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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2057 ***
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN
+
+
+by
+
+ZANE GREY
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+Buffalo Jones needs no introduction to American sportsmen, but to these
+of my readers who are unacquainted with him a few words may not be
+amiss.
+
+He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois prairie, and he has
+devoted practically all of his life to the pursuit of wild animals. It
+has been a pursuit which owed its unflagging energy and indomitable
+purpose to a singular passion, almost an obsession, to capture alive,
+not to kill. He has caught and broken the will of every well-known wild
+beast native to western North America. Killing was repulsive to him. He
+even disliked the sight of a sporting rifle, though for years necessity
+compelled him to earn his livelihood by supplying the meat of buffalo
+to the caravans crossing the plains. At last, seeing that the
+extinction of the noble beasts was inevitable, he smashed his rifle
+over a wagon wheel and vowed to save the species. For ten years he
+labored, pursuing, capturing and taming buffalo, for which the West
+gave him fame, and the name Preserver of the American Bison.
+
+As civilization encroached upon the plains Buffalo Jones ranged slowly
+westward; and to-day an isolated desert-bound plateau on the north rim
+of the Grand Cañon of Arizona is his home. There his buffalo browse
+with the mustang and deer, and are as free as ever they were on the
+rolling plains.
+
+In the spring of 1907 I was the fortunate companion of the old
+plainsman on a trip across the desert, and a hunt in that wonderful
+country of yellow crags, deep cañons and giant pines. I want to tell
+about it. I want to show the color and beauty of those painted cliffs
+and the long, brown-matted bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests;
+I want to give a suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; and
+particularly I want to throw a little light upon the life and nature of
+that strange character and remarkable man, Buffalo Jones.
+
+Happily in remembrance a writer can live over his experiences, and see
+once more the moonblanched silver mountain peaks against the dark blue
+sky; hear the lonely sough of the night wind through the pines; feel
+the dance of wild expectation in the quivering pulse; the stir, the
+thrill, the joy of hard action in perilous moments; the mystery of
+man's yearning for the unattainable.
+
+As a boy I read of Boone with a throbbing heart, and the silent
+moccasined, vengeful Wetzel I loved.
+
+I pored over the deeds of later men—Custer and Carson, those heroes of
+the plains. And as a man I came to see the wonder, the tragedy of their
+lives, and to write about them. It has been my destiny—what a happy
+fulfillment of my dreams of border spirit!—to live for a while in the
+fast-fading wild environment which produced these great men with the
+last of the great plainsmen.
+
+ZANE GREY.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   1. THE ARIZONA DESERT
+   2. THE RANGE
+   3. THE LAST HERD
+   4. THE TRAIL
+   5. OAK SPRING
+   6. THE WHITE MUSTANG
+   7. SNAKE GULCH
+   8. NAZA! NAZA! NAZA!
+   9. THE LAND OF THE MUSK-OX
+  10. SUCCESS AND FAILURE
+  11. ON TO THE SIWASH
+  12. OLD TOM
+  13. SINGING CLIFFS
+  14. ALL HEROES BUT ONE
+  15. JONES ON COUGARS
+  16. KITTY
+  17. CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1.
+
+THE ARIZONA DESERT
+
+One afternoon, far out on the sun-baked waste of sage, we made camp
+near a clump of withered pinyon trees. The cold desert wind came down
+upon us with the sudden darkness. Even the Mormons, who were finding
+the trail for us across the drifting sands, forgot to sing and pray at
+sundown. We huddled round the campfire, a tired and silent little
+group. When out of the lonely, melancholy night some wandering Navajos
+stole like shadows to our fire, we hailed their advent with delight.
+They were good-natured Indians, willing to barter a blanket or
+bracelet; and one of them, a tall, gaunt fellow, with the bearing of a
+chief, could speak a little English.
+
+"How," said he, in a deep chest voice.
+
+"Hello, Noddlecoddy," greeted Jim Emmett, the Mormon guide.
+
+"Ugh!" answered the Indian.
+
+"Big paleface—Buffalo Jones—-big chief—buffalo man," introduced
+Emmett, indicating Jones.
+
+"How." The Navajo spoke with dignity, and extended a friendly hand.
+
+"Jones big white chief—rope buffalo—tie up tight," continued Emmett,
+making motions with his arm, as if he were whirling a lasso.
+
+"No big—heap small buffalo," said the Indian, holding his hand level
+with his knee, and smiling broadly.
+
+Jones, erect, rugged, brawny, stood in the full light of the campfire.
+He had a dark, bronzed, inscrutable face; a stern mouth and square jaw,
+keen eyes, half-closed from years of searching the wide plains; and
+deep furrows wrinkling his cheeks. A strange stillness enfolded his
+feature the tranquility earned from a long life of adventure.
+
+He held up both muscular hands to the Navajo, and spread out his
+fingers.
+
+"Rope buffalo—heap big buffalo—heap many—one sun."
+
+The Indian straightened up, but kept his friendly smile.
+
+"Me big chief," went on Jones, "me go far north—Land of Little
+Sticks—Naza! Naza! rope musk-ox; rope White Manitou of Great Slave
+Naza! Naza!"
+
+"Naza!" replied the Navajo, pointing to the North Star; "no—no."
+
+"Yes me big paleface—me come long way toward setting sun—go cross Big
+Water—go Buckskin—Siwash—chase cougar."
+
+The cougar, or mountain lion, is a Navajo god and the Navajos hold him
+in as much fear and reverence as do the Great Slave Indians the musk-ox.
+
+"No kill cougar," continued Jones, as the Indian's bold features
+hardened. "Run cougar horseback—run long way—dogs chase cougar long
+time—chase cougar up tree! Me big chief—me climb tree—climb high
+up—lasso cougar—rope cougar—tie cougar all tight."
+
+The Navajo's solemn face relaxed
+
+"White man heap fun. No."
+
+"Yes," cried Jones, extending his great arms. "Me strong; me rope
+cougar—me tie cougar; ride off wigwam, keep cougar alive."
+
+"No," replied the savage vehemently.
+
+"Yes," protested Jones, nodding earnestly.
+
+"No," answered the Navajo, louder, raising his dark head.
+
+"Yes!" shouted Jones.
+
+"BIG LIE!" the Indian thundered.
+
+Jones joined good-naturedly in the laugh at his expense. The Indian had
+crudely voiced a skepticism I had heard more delicately hinted in New
+York, and singularly enough, which had strengthened on our way West, as
+we met ranchers, prospectors and cowboys. But those few men I had
+fortunately met, who really knew Jones, more than overbalanced the
+doubt and ridicule cast upon him. I recalled a scarred old veteran of
+the plains, who had talked to me in true Western bluntness:
+
+"Say, young feller, I heerd yer couldn't git acrost the Cañon fer the
+deep snow on the north rim. Wal, ye're lucky. Now, yer hit the trail
+fer New York, an' keep goin'! Don't ever tackle the desert, 'specially
+with them Mormons. They've got water on the brain, wusser 'n religion.
+It's two hundred an' fifty miles from Flagstaff to Jones range, an'
+only two drinks on the trail. I know this hyar Buffalo Jones. I knowed
+him way back in the seventies, when he was doin' them ropin' stunts
+thet made him famous as the preserver of the American bison. I know
+about that crazy trip of his'n to the Barren Lands, after musk-ox. An'
+I reckon I kin guess what he'll do over there in the Siwash. He'll rope
+cougars—sure he will—an' watch 'em jump. Jones would rope the devil,
+an' tie him down if the lasso didn't burn. Oh! he's hell on ropin'
+things. An' he's wusser 'n hell on men, an' hosses, an' dogs."
+
+All that my well-meaning friend suggested made me, of course, only the
+more eager to go with Jones. Where I had once been interested in the
+old buffalo hunter, I was now fascinated. And now I was with him in the
+desert and seeing him as he was, a simple, quiet man, who fitted the
+mountains and the silences, and the long reaches of distance.
+
+"It does seem hard to believe—all this about Jones," remarked Judd,
+one of Emmett's men. "How could a man have the strength and the nerve?
+And isn't it cruel to keep wild animals in captivity? Isn't it against
+God's word?"
+
+Quick as speech could flow, Jones quoted: "And God said, 'Let us make
+man in our image, and give him dominion over the fish of the sea, the
+fowls of the air, over all the cattle, and over every creeping thing
+that creepeth upon the earth'!"
+
+"Dominion—over all the beasts of the field!" repeated Jones, his big
+voice rolling out. He clenched his huge fists, and spread wide his long
+arms. "Dominion! That was God's word!" The power and intensity of him
+could be felt. Then he relaxed, dropped his arms, and once more grew
+calm. But he had shown a glimpse of the great, strange and absorbing
+passion of his life. Once he had told me how, when a mere child, he had
+hazarded limb and neck to capture a fox squirrel, how he had held on to
+the vicious little animal, though it bit his hand through; how he had
+never learned to play the games of boyhood; that when the youths of the
+little Illinois village were at play, he roamed the prairies, or the
+rolling, wooded hills, or watched a gopher hole. That boy was father of
+the man: for sixty years an enduring passion for dominion over wild
+animals had possessed him, and made his life an endless pursuit.
+
+Our guests, the Navajos, departed early, and vanished silently in the
+gloom of the desert. We settled down again into a quiet that was broken
+only by the low chant-like song of a praying Mormon. Suddenly the
+hounds bristled, and old Moze, a surly and aggressive dog, rose and
+barked at some real or imaginary desert prowler. A sharp command from
+Jones made Moze crouch down, and the other hounds cowered close
+together.
+
+"Better tie up the dogs," suggested Jones. "Like as not coyotes run
+down here from the hills."
+
+The hounds were my especial delight. But Jones regarded them with
+considerable contempt. When all was said, this was no small wonder, for
+that quintet of long-eared canines would have tried the patience of a
+saint. Old Moze was a Missouri hound that Jones had procured in that
+State of uncertain qualities; and the dog had grown old over
+coon-trails. He was black and white, grizzled and battlescarred; and if
+ever a dog had an evil eye, Moze was that dog. He had a way of wagging
+his tail—an indeterminate, equivocal sort of wag, as if he realized
+his ugliness and knew he stood little chance of making friends, but was
+still hopeful and willing. As for me, the first time he manifested this
+evidence of a good heart under a rough coat, he won me forever.
+
+To tell of Moze's derelictions up to that time would take more space
+than would a history of the whole trip; but the enumeration of
+several incidents will at once stamp him as a dog of character, and
+will establish the fact that even if his progenitors had never taken
+any blue ribbons, they had at least bequeathed him fighting blood.
+At Flagstaff we chained him in the yard of a livery stable. Next
+morning we found him hanging by his chain on the other side of an
+eight-foot fence. We took him down, expecting to have the sorrowful
+duty of burying him; but Moze shook himself, wagged his tail and then
+pitched into the livery stable dog. As a matter of fact, fighting
+was his forte. He whipped all of the dogs in Flagstaff; and when our
+blood hounds came on from California, he put three of them _hors de
+combat_ at once, and subdued the pup with a savage growl. His crowning
+feat, however, made even the stoical Jones open his mouth in amaze.
+We had taken Moze to the El Tovar at the Grand Cañon, and finding
+it impossible to get over to the north rim, we left him with one of
+Jones's men, called Rust, who was working on the Cañon trail. Rust's
+instructions were to bring Moze to Flagstaff in two weeks. He brought
+the dog a little ahead of time, and roared his appreciation of the
+relief it was to get the responsibility off his hands. And he related
+many strange things, most striking of which was how Moze had broken his
+chain and plunged into the raging Colorado River, and tried to swim it
+just above the terrible Sockdolager Rapids. Rust and his fellow-workmen
+watched the dog disappear in the yellow, wrestling, turbulent whirl
+of waters, and had heard his knell in the booming roar of the falls.
+Nothing but a fish could live in that current; nothing but a bird could
+scale those perpendicular marble walls. That night, however, when the
+men crossed on the tramway, Moze met them with a wag of his tail. He
+had crossed the river, and he had come back!
+
+To the four reddish-brown, high-framed bloodhounds I had given the
+names of Don, Tige, Jude and Ranger; and by dint of persuasion, had
+succeeded in establishing some kind of family relation between them and
+Moze. This night I tied up the bloodhounds, after bathing and salving
+their sore feet; and I left Moze free, for he grew fretful and surly
+under restraint.
+
+The Mormons, prone, dark, blanketed figures, lay on the sand. Jones was
+crawling into his bed. I walked a little way from the dying fire, and
+faced the north, where the desert stretched, mysterious and
+illimitable. How solemn and still it was! I drew in a great breath of
+the cold air, and thrilled with a nameless sensation. Something was
+there, away to the northward; it called to me from out of the dark and
+gloom; I was going to meet it.
+
+I lay down to sleep with the great blue expanse open to my eyes. The
+stars were very large, and wonderfully bright, yet they seemed so much
+farther off than I had ever seen them. The wind softly sifted the sand.
+I hearkened to the tinkle of the cowbells on the hobbled horses. The
+last thing I remembered was old Moze creeping close to my side, seeking
+the warmth of my body.
+
+When I awakened, a long, pale line showed out of the dun-colored clouds
+in the east. It slowly lengthened, and tinged to red. Then the morning
+broke, and the slopes of snow on the San Francisco peaks behind us
+glowed a delicate pink. The Mormons were up and doing with the dawn.
+They were stalwart men, rather silent, and all workers. It was
+interesting to see them pack for the day's journey. They traveled with
+wagons and mules, in the most primitive way, which Jones assured me was
+exactly as their fathers had crossed the plains fifty years before, on
+the trail to Utah.
+
+All morning we made good time, and as we descended into the desert, the
+air became warmer, the scrubby cedar growth began to fail, and the
+bunches of sage were few and far between. I turned often to gaze back
+at the San Francisco peaks. The snowcapped tips glistened and grew
+higher, and stood out in startling relief. Some one said they could be
+seen two hundred miles across the desert, and were a landmark and a
+fascination to all travelers thitherward.
+
+I never raised my eyes to the north that I did not draw my breath
+quickly and grow chill with awe and bewilderment with the marvel of the
+desert. The scaly red ground descended gradually; bare red knolls, like
+waves, rolled away northward; black buttes reared their flat heads;
+long ranges of sand flowed between them like streams, and all sloped
+away to merge into gray, shadowy obscurity, into wild and desolate,
+dreamy and misty nothingness.
+
+"Do you see those white sand dunes there, more to the left?" asked
+Emmett. "The Little Colorado runs in there. How far does it look to
+you?"
+
+"Thirty miles, perhaps," I replied, adding ten miles to my estimate.
+
+"It's seventy-five. We'll get there day after to-morrow. If the snow in
+the mountains has begun to melt, we'll have a time getting across."
+
+That afternoon, a hot wind blew in my face, carrying fine sand that cut
+and blinded. It filled my throat, sending me to the water cask till I
+was ashamed. When I fell into my bed at night, I never turned. The next
+day was hotter; the wind blew harder; the sand stung sharper.
+
+About noon the following day, the horses whinnied, and the mules roused
+out of their tardy gait. "They smell water," said Emmett. And despite
+the heat, and the sand in my nostrils, I smelled it, too. The dogs,
+poor foot-sore fellows, trotted on ahead down the trail. A few more
+miles of hot sand and gravel and red stone brought us around a low mesa
+to the Little Colorado.
+
+It was a wide stream of swiftly running, reddish-muddy water. In the
+channel, cut by floods, little streams trickled and meandered in all
+directions. The main part of the river ran in close to the bank we were
+on. The dogs lolled in the water; the horses and mules tried to run in,
+but were restrained; the men drank, and bathed their faces. According
+to my Flagstaff adviser, this was one of the two drinks I would get on
+the desert, so I availed myself heartily of the opportunity. The water
+was full of sand, but cold and gratefully thirst-quenching.
+
+The Little Colorado seemed no more to me than a shallow creek; I heard
+nothing sullen or menacing in its musical flow.
+
+"Doesn't look bad, eh?" queried Emmett, who read my thought. "You'd be
+surprised to learn how many men and Indians, horses, sheep and wagons
+are buried under that quicksand."
+
+The secret was out, and I wondered no more. At once the stream and wet
+bars of sand took on a different color. I removed my boots, and waded
+out to a little bar. The sand seemed quite firm, but water oozed out
+around my feet; and when I stepped, the whole bar shook like jelly. I
+pushed my foot through the crust, and the cold, wet sand took hold, and
+tried to suck me down.
