RIM COUNTRY

And tangles of undergrowth in the woods near the cabin, sketching wildflowers and experiencing the thrill of finding a few late, little rubies of strawberries hidden in their leaves underfoot. The boys spent most of their day performing engineering feats down at the small stream making its casual way through the miniature valley. One incident, a shadow of coming events, was another tiff between Charles and McArthur. The deer, curious, insisted on planting himself in the way of the saw, as Charles was using the bucksaw to provide wood for the ever-hungry cookstove. When reasoning failed, Charles attempted to 'shoo' him by waving a hat. Then that animal, famed in story and song for its soft brown eyes and gentle ways, rolled those eyes, and forsaking gentle ways, reared up on hind feet, slashing with his sharp-hooved forefeet. Now it was open warfare!

Another long, tense wait that evening produced no elk to be photographed! Charles was getting tired sitting in the blind. “I'm wondering if I'll develop a callus before I become completely paralyzed,” he speculated as he put his camera and lights away that night, Still, I knew that the experience was not more lost on him than it was on us, elk or no.

Three more golden autumn days were spent in our beautiful mountain valley-we could pretend it was ours, couldn't we? The fourth evening our excitement had been high for about fifteen minutes as four, fat, sleek cow elks moved easily but warily out of the dark woods up by the salt lick, and made their way to the water. We knew the big fellow bull was behind, since that is the way of the big, brave male elk-he lets his wives reconnoiter for him.

Charles 'held his fire,' although he admitted later his 'trigger finger' had itched to take shots of the cows, but he knew that if the slight whirring and click of the camera frightened the girls, their Lordship wouldn't appear. So, we waited tense minutes in the deepening dusk, then some sound or scent must have alarmed the cows, for suddenly, as one, they wheeled and loped swiftly back, as they had come. We knew they wouldn't reappear that evening, and of course, the light was too faint now for good exposure.

And the elk pictures? It took two more return trips, two more Septembers, without the family with him, before Charles got them. They came then, as most good things do, unexpectedly. Charles was standing in a clearing trying to focus on an especially large flock of wild turkeys, when who should step out into the open, in all his regal male beauty, but a big, bull elk with a magnificent rack of horns! More than ample compensation for former disappointments, Sir Elk stepped slowly across the clearing, flooded in its perfect light, head held high as he tested the wind for the man-smell he must have suspected if he heard the whirring of the movie camera. It was one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime breaks given to all devout cameramen, I understand. Anyway, Charles used it as the crowning perfection, to wind up his reel of Arizona Big Game.

I, too, came back from the Mogollon Rim with a reel of perfect color pictures-all purely mental, of courseof those dream-like days in what we consider one of the most beautiful, unspoiled sections of our state, and where we hope to have a cabin some day, where we can spend the summers “when we retire!'

Kaibab

The fawn capered out of the thicket into the opening of the forest. Its mother minced out carefully on delicate hooves, every action spelling alertness. She paused in the opening, ears catching and tracking each tiny sound. They suddenly detected the shape foreign to the trees and bushes of the forest. The fawn froze alongside the mother deer. The three of us remained like statues, for several min utes. Then the pent-up energy in the fawn reached the bursting point. It bounded violently, leaping high and kicking its tiny hooves in the air. Then it circled its mo tionless mother twice. In the second turn the little fellow slid under the doe, laid back its ears and attached an eager mouth to Nature's flowing milk bar. The fawn's tail

The Kaibab is big center for hunting in the fall.

pointed straight up and wiggled back and forth in ecstacy. But the mother deer wasn't satisfied with my motion-less and peaceful presence. She stepped, spraddle-legged, over her baby and trotted daintily into the thick timber. The fawn clambered up from his knees and ran after her.

Where else than on the Kaibab Mountain, I ask, can the average vacationer see such a sight, so often, so easily?

Kaibab Mountain, meaning "mountain lying down" in the Paiute Indian language, on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, is one of the finest deer ranges on the North American continent. Too, the Kaibab is 'way up out of the hustling bustling world of heat, smoke and frayed nerves.

As your car climbs out of House Rock Valley on the east, or up out of the sagebrush flats on the north, going to the Kaibab, you begin to feel the atmosphere of the Mountain-Lying-Down. You leave the heat of the lowlands behind. The sweet, cool wind brings you a heady scent of pine, spruce and aspen.

The first place you reach as you top out on the mountain is Jacob Lake. That name is a confuser-don't look for a lake the spot has no lake, only a sink that is partly filled with water and used now for cattle.

You will find the little settlement friendly here. There are all possible accommodations for the traveler at Harold Bowman's Jacob Lake Inn. . . cabins, meals, and horses to ride. There is entertainment, too.

If you can crawl out of bed early, you're in for a memorable experience as you go into the cafe just when they open the doors. It will be dark and cool. The many noises and exciting odors of breakfast preparation will come out of the kitchen. Uncle Billy Crosby will be making coffee in the big urn back of the counter, or be sitting on the stool the one closest to the coffee pot-waiting for the drink to brew.

He's of the old school, the people who drink their coffee black and hot. It will soon be ready and you'll hear the thump of his boot heels on the wooden floor as he walks over to draw a cup and start his day. About that time he'll turn to you and ask if you are ready for your coffee too.

To Uncle Billy, that drinking of the first cup of coffee is a morning ritual. Although he takes it straight, he sets yours up with cream and sugar and comments, "Some people like to spoil it maybe you do use all the sugar you like, but stir it up, we don't mind the noise."

Uncle Billy is a landmark at Jacob Lake, and rightfully so. The rawhide-tough little pioneer of the Kaibab, who speaks as gently and carefully as a college professor, will regale you with sharp quips, western humor, and excite your imagination with tales of adventure.

Some time during the conversation he will be sure to direct you south to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Be sure to take his advice!

If you do, you go some forty miles southward from Jacob Lake Inn, along a beautiful road which curves naturally and swings gracefully through the clumps of trees, opening new vistas to you every few turns. Finally it "POINT IMPERIAL" BY JERRY MCLAIN. Here the Grand Canyon of Arizona is seen from Point Imperial on the North Rim. By every comparison the Grand Canyon in this view is a designer's masterpiece; majestic in its immensity and delicate in its color and detail. The visitor finds many such scenes at Point Imperial, where the sweeping size of the Grand Canyon is continuously unbelievable, but for this view the photographer hiked away from the surfaced highway and found this point on a wooded hillside where stately trees framed the chasm. Kodachrome taken about 3:30 p.m., 4x5 Pacemaker Speed Graphic on tripod, Kodak Ektar f4.7 lens, Graphex shutter, exposure 1/10 seconds at f18. Here the forest flows into the canyon.