So we rode out with the hounds on another bear hunt.  Pyle’s Canyon lay to the east of Dude Creek, and we decided to run it that day.  Edd and Nielsen started down with the hounds.  Copple and I followed shortly afterward with the intention of descending mid-way, and then working along the ridge crests and promontories.  The other boys remained on the rim to take up various stands as occasion called for.

I had never been on as steep slopes as these under the rim.  They were grassy, brushy, rocky, but it was their steepness that made them so hard to travel.  Right off, half way down, we started a herd of bucks.  The noise they made sounded like cattle.  We found tracks of half a dozen.  “Lots of deer under the rim,” declared Copple, his eyes gleaming.  “They’re feedin’ on acorns.  Here’s where you’ll get your big buck.”  After that I kept a sharp lookout, arguing with myself that a buck close at hand was worth a lot of bears down in the brush.

Presently we changed a direct descent to work gradually along the slopes toward a great level bench covered with pines.  We had to cross gravel patches and pits where avalanches had slid, and at last, gaining the bench we went through the pine grove, out to a manzanita thicket, to a rocky point where the ledges were toppling and dangerous.  The stand here afforded a magnificent view.  We were now down in the thick of this sloped and canyoned and timbered wildness; no longer above it, and aloof from it.  The dry smell of pine filled the air.  When we finally halted to listen we at once heard the baying of the hounds in the black notch below us.  We watched and listened.  And presently across open patches we saw the flash of deer, and then Rock and Buck following them.  Thus were my suspicions of Rock fully confirmed.  Copple yelled down to Edd that some of the hounds were running deer, but apparently Edd was too far away to hear.

Still, after a while we heard the mellow tones of Edd’s horn, calling in the hounds.  And then he blew the signal to acquaint all of us above that he was going down around the point to drive the next canyon.  Copple and I had to choose between climbing back to the rim or trying to cross the slopes and head the gorges, and ascend the huge ridge that separated Pyle’s Canyon from the next canyon.  I left the question to Copple, with the result that we stayed below.

We were still high up, though when we gazed aloft at the rim we felt so far down, and the slopes were steep, stony, soft in places and slippery in others, with deep cuts and patches of manzanita.  No stranger was I to this beautiful treacherous Spanish brush!  I shared with Copple a dislike of it almost equal to that inspired by cactus.  We soon were hot, dusty, dry, and had begun to sweat.  The immense distances of the place were what continually struck me.  Distances that were deceptive—­that looked short and were interminable!  That was Arizona.  We covered miles in our detours and we had to travel fast because we knew Edd could round the base of the lower points in quick time.