+
+"How can you ford this stream with horses?" I asked Emmett.
+
+"We must take our chances," replied he. "We'll hitch two teams to one
+wagon, and run the horses. I've forded here at worse stages than this.
+Once a team got stuck, and I had to leave it; another time the water
+was high, and washed me downstream."
+
+Emmett sent his son into the stream on a mule. The rider lashed his
+mount, and plunging, splashing, crossed at a pace near a gallop. He
+returned in the same manner, and reported one bad place near the other
+side.
+
+Jones and I got on the first wagon and tried to coax up the dogs, but
+they would not come. Emmett had to lash the four horses to start them;
+and other Mormons riding alongside, yelled at them, and used their
+whips. The wagon bowled into the water with a tremendous splash. We
+were wet through before we had gone twenty feet. The plunging horses
+were lost in yellow spray; the stream rushed through the wheels; the
+Mormons yelled. I wanted to see, but was lost in a veil of yellow mist.
+Jones yelled in my ear, but I could not hear what he said. Once the
+wagon wheels struck a stone or log, almost lurching us overboard. A
+muddy splash blinded me. I cried out in my excitement, and punched
+Jones in the back. Next moment, the keen exhilaration of the ride gave
+way to horror. We seemed to drag, and almost stop. Some one roared:
+"Horse down!" One instant of painful suspense, in which imagination
+pictured another tragedy added to the record of this deceitful river—a
+moment filled with intense feeling, and sensation of splash, and yell,
+and fury of action; then the three able horses dragged their comrade
+out of the quicksand. He regained his feet, and plunged on. Spurred by
+fear, the horses increased their efforts, and amid clouds of spray,
+galloped the remaining distance to the other side.
+
+Jones looked disgusted. Like all plainsmen, he hated water. Emmett and
+his men calmly unhitched. No trace of alarm, or even of excitement
+showed in their bronzed faces.
+
+"We made that fine and easy," remarked Emmett.
+
+So I sat down and wondered what Jones and Emmett, and these men would
+consider really hazardous. I began to have a feeling that I would find
+out; that experience for me was but in its infancy; that far across the
+desert the something which had called me would show hard, keen,
+perilous life. And I began to think of reserve powers of fortitude and
+endurance.
+
+The other wagons were brought across without mishap; but the dogs did
+not come with them. Jones called and called. The dogs howled and
+howled. Finally I waded out over the wet bars and little streams to a
+point several hundred yards nearer the dogs. Moze was lying down, but
+the others were whining and howling in a state of great perturbation. I
+called and called. They answered, and even ran into the water, but did
+not start across.
+
+"Hyah, Moze! hyah, you Indian!" I yelled, losing my patience. "You've
+already swum the Big Colorado, and this is only a brook. Come on!"
+
+This appeal evidently touched Moze, for he barked, and plunged in. He
+made the water fly, and when carried off his feet, breasted the current
+with energy and power. He made shore almost even with me, and wagged
+his tail. Not to be outdone, Jude, Tige and Don followed suit, and
+first one and then another was swept off his feet and carried
+downstream. They landed below me. This left Ranger, the pup, alone on
+the other shore. Of all the pitiful yelps ever uttered by a frightened
+and lonely puppy, his were the most forlorn I had ever heard. Time
+after time he plunged in, and with many bitter howls of distress, went
+back. I kept calling, and at last, hoping to make him come by a show of
+indifference, I started away. This broke his heart. Putting up his
+head, he let out a long, melancholy wail, which for aught I knew might
+have been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the yellow current.
+Ranger swam like a boy learning. He seemed to be afraid to get wet. His
+forefeet were continually pawing the air in front of his nose. When he
+struck the swift place, he went downstream like a flash, but still kept
+swimming valiantly. I tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it
+impossible. I encouraged him by yelling. He drifted far below, stranded
+on an island, crossed it, and plunged in again, to make shore almost
+out of my sight. And when at last I got to dry sand, there was Ranger,
+wet and disheveled, but consciously proud and happy.
+
+After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile stretch from the Little to
+the Big Colorado.
+
+Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a vast, sandy plain, flat
+and monotonous. Reality showed me desolate mountains gleaming bare in
+the sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand dunes, and hills of blue
+clay, areas of level ground—in all, a many-hued, boundless world in
+itself, wonderful and beautiful, fading all around into the purple haze
+of deceiving distance.
+
+Thin, clear, sweet, dry, the desert air carried a languor, a
+dreaminess, tidings of far-off things, and an enthralling promise. The
+fragrance of flowers, the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of
+music, the mystery of life—all seemed to float on that promise. It was
+the air breathed by the lotus-eaters, when they dreamed, and wandered
+no more.
+
+Beyond the Little Colorado, we began to climb again. The sand was
+thick; the horses labored; the drivers shielded their faces. The dogs
+began to limp and lag. Ranger had to be taken into a wagon; and then,
+one by one, all of the other dogs except Moze. He refused to ride, and
+trotted along with his head down.
+
+Far to the front the pink cliffs, the ragged mesas, the dark, volcanic
+spurs of the Big Colorado stood up and beckoned us onward. But they
+were a far hundred miles across the shifting sands, and baked day, and
+ragged rocks. Always in the rear rose the San Francisco peaks, cold and
+pure, startlingly clear and close in the rare atmosphere.
+
+We camped near another water hole, located in a deep, yellow-colored
+gorge, crumbling to pieces, a ruin of rock, and silent as the grave. In
+the bottom of the cañon was a pool of water, covered with green scum.
+My thirst was effectually quenched by the mere sight of it. I slept
+poorly, and lay for hours watching the great stars. The silence was
+painfully oppressive. If Jones had not begun to give a respectable
+imitation of the exhaust pipe on a steamboat, I should have been
+compelled to shout aloud, or get up; but this snoring would have
+dispelled anything. The morning came gray and cheerless. I got up stiff
+and sore, with a tongue like a rope.
+
+All day long we ran the gauntlet of the hot, flying sand. Night came
+again, a cold, windy night. I slept well until a mule stepped on my
+bed, which was conducive to restlessness. At dawn, cold, gray clouds
+tried to blot out the rosy east. I could hardly get up. My lips were
+cracked; my tongue swollen to twice its natural size; my eyes smarted
+and burned. The barrels and kegs of water were exhausted. Holes that
+had been dug in the dry sand of a dry streambed the night before in the
+morning yielded a scant supply of muddy alkali water, which went to the
+horses.
+
+Only twice that day did I rouse to anything resembling enthusiasm. We
+came to a stretch of country showing the wonderful diversity of the
+desert land. A long range of beautifully rounded clay stones bordered
+the trail. So symmetrical were they that I imagined them works of
+sculptors. Light blue, dark blue, clay blue, marine blue, cobalt
+blue—every shade of blue was there, but no other color. The other time
+that I awoke to sensations from without was when we came to the top of
+a ridge. We had been passing through red-lands. Jones called the place
+a strong, specific word which really was illustrative of the heat amid
+those scaling red ridges. We came out where the red changed abruptly to
+gray. I seemed always to see things first, and I cried out: "Look! here
+are a red lake and trees!"
+
+"No, lad, not a lake," said old Jim, smiling at me; "that's what haunts
+the desert traveler. It's only mirage!"
+
+So I awoke to the realization of that illusive thing, the mirage, a
+beautiful lie, false as stairs of sand. Far northward a clear rippling
+lake sparkled in the sunshine. Tall, stately trees, with waving green
+foliage, bordered the water. For a long moment it lay there, smiling in
+the sun, a thing almost tangible; and then it faded. I felt a sense of
+actual loss. So real had been the illusion that I could not believe I
+was not soon to drink and wade and dabble in the cool waters.
+Disappointment was keen. This is what maddens the prospector or
+sheep-herder lost in the desert. Was it not a terrible thing to be
+dying of thirst, to see sparkling water, almost to smell it and then
+realize suddenly that all was only a lying track of the desert, a lure,
+a delusion? I ceased to wonder at the Mormons, and their search for
+water, their talk of water. But I had not realized its true
+significance. I had not known what water was. I had never appreciated
+it. So it was my destiny to learn that water is the greatest thing on
+earth. I hung over a three-foot hole in a dry stream-bed, and watched
+it ooze and seep through the sand, and fill up—oh, so slowly; and I
+felt it loosen my parched tongue, and steal through all my dry body
+with strength and life. Water is said to constitute three fourths of
+the universe. However that may be, on the desert it is the whole world,
+and all of life.
+
+Two days passed by, all hot sand and wind and glare. The Mormons sang
+no more at evening; Jones was silent; the dogs were limp as rags.
+
+At Moncaupie Wash we ran into a sandstorm. The horses turned their
+backs to it, and bowed their heads patiently. The Mormons covered
+themselves. I wrapped a blanket round my head and hid behind a sage
+bush. The wind, carrying the sand, made a strange hollow roar. All was
+enveloped in a weird yellow opacity. The sand seeped through the sage
+bush and swept by with a soft, rustling sound, not unlike the wind in
+the rye. From time to time I raised a corner of my blanket and peeped
+out. Where my feet had stretched was an enormous mound of sand. I felt
+the blanket, weighted down, slowly settle over me.
+
+Suddenly as it had come, the sandstorm passed. It left a changed world
+for us. The trail was covered; the wheels hub-deep in sand; the horses,
+walking sand dunes. I could not close my teeth without grating harshly
+on sand.
+
+We journeyed onward, and passed long lines of petrified trees, some a
+hundred feet in length, lying as they had fallen, thousands of years
+before. White ants crawled among the ruins. Slowly climbing the sandy
+trail, we circled a great red bluff with jagged peaks, that had seemed
+an interminable obstacle. A scant growth of cedar and sage again made
+its appearance. Here we halted to pass another night. Under a cedar I
+heard the plaintive, piteous bleat of an animal. I searched, and
+presently found a little black and white lamb, scarcely able to stand.
+It came readily to me, and I carried it to the wagon.
+
+"That's a Navajo lamb," said Emmett. "It's lost. There are Navajo
+Indians close by."
+
+"Away in the desert we heard its cry," quoted one of the Mormons.
+
+Jones and I climbed the red mesa near camp to see the sunset. All the
+western world was ablaze in golden glory. Shafts of light shot toward
+the zenith, and bands of paler gold, tinging to rose, circled away from
+the fiery, sinking globe. Suddenly the sun sank, the gold changed to
+gray, then to purple, and shadows formed in the deep gorge at our feet.
+So sudden was the transformation that soon it was night, the solemn,
+impressive night of the desert. A stillness that seemed too sacred to
+break clasped the place; it was infinite; it held the bygone ages, and
+eternity.
+
+More days, and miles, miles, miles! The last day's ride to the Big
+Colorado was unforgettable. We rode toward the head of a gigantic red
+cliff pocket, a veritable inferno, immeasurably hot, glaring, awful. It
+towered higher and higher above us. When we reached a point of this red
+barrier, we heard the dull rumbling roar of water, and we came out, at
+length, on a winding trail cut in the face of a bluff overhanging the
+Colorado River. The first sight of most famous and much-heralded
+wonders of nature is often disappointing; but never can this be said of
+the blood-hued Rio Colorado. If it had beauty, it was beauty that
+appalled. So riveted was my gaze that I could hardly turn it across the
+river, where Emmett proudly pointed out his lonely home—an oasis set
+down amidst beetling red cliffs. How grateful to the eye was the green
+of alfalfa and cottonwood! Going round the bluff trail, the wheels had
+only a foot of room to spare; and the sheer descent into the red,
+turbid, congested river was terrifying.
+
+I saw the constricted rapids, where the Colorado took its plunge into
+the box-like head of the Grand Cañon of Arizona; and the deep,
+reverberating boom of the river, at flood height, was a fearful thing
+to hear. I could not repress a shudder at the thought of crossing above
+that rapid.
+
+The bronze walls widened as we proceeded, and we got down presently to
+a level, where a long wire cable stretched across the river. Under the
+cable ran a rope. On the other side was an old scow moored to the bank.
+
+"Are we going across in that?" I asked Emmett, pointing to the boat.
+
+"We'll all be on the other side before dark," he replied cheerily.
+
+I felt that I would rather start back alone over the desert than trust
+myself in such a craft, on such a river. And it was all because I had
+had experience with bad rivers, and thought I was a judge of dangerous
+currents. The Colorado slid with a menacing roar out of a giant split
+in the red wall, and whirled, eddied, bulged on toward its confinement
+in the iron-ribbed cañon below.
+
+In answer to shots fired, Emmett's man appeared on the other side, and
+rode down to the ferry landing. Here he got into a skiff, and rowed
+laboriously upstream for a long distance before he started across, and
+then swung into the current. He swept down rapidly, and twice the skiff
+whirled, and completely turned round; but he reached our bank safely.
+Taking two men aboard he rowed upstream again, close to the shore, and
+returned to the opposite side in much the same manner in which he had
+come over.
+
+The three men pushed out the scow, and grasping the rope overhead,
+began to pull. The big craft ran easily. When the current struck it,
+the wire cable sagged, the water boiled and surged under it, raising
+one end, and then the other. Nevertheless, five minutes were all that
+were required to pull the boat over.
+
+It was a rude, oblong affair, made of heavy planks loosely put
+together, and it leaked. When Jones suggested that we get the agony
+over as quickly as possible, I was with him, and we embarked together.
+Jones said he did not like the looks of the tackle; and when I thought
+of his by no means small mechanical skill, I had not added a cheerful
+idea to my consciousness. The horses of the first team had to be
+dragged upon the scow, and once on, they reared and plunged.
+
+When we started, four men pulled the rope, and Emmett sat in the stern,
+with the tackle guys in hand. As the current hit us, he let out the
+guys, which maneuver caused the boat to swing stern downstream. When it
+pointed obliquely, he made fast the guys again. I saw that this served
+two purposes: the current struck, slid alongside, and over the stern,
+which mitigated the danger, and at the same time helped the boat across.
+
+To look at the river was to court terror, but I had to look. It was an
+infernal thing. It roared in hollow, sullen voice, as a monster
+growling. It had voice, this river, and one strangely changeful. It
+moaned as if in pain—it whined, it cried. Then at times it would seem
+strangely silent. The current as complex and mutable as human life. It
+boiled, beat and bulged. The bulge itself was an incompressible thing,
+like a roaring lift of the waters from submarine explosion. Then it
+would smooth out, and run like oil. It shifted from one channel to
+another, rushed to the center of the river, then swung close to one
+shore or the other. Again it swelled near the boat, in great, boiling,
+hissing eddies.
+
+"Look! See where it breaks through the mountain!" yelled Jones in my
+ear.
+
+I looked upstream to see the stupendous granite walls separated in a
+gigantic split that must have been made by a terrible seismic
+disturbance; and from this gap poured the dark, turgid, mystic flood.
+
+I was in a cold sweat when we touched shore, and I jumped long before
+the boat was properly moored.
+
+Emmett was wet to the waist where the water had surged over him. As he
+sat rearranging some tackle I remarked to him that of course he must be
+a splendid swimmer, or he would not take such risks.
+
+"No, I can't swim a stroke," he replied; "and it wouldn't be any use if
+I could. Once in there a man's a goner."
+
+"You've had bad accidents here?" I questioned.
+
+"No, not bad. We only drowned two men last year. You see, we had to tow
+the boat up the river, and row across, as then we hadn't the wire. Just
+above, on this side, the boat hit a stone, and the current washed over
+her, taking off the team and two men."
+
+"Didn't you attempt to rescue them?" I asked, after waiting a moment.
+
+"No use. They never came up."
+
+"Isn't the river high now?" I continued, shuddering as I glanced out at
+the whirling logs and drifts.
+
+"High, and coming up. If I don't get the other teams over to-day I'll
+wait until she goes down. At this season she rises and lowers every day
+or so, until June then comes the big flood, and we don't cross for
+months."
+
+I sat for three hours watching Emmett bring over the rest of his party,
+which he did without accident, but at the expense of great effort. And
+all the time in my ears dinned the roar, the boom, the rumble of this
+singularly rapacious and purposeful river—a river of silt, a red river
+of dark, sinister meaning, a river with terrible work to perform, a
+river which never gave up its dead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.
+
+THE RANGE
+
+After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and his
+hospitable family, and under the guidance of his man once more took to
+the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly course now, following
+the lead of the craggy red wall that stretched on and on for hundreds
+of miles into Utah. The desert, smoky and hot, fell away to the left,
+and in the foreground a dark, irregular line marked the Grand Cañon
+cutting through the plateau.
