“Let’s go around an’ down to that lower point of rock.  It’s a better stand than this.  Closer to the thicket an’ commands those....  By Golly, I see what you see!  That’s a bear, slippin’ down.  Stay with me now!”

Staying with Copple was a matter of utter disregard of clothes, limbs, life.  He plunged off that bare ledge, slid flat on his back, and wormed feet first under manzanita, and gaining open slope got up to run and jump into another thicket.  By staying with him I saw that I would have a way opened through the brush, and something to fall upon if I fell.  He rimmed the edge of a deep gorge that made me dizzy.  He leaped cracks.  He let himself down over a ledge by holding to bushes.  He found steps to descend little bluffs, and he flew across the open slides of weathered rock.  I was afraid this short cut to the lower projecting cape of rock would end suddenly on some impassable break or cliff, but though the travel grew rough we still kept on.  I wore only boots, trousers, and shirt, and cap, with cartridge belt strapped tight around me.  It was a wonder I was not stripped.  Some of my rags went to decorate the wake we left down that succession of ledges.  But we made it, with me at least, bruised and ragged, dusty and choked, and absolutely breathless.  My body burned as with fire.  Hot sweat ran in streams down my chest.  At last we reached the bare flat projecting cape of rock, and indeed it afforded an exceedingly favorable outlook.  I had to sink down on the rock; I could not talk until I got my breath; but I used my eyes to every advantage.  Neither Copple nor I could locate the black moving object we had seen from above.  We were much closer to the hounds, though they still were baying a tangled cross trail.  Fortunate it was for me that I was given these few moments to rest from my tremendous exertions.

My eyes searched the leaf-covered slope so brown and sear, and the shaggy thickets, and tried to pierce the black tangle of spruce patches.  All at once, magically it seemed, my gaze held to a dark shadow, a bit of dense shade, under a large spruce tree.  Something moved.  Then a big bear rose right out of his bed of leaves, majestically as if disturbed, and turned his head back toward the direction of the baying hounds.  Next he walked out.  He stopped.  I was quivering with eagerness to tell Copple, but I waited.  Then the bear walked behind a tree and peeped out, only his head showing.  After a moment again he walked out.

“Ben, aren’t you ever going to see him?” I cried at last.

“What?” ejaculated Copple, in surprise.

“Bear!” and I pointed.  “This side of dead spruce.”

“No!...  Reckon you see a stump....  By Golly!  I see him.  He’s a dandy.  Reddish color....  Doc, he’s one of them mean old cinnamons.”

“Watch!  What will he do?—­Ben, he hears the hounds.”

How singularly thrilling to see him, how slowly he walked, how devoid of fear, how stately!