68 Life in the Open 



distant mountains, sending shafts of fiery red into the 

 deep blue and purple canons. The washes of the canon 

 are almost dry ; only stepping-stones of rock tel 

 story of a winter stream ; but that the water is flowing 

 along beneath the surface, the cottonwoods, willows, 

 great brakes, and tall grasses suggest. 



The hounds, followed by the hunt, have wound 

 down a little trail into the gulch, where they spread out 

 and cover the stream and its branches. O-o-o-o ! rises 

 the deep silvery sound floating through the trees; 

 O-(HH> ! then faster, and the hounds stop a moment 

 before several plastic impressions in the sands, and 

 break into a volley of resonant bays Oou, Oou, (9-0-0 that 

 are carried far into the brush ; now along the sandy 

 reaches, up over mimic sand dunes, down into small 

 pools where windrows of shining mica lie like gold, up 

 the bare side of the cafton, into great masses of brakes 

 and ferns, startling a bevy of quail, old and young, that 

 rush away with loud whir, whir, whir of wings. Louder 

 the deep tones rise, culminating in the ecstasy of melo- 

 dious sounds, and the horses are rushed through the 

 underbrush to find the pack leaping about an old oak 

 up whose sides trail a mass of green the wild grape of 

 the arroyo. The dogs are looking upward ; some at 

 the foot of the tree, vainly trying to leap into it, others 

 farther off eying the branches with eagerness, occa- 

 sionally letting out a long, plaintive note that is borne 

 far away through the drowsy air. 



I had followed the fox in Southern California before, 



