Fox dashed down with eager barks.

When the smoke cleared away Wade saw the opposite slope bare except for one fallen elk.
Then he returned to his horses, and brought them back to where Fox perched beside the dead quarry.
"Well, Fox, that stag'll never bugle any more of a sunrise," said Wade.
"Strange how we're made so we have to eat meat! I'd 'a' liked it otherwise." He cut up the elk, and packed all the meat the horse could carry, and hung the best of what was left out of the reach of coyotes.

Mounting once more, he ascended to the rim and found a slope leading down to the west.

Over the basin country below he had hunted several days.

This way back to the ranch was longer, he calculated, but less arduous for man and beast.