C. and
George Haught having got ahead of me. I kept to the rim. The hounds
could be heard plainly and also the encouraging yells of Nielsen and
Edd. Apparently the chase was working along under me, in the direction I
was going. The baying of the pack, the scent of pine, the ring of
iron-shod hoofs on stone, the sense of wild, broken, vast country, the
golden void beneath and the purple-ranged horizon--all these brought
vividly and thrillingly to mind my hunting days with Buffalo Jones along
the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I felt a pang, both for the past, and
for my friend and teacher, this last of the old plainsmen who had died
recently. In his last letter to me, written with a death-stricken hand,
he had talked of another hunt, of more adventure, of his cherished hope
to possess an island in the north Pacific, there to propagate wild
animals--he had dreamed again the dream that could never come true. I
was riding with my face to the keen, sweet winds of the wild, and he was
gone. No joy in life is ever perfect. I wondered if any grief was ever
wholly hopeless.
I came at length to a section of rim where huge timbered steps reached
out and down. Dismounting I tied Stockings, and descended to the craggy
points below, where I clambered here and there, looking, listening. No
longer could I locate the hounds; now the baying sounded clear and
sharp, close at hand, and then hollow and faint, and far away.
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