"
One by one the hounds climbed over the rim and wearily lay down beside
us. Down the long, grassy, cedared aisle I saw Edd and Nielsen plodding
up. At length they reached us wet and dusty and thirsty. When Edd got
his breath he said: "Right off we struck a hot trail. Bear with
eleven-inch track. He'd come down to drink last night. Hounds worked up
thet yeller oak thicket, an' somewhere Sue an' Rock jumped him out of
his bed. He run down, an' he made some racket. Took to the low slopes
an' hit up lively all the way down Dude, then crossed, climbed around
under thet bare point of rock. Here some of the hounds caught up with
him. We heard a pup yelp, an' after a while Kaiser Bill come sneakin'
back. It was awful thick down in the canyon so we climbed the east side
high enough to see. An' we were workin' down when the pack bayed the
bear round thet bare point. It was up an' across from us. Nielsen an' I
climbed on a rock. There was an open rock-slide where we thought the
bear would show. It was five hundred yards. We ought to have gone across
an' got a stand higher up. Well, pretty soon we saw him come paddlin'
out of the brush--a big grizzly, almost black, with a frosty back. He
was a silvertip all right. Niels an' I began to shoot. An' thet bear
began to hump himself. He was mad, too. His fur stood up like a ruffle
on his neck.
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