250 



RECREATION. 



killed him. Full 90 yards and shot 

 plump through the head. That was 

 not chance ; it was luck. As I had the 

 sense not to show surprise at the shot, 

 but simply to bring in the rabbit, 

 Joe, in his still uncertain state of re- 

 pair, somehow came to believe I really 

 could shoot. Straightway I had a 

 rousing invitation to go home with 

 him, and stay as long as I cared. The 

 invitation was not overlooked. I went ; 

 I stayed 5 months. 



Joe's cabin was a 3-room affair; 

 supply room, sleeping room, living 

 room. It was built in a modest valley 

 that had little to do but attend to 

 its natural growth and listen to the 

 tales of the mountains that the noisy 

 Chicorica was continually humming. 

 To the North rose the immense peaks 

 of the Rockies ; to the South the hills 

 died away until lost in the semi-flats, 

 miles below. About 14 miles to the 

 Northeast was the divide, a favorite 

 range for deer and bear, a playground 

 for bobcats, and occasionally the tran- 

 sient home of some roving mountain 

 lion. 



The dogs were Shep and Nigger. 

 Shep was called Shep principally be- 

 cause he was not a shepherd. Nig had 

 a streak of bloodhound in him, some- 

 where removed in a remote generation. 

 Shep was a still hunter out of decency, 

 for Nig would have kept the average 

 right for a dozen barkless dogs. To 

 these dogs I always took off my hat. 

 I could not help it. Their great fund 

 of knowledge charmed me ; their good 

 nature won me ; their dog dignity de- 

 manded my respect. To enumerate 

 all the things these dogs did would re- 

 quire a volume. It is not, though, my 

 purpose to tell what the dogs did, but 

 to tell one or 2 things we did, as 

 when we killed the bear. In these af- 

 fairs Joe was the principal actor and I 

 figured rather as a supernumerary. 



We always reloaded our shells ; a 

 matter of economy and necessity. We 

 enjoyed many an hour at target prac- 

 tice, and always at moving or flying 

 objects. Sometimes we loaded shot 



into the shells. Joe had no fears of 

 leading. Shooting out the rifles, and 

 the hundred and one other fears of the 

 rifle crank, were unknown to him. 

 With these improvised shot shells we 

 at times did great damage to the jays 

 and the magpies that made a business 

 of getting too intimate with the strips 

 of venison we were sun-curing. The 

 birds had not been invited, anyway. 

 Early one morning, following an even- 

 ing's business with Mr. Jay, we start- 

 ed after deer. Joe went up the trail 

 to the right of the ridge. I took the 

 trail to the left. The dogs were left 

 in the cabin. We intended to meet at 

 a given place on the divide, make camp 

 and come home by way of the East 

 the next day. 



About 10 o'clock I had an extraor- 

 dinary feeling that I ought to cross 

 over and take the trail with Joe. I 

 could not throw it off. It was what 

 the boys call a "hunch." Taking ad- 

 vantage of the first break in the range 

 that afforded signs of a crossing, I 

 obeyed the hunch. After 3 hours or 

 more of climbing, falling, and tearing 

 through brush, I emerged on the right 

 side of the ridge, but considerably 

 above the trail. While sitting on a 

 rocky ledge trying to figure how to 

 strike the trail below without tumbling 

 on my head, and not reaching any sat- 

 isfactory conclusion, I noticed, about 

 200 yards below, a great pine tree up- 

 rooted. It had fallen in such a man- 

 ner that the mass of roots had blocked 

 the trail almost completely. The trunk 

 formed a sort of dry-weather foot-log. 

 Along that trunk, and up and down 

 the rough ladder of the roots, I shortly 

 saw enacted the greatest serio-comic, 

 semi-tragic, high and lofty tumbling 

 act of my whole life. 



Joe had been following the trail ac- 

 cording to program. No hunch had 

 come to bother him. No startling 

 thing had happened either to disturb 

 his thoughts or to break the silence of 

 the mountains. It so happened that a 

 big buck was enjoying the same de- 

 lightful day, and, unscared by the 