+
+The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting an
+obstacle in the red wall, turned north and raced past us. Jones's hat
+blew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirty
+miles an hour, more or less; so fast, at least, that we were a long
+time catching up to it with a team of horses. Possibly we never would
+have caught it had not a stone checked its flight. Further
+manifestation of the power of the desert wind surrounded us on all
+sides. It had hollowed out huge stones from the cliffs, and tumbled
+them to the plain below; and then, sweeping sand and gravel low across
+the desert floor, had cut them deeply, until they rested on slender
+pedestals, thus sculptoring grotesque and striking monuments to the
+marvelous persistence of this element of nature.
+
+Late that afternoon, as we reached the height of the plateau, Jones
+woke up and shouted: "Ha! there's Buckskin!"
+
+Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered with patches of
+shining snow. I could follow the zigzag line of the Grand Cañon
+splitting the desert plateau, and saw it disappear in the haze round
+the end of the mountain. From this I got my first clear impression of
+the topography of the country surrounding our objective point. Buckskin
+mountain ran its blunt end eastward to the Cañon—in fact, formed a
+hundred miles of the north rim. As it was nine thousand feet high it
+still held the snow, which had occasioned our lengthy desert ride to
+get back of the mountain. I could see the long slopes rising out of the
+desert to meet the timber.
+
+As we bowled merrily down grade I noticed that we were no longer on
+stony ground, and that a little scant silvery grass had made its
+appearance. Then little branches of green, with a blue flower, smiled
+out of the clayish sand.
+
+All of a sudden Jones stood up, and let out a wild Comanche yell. I was
+more startled by the yell than by the great hand he smashed down on my
+shoulder, and for the moment I was dazed.
+
+"There! look! look! the buffalo! Hi! Hi! Hi!"
+
+Below us, a few miles on a rising knoll, a big herd of buffalo shone
+black in the gold of the evening sun. I had not Jones's incentive, but
+I felt enthusiasm born of the wild and beautiful picture, and added my
+yell to his. The huge, burly leader of the herd lifted his head, and
+after regarding us for a few moments calmly went on browsing.
+
+The desert had fringed away into a grand rolling pastureland, walled in
+by the red cliffs, the slopes of Buckskin, and further isolated by the
+Cañon. Here was a range of twenty-four hundred square miles without a
+foot of barb-wire, a pasture fenced in by natural forces, with the
+splendid feature that the buffalo could browse on the plain in winter,
+and go up into the cool foothills of Buckskin in summer.
+
+From another ridge we saw a cabin dotting the rolling plain, and in
+half an hour we reached it. As we climbed down from the wagon a brown
+and black dog came dashing out of the cabin, and promptly jumped at
+Moze. His selection showed poor discrimination, for Moze whipped him
+before I could separate them. Hearing Jones heartily greeting some one,
+I turned in his direction, only to be distracted by another dog fight.
+Don had tackled Moze for the seventh time. Memory rankled in Don, and
+he needed a lot of whipping, some of which he was getting when I
+rescued him.
+
+Next moment I was shaking hands with Frank and Jim, Jones's ranchmen.
+At a glance I liked them both. Frank was short and wiry, and had a big,
+ferocious mustache, the effect of which was softened by his kindly
+brown eyes. Jim was tall, a little heavier; he had a careless, tidy
+look; his eyes were searching, and though he appeared a young man, his
+hair was white.
+
+"I shore am glad to see you all," said Jim, in slow, soft, Southern
+accent.
+
+"Get down, get down," was Frank's welcome—a typically Western one, for
+we had already gotten down; "an' come in. You must be worked out. Sure
+you've come a long way." He was quick of speech, full of nervous
+energy, and beamed with hospitality.
+
+The cabin was the rudest kind of log affair, with a huge stone
+fireplace in one end, deer antlers and coyote skins on the wall,
+saddles and cowboys' traps in a corner, a nice, large, promising
+cupboard, and a table and chairs. Jim threw wood on a smoldering fire,
+that soon blazed and crackled cheerily.
+
+I sank down into a chair with a feeling of blessed relief. Ten days of
+desert ride behind me! Promise of wonderful days before me, with the
+last of the old plainsmen. No wonder a sweet sense of ease stole over
+me, or that the fire seemed a live and joyously welcoming thing, or
+that Jim's deft maneuvers in preparation of supper roused in me a rapt
+admiration.
+
+"Twenty calves this spring!" cried Jones, punching me in my sore side.
+"Ten thousand dollars worth of calves!"
+
+He was now altogether a changed man; he looked almost young; his eyes
+danced, and he rubbed his big hands together while he plied Frank with
+questions. In strange surroundings—that is, away from his Native
+Wilds, Jones had been a silent man; it had been almost impossible to
+get anything out of him. But now I saw that I should come to know the
+real man. In a very few moments he had talked more than on all the
+desert trip, and what he said, added to the little I had already
+learned, put me in possession of some interesting information as to his
+buffalo.
+
+Some years before he had conceived the idea of hybridizing buffalo with
+black Galloway cattle; and with the characteristic determination and
+energy of the man, he at once set about finding a suitable range. This
+was difficult, and took years of searching. At last the wild north rim
+of the Grand Cañon, a section unknown except to a few Indians and
+mustang hunters, was settled upon. Then the gigantic task of
+transporting the herd of buffalo by rail from Montana to Salt Lake was
+begun. The two hundred and ninety miles of desert lying between the
+home of the Mormons and Buckskin Mountain was an obstacle almost
+insurmountable. The journey was undertaken and found even more trying
+than had been expected. Buffalo after buffalo died on the way. Then
+Frank, Jones's right-hand man, put into execution a plan he had been
+thinking of—namely, to travel by night. It succeeded. The buffalo
+rested in the day and traveled by easy stages by night, with the result
+that the big herd was transported to the ideal range.
+
+Here, in an environment strange to their race, but peculiarly
+adaptable, they thrived and multiplied. The hybrid of the Galloway cow
+and buffalo proved a great success. Jones called the new species
+"Cattalo." The cattalo took the hardiness of the buffalo, and never
+required artificial food or shelter. He would face the desert storm or
+blizzard and stand stock still in his tracks until the weather cleared.
+He became quite domestic, could be easily handled, and grew exceedingly
+fat on very little provender. The folds of his stomach were so numerous
+that they digested even the hardest and flintiest of corn. He had
+fourteen ribs on each side, while domestic cattle had only thirteen;
+thus he could endure rougher work and longer journeys to water. His fur
+was so dense and glossy that it equaled that of the unplucked beaver or
+otter, and was fully as valuable as the buffalo robe. And not to be
+overlooked by any means was the fact that his meat was delicious.
+
+Jones had to hear every detail of all that had happened since his
+absence in the East, and he was particularly inquisitive to learn all
+about the twenty cattalo calves. He called different buffalo by name;
+and designated the calves by descriptive terms, such as "Whiteface" and
+"Crosspatch." He almost forgot to eat, and kept Frank too busy to get
+anything into his own mouth. After supper he calmed down.
+
+"How about your other man—Mr. Wallace, I think you said?" asked Frank.
+
+"We expected to meet him at Grand Cañon Station, and then at
+Flagstaff. But he didn't show up. Either he backed out or missed us.
+I'm sorry; for when we get up on Buckskin, among the wild horses and
+cougars, we'll be likely to need him."
+
+"I reckon you'll need me, as well as Jim," said Frank dryly, with a
+twinkle in his eye. "The buffs are in good shape an' can get along
+without me for a while."
+
+"That'll be fine. How about cougar sign on the mountain?"
+
+"Plenty. I've got two spotted near Clark Spring. Comin' over two weeks
+ago I tracked them in the snow along the trail for miles. We'll ooze
+over that way, as it's goin' toward the Siwash. The Siwash breaks of
+the Cañon—there's the place for lions. I met a wild-horse wrangler
+not long back, an' he was tellin' me about Old Tom an' the colts he'd
+killed this winter."
+
+Naturally, I here expressed a desire to know more of Old Tom.
+
+"He's the biggest cougar ever known of in these parts. His tracks are
+bigger than a horse's, an' have been seen on Buckskin for twelve years.
+This wrangler—his name is Clark—said he'd turned his saddle horse out
+to graze near camp, an' Old Tom sneaked in an' downed him. The lions
+over there are sure a bold bunch. Well, why shouldn't they be? No one
+ever hunted them. You see, the mountain is hard to get at. But now
+you're here, if it's big cats you want we sure can find them. Only be
+easy, be easy. You've all the time there is. An' any job on Buckskin
+will take time. We'll look the calves over, an' you must ride the range
+to harden up. Then we'll ooze over toward Oak. I expect it'll be boggy,
+an' I hope the snow melts soon."
+
+"The snow hadn't melted on Greenland point," replied Jones. "We saw
+that with a glass from the El Tovar. We wanted to cross that way, but
+Rust said Bright Angel Creek was breast high to a horse, and that creek
+is the trail."
+
+"There's four feet of snow on Greenland," said Frank. "It was too early
+to come that way. There's only about three months in the year the
+Cañon can be crossed at Greenland."
+
+"I want to get in the snow," returned Jones. "This bunch of long-eared
+canines I brought never smelled a lion track. Hounds can't be trained
+quick without snow. You've got to see what they're trailing, or you
+can't break them."
+
+Frank looked dubious. "'Pears to me we'll have trouble gettin' a lion
+without lion dogs. It takes a long time to break a hound off of deer,
+once he's chased them. Buckskin is full of deer, wolves, coyotes, and
+there's the wild horses. We couldn't go a hundred feet without crossin'
+trails."
+
+"How's the hound you and Jim fetched in las' year? Has he got a good
+nose? Here he is—I like his head. Come here, Bowser—what's his name?"
+
+"Jim named him Sounder, because he sure has a voice. It's great to hear
+him on a trail. Sounder has a nose that can't be fooled, an' he'll
+trail anythin'; but I don't know if he ever got up a lion."
+
+Sounder wagged his bushy tail and looked up affectionately at Frank. He
+had a fine head, great brown eyes, very long ears and curly
+brownish-black hair. He was not demonstrative, looked rather askance at
+Jones, and avoided the other dogs.
+
+"That dog will make a great lion-chaser," said Jones, decisively, after
+his study of Sounder. "He and Moze will keep us busy, once they learn
+we want lions."
+
+"I don't believe any dog-trainer could teach them short of six months,"
+replied Frank. "Sounder is no spring chicken; an' that black and dirty
+white cross between a cayuse an' a barb-wire fence is an old dog. You
+can't teach old dogs new tricks."
+
+Jones smiled mysteriously, a smile of conscious superiority, but said
+nothing.
+
+"We'll shore hev a storm to-morrow," said Jim, relinquishing his pipe
+long enough to speak. He had been silent, and now his meditative gaze
+was on the west, through the cabin window, where a dull afterglow faded
+under the heavy laden clouds of night and left the horizon dark.
+
+I was very tired when I lay down, but so full of excitement that sleep
+did not soon visit my eyelids. The talk about buffalo, wild-horse
+hunters, lions and dogs, the prospect of hard riding and unusual
+adventure; the vision of Old Tom that had already begun to haunt me,
+filled my mind with pictures and fancies. The other fellows dropped off
+to sleep, and quiet reigned. Suddenly a succession of queer, sharp
+barks came from the plain, close to the cabin. Coyotes were paying us a
+call, and judging from the chorus of yelps and howls from our dogs, it
+was not a welcome visit. Above the medley rose one big, deep, full
+voice that I knew at once belonged to Sounder. Then all was quiet
+again. Sleep gradually benumbed my senses. Vague phrases dreamily
+drifted to and fro in my mind: "Jones's wild range—Old
+Tom—Sounder—great name—great voice—Sounder! Sounder! Sounder—"
+
+Next morning I could hardly crawl out of my sleeping-bag. My bones
+ached, my muscles protested excruciatingly, my lips burned and bled,
+and the cold I had contracted on the desert clung to me. A good brisk
+walk round the corrals, and then breakfast, made me feel better.
+
+"Of course you can ride?" queried Frank.
+
+My answer was not given from an overwhelming desire to be truthful.
+Frank frowned a little, as it wondering how a man could have the nerve
+to start out on a jaunt with Buffalo Jones without being a good
+horseman. To be unable to stick on the back of a wild mustang, or a
+cayuse, was an unpardonable sin in Arizona. My frank admission was made
+relatively, with my mind on what cowboys held as a standard of
+horsemanship.
+
+The mount Frank trotted out of the corral for me was a pure white,
+beautiful mustang, nervous, sensitive, quivering. I watched Frank put
+on the saddle, and when he called me I did not fail to catch a covert
+twinkle in his merry brown eyes. Looking away toward Buckskin Mountain,
+which was coincidentally in the direction of home, I said to myself:
+"This may be where you get on, but most certainly it is where you get
+off!"
+
+Jones was already riding far beyond the corral, as I could see by a
+cloud of dust; and I set off after him, with the painful consciousness
+that I must have looked to Frank and Jim much as Central Park
+equestrians had often looked to me. Frank shouted after me that he
+would catch up with us out on the range. I was not in any great hurry
+to overtake Jones, but evidently my horse's inclinations differed from
+mine; at any rate, he made the dust fly, and jumped the little sage
+bushes.
+
+Jones, who had tarried to inspect one of the pools—formed of running
+water from the corrals—greeted me as I came up with this cheerful
+observation.
+
+"What in thunder did Frank give you that white nag for? The buffalo
+hate white horses—anything white. They're liable to stampede off the
+range, or chase you into the cañon."
+
+I replied grimly that, as it was certain something was going to happen,
+the particular circumstance might as well come off quickly.
+
+We rode over the rolling plain with a cool, bracing breeze in our
+faces. The sky was dull and mottled with a beautiful cloud effect that
+presaged wind. As we trotted along Jones pointed out to me and
+descanted upon the nutritive value of three different kinds of grass,
+one of which he called the Buffalo Pea, noteworthy for a beautiful blue
+blossom. Soon we passed out of sight of the cabin, and could see only
+the billowy plain, the red tips of the stony wall, and the
+black-fringed crest of Buckskin. After riding a while we made out some
+cattle, a few of which were on the range, browsing in the lee of a
+ridge. No sooner had I marked them than Jones let out another Comanche
+yell.
+
+"Wolf!" he yelled; and spurring his big bay, he was off like the wind.
+
+A single glance showed me several cows running as if bewildered, and
+near them a big white wolf pulling down a calf. Another white wolf
+stood not far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot; and the
+realization darted upon me that here was where the certain something
+began. Spot—the mustang had one black spot in his pure white—snorted
+like I imagined a blooded horse might, under dire insult. Jones's bay
+had gotten about a hundred paces the start. I lived to learn that Spot
+hated to be left behind; moreover, he would not be left behind; he was
+the swiftest horse on the range, and proud of the distinction. I cast
+one unmentionable word on the breeze toward the cabin and Frank, then
+put mind and muscle to the sore task of remaining with Spot. Jones was
+born on a saddle, and had been taking his meals in a saddle for about
+sixty-three years, and the bay horse could run. Run is not a felicitous
+word—he flew. And I was rendered mentally deranged for the moment to
+see that hundred paces between the bay and Spot materially lessen at
+every jump. Spot lengthened out, seemed to go down near the ground, and
+cut the air like a high-geared auto. If I had not heard the fast
+rhythmic beat of his hoofs, and had not bounced high into the air at
+every jump, I would have been sure I was riding a bird. I tried to stop
+him. As well might I have tried to pull in the Lusitania with a thread.
+Spot was out to overhaul that bay, and in spite of me, he was doing it.
+The wind rushed into my face and sang in my ears. Jones seemed the
+nucleus of a sort of haze, and it grew larger and larger. Presently he
+became clearly defined in my sight; the violent commotion under me
+subsided; I once more felt the saddle, and then I realized that Spot
+had been content to stop alongside of Jones, tossing his head and
+champing his bit.
+
+"Well, by George! I didn't know you were in the stretch," cried my
+companion. "That was a fine little brush. We must have come several
+miles. I'd have killed those wolves if I'd brought a gun. The big one
+that had the calf was a bold brute. He never let go until I was within
+fifty feet of him. Then I almost rode him down. I don't think the calf
+was much hurt. But those blood-thirsty devils will return, and like as
+not get the calf. That's the worst of cattle raising. Now, take the
+buffalo. Do you suppose those wolves could have gotten a buffalo calf
+out from under the mother? Never. Neither could a whole band of wolves.
+Buffalo stick close together, and the little ones do not stray. When
+danger threatens, the herd closes in and faces it and fights. That is
+what is grand about the buffalo and what made them once roam the
+prairies in countless, endless droves."
+
+From the highest elevation in that part of the range we viewed the
+surrounding ridges, flats and hollows, searching for the buffalo. At
+length we spied a cloud of dust rising from behind an undulating mound,
+then big black dots hove in sight.
+
+"Frank has rounded up the herd, and is driving it this way. We'll
+wait," said Jones.
+
+Though the buffalo appeared to be moving fast, a long time elapsed
+before they reached the foot of our outlook. They lumbered along in a
+compact mass, so dense that I could not count them, but I estimated the
+number at seventy-five. Frank was riding zigzag behind them, swinging
+his lariat and yelling. When he espied us he reined in his horse and
+waited. Then the herd slowed down, halted and began browsing.
+
+"Look at the cattalo calves," cried Jones, in ecstatic tones. "See how
+shy they are, how close they stick to their mothers."
+
+The little dark-brown fellows were plainly frightened. I made several
+unsuccessful attempts to photograph them, and gave it up when Jones
+told me not to ride too close and that it would be better to wait till
+we had them in the corral.
+
+He took my camera and instructed me to go on ahead, in the rear of the
+herd. I heard the click of the instrument as he snapped a picture, and
+then suddenly heard him shout in alarm: "Look out! look out! pull your
+horse!"
+
+Thundering hoof-beats pounding the earth accompanied his words. I saw a
+big bull, with head down, tail raised, charging my horse. He answered
+Frank's yell of command with a furious grunt. I was paralyzed at the
+wonderfully swift action of the shaggy brute, and I sat helpless. Spot
+wheeled as if he were on a pivot and plunged out of the way with a
+celerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, pawed the ground,
+and angrily tossed his huge head. Frank rode up to him, yelled, and
+struck him with the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his
+horns, and then returned to the herd.
+
+"It was that darned white nag," said Jones. "Frank, it was wrong to put
+an inexperienced man on Spot. For that matter, the horse should never
+be allowed to go near the buffalo."
+
+"Spot knows the buffs; they'd never get to him," replied Frank. But the
+usual spirit was absent from his voice, and he glanced at me soberly. I
+knew I had turned white, for I felt the peculiar cold sensation on my
+face.
+
+"Now, look at that, will you?" cried Jones. "I don't like the looks of
+that."
+
+He pointed to the herd. They stopped browsing, and were uneasily
+shifting to and fro. The bull lifted his head; the others slowly
+grouped together.
+
+"Storm! Sandstorm!" exclaimed Jones, pointing desert-ward. Dark yellow
+clouds like smoke were rolling, sweeping, bearing down upon us. They
+expanded, blossoming out like gigantic roses, and whirled and merged
+into one another, all the time rolling on and blotting out the light.
+
+"We've got to run. That storm may last two days," yelled Frank to me.
+"We've had some bad ones lately. Give your horse free rein, and cover
+your face."
+
+A roar, resembling an approaching storm at sea, came on puffs of wind,
+as the horses got into their stride. Long streaks of dust whipped up in
+different places; the silver-white grass bent to the ground; round
+bunches of sage went rolling before us. The puffs grew longer,
+steadier, harder. Then a shrieking blast howled on our trail, seeming
+to swoop down on us with a yellow, blinding pall. I shut my eyes and
+covered my face with a handkerchief. The sand blew so thick that it
+filled my gloves, pebbles struck me hard enough to sting through my
+coat.
+
+Fortunately, Spot kept to an easy swinging lope, which was the most
+comfortable motion for me. But I began to get numb, and could hardly
+stick on the saddle. Almost before I had dared to hope, Spot stopped.
+Uncovering my face, I saw Jim in the doorway of the lee side of the
+cabin. The yellow, streaky, whistling clouds of sand split on the cabin
+and passed on, leaving a small, dusty space of light.
+
+"Shore Spot do hate to be beat," yelled Jim, as he helped me off. I
+stumbled into the cabin and fell upon a buffalo robe and lay there
+absolutely spent. Jones and Frank came in a few minutes apart, each
+anathematizing the gritty, powdery sand.
+
+All day the desert storm raged and roared. The dust sifted through the
+numerous cracks in the cabin, burdened our clothes, spoiled our food and
+blinded our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and rainstorms are discomforting
+enough under trying circumstances; but all combined, they are nothing
+to the choking stinging, blinding sandstorm.
+
+"Shore it'll let up by sundown," averred Jim. And sure enough the roar
+died away about five o'clock, the wind abated and the sand settled.
+
+Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily on the cabin door. Jim
+opened it to admit one of Emmett's sons and a very tall man whom none
+of us knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand seemed a space or
+two of corduroy, a big bone-handled knife, a prominent square jaw and
+bronze cheek and flashing eyes.
+
+"Get down—get down, an' come in, stranger, said Frank cordially.
+
+"How do you do, sir," said Jones.
+
+"Colonel Jones, I've been on your trail for twelve days," announced the
+stranger, with a grim smile. The sand streamed off his coat in little
+white streak. Jones appeared to be casting about in his mind.
+
+"I'm Grant Wallace," continued the newcomer. "I missed you at the El
+Tovar, at Williams and at Flagstaff, where I was one day behind. Was
+half a day late at the Little Colorado, saw your train cross Moncaupie
+Wash, and missed you because of the sandstorm there. Saw you from the
+other side of the Big Colorado as you rode out from Emmett's along the
+red wall. And here I am. We've never met till now, which obviously
+isn't my fault."
+
+The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace's neck. Frank manifested his usual
+alert excitation, and said: "Well, I guess he won't hang fire on a long
+cougar chase." And Jim—slow, careful Jim, dropped a plate with the
+exclamation: "Shore it do beat hell!" The hounds sniffed round Wallace,
+and welcomed him with vigorous tails.
+
+Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with our teeth, was a
+joyous occasion. The biscuits were flaky and light; the bacon fragrant
+and crisp. I produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by subtle cunning
+I had been able to secrete from the Mormons on that dry desert ride,
+and it was greeted with acclamations of pleasure. Wallace, divested of
+his sand guise, beamed with the gratification of a hungry man once more
+in the presence of friends and food. He made large cavities in Jim's
+great pot of potato stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way that
+would not have shamed a Hindoo magician. The Grand Cañon he dug in my
+jar of jam, however, could not have been accomplished by legerdemain.
+
+Talk became animated on dogs, cougars, horses and buffalo. Jones told
+of our experience out on the range, and concluded with some salient
+remarks.
+
+"A tame wild animal is the most dangerous of beasts. My old friend,
+Dick Rock, a great hunter and guide out of Idaho, laughed at my advice,
+and got killed by one of his three-year-old bulls. I told him they knew
+him just well enough to kill him, and they did. My friend, A. H. Cole,
+of Oxford, Nebraska, tried to rope a Weetah that was too tame to be
+safe, and the bull killed him. Same with General Bull, a member of the
+Kansas Legislature, and two cowboys who went into a corral to tie up a
+tame elk at the wrong time. I pleaded with them not to undertake it.
+They had not studied animals as I had. That tame elk killed all of
+them. He had to be shot in order to get General Bull off his great
+antlers. You see, a wild animal must learn to respect a man. The way I
+used to teach the Yellowstone Park bears to be respectful and safe
+neighbors was to rope them around the front paw, swing them up on a
+tree clear of the ground, and whip them with a long pole. It was a
+dangerous business, and looks cruel, but it is the only way I could
+find to make the bears good. You see, they eat scraps around the hotels
+and get so tame they will steal everything but red-hot stoves, and will
+cuff the life out of those who try to shoo them off. But after a bear
+mother has had a licking, she not only becomes a good bear for the rest
+of her life, but she tells all her cubs about it with a good smack of
+her paw, for emphasis, and teaches them to respect peaceable citizens
+generation after generation.
+
+"One of the hardest jobs I ever tackled was that of supplying the
+buffalo for Bronx Park. I rounded up a magnificent 'king' buffalo bull,
+belligerent enough to fight a battleship. When I rode after him the
+cowmen said I was as good as killed. I made a lance by driving a nail
+into the end of a short pole and sharpening it. After he had chased me,
+I wheeled my broncho, and hurled the lance into his back, ripping a
+wound as long as my hand. That put the fear of Providence into him and
+took the fight all out of him. I drove him uphill and down, and across
+cañons at a dead run for eight miles single handed, and loaded him on
+a freight car; but he came near getting me once or twice, and only
+quick broncho work and lance play saved me.
+
+"In the Yellowstone Park all our buffaloes have become docile,
+excepting the huge bull which led them. The Indians call the buffalo
+leader the 'Weetah,' the master of the herd. It was sure death to go
+near this one. So I shipped in another Weetah, hoping that he might
+whip some of the fight out of old Manitou, the Mighty. They came
+together head on, like a railway collision, and ripped up over a square
+mile of landscape, fighting till night came on, and then on into the
+night.
+
+"I jumped into the field with them, chasing them with my biograph,
+getting a series of moving pictures of that bullfight which was sure
+the real thing. It was a ticklish thing to do, though knowing that
+neither bull dared take his eyes off his adversary for a second, I felt
+reasonably safe. The old Weetah beat the new champion out that night,
+but the next morning they were at it again, and the new buffalo finally
+whipped the old one into submission. Since then his spirit has remained
+broken, and even a child can approach him safely—but the new Weetah is
+in turn a holy terror.
+
+"To handle buffalo, elk and bear, you must get into sympathy with their
+methods of reasoning. No tenderfoot stands any show, even with the tame
+animals of the Yellowstone."
+
+The old buffalo hunter's lips were no longer locked. One after another
+he told reminiscences of his eventful life, in a simple manner; yet so
+vivid and gripping were the unvarnished details that I was spellbound.
+
+"Considering what appears the impossibility of capturing a full-grown
+buffalo, how did you earn the name of preserver of the American bison?"
+inquired Wallace.
+
+"It took years to learn how, and ten more to capture the fifty-eight
+that I was able to keep. I tried every plan under the sun. I roped
+hundreds, of all sizes and ages. They would not live in captivity. If
+they could not find an embankment over which to break their necks, they
+would crush their skulls on stones. Failing any means like that, they
+would lie down, will themselves to die, and die. Think of a savage wild
+nature that could will its heart to cease beating! But it's true.
+Finally I found I could keep only calves under three months of age. But
+to capture them so young entailed time and patience. For the buffalo
+fight for their young, and when I say fight, I mean till they drop. I
+almost always had to go alone, because I could neither coax nor hire
+any one to undertake it with me. Sometimes I would be weeks getting one
+calf. One day I captured eight—eight little buffalo calves! Never will
+I forget that day as long as I live!"
+
+"Tell us about it," I suggested, in a matter of fact,
+round-the-campfire voice. Had the silent plainsman ever told a complete
+and full story of his adventures? I doubted it. He was not the man to
+eulogize himself.
+
+A short silence ensued. The cabin was snug and warm; the ruddy embers
+glowed; one of Jim's pots steamed musically and fragrantly. The hounds
+lay curled in the cozy chimney corner.
+
+Jones began to talk again, simply and unaffectedly, of his famous
+exploit; and as he went on so modestly, passing lightly over features
+we recognized as wonderful, I allowed the fire of my imagination to
+fuse for myself all the toil, patience, endurance, skill, herculean
+strength and marvelous courage and unfathomable passion which he
+slighted in his narrative.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.
+
+THE LAST HERD
+
+Over gray No-Man's-Land stole down the shadows of night. The undulating
+prairie shaded dark to the western horizon, rimmed with a fading streak
+of light. Tall figures, silhouetted sharply against the last golden
+glow of sunset, marked the rounded crest of a grassy knoll.
+
+"Wild hunter!" cried a voice in sullen rage, "buffalo or no, we halt
+here. Did Adams and I hire to cross the Staked Plains? Two weeks in
+No-Man's-Land, and now we're facing the sand! We've one keg of water,
+yet you want to keep on. Why, man, you're crazy! You didn't tell us you
+wanted buffalo alive. And here you've got us looking death in the eye!"
+
+In the grim silence that ensued the two men unhitched the team from the
+long, light wagon, while the buffalo hunter staked out his wiry,
+lithe-limbed racehorses. Soon a fluttering blaze threw a circle of
+light, which shone on the agitated face of Rude and Adams, and the
+cold, iron-set visage of their brawny leader.
+
+"It's this way," began Jones, in slow, cool voice; "I engaged you
+fellows, and you promised to stick by me. We've had no luck. But I've
+finally found sign—old sign, I'll admit the buffalo I'm looking
+for—the last herd on the plains. For two years I've been hunting this
+herd. So have other hunters. Millions of buffalo have been killed and
+left to rot. Soon this herd will be gone, and then the only buffalo in
+the world will be those I have given ten years of the hardest work in
+capturing. This is the last herd, I say, and my last chance to capture
+a calf or two. Do you imagine I'd quit? You fellows go back if you
+want, but I keep on."
+
+"We can't go back. We're lost. We'll have to go with you. But, man,
+thirst is not the only risk we run. This is Comanche country. And if
+that herd is in here the Indians have it spotted."
+
+"That worries me some," replied the plainsman, "but we'll keep on it."
+
+They slept. The night wind swished the grasses; dark storm clouds
+blotted out the northern stars; the prairie wolves mourned dismally.
+
+Day broke cold, wan, threatening, under a leaden sky. The hunters
+traveled thirty miles by noon, and halted in a hollow where a stream
+flowed in wet season. Cottonwood trees were bursting into green;
+thickets of prickly thorn, dense and matted, showed bright spring buds.
+
+"What is it?" suddenly whispered Rude.
+
+The plainsman lay in strained posture, his ear against the ground.
+
+"Hide the wagon and horses in the clump of cottonwoods," he ordered,
+tersely. Springing to his feet, he ran to the top of the knoll above
+the hollow, where he again placed his ear to the ground.
+
+Jones's practiced ear had detected the quavering rumble of far-away,
+thundering hoofs. He searched the wide waste of plain with his powerful
+glass. To the southwest, miles distant, a cloud of dust mushroomed
+skyward. "Not buffalo," he muttered, "maybe wild horses." He watched
+and waited. The yellow cloud rolled forward, enlarging, spreading out,
+and drove before it a darkly indistinct, moving mass. As soon as he had
+one good look at this he ran back to his comrades.
+
+"Stampede! Wild horses! Indians! Look to your rifles and hide!"
+
+Wordless and pale, the men examined their Sharps, and made ready to
+follow Jones. He slipped into the thorny brake and, flat on his
+stomach, wormed his way like a snake far into the thickly interlaced
+web of branches. Rude and Adams crawled after him. Words were
+superfluous. Quiet, breathless, with beating hearts, the hunters
+pressed close to the dry grass. A long, low, steady rumble filled the
+air, and increased in volume till it became a roar. Moments, endless
+moments, passed. The roar filled out like a flood slowly released from
+its confines to sweep down with the sound of doom. The ground began to
+tremble and quake: the light faded; the smell of dust pervaded the
+thicket, then a continuous streaming roar, deafening as persistent roll
+of thunder, pervaded the hiding place. The stampeding horses had split
+round the hollow. The roar lessened. Swiftly as a departing snow-squall
+rushing on through the pines, the thunderous thud and tramp of hoofs
+died away.
+
+The trained horses hidden in the cottonwoods never stirred. "Lie low!
+lie low!" breathed the plainsman to his companions.
+
+Throb of hoofs again became audible, not loud and madly pounding as
+those that had passed, but low, muffled, rhythmic. Jones's sharp eye,
+through a peephole in the thicket, saw a cream-colored mustang bob over
+the knoll, carrying an Indian. Another and another, then a swiftly
+following, close-packed throng appeared. Bright red feathers and white
+gleamed; weapons glinted; gaunt, bronzed savage leaned forward on racy,
+slender mustangs.
+
+The plainsman shrank closer to the ground. "Apache!" he exclaimed to
+himself, and gripped his rifle. The band galloped down to the hollow,
+and slowing up, piled single file over the bank. The leader, a short,
+squat chief, plunged into the brake not twenty yards from the hidden
+men. Jones recognized the cream mustang; he knew the somber, sinister,
+broad face. It belonged to the Red Chief of the Apaches.
