The Boys of the Dipper Ranch  The boys take a break at the stock
tank. Photograph by James Evans  The sun is not yet up as June’s
voice floats over the draws and craggy canyons of the Dipper
Ranch. Her owner, fifteen-year-old Jasper Klein, sits on a gray
mule and listens. June is the strike hound for the pack of
hunting dogs Jasper runs with his brothers, thirteen-year-old
Trevor and eleven-year-old Tanner. She is black, white, and tan,
long-bodied and droop-eared. She moves over rocks in a loose,
swinging trot with her nose skimming the earth, her white-tipped
tail waving. The other hounds work the boulders at the base of
the rocky hilltop where the boys wait. They are waiting for June
to catch the scent of a mountain lion. “She’s looking,” says
Tanner. “She’ll find it,” says Jasper. The dogs huff and their
tongues loll. June bays every time she catches a whiff of the
scent. Her bay is two syllables, the first note pitched lower
than the second: aahh-oooo. And again: aahh-oooo. She sounds
like a bell tolling