After lunch we pulled on up the cañon and camped. The tents were pitched and the cooks busy, when I noticed three cowboys down the stream and across the cañon, who were alternately leading their horses and stooping down in earnest consultation over some tracks on the ground. We walked over to them. There were Mr. Cooper, whose only visible eye rolled ominously, and Dan, the S. U. foreman, with another puncher.
“He’s usin’ here,” said Cooper. “That’s his track, and there’s his work,” pointing up the hill-side, where lay the body of a five-year-old cow. We drew near her, and there was the tale of a mighty struggle, all written out more eloquently than pen can do. There were the deep furrows of the first grapple at the top; there was the broad trail down the steep hill for fifty yards, with the stones turned over, and the dust marked with horn and hoof and claw; and there was the stump which had broken the roll down hill. The cow had her neck broken and turned under her body; her shoulder was torn from the body, her leg broken, and her side eaten into; and there were Bruin’s big telltale footprints, rivalling in size a Gladstone bag, as he had made his way down to the stream to quench his thirst and continue up the cañon. The cow was yet warm—not two hours dead.
"DO YOU THINK THIS PONY IS GOING TO BUCK?"
“We must pull out of here; he will come back to-night,” said Cooper. And we all turned to with a will and struck the tents, while the cooks threw their tins, bags, and boxes into the wagons, whereat we moved off down wind for three miles, up a spur of the cañon, where we again camped. We stood around the fires and allowed Mr. Cooper to fill our minds with hope. “He’ll shore come back; he’s usin’ here; an’ cow outfits—why, he don’t consider a cow outfit nothin’. He’s been right on top of cow outfits since he’s been in these parts, and thet two years gone now, when he begun to work this yer range, and do the work you see done yonder. In the mornin’ we’ll strike his trail, and if we can git to him you’ll shore see a bar-fight.”
We turned in, and during the night I was awakened twice—once by a most terrific baying of all the dogs, who would not be quieted, and later by a fine rain beating in my face. The night was dark, and we were very much afraid the rain would kill the scent. We were up long before daylight, and drank our coffee and ate our meat, and as soon as “we could see a dog a hundred yards,” which is the bear-hunter’s receipt, we moved off down the creek. We found that the cow had been turned over twice, but not eaten—evidently Bruin had his suspicions. The dogs cut his trail again and again. He had run within sight of our camp, had wandered across the valley hither and yon, but the faithful old hounds would not “go away.” Dan sat on his pony and blew his old cow’s horn, and yelled: “Hooick! hooick! get down on him, Rocks; hooick! hooick!” But Rocks could not get down on him, and then we knew that the rain had killed the scent. We circled a half-mile out, but the dogs were still; and then we followed up the Cañon Largo for miles, and into the big mountain, through juniper thickets and over malpais, up and down the most terrible places, for we knew that the bear’s bed-ground is always up in the most rugged peaks, where the rimrock overhangs in serried battlements, tier on tier. But no bear.
DAN AND ROCKS