+
+"Geronimo!" murmured the plainsman through his teeth.
+
+Well for the Apache that no falcon savage eye discovered aught strange
+in the little hollow! One look at the sand of the stream bed would have
+cost him his life. But the Indians crossed the thicket too far up; they
+cantered up the slope and disappeared. The hoof-beats softened and
+ceased.
+
+"Gone?" whispered Rude.
+
+"Gone. But wait," whispered Jones. He knew the savage nature, and he
+knew how to wait. After a long time, he cautiously crawled out of the
+thicket and searched the surroundings with a plainsman's eye. He
+climbed the slope and saw the clouds of dust, the near one small, the
+far one large, which told him all he needed to know.
+
+"Comanches?" queried Adams, with a quaver in his voice. He was new to
+the plains.
+
+"Likely," said Jones, who thought it best not to tell all he knew. Then
+he added to himself: "We've no time to lose. There's water back here
+somewhere. The Indians have spotted the buffalo, and were running the
+horses away from the water."
+
+The three got under way again, proceeding carefully, so as not to raise
+the dust, and headed due southwest. Scantier and scantier grew the
+grass; the hollows were washes of sand; steely gray dunes, like long,
+flat, ocean swells, ribbed the prairie. The gray day declined. Late
+into the purple night they traveled, then camped without fire.
+
+In the gray morning Jones climbed a high ride and scanned the
+southwest. Low dun-colored sandhills waved from him down and down, in
+slow, deceptive descent. A solitary and remote waste reached out into
+gray infinitude. A pale lake, gray as the rest of that gray expanse,
+glimmered in the distance.
+
+"Mirage!" he muttered, focusing his glass, which only magnified all
+under the dead gray, steely sky. "Water must be somewhere; but can that
+be it? It's too pale and elusive to be real. No life—a blasted, staked
+plain! Hello!"
+
+A thin, black, wavering line of wild fowl, moving in beautiful, rapid
+flight, crossed the line of his vision. "Geese flying north, and low.
+There's water here," he said. He followed the flock with his glass, saw
+them circle over the lake, and vanish in the gray sheen.
+
+"It's water." He hurried back to camp. His haggard and worn companions
+scorned his discovery. Adams siding with Rude, who knew the plains,
+said: "Mirage! the lure of the desert!" Yet dominated by a force too
+powerful for them to resist, they followed the buffalo-hunter. All day
+the gleaming lake beckoned them onward, and seemed to recede. All day
+the drab clouds scudded before the cold north wind. In the gray
+twilight, the lake suddenly lay before them, as if it had opened at
+their feet. The men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed
+the damp air.
+
+The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, and splash of water,
+the whirl of ducks did not blur out of Jones's keen ear a sound that
+made him jump. It was the thump of hoofs, in a familiar beat, beat,
+beat. He saw a shadow moving up a ridge. Soon, outlined black against
+the yet light sky, a lone buffalo cow stood like a statue. A moment she
+held toward the lake, studying the danger, then went out of sight over
+the ridge.
+
+Jones spurred his horse up the ascent, which was rather long and steep,
+but he mounted the summit in time to see the cow join eight huge,
+shaggy buffalo. The hunter reined in his horse, and standing high in
+his stirrups, held his hat at arms' length over his head. So he
+thrilled to a moment he had sought for two years. The last herd of
+American bison was near at hand. The cow would not venture far from the
+main herd; the eight stragglers were the old broken-down bulls that had
+been expelled, at this season, from the herd by younger and more
+vigorous bulls. The old monarchs saw the hunter at the same time his
+eyes were gladdened by sight of them, and lumbered away after the cow,
+to disappear in the gathering darkness. Frightened buffalo always make
+straight for their fellows; and this knowledge contented Jones to
+return to the lake, well satisfied that the herd would not be far away
+in the morning, within easy striking distance by daylight.
+
+At dark the storm which had threatened for days, broke in a fury of
+rain, sleet and hail. The hunters stretched a piece of canvas over the
+wheels of the north side of the wagon, and wet and shivering, crawled
+under it to their blankets. During the night the storm raged with
+unabated strength.
+
+Dawn, forbidding and raw, lightened to the whistle of the sleety gusts.
+Fire was out of the question. Chary of weight, the hunters had carried
+no wood, and the buffalo chips they used for fuel were lumps of ice.
+Grumbling, Adams and Rude ate a cold breakfast, while Jones, munching a
+biscuit, faced the biting blast from the crest of the ridge. The middle
+of the plain below held a ragged, circular mass, as still as stone. It
+was the buffalo herd, with every shaggy head to the storm. So they
+would stand, never budging from their tracks, till the blizzard of
+sleet was over.
+
+Jones, though eager and impatient, restrained himself, for it was
+unwise to begin operations in the storm. There was nothing to do but
+wait. Ill fared the hunters that day. Food had to be eaten uncooked.
+The long hours dragged by with the little group huddled under icy
+blankets. When darkness fell, the sleet changed to drizzling rain. This
+blew over at midnight, and a colder wind, penetrating to the very
+marrow of the sleepless men, made their condition worse. In the after
+part of the night, the wolves howled mournfully.
+
+With a gray, misty light appearing in the east, Jones threw off his
+stiff, ice-incased blanket, and crawled out. A gaunt gray wolf, the
+color of the day and the sand and the lake, sneaked away, looking back.
+While moving and threshing about to warm his frozen blood, Jones
+munched another biscuit. Five men crawled from under the wagon, and
+made an unfruitful search for the whisky. Fearing it, Jones had thrown
+the bottle away. The men cursed. The patient horses drooped sadly, and
+shivered in the lee of the improvised tent. Jones kicked the inch-thick
+casing of ice from his saddle. Kentuck, his racer, had been spared on
+the whole trip for this day's work. The thoroughbred was cold, but as
+Jones threw the saddle over him, he showed that he knew the chase
+ahead, and was eager to be off. At last, after repeated efforts with
+his benumbed fingers, Jones got the girths tight. He tied a bunch of
+soft cords to the saddle and mounted.
+
+"Follow as fast as you can," he called to his surly men. "The buffs
+will run north against the wind. This is the right direction for us;
+we'll soon leave the sand. Stick to my trail and come a-humming."
+
+From the ridge he met the red sun, rising bright, and a keen
+northeasterly wind that lashed like a whip. As he had anticipated, his
+quarry had moved northward. Kentuck let out into a swinging stride,
+which in an hour had the loping herd in sight. Every jump now took him
+upon higher ground, where the sand failed, and the grass grew thicker
+and began to bend under the wind.
+
+In the teeth of the nipping gale Jones slipped close upon the herd
+without alarming even a cow. More than a hundred little reddish-black
+calves leisurely loped in the rear. Kentuck, keen to his work, crept on
+like a wolf, and the hunter's great fist clenched the coiled lasso.
+Before him expanded a boundless plain. A situation long cherished and
+dreamed of had become a reality. Kentuck, fresh and strong, was good
+for all day. Jones gloated over the little red bulls and heifers, as a
+miser gloats over gold and jewels. Never before had he caught more than
+two in one day, and often it had taken days to capture one. This was
+the last herd, this the last opportunity toward perpetuating a grand
+race of beasts. And with born instinct he saw ahead the day of his life.
+
+At a touch, Kentuck closed in, and the buffalo, seeing him, stampeded
+into the heaving roll so well known to the hunter. Racing on the right
+flank of the herd, Jones selected a tawny heifer and shot the lariat
+after her. It fell true, but being stiff and kinky from the sleet,
+failed to tighten, and the quick calf leaped through the loop to
+freedom.
+
+Undismayed the pursuer quickly recovered his rope. Again he whirled and
+sent the loop. Again it circled true, and failed to close; again the
+agile heifer bounded through it. Jones whipped the air with the
+stubborn rope. To lose a chance like that was worse than boy's work.
+
+The third whirl, running a smaller loop, tightened the coil round the
+frightened calf just back of its ears. A pull on the bridle brought
+Kentuck to a halt in his tracks, and the baby buffalo rolled over and
+over in the grass. Jones bounced from his seat and jerked loose a
+couple of the soft cords. In a twinkling; his big knee crushed down on
+the calf, and his big hands bound it helpless.
+
+Kentuck neighed. Jones saw his black ears go up. Danger threatened. For
+a moment the hunter's blood turned chill, not from fear, for he never
+felt fear, but because he thought the Indians were returning to ruin
+his work. His eye swept the plain. Only the gray forms of wolves
+flitted through the grass, here, there, all about him. Wolves! They
+were as fatal to his enterprise as savages. A trooping pack of prairie
+wolves had fallen in with the herd and hung close on the trail, trying
+to cut a calf away from its mother. The gray brutes boldly trotted to
+within a few yards of him, and slyly looked at him, with pale, fiery
+eyes. They had already scented his captive. Precious time flew by; the
+situation, critical and baffling, had never before been met by him.
+There lay his little calf tied fast, and to the north ran many others,
+some of which he must—he would have. To think quickly had meant the
+solving of many a plainsman's problem. Should he stay with his prize to
+save it, or leave it to be devoured?
+
+"Ha! you old gray devils!" he yelled, shaking his fist at the wolves.
+"I know a trick or two." Slipping his hat between the legs of the calf,
+he fastened it securely. This done, he vaulted on Kentuck, and was off
+with never a backward glance. Certain it was that the wolves would not
+touch anything, alive or dead, that bore the scent of a human being.
+
+The bison scoured away a long half-mile in the lead, sailing northward
+like a cloud-shadow over the plain. Kentuck, mettlesome, over-eager,
+would have run himself out in short order, but the wary hunter, strong
+to restrain as well as impel, with the long day in his mind, kept the
+steed in his easy stride, which, springy and stretching, overhauled the
+herd in the course of several miles.
+
+A dash, a swirl, a shock, a leap, horse and hunter working in perfect
+accord, and a fine big calf, bellowing lustily, struggled desperately
+for freedom under the remorseless knee. The big hands toyed with him;
+and then, secure in the double knots, the calf lay still, sticking out
+his tongue and rolling his eyes, with the coat of the hunter tucked
+under his bonds to keep away the wolves.
+
+The race had but begun; the horse had but warmed to his work; the
+hunter had but tasted of sweet triumph. Another hopeful of a buffalo
+mother, negligent in danger, truant from his brothers, stumbled and
+fell in the enmeshing loop. The hunter's vest, slipped over the calf's
+neck, served as danger signal to the wolves. Before the lumbering
+buffalo missed their loss, another red and black baby kicked helplessly
+on the grass and sent up vain, weak calls, and at last lay still, with
+the hunter's boot tied to his cords.
+
+Four! Jones counted them aloud, and in his mind, and kept on. Fast,
+hard work, covering upward of fifteen miles, had begun to tell on herd,
+horse and man, and all slowed down to the call for strength. The fifth
+time Jones closed in on his game, he encountered different
+circumstances such as called forth his cunning.
+
+The herd had opened up; the mothers had fallen back to the rear; the
+calves hung almost out of sight under the shaggy sides of protectors.
+To try them out Jones darted close and threw his lasso. It struck a
+cow. With activity incredible in such a huge beast, she lunged at him.
+Kentuck, expecting just such a move, wheeled to safety. This duel,
+ineffectual on both sides, kept up for a while, and all the time, man
+and herd were jogging rapidly to the north.
+
+Jones could not let well enough alone; he acknowledged this even as he
+swore he must have five. Emboldened by his marvelous luck, and yielding
+headlong to the passion within, he threw caution to the winds. A lame
+old cow with a red calf caught his eye; in he spurred his willing horse
+and slung his rope. It stung the haunch of the mother. The mad grunt
+she vented was no quicker than the velocity with which she plunged and
+reared. Jones had but time to swing his leg over the saddle when the
+hoofs beat down. Kentuck rolled on the plain, flinging his rider from
+him. The infuriated buffalo lowered her head for the fatal charge on
+the horse, when the plainsman, jerking out his heavy Colts, shot her
+dead in her tracks.
+
+Kentuck got to his feet unhurt, and stood his ground, quivering but
+ready, showing his steadfast courage. He showed more, for his ears lay
+back, and his eyes had the gleam of the animal that strikes back.
+
+The calf ran round its mother. Jones lassoed it, and tied it down,
+being compelled to cut a piece from his lasso, as the cords on the
+saddle had given out. He left his other boot with baby number five. The
+still heaving, smoking body of the victim called forth the stern,
+intrepid hunter's pity for a moment. Spill of blood he had not wanted.
+But he had not been able to avoid it; and mounting again with
+close-shut jaw and smoldering eye, he galloped to the north.
+
+Kentuck snorted; the pursuing wolves shied off in the grass; the pale
+sun began to slant westward. The cold iron stirrups froze and cut the
+hunter's bootless feet.
+
+When once more he came hounding the buffalo, they were considerably
+winded. Short-tufted tails, raised stiffly, gave warning. Snorts, like
+puffs of escaping steam, and deep grunts from cavernous chests evinced
+anger and impatience that might, at any moment, bring the herd to a
+defiant stand.
+
+He whizzed the shortened noose over the head of a calf that was
+laboring painfully to keep up, and had slipped down, when a mighty
+grunt told him of peril. Never looking to see whence it came, he sprang
+into the saddle. Fiery Kentuck jumped into action, then hauled up with
+a shock that almost threw himself and rider. The lasso, fast to the
+horse, and its loop end round the calf, had caused the sudden check.
+
+A maddened cow bore down on Kentuck. The gallant horse straightened in
+a jump, but dragging the calf pulled him in a circle, and in another
+moment he was running round and round the howling, kicking pivot. Then
+ensued a terrible race, with horse and bison describing a twenty-foot
+circle. Bang! Bang! The hunter fired two shots, and heard the spats of
+the bullets. But they only augmented the frenzy of the beast. Faster
+Kentuck flew, snorting in terror; closer drew the dusty, bouncing
+pursuer; the calf spun like a top; the lasso strung tighter than wire.
+Jones strained to loosen the fastening, but in vain. He swore at his
+carelessness in dropping his knife by the last calf he had tied. He
+thought of shooting the rope, yet dared not risk the shot. A hollow
+sound turned him again, with the Colts leveled. Bang! Dust flew from
+the ground beyond the bison.
+
+The two charges left in the gun were all that stood between him and
+eternity. With a desperate display of strength Jones threw his weight
+in a backward pull, and hauled Kentuck up. Then he leaned far back in
+the saddle, and shoved the Colts out beyond the horse's flank. Down
+went the broad head, with its black, glistening horns. Bang! She slid
+forward with a crash, plowing the ground with hoofs and nose—spouted
+blood, uttered a hoarse cry, kicked and died.
+
+Kentuck, for once completely terrorized, reared and plunged from the
+cow, dragging the calf. Stern command and iron arm forced him to a
+standstill. The calf, nearly strangled, recovered when the noose was
+slipped, and moaned a feeble protest against life and captivity. The
+remainder of Jones's lasso went to bind number six, and one of his
+socks went to serve as reminder to the persistent wolves.
+
+"Six! On! On! Kentuck! On!" Weakening, but unconscious of it, with
+bloody hands and feet, without lasso, and with only one charge in his
+revolver, hatless, coatless, vestless, bootless, the wild hunter urged
+on the noble horse. The herd had gained miles in the interval of the
+fight. Game to the backbone, Kentuck lengthened out to overhaul it, and
+slowly the rolling gap lessened and lessened. A long hour thumped away,
+with the rumble growing nearer.
+
+Once again the lagging calves dotted the grassy plain before the
+hunter. He dashed beside a burly calf, grasped its tail, stopped his
+horse, and jumped. The calf went down with him, and did not come up.
+The knotted, blood-stained hands, like claws of steel, bound the hind
+legs close and fast with a leathern belt, and left between them a torn
+and bloody sock.
+
+"Seven! On! Old Faithfull! We MUST have another! the last! This is your
+day."
+
+The blood that flecked the hunter was not all his own.
+
+The sun slanted westwardly toward the purpling horizon; the grassy
+plain gleamed like a ruffled sea of glass; the gray wolves loped on.
+
+When next the hunter came within sight of the herd, over a wavy ridge,
+changes in its shape and movement met his gaze. The calves were almost
+done; they could run no more; their mothers faced the south, and
+trotted slowly to and fro; the bulls were grunting, herding, piling
+close. It looked as if the herd meant to stand and fight.
+
+This mattered little to the hunter who had captured seven calves since
+dawn. The first limping calf he reached tried to elude the grasping
+hand and failed. Kentuck had been trained to wheel to the right or
+left, in whichever way his rider leaned; and as Jones bent over and
+caught an upraised tail, the horse turned to strike the calf with both
+front hoofs. The calf rolled; the horse plunged down; the rider sped
+beyond to the dust. Though the calf was tired, he still could bellow,
+and he filled the air with robust bawls.
+
+Jones all at once saw twenty or more buffalo dash in at him with fast,
+twinkling, short legs. With the thought of it, he was in the air to the
+saddle. As the black, round mounds charged from every direction,
+Kentuck let out with all there was left in him. He leaped and whirled,
+pitched and swerved, in a roaring, clashing, dusty melee. Beating hoofs
+threw the turf, flying tails whipped the air, and everywhere were
+dusky, sharp-pointed heads, tossing low. Kentuck squeezed out
+unscathed. The mob of bison, bristling, turned to lumber after the main
+herd. Jones seized his opportunity and rode after them, yelling with
+all his might. He drove them so hard that soon the little fellows
+lagged paces behind. Only one or two old cows straggled with the calves.
+
+Then wheeling Kentuck, he cut between the herd and a calf, and rode it
+down. Bewildered, the tously little bull bellowed in great affright.
+The hunter seized the stiff tail, and calling to his horse, leaped off.
+But his strength was far spent and the buffalo, larger than his
+fellows, threshed about and jerked in terror. Jones threw it again and
+again. But it struggled up, never once ceasing its loud demands for
+help. Finally the hunter tripped it up and fell upon it with his knees.
+
+Above the rumble of retreating hoofs, Jones heard the familiar short,
+quick, jarring pound on the turf. Kentuck neighed his alarm and raced
+to the right. Bearing down on the hunter, hurtling through the air, was
+a giant furry mass, instinct with fierce life and power—a buffalo cow
+robbed of her young.
+
+With his senses almost numb, barely able to pull and raise the Colt,
+the plainsman willed to live, and to keep his captive. His leveled arm
+wavered like a leaf in a storm.
+
+Bang! Fire, smoke, a shock, a jarring crash, and silence!
+
+The calf stirred beneath him. He put out a hand to touch a warm, furry
+coat. The mother had fallen beside him. Lifting a heavy hoof, he laid
+it over the neck of the calf to serve as additional weight. He lay
+still and listened. The rumble of the herd died away in the distance.
+
+The evening waned. Still the hunter lay quiet. From time to time the
+calf struggled and bellowed. Lank, gray wolves appeared on all sides;
+they prowled about with hungry howls, and shoved black-tipped noses
+through the grass. The sun sank, and the sky paled to opal blue. A star
+shone out, then another, and another. Over the prairie slanted the
+first dark shadow of night.
+
+Suddenly the hunter laid his ear to the ground, and listened. Faint
+beats, like throbs of a pulsing heart, shuddered from the soft turf.
+Stronger they grew, till the hunter raised his head. Dark forms
+approached; voices broke the silence; the creaking of a wagon scared
+away the wolves.
+
+"This way!" shouted the hunter weakly.
+
+"Ha! here he is. Hurt?" cried Rude, vaulting the wheel.
+
+"Tie up this calf. How many—did you find?" The voice grew fainter.
+
+"Seven—alive, and in good shape, and all your clothes."
+
+But the last words fell on unconscious ears.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4.
+
+THE TRAIL
+
+"Frank, what'll we do about horses?" asked Jones. "Jim'll want the bay,
+and of course you'll want to ride Spot. The rest of our nags will only
+do to pack the outfit."
+
+"I've been thinkin'," replied the foreman. "You sure will need good
+mounts. Now it happens that a friend of mine is just at this time at
+House Rock Valley, an outlyin' post of one of the big Utah ranches. He
+is gettin' in the horses off the range, an' he has some crackin' good
+ones. Let's ooze over there—it's only thirty miles—an' get some
+horses from him."
+
+We were all eager to act upon Frank's suggestion. So plans were made
+for three of us to ride over and select our mounts. Frank and Jim would
+follow with the pack train, and if all went well, on the following
+evening we would camp under the shadow of Buckskin.
+
+Early next morning we were on our way. I tried to find a soft place on
+Old Baldy, one of Frank's pack horses. He was a horse that would not
+have raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under the sun, Frank
+said, bothered Old Baldy but the operation of shoeing. We made the
+distance to the outpost by noon, and found Frank's friend a genial and
+obliging cowboy, who said we could have all the horses we wanted.
+
+While Jones and Wallace strutted round the big corral, which was full
+of vicious, dusty, shaggy horses and mustangs, I sat high on the fence.
+I heard them talking about points and girth and stride, and a lot of
+terms that I could not understand. Wallace selected a heavy sorrel, and
+Jones a big bay; very like Jim's. I had observed, way over in the
+corner of the corral, a bunch of cayuses, and among them a clean-limbed
+black horse. Edging round on the fence I got a closer view, and then
+cried out that I had found my horse. I jumped down and caught him, much
+to my surprise, for the other horses were wild, and had kicked
+viciously. The black was beautifully built, wide-chested and powerful,
+but not heavy. His coat glistened like sheeny black satin, and he had a
+white face and white feet and a long mane.
+
+"I don't know about giving you Satan—that's his name," said the
+cowboy. "The foreman rides him often. He's the fastest, the best
+climber, and the best dispositioned horse on the range.
+
+"But I guess I can let you have him," he continued, when he saw my
+disappointed face.
+
+"By George!" exclaimed Jones. "You've got it on us this time."
+
+"Would you like to trade?" asked Wallace, as his sorrel tried to bite
+him. "That black looks sort of fierce."
+
+I led my prize out of the corral, up to the little cabin nearby, where
+I tied him, and proceeded to get acquainted after a fashion of my own.
+Though not versed in horse-lore, I knew that half the battle was to win
+his confidence. I smoothed his silky coat, and patted him, and then
+surreptitiously slipped a lump of sugar from my pocket. This sugar,
+which I had purloined in Flagstaff, and carried all the way across the
+desert, was somewhat disreputably soiled, and Satan sniffed at it
+disdainfully. Evidently he had never smelled or tasted sugar. I pressed
+it into his mouth. He munched it, and then looked me over with some
+interest. I handed him another lump. He took it and rubbed his nose
+against me. Satan was mine!
+
+Frank and Jim came along early in the afternoon. What with packing,
+changing saddles and shoeing the horses, we were all busy. Old Baldy
+would not be shod, so we let him off till a more opportune time. By
+four o'clock we were riding toward the slopes of Buckskin, now only a
+few miles away, standing up higher and darker.
+
+"What's that for?" inquired Wallace, pointing to a long, rusty,
+wire-wrapped, double-barreled blunderbuss of a shotgun, stuck in the
+holster of Jones's saddle.
+
+The Colonel, who had been having a fine time with the impatient and
+curious hounds, did not vouchsafe any information on that score. But
+very shortly we were destined to learn the use of this incongruous
+firearm. I was riding in advance of Wallace, and a little behind Jones.
+The dogs—excepting Jude, who had been kicked and lamed—were ranging
+along before their master. Suddenly, right before me, I saw an immense
+jack-rabbit; and just then Moze and Don caught sight of it. In fact,
+Moze bumped his blunt nose into the rabbit. When it leaped into scared
+action, Moze yelped, and Don followed suit. Then they were after it in
+wild, clamoring pursuit. Jones let out the stentorian blast, now
+becoming familiar, and spurred after them. He reached over, pulled the
+shotgun out of the holster and fired both barrels at the jumping dogs.
+
+I expressed my amazement in strong language, and Wallace whistled.
+
+Don came sneaking back with his tail between his legs, and Moze, who
+had cowered as if stung, circled round ahead of us. Jones finally
+succeeded in getting him back.
+
+"Come in hyah! You measly rabbit dogs! What do you mean chasing off
+that way? We're after lions. Lions! understand?"
+
+Don looked thoroughly convinced of his error, but Moze, being more
+thick-headed, appeared mystified rather than hurt or frightened.
+
+"What size shot do you use?" I asked.
+
+"Number ten. They don't hurt much at seventy five yards," replied our
+leader. "I use them as sort of a long arm. You see, the dogs must be
+made to know what we're after. Ordinary means would never do in a case
+like this. My idea is to break them of coyotes, wolves and deer, and
+when we cross a lion trail, let them go. I'll teach them sooner than
+you'd think. Only we must get where we can see what they're trailing.
+Then I can tell whether to call then back or not."
+
+The sun was gilding the rim of the desert rampart when we began the
+ascent of the foothills of Buckskin. A steep trail wound zigzag up the
+mountain We led our horses, as it was a long, hard climb. From time to
+time, as I stopped to catch my breath I gazed away across the growing
+void to the gorgeous Pink Cliffs, far above and beyond the red wall
+which had seemed so high, and then out toward the desert. The irregular
+ragged crack in the plain, apparently only a thread of broken ground,
+was the Grand Cañon. How unutterably remote, wild, grand was that
+world of red and brown, of purple pall, of vague outline!
+
+Two thousand feet, probably, we mounted to what Frank called Little
+Buckskin. In the west a copper glow, ridged with lead-colored clouds,
+marked where the sun had set. The air was very thin and icy cold. At
+the first clump of pinyon pines, we made dry camp. When I sat down it
+was as if I had been anchored. Frank solicitously remarked that I
+looked "sort of beat." Jim built a roaring fire and began getting
+supper. A snow squall came on the rushing wind. The air grew colder,
+and though I hugged the fire, I could not get warm. When I had
+satisfied my hunger, I rolled out my sleeping-bag and crept into it. I
+stretched my aching limbs and did not move again. Once I awoke,
+drowsily feeling the warmth of the fire, and I heard Frank say: "He's
+asleep, dead to the world!"
+
+"He's all in," said Jones. "Riding's what did it. You know how a horse
+tears a man to pieces."
+
+"Will he be able to stand it?" asked Frank, with as much solicitude as
+if he were my brother. "When you get out after anythin'—well, you're
+hell. An' think of the country we're goin' into. I know you've never
+seen the breaks of the Siwash, but I have, an' it's the worst an'
+roughest country I ever saw. Breaks after breaks, like the ridges on a
+washboard, headin' on the south slope of Buckskin, an' runnin' down,
+side by side, miles an' miles, deeper an' deeper, till they run into
+that awful hole. It will be a killin' trip on men, horses an' dogs.
+Now, Mr. Wallace, he's been campin' an' roughin' with the Navajos for
+months; he's in some kind of shape, but—"
+
+Frank concluded his remark with a doubtful pause.
+
+"I'm some worried, too," replied Jones. "But he would come. He stood
+the desert well enough; even the Mormons said that."
+
+In the ensuing silence the fire sputtered, the glare fitfully merged
+into dark shadows under the weird pinyons, and the wind moaned through
+the short branches.
+
+"Wal," drawled a slow, soft voice, "shore I reckon you're hollerin' too
+soon. Frank's measly trick puttin' him on Spot showed me. He rode out
+on Spot, an' he rode in on Spot. Shore he'll stay."
+
+It was not all the warmth of the blankets that glowed over me then. The
+voices died away dreamily, and my eyelids dropped sleepily tight. Late
+in the night I sat up suddenly, roused by some unusual disturbance. The
+fire was dead; the wind swept with a rush through the pinyons. From the
+black darkness came the staccato chorus of coyotes. Don barked his
+displeasure; Sounder made the welkin ring, and old Moze growled low and
+deep, grumbling like muttered thunder. Then all was quiet, and I slept.
+
+Dawn, rosy red, confronted me when I opened my eyes. Breakfast was
+ready; Frank was packing Old Baldy; Jones talked to his horse as he
+saddled him; Wallace came stooping his giant figure under the pinyons;
+the dogs, eager and soft-eyed, sat around Jim and begged. The sun
+peeped over the Pink Cliffs; the desert still lay asleep, tranced in a
+purple and golden-streaked mist.
+
+"Come, come!" said Jones, in his big voice. "We're slow; here's the
+sun."
+
+"Easy, easy," replied Frank, "we've all the time there is."
+
+When Frank threw the saddle over Satan I interrupted him and said I
+would care for my horse henceforward. Soon we were under way, the
+horses fresh, the dogs scenting the keen, cold air.
+
+The trail rolled over the ridges of pinyon and scrubby pine.
+Occasionally we could see the black, ragged crest of Buckskin above us.
+From one of these ridges I took my last long look back at the desert,
+and engraved on my mind a picture of the red wall, and the many-hued
+ocean of sand. The trail, narrow and indistinct, mounted the last
+slow-rising slope; the pinyons failed, and the scrubby pines became
+abundant. At length we reached the top, and entered the great arched
+aisles of Buckskin Forest. The ground was flat as a table. Magnificent
+pine trees, far apart, with branches high and spreading, gave the eye
+glad welcome. Some of these monarchs were eight feet thick at the base
+and two hundred feet high. Here and there one lay, gaunt and prostrate,
+a victim of the wind. The smell of pitch pine was sweetly overpowering.
+
+"When I went through here two weeks ago, the snow was a foot deep, an'
+I bogged in places," said Frank. "The sun has been oozin' round here
+some. I'm afraid Jones won't find any snow on this end of Buckskin."
+
+Thirty miles of winding trail, brown and springy from its thick mat of
+pine needles, shaded always by the massive, seamy-barked trees, took us
+over the extremity of Buckskin. Then we faced down into the head of a
+ravine that ever grew deeper, stonier and rougher. I shifted from side
+to side, from leg to leg in my saddle, dismounted and hobbled before
+Satan, mounted again, and rode on. Jones called the dogs and complained
+to them of the lack of snow. Wallace sat his horse comfortably, taking
+long pulls at his pipe and long gazes at the shaggy sides of the
+ravine. Frank, energetic and tireless, kept the pack-horses in the
+trail. Jim jogged on silently. And so we rode down to Oak Spring.
+
+The spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of oaks and Pinyons,
+under the shadow of three cliffs. Three ravines opened here into an
+oval valley. A rude cabin of rough-hewn logs stood near the spring.
+
+"Get down, get down," sang out Frank. "We'll hang up here. Beyond Oak
+is No-Man's-Land. We take our chances on water after we leave here."
+
+When we had unsaddled, unpacked, and got a fire roaring on the wide
+stone hearth of the cabin, it was once again night.
+
+"Boys," said Jones after supper, "we're now on the edge of the lion
+country. Frank saw lion sign in here only two weeks ago; and though the
+snow is gone, we stand a show of finding tracks in the sand and dust.
+To-morrow morning, before the sun gets a chance at the bottom of these
+ravines, we'll be up and doing. We'll each take a dog and search in
+different directions. Keep the dog in leash, and when he opens up,
+examine the ground carefully for tracks. If a dog opens on any track
+that you are sure isn't lion's, punish him. And when a lion-track is
+found, hold the dog in, wait and signal. We'll use a signal I have
+tried and found far-reaching and easy to yell. Waa-hoo! That's it. Once
+yelled it means come. Twice means comes quickly. Three times means
+come—danger!"
+
+In one corner of the cabin was a platform of poles, covered with straw.
+I threw the sleeping-bag on this, and was soon stretched out.
+Misgivings as to my strength worried me before I closed my eyes. Once
+on my back, I felt I could not rise; my chest was sore; my cough deep
+and rasping. It seemed I had scarcely closed my eyes when Jones's
+impatient voice recalled me from sweet oblivion.
+
+"Frank, Frank, it's daylight. Jim—boys!" he called.
+
+I tumbled out in a gray, wan twilight. It was cold enough to make the
+fire acceptable, but nothing like the morning before on Buckskin.
+
+"Come to the festal board," drawled Jim, almost before I had my boots
+laced.
+
+"Jones," said Frank, "Jim an' I'll ooze round here to-day. There's lots
+to do, an' we want to have things hitched right before we strike for
+the Siwash. We've got to shoe Old Baldy, an' if we can't get him
+locoed, it'll take all of us to do it."
+
+The light was still gray when Jones led off with Don, Wallace with
+Sounder and I with Moze. Jones directed us to separate, follow the dry
+stream beds in the ravines, and remember his instructions given the
+night before.
+
+The ravine to the right, which I entered, was choked with huge stones
+fallen from the cliff above, and pinyons growing thick; and I wondered
+apprehensively how a man could evade a wild animal in such a place,
+much less chase it. Old Moze pulled on his chain and sniffed at coyote
+and deer tracks. And every time he evinced interest in such, I cut him
+with a switch, which, to tell the truth, he did not notice. I thought I
+heard a shout, and holding Moze tight, I waited and listened.
+
+"Waa-hoo—waa-hoo!" floated on the air, rather deadened as if it had
+come from round the triangular cliff that faced into the valley. Urging
+and dragging Moze, I ran down the ravine as fast as I could, and soon
+encountered Wallace coming from the middle ravine. "Jones," he said
+excitedly,  "this way—there's the signal again." We dashed in haste
+for the mouth of the third ravine, and came suddenly upon Jones,
+kneeling under a pinyon tree. "Boys, look!" he exclaimed, as he pointed
+to the ground. There, clearly defined in the dust, was a cat track as
+big as my spread hand, and the mere sight of it sent a chill up my
+spine. "There's a lion track for you; made by a female, a two-year-old;
+but can't say if she passed here last night. Don won't take the trail.
+Try Moze."
+
+I led Moze to the big, round imprint, and put his nose down into it.
+The old hound sniffed and sniffed, then lost interest.
+
+"Cold!" ejaculated Jones. "No go. Try Sounder. Come, old boy, you've
+the nose for it."
+
+He urged the reluctant hound forward. Sounder needed not to be shown
+the trail; he stuck his nose in it, and stood very quiet for a long
+moment; then he quivered slightly, raised his nose and sought the next
+track. Step by step he went slowly, doubtfully. All at once his tail
+wagged stiffly.
+
+"Look at that!" cried Jones in delight. "He's caught a scent when the
+others couldn't. Hyah, Moze, get back. Keep Moze and Don back; give him
+room."
+
+Slowly Sounder paced up the ravine, as carefully as if he were
+traveling on thin ice. He passed the dusty, open trail to a scaly
+ground with little bits of grass, and he kept on.
+
+We were electrified to hear him give vent to a deep bugle-blast note of
+eagerness.
+
+"By George, he's got it, boys!" exclaimed Jones, as he lifted the
+stubborn, struggling hound off the trail. "I know that bay. It means a
+lion passed here this morning. And we'll get him up as sure as you're
+alive. Come, Sounder. Now for the horses."
+
+As we ran pell-mell into the little glade, where Jim sat mending some
+saddle trapping, Frank rode up the trail with the horses.
+
+"Well, I heard Sounder," he said with his genial smile. "Somethin's
+comin' off, eh? You'll have to ooze round some to keep up with that
+hound."
+
+I saddled Satan with fingers that trembled in excitement, and pushed my
+little Remington automatic into the rifle holster.
+
+"Boys, listen," said our leader. "We're off now in the beginning of a
+hunt new to you. Remember no shooting, no blood-letting, except in
+self-defense. Keep as close to me as you can. Listen for the dogs, and
+when you fall behind or separate, yell out the signal cry. Don't forget
+this. We're bound to lose each other. Look out for the spikes and
+branches on the trees. If the dogs split, whoever follows the one that
+trees the lion must wait there till the rest come up. Off now! Come,
+Sounder; Moze, you rascal, hyah! Come, Don, come, Puppy, and take your
+medicine."
+
+Except Moze, the hounds were all trembling and running eagerly to and
+fro. When Sounder was loosed, he led them in a bee-line to the trail,
+with us cantering after. Sounder worked exactly as before, only he
+followed the lion tracks a little farther up the ravine before he
+bayed. He kept going faster and faster, occasionally letting out one
+deep, short yelp. The other hounds did not give tongue, but eager,
+excited, baffled, kept at his heels. The ravine was long, and the wash
+at the bottom, up which the lion had proceeded, turned and twisted
+round boulders large as houses, and led through dense growths of some
+short, rough shrub. Now and then the lion tracks showed plainly in the
+sand. For five miles or more Sounder led us up the ravine, which began
+to contract and grow steep. The dry stream bed got to be full of
+thickets of branchless saplings, about the poplar—tall, straight, size
+of a man's arm, and growing so close we had to press them aside to let
+our horses through.
+
+Presently Sounder slowed up and appeared at fault. We found him
+puzzling over an open, grassy patch, and after nosing it for a little
+while, he began skirting the edge.
+
+"Cute dog!" declared Jones. "That Sounder will make a lion chaser. Our
+game has gone up here somewhere."
+
+Sure enough, Sounder directly gave tongue from the side of the ravine.
+It was climb for us now. Broken shale, rocks of all dimensions, pinyons
+down and pinyons up made ascending no easy problem. We had to dismount
+and lead the horses, thus losing ground. Jones forged ahead and reached
+the top of the ravine first. When Wallace and I got up, breathing
+heavily, Jones and the hounds were out of sight. But Sounder kept
+voicing his clear call, giving us our direction. Off we flew, over
+ground that was still rough, but enjoyable going compared to the ravine
+slopes. The ridge was sparsely covered with cedar and pinyon, through
+which, far ahead, we pretty soon spied Jones. Wallace signaled, and our
+leader answered twice. We caught up with him on the brink of another
+ravine deeper and craggier than the first, full of dead, gnarled pinyon
+and splintered rocks.
+
+"This gulch is the largest of the three that head in at Oak Spring,"
+said Jones. "Boys, don't forget your direction. Always keep a feeling
+where camp is, always sense it every time you turn. The dogs have gone
+down. That lion is in here somewhere. Maybe he lives down in the high
+cliffs near the spring and came up here last night for a kill he's
+buried somewhere. Lions never travel far. Hark! Hark! There's Sounder
+and the rest of them! They've got the scent; they've all got it! Down,
+boys, down, and ride!"
+
+With that he crashed into the cedar in a way that showed me how
+impervious he was to slashing branches, sharp as thorns, and steep
+descent and peril.
+
+Wallace's big sorrel plunged after him and the rolling stones cracked.
+Suffering as I was by this time, with cramp in my legs, and torturing
+pain, I had to choose between holding my horse in or falling off; so I
+chose the former and accordingly got behind.
+
+Dead cedar and pinyon trees lay everywhere, with their contorted limbs
+reaching out like the arms of a devil-fish. Stones blocked every
+opening. Making the bottom of the ravine after what seemed an
+interminable time, I found the tracks of Jones and Wallace. A long
+"Waa-hoo!" drew me on; then the mellow bay of a hound floated up the
+ravine. Satan made up time in the sandy stream bed, but kept me busily
+dodging overhanging branches. I became aware, after a succession of
+efforts to keep from being strung on pinyons, that the sand before me
+was clean and trackless. Hauling Satan up sharply, I waited
+irresolutely and listened. Then from high up the ravine side wafted
+down a medley of yelps and barks.
+
+"Waa-hoo, waa-hoo!" ringing down the slope, pealed against the cliff
+behind me, and sent the wild echoes flying. Satan, of his own accord,
+headed up the incline. Surprised at this, I gave him free rein. How he
+did climb! Not long did it take me to discover that he picked out
+easier going than I had. Once I saw Jones crossing a ledge far above
+me, and I yelled our signal cry. The answer returned clear and sharp;
+then its echo cracked under the hollow cliff, and crossing and
+recrossing the ravine, it died at last far away, like the muffled peal
+of a bell-buoy. Again I heard the blended yelping of the hounds, and
+closer at hand. I saw a long, low cliff above, and decided that the
+hounds were running at the base of it. Another chorus of yelps,
+quicker, wilder than the others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I
+knew the dogs had jumped game of some kind. Satan knew it as well as I,
+for he quickened his pace and sent the stones clattering behind him.
+
+I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no tracks in the dust
+of ages that had crumbled in its shadow, nor did I hear the dogs.
+Considering how close they had seemed, this was strange. I halted and
+listened. Silence reigned supreme. The ragged cracks in the cliff walls
+could have harbored many a watching lion, and I cast an apprehensive
+glance into their dark confines. Then I turned my horse to get round
+the cliff and over the ridge. When I again stopped, all I could hear
+was the thumping of my heart and the labored panting of Satan. I came
+to a break in the cliff, a steep place of weathered rock, and I put
+Satan to it. He went up with a will. From the narrow saddle of the
+ridge-crest I tried to take my bearings. Below me slanted the green of
+pinyon, with the bleached treetops standing like spears, and uprising
+yellow stones. Fancying I heard a gunshot, I leaned a straining ear
+against the soft breeze. The proof came presently in the unmistakable
+report of Jones's blunderbuss. It was repeated almost instantly, giving
+reality to the direction, which was down the slope of what I concluded
+must be the third ravine. Wondering what was the meaning of the shots,
+and chagrined because I was out of the race, but calmer in mind, I let
+Satan stand.
+
+Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark tingled in my ears. It
+belonged to old Moze. Soon I distinguished a rattling of stones and the
+sharp, metallic clicks of hoofs striking rocks. Then into a space below
+me loped a beautiful deer, so large that at first I took it for an elk.
+Another sharp bark, nearer this time, told the tale of Moze's
+dereliction. In a few moments he came in sight, running with his tongue
+out and his head high.
+
+"Hyah, you old gladiator! hyah! hyah!" I yelled and yelled again. Moze
+passed over the saddle on the trail of the deer, and his short bark
+floated back to remind me how far he was from a lion dog.
+
+Then I divined the meaning of the shotgun reports. The hounds had
+crossed a fresher trail than that of the lion, and our leader had
+discovered it. Despite a keen appreciation of Jones's task, I gave way
+to amusement, and repeated Wallace's paradoxical formula: "Pet the
+lions and shoot the hounds."
+
+So I headed down the ravine, looking for a blunt, bold crag, which I
+had descried from camp. I found it before long, and profiting by past
+failures to judge of distance, gave my first impression a great
+stretch, and then decided that I was more than two miles from Oak.
+
+Long after two miles had been covered, and I had begun to associate
+Jim's biscuits with a certain soft seat near a ruddy fire, I was
+apparently still the same distance from my landmark crag. Suddenly a
+slight noise brought me to a halt. I listened intently. Only an
+indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed the impressive stillness.
+It might have been the weathering that goes on constantly, and it might
+have been an animal. I inclined to the former idea till I saw Satan's
+ears go up. Jones had told me to watch the ears of my horse, and short
+as had been my acquaintance with Satan, I had learned that he always
+discovered things more quickly than I. So I waited patiently.
+
+From time to time a rattling roll of pebbles, almost musical, caught my
+ear. It came from the base of the wall of yellow cliff that barred the
+summit of all those ridges. Satan threw up his head and nosed the
+breeze. The delicate, almost stealthy sounds, the action of my horse,
+the waiting drove my heart to extra work. The breeze quickened and
+fanned my cheek, and borne upon it came the faint and far-away bay of a
+hound. It came again and again, each time nearer. Then on a stronger
+puff of wind rang the clear, deep, mellow call that had given Sounder
+his beautiful name. Never it seemed had I heard music so
+blood-stirring. Sounder was on the trail of something, and he had it
+headed my way. Satan heard, shot up his long ears, and tried to go
+ahead; but I restrained and soothed him into quiet.
+
+Long moments I sat there, with the poignant consciousness of the
+wildness of the scene, of the significant rattling of the stones and of
+the bell-tongued hound baying incessantly, sending warm joy through my
+veins, the absorption in sensations new, yielding only to the hunting
+instinct when Satan snorted and quivered. Again the deep-toned bay rang
+into the silence with its stirring thrill of life. And a sharp rattling
+of stones just above brought another snort from Satan.
+
+Across an open space in the pinyons a gray form flashed. I leaped off
+Satan and knelt to get a better view under the trees. I soon made out
+another deer passing along the base of the cliff. Mounting again, I
+rode up to the cliff to wait for Sounder.
+
+A long time I had to wait for the hound. It proved that the atmosphere
+was as deceiving in regard to sound as to sight. Finally Sounder came
+running along the wall. I got off to intercept him. The crazy
+fellow—he had never responded to my overtures of friendship—uttered
+short, sharp yelps of delight, and actually leaped into my arms. But I
+could not hold him. He darted upon the trail again and paid no heed to
+my angry shouts. With a resolve to overhaul him, I jumped on Satan and
+whirled after the hound.
+
+The black stretched out with such a stride that I was at pains to keep
+my seat. I dodged the jutting rocks and projecting snags; felt stinging
+branches in my face and the rush of sweet, dry wind. Under the
+crumbling walls, over slopes of weathered stone and droppings of
+shelving rock, round protruding noses of cliff, over and under pinyons
+Satan thundered. He came out on the top of the ridge, at the narrow
+back I had called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpse of Sounder far
+below, going down into the ravine from which I had ascended some time
+before. I called to him, but I might as well have called to the wind.
+
+Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward camp.
+I lay forward on his neck and let him have his will. Far down the
+ravine I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized the cracking of
+iron-shod hoofs against stone; then voices. Turning an abrupt bend in
+the sandy wash, I ran into Jones and Wallace.
+
+"Fall in! Line up in the sad procession!" said Jones. "Tige and the pup
+are faithful. The rest of the dogs are somewhere between the Grand
+Cañon and the Utah desert."
+
+I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze and Sounder as much as
+conscience would permit.
+
+"Hard luck!" commented Jones. "Just as the hounds jumped the
+cougar—Oh! they bounced him out of the rocks all right—don't you
+remember, just under that cliff wall where you and Wallace came up to
+me? Well, just as they jumped him, they ran right into fresh deer
+tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that's too much for any hounds,
+except those trained for lions. I shot at Moze twice, but couldn't turn
+him. He has to be hurt, they've all got to be hurt to make them
+understand."
+
+Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones's wake, and of sundry
+knocks and bruises he had sustained, of pieces of corduroy he had left
+decorating the cedars and of a most humiliating event, where a gaunt
+and bare pinyon snag had penetrated under his belt and lifted him, mad
+and kicking, off his horse.
+
+"These Western nags will hang you on a line every chance they get,"
+declared Jones, "and don't you overlook that. Well, there's the cabin.
+We'd better stay here a few days or a week and break in the dogs and
+horses, for this day's work was apple pie to what we'll get in the
+Siwash."
+
+I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad to see Wallace fall off
+his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin. When I got my saddle off
+Satan, had given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the cabin
+and dropped like a log. I felt as if every bone in my body was broken
+and my flesh was raw. I got gleeful gratification from Wallace's
+complaints, and Jones's remark that he had a stitch in his back. So
+ended the first chase after cougars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5.
+
+OAK SPRING
+
+Moze and Don and Sounder straggled into camp next morning, hungry,
+footsore and scarred; and as they limped in, Jones met them with
+characteristic speech: "Well, you decided to come in when you got
+hungry and tired? Never thought of how you fooled me, did you? Now, the
+first thing you get is a good licking."
+
+He tied them in a little log pen near the cabin and whipped them
+soundly. And the next few days, while Wallace and I rested, he took
+them out separately and deliberately ran them over coyote and deer
+trails. Sometimes we heard his stentorian yell as a forerunner to the
+blast from his old shotgun. Then again we heard the shots unheralded by
+the yell. Wallace and I waxed warm under the collar over this peculiar
+method of training dogs, and each of us made dire threats. But in
+justice to their implacable trainer, the dogs never appeared to be
+hurt; never a spot of blood flecked their glossy coats, nor did they
+ever come home limping. Sounder grew wise, and Don gave up, but Moze
+appeared not to change.
+
+"All hands ready to rustle," sang out Frank one morning. "Old Baldy's
+got to be shod."
+
+This brought us all, except Jones, out of the cabin, to see the object
+of Frank's anxiety tied to a nearby oak. At first I failed to recognize
+Old Baldy. Vanished was the slow, sleepy, apathetic manner that had
+characterized him; his ears lay back on his head; fire flashed from his
+eyes. When Frank threw down a kit-bag, which emitted a metallic
+clanking, Old Baldy sat back on his haunches, planted his forefeet deep
+in the ground and plainly as a horse could speak, said "No!"
+
+"Sometimes he's bad, and sometimes worse," growled Frank.
+
+"Shore he's plumb bad this mornin'," replied Jim.
+
+Frank got the three of us to hold Baldy's head and pull him up, then he
+ventured to lift a hind foot over his line. Old Baldy straightened out
+his leg and sent Frank sprawling into the dirt. Twice again Frank
+patiently tried to hold a hind leg, with the same result; and then he
+lifted a forefoot. Baldy uttered a very intelligible snort, bit through
+Wallace's glove, yanked Jim off his feet, and scared me so that I let
+go his forelock. Then he broke the rope which held him to the tree.
