<TITLE>09. Par 29-31</TITLE>L-29 Hunting elk, the elk way up high this year, because there'd been no snow to run them down. And Mr. Jefferies, which was one of the owners of one of the ranches, we knowed every bit of ground throughout that forest land there for a hundred miles, 'cause we--for I herded cattle, and salted them, and so forth: take the pack trains, and go back, and salt the cattle, and round them up, and so forth.
And we'd went hunting, and he's a marvelous good hunter, and he'd took to the left to go back over on the, what we call, the West Fork; I took the East Fork. And we'd meet in four or five days, and have our elk hung up, and whatever we was going to get, and then put our horses together, and get the packs and come along, and bring them down. I was way high, walking around up there, and it'd been--been no snow to amount to anything. And--and in the fall of the year high in the mountains, it'll snow, then rain, and then sun will shine. You know how it is, at changing of the weather along October.

L-30 And I was walking way high, almost timberline, and there come up a--a northerner, and the skies turned green for a little while. And oh, it started blowing, and raining, and--and sleeting; and I got behind a tree, and just stood behind the tree, set my rifle down, there was an old blow down close. And I set my rifle down there, and I was just thinking, "Oh, God, how great Thou art. How wonderful You are. You're so--You made the mountains; You poured forth the fountain, raised up the mountain. Lord keep Your precious hands on me." And as I was standing there waiting for the rain to blow over, and then the winds got real heavy. And after the storm was over, I heard an old male elk begin to bugle. He got lost in the storm. Way up on the side of the hill, a coyote hollered; the mate answered down farther.
You know when David said, "The deep calleth to the deep." There was something about it was godly to me, hearing wildlife calling. There was that elk. I turned around and looked back towards the west, towards Washington here. And where the sun was going down, setting through the crevices of the mountains, looked like a great eye looking. I thought, "That's right, His eyes run to and fro upon the earth." Everywhere you looked was God. Just godly.

L-31 And then I looked back this way, and there was a rainbow back this way, on the--where the evergreens had froze over from the rain, and formed the sun against it, and made a rainbow across the valley. The wolf a hollering, the elk a bugling, and the sun setting, oh, my, I stood there crying like a baby. I looked back, I said, "Yeah, what's in the rainbow? It's a covenant, a promise." In Revelations 1 He was looked upon as jasper and sardine stone: That's Benjamin and Reuben, the first and the last, He that was, which is, and shall come, the Root and Offspring of David, the morning Star. What all He was, His titles, there He is in the rainbow setting there. And I thought, "Oh, how beautiful. How it's good to be here."
And I got so happy, till I went around and around that tree, just as hard as I could, screaming to the top of my voice, about thirty-five miles from a human being. And I was just a screaming, and a shouting. I guess if someone would've come in the woods, they'd thought somebody got out of the insane institution up there. I was just a screaming and shouting. I didn't care; I was worshipping God. I was just having me a good time. And I'd stop and I'd say, "That's right. He's Alpha and Omega. The same yesterday, today, and forever." And around, and around, and around the tree I'd go again, just as hard as I'd go. Just--had to let off some of the steam, you know, it was just--something was boiling. And I just screamed to the top of my voice.


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