales full of aspens. Copple recognized country he had hunted before. We made our way up a long shallow hollow that ended in an open where lay the remains of an old log cabin, and corrals. From under a bluff bubbled a clear beautiful spring. Copple looked all around slowly, with strange expression, and at last, dismounting he knelt to drink of the spring.
“Ah-h-good!” he exclaimed, after a deep draught. “Get down an’ drink. Snow water an’ it never goes dry.”
Indeed it was so cold it made my teeth ache, and so pure and sweet that I drank until I could hold no more. Deer and cat and bear tracks showed along the margin of clean sand. Lower down were fresh turkey tracks. A lonely spring in the woods visited by wild game! This place was singularly picturesque and beautiful. The purest drinking water is found in wild forest or on mountains. Men, cities, civilization contaminate waters that are not isolated.
Copple told me a man named Mitchell had lived in that lonely place thirty years ago. Copple, as a boy, had worked for him—had ridden wild bronchos and roped wild steers in that open, many and many a day. Something of unconscious pathos showed in Copple’s eyes as he gazed around, and in his voice. We all hear the echoing footsteps of the past years! In those days Copple said the ranch was overrun by wild game, and wild horses too.
We rode on westward, to come out at length on the rim of a magnificent canyon. It was the widest and deepest and wildest gorge I had come across in this country. So deep that only a faint roar of running water reached our ears! The slopes were too steep for man, let alone a horse; and the huge cliffs and giant spruces gave it a singularly rugged appearance. We saw deer on the opposite slope. Copple led along the edge, searching for traces of an old trail where Mitchell used to drive cattle across. We did not find a trail, but we found a place where Copple said one used to be. I could see no signs of it. Here leading his horse with one hand and wielding his little axe with the other Copple started down. For my part I found going down remarkably easy. The only trouble I had was to hold on, so I would not go down like a flash. Stockings, my horse, had in a few weeks become a splendid traveler in the forest. He had learned to restrain his spirit and use his intelligence. Wherever I led he would go and that without any fear. There is something fine in constant association with an intelligent horse under such circumstances. In bad places Stockings braced his forefeet, sat on his haunches, and slid, sometimes making me jump to get out of his way. We found the canyon bed a narrow notch, darkly rich and green, full of the melody of wild birds and murmuring brook, with huge rocks all stained gold and russet, and grass as high as our knees. Frost still lingered in the dark, cool, shady retreat; and where the sun struck a narrow strip of the gorge there was warm, sweet, dry breath of the forest. But for the most part, down here all was damp, dank, cool shadow where sunshine never reached, and where the smells were of dead leaves and wet moss and ferns and black rich earth.