+There was a plunge, a scattering of men, though Jim still valiantly
+held on to Baldy's head, and a thrashing of scrub pinyon, where Baldy
+reached out vigorously with his hind feet. But for Jim, he would have
+escaped.
+
+"What's all the row?" called Jones from the cabin. Then from the door,
+taking in the situation, he yelled: "Hold on, Jim! Pull down on the
+ornery old cayuse!"
+
+He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, one whirling round his
+head. The slender rope straightened with a whiz and whipped round
+Baldy's legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled it tight, then
+fastened it with nimble fingers to the tree.
+
+"Let go! let go! Jim!" he yelled, whirling the other lasso. The loop
+flashed and fell over Baldy's head and tightened round his neck. Jones
+threw all the weight of his burly form on the lariat, and Baldy crashed
+to the ground, rolled, tussled, screamed, and then lay on his back,
+kicking the air with three free legs. "Hold this," ordered Jones,
+giving the tight rope to Frank. Whereupon he grabbed my lasso from the
+saddle, roped Baldy's two forefeet, and pulled him down on his side.
+This lasso he fastened to a scrub cedar.
+
+"He's chokin'!" said Frank.
+
+"Likely he is," replied Jones shortly. "It'll do him good." But with
+his big hands he drew the coil loose and slipped it down over Baldy's
+nose, where he tightened it again.
+
+"Now, go ahead," he said, taking the rope from Frank.
+
+It had all been done in a twinkling. Baldy lay there groaning and
+helpless, and when Frank once again took hold of the wicked leg, he was
+almost passive. When the shoeing operation had been neatly and quickly
+attended to and Baldy released from his uncomfortable position he
+struggled to his feet with heavy breaths, shook himself, and looked at
+his master.
+
+"How'd you like being hog-tied?" queried his conqueror, rubbing Baldy's
+nose. "Now, after this you'll have some manners."
+
+Old Baldy seemed to understand, for he looked sheepish, and lapsed once
+more into his listless, lazy unconcern.
+
+"Where's Jim's old cayuse, the pack-horse?" asked our leader.
+
+"Lost. Couldn't find him this morning, an' had a deuce of a time
+findin' the rest of the bunch. Old Baldy was cute. He hid in a bunch of
+pinyons an' stood quiet so his bell wouldn't ring. I had to trail him."
+
+"Do the horses stray far when they are hobbled?" inquired Wallace.
+
+"If they keep jumpin' all night they can cover some territory. We're
+now on the edge of the wild horse country, and our nags know this as
+well as we. They smell the mustangs, an' would break their necks to get
+away. Satan and the sorrel were ten miles from camp when I found them
+this mornin'. An' Jim's cayuse went farther, an' we never will get him.
+He'll wear his hobbles out, then away with the wild horses. Once with
+them, he'll never be caught again."
+
+On the sixth day of our stay at Oak we had visitors, whom Frank
+introduced as the Stewart brothers and Lawson, wild-horse wranglers.
+They were still, dark men, whose facial expression seldom varied; tall
+and lithe and wiry as the mustangs they rode. The Stewarts were on
+their way to Kanab, Utah, to arrange for the sale of a drove of horses
+they had captured and corraled in a narrow cañon back in the Siwash.
+Lawson said he was at our service, and was promptly hired to look after
+our horses.
+
+"Any cougar signs back in the breaks?" asked Jones.
+
+"Wal, there's a cougar on every deer trail," replied the elder Stewart,
+"An' two for every pinto in the breaks. Old Tom himself downed fifteen
+colts fer us this spring."
+
+"Fifteen colts! That's wholesale murder. Why don't you kill the
+butcher?"
+
+"We've tried more'n onct. It's a turrible busted up country, them
+brakes. No man knows it, an' the cougars do. Old Tom ranges all the
+ridges and brakes, even up on the slopes of Buckskin; but he lives down
+there in them holes, an' Lord knows, no dog I ever seen could follow
+him. We tracked him in the snow, an' had dogs after him, but none could
+stay with him, except two as never cum back. But we've nothin' agin Old
+Tom like Jeff Clarke, a hoss rustler, who has a string of pintos
+corraled north of us. Clarke swears he ain't raised a colt in two
+years."
+
+"We'll put that old cougar up a tree," exclaimed Jones.
+
+"If you kill him we'll make you all a present of a mustang, an' Clarke,
+he'll give you two each," replied Stewart. "We'd be gettin' rid of him
+cheap."
+
+"How many wild horses on the mountain now?"
+
+"Hard to tell. Two or three thousand, mebbe. There's almost no ketchin'
+them, an' they regrowin' all the time We ain't had no luck this spring.
+The bunch in corral we got last year."
+
+"Seen anythin' of the White Mustang?" inquired Frank. "Ever get a rope
+near him?"
+
+"No nearer'n we hev fer six years back. He can't be ketched. We seen
+him an' his band of blacks a few days ago, headin' fer a water-hole
+down where Nail Cañon runs into Kanab Cañon. He's so cunnin' he'll
+never water at any of our trap corrals. An' we believe he can go
+without water fer two weeks, unless mebbe he hes a secret hole we've
+never trailed him to."
+
+"Would we have any chance to see this White Mustang and his band?"
+questioned Jones.
+
+"See him? Why, thet'd be easy. Go down Snake Gulch, camp at Singin'
+Cliffs, go over into Nail Cañon, an' wait. Then send some one slippin'
+down to the water-hole at Kanab Cañon, an' when the band cums in to
+drink—which I reckon will be in a few days now—hev them drive the
+mustangs up. Only be sure to hev them get ahead of the White Mustang,
+so he'll hev only one way to cum, fer he sure is knowin'. He never
+makes a mistake. Mebbe you'll get to see him cum by like a white
+streak. Why, I've heerd thet mustang's hoofs ring like bells on the
+rocks a mile away. His hoofs are harder'n any iron shoe as was ever
+made. But even if you don't get to see him, Snake Gulch is worth
+seein'."
+
+I learned later from Stewart that the White Mustang was a beautiful
+stallion of the wildest strain of mustang blue blood. He had roamed the
+long reaches between the Grand Cañon and Buckskin toward its southern
+slope for years; he had been the most sought-for horse by all the
+wranglers, and had become so shy and experienced that nothing but a
+glimpse was ever obtained of him. A singular fact was that he never
+attached any of his own species to his band, unless they were coal
+black. He had been known to fight and kill other stallions, but he kept
+out of the well-wooded and watered country frequented by other bands,
+and ranged the brakes of the Siwash as far as he could range. The usual
+method, indeed the only successful way to capture wild horses, was to
+build corrals round the waterholes. The wranglers lay out night after
+night watching. When the mustangs came to drink—which was always after
+dark—the gates would be closed on them. But the trick had never even
+been tried on the White Mustang, for the simple reason that he never
+approached one of these traps.
+
+"Boys," said Jones, "seeing we need breaking in, we'll give the White
+Mustang a little run."
+
+This was most pleasurable news, for the wild horses fascinated me.
+Besides, I saw from the expression on our leader's face that an
+uncapturable mustang was an object of interest for him.
+
+Wallace and I had employed the last few warm sunny afternoons in riding
+up and down the valley, below Oak, where there was a fine, level
+stretch. Here I wore out my soreness of muscle, and gradually overcame
+my awkwardness in the saddle. Frank's remedy of maple sugar and red
+pepper had rid me of my cold, and with the return of strength, and the
+coming of confidence, full, joyous appreciation of wild environment and
+life made me unspeakably happy. And I noticed that my companions were
+in like condition of mind, though self-contained where I was exuberant.
+Wallace galloped his sorrel and watched the crags; Jones talked more
+kindly to the dogs; Jim baked biscuits indefatigably, and smoked in
+contented silence; Frank said always: "We'll ooze along easy like, for
+we've all the time there is." Which sentiment, whether from reiterated
+suggestion, or increasing confidence in the practical cowboy, or charm
+of its free import, gradually won us all.
+
+"Boys," said Jones, as we sat round the campfire, "I see you're getting
+in shape. Well, I've worn off the wire edge myself. And I have the
+hounds coming fine. They mind me now, but they're mystified. For the
+life of them they can't understand what I mean. I don't blame them.
+Wait till, by good luck, we get a cougar in a tree. When Sounder and
+Don see that, we've lion dogs, boys! we've lion dogs! But Moze is a
+stubborn brute. In all my years of animal experience, I've never
+discovered any other way to make animals obey than by instilling fear
+and respect into their hearts. I've been fond of buffalo, horses and
+dogs, but sentiment never ruled me. When animals must obey, they
+must—that's all, and no mawkishness! But I never trusted a buffalo in
+my life. If I had I wouldn't be here to-night. You all know how many
+keepers of tame wild animals get killed. I could tell you dozens of
+tragedies. And I've often thought, since I got back from New York, of
+that woman I saw with her troop of African lions. I dream about those
+lions, and see them leaping over her head. What a grand sight that was!
+But the public is fooled. I read somewhere that she trained those lions
+by love. I don't believe it. I saw her use a whip and a steel spear.
+Moreover, I saw many things that escaped most observers—how she
+entered the cage, how she maneuvered among them, how she kept a
+compelling gaze on them! It was an admirable, a great piece of work.
+Maybe she loves those huge yellow brutes, but her life was in danger
+every moment while she was in that cage, and she knew it. Some day, one
+of her pets likely the King of Beasts she pets the most will rise up
+and kill her. That is as certain as death."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6.
+
+THE WHITE MUSTANG
+
+For thirty miles down Nail Cañon we marked, in every dusty trail and
+sandy wash, the small, oval, sharply defined tracks of the White
+Mustang and his band.
+
+The cañon had been well named. It was long, straight and square sided;
+its bare walls glared steel-gray in the sun, smooth, glistening
+surfaces that had been polished by wind and water. No weathered heaps
+of shale, no crumbled piles of stone obstructed its level floor. And,
+softly toning its drab austerity, here grew the white sage, waving in
+the breeze, the Indian Paint Brush, with vivid vermilion flower, and
+patches of fresh, green grass.
+
+"The White King, as we Arizona wild-hoss wranglers calls this mustang,
+is mighty pertickler about his feed, an' he ranged along here last
+night, easy like, browsin' on this white sage," said Stewart. Inflected
+by our intense interest in the famous mustang, and ruffled slightly by
+Jones's manifest surprise and contempt that no one had captured him,
+Stewart had volunteered to guide us. "Never knowed him to run in this
+way fer water; fact is, never knowed Nail Cañon had a fork. It splits
+down here, but you'd think it was only a crack in the wall. An' thet
+cunnin' mustang hes been foolin' us fer years about this water-hole."
+
+The fork of Nail Cañon, which Stewart had decided we were in, had been
+accidentally discovered by Frank, who, in search of our horses one
+morning had crossed a ridge, to come suddenly upon the blind, box-like
+head of the cañon. Stewart knew the lay of the ridges and run of the
+cañons as well as any man could know a country where, seemingly, every
+rod was ridged and bisected, and he was of the opinion that we had
+stumbled upon one of the White Mustang's secret passages, by which he
+had so often eluded his pursuers.
+
+Hard riding had been the order of the day, but still we covered ten
+more miles by sundown. The cañon apparently closed in on us, so camp
+was made for the night. The horses were staked out, and supper made
+ready while the shadows were dropping; and when darkness settled thick
+over us, we lay under our blankets.
+
+Morning disclosed the White Mustang's secret passage. It was a narrow
+cleft, splitting the cañon wall, rough, uneven, tortuous and choked
+with fallen rocks—no more than a wonderful crack in solid stone,
+opening into another cañon. Above us the sky seemed a winding, flowing
+stream of blue. The walls were so close in places that a horse with
+pack would have been blocked, and a rider had to pull his legs up over
+the saddle. On the far side, the passage fell very suddenly for several
+hundred feet to the floor of the other cañon. No hunter could have
+seen it, or suspected it from that side.
+
+"This is Grand Cañon country, an' nobody knows what he's goin' to
+find," was Frank's comment.
+
+"Now we're in Nail Cañon proper," said Stewart; "An' I know my
+bearin's. I can climb out a mile below an' cut across to Kanab Cañon,
+an' slip up into Nail Cañon agin, ahead of the mustangs, an' drive 'em
+up. I can't miss 'em, fer Kanab Cañon is impassable down a little
+ways. The mustangs will hev to run this way. So all you need do is go
+below the break, where I climb out, an' wait. You're sure goin' to get
+a look at the White Mustang. But wait. Don't expect him before noon,
+an' after thet, any time till he comes. Mebbe it'll be a couple of
+days, so keep a good watch."
+
+Then taking our man Lawson, with blankets and a knapsack of food,
+Stewart rode off down the cañon.
+
+We were early on the march. As we proceeded the cañon lost its
+regularity and smoothness; it became crooked as a rail fence, narrower,
+higher, rugged and broken. Pinnacled cliffs, cracked and leaning,
+menaced us from above. Mountains of ruined wall had tumbled into
+fragments.
+
+It seemed that Jones, after much survey of different corners, angles
+and points in the cañon floor, chose his position with much greater
+care than appeared necessary for the ultimate success of our
+venture—which was simply to see the White Mustang, and if good fortune
+attended us, to snap some photographs of this wild king of horses. It
+flashed over me that, with his ruling passion strong within him, our
+leader was laying some kind of trap for that mustang, was indeed bent
+on his capture.
+
+Wallace, Frank and Jim were stationed at a point below the break where
+Stewart had evidently gone up and out. How a horse could have climbed
+that streaky white slide was a mystery. Jones's instructions to the men
+were to wait until the mustangs were close upon them, and then yell and
+shout and show themselves.
+
+He took me to a jutting corner of cliff, which hid us from the others,
+and here he exercised still more care in scrutinizing the lay of the
+ground. A wash from ten to fifteen feet wide, and as deep, ran through
+the cañon in a somewhat meandering course. At the corner which
+consumed so much of his attention, the dry ditch ran along the cliff
+wall about fifty feet out; between it and the wall was good level
+ground, on the other side huge rocks and shale made it hummocky,
+practically impassable for a horse. It was plain the mustangs, on their
+way up, would choose the inside of the wash; and here in the middle of
+the passage, just round the jutting corner, Jones tied our horses to
+good, strong bushes. His next act was significant. He threw out his
+lasso and, dragging every crook out of it, carefully recoiled it, and
+hung it loose over the pommel of his saddle.
+
+"The White Mustang may be yours before dark," he said with the smile
+that came so seldom. "Now I placed our horses there for two reasons.
+The mustangs won't see them till they're right on them. Then you'll see
+a sight and have a chance for a great picture. They will halt; the
+stallion will prance, whistle and snort for a fight, and then they'll
+see the saddles and be off. We'll hide across the wash, down a little
+way, and at the right time we'll shout and yell to drive them up."
+
+By piling sagebrush round a stone, we made a hiding-place. Jones was
+extremely cautious to arrange the bunches in natural positions. "A
+Rocky Mountain Big Horn is the only four-footed beast," he said, "that
+has a better eye than a wild horse. A cougar has an eye, too; he's used
+to lying high up on the cliffs and looking down for his quarry so as to
+stalk it at night; but even a cougar has to take second to a mustang
+when it comes to sight."
+
+The hours passed slowly. The sun baked us; the stones were too hot to
+touch; flies buzzed behind our ears; tarantulas peeped at us from
+holes. The afternoon slowly waned.
+
+At dark we returned to where we had left Wallace and the cowboys. Frank
+had solved the problem of water supply, for he had found a little
+spring trickling from a cliff, which, by skillful management, produced
+enough drink for the horses. We had packed our water for camp use.
+
+"You take the first watch to-night," said Jones to me after supper.
+"The mustangs might try to slip by our fire in the night and we must
+keep a watch or them. Call Wallace when your time's up. Now, fellows,
+roll in."
+
+When the pink of dawn was shading white, we were at our posts. A long,
+hot day—interminably long, deadening to the keenest interest—passed,
+and still no mustangs came. We slept and watched again, in the grateful
+cool of night, till the third day broke.
+
+The hours passed; the cool breeze changed to hot; the sun blazed over
+the cañon wall; the stones scorched; the flies buzzed. I fell asleep
+in the scant shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist. The
+old plainsman, never weary, leaned with his back against a stone and
+watched, with narrow gaze, the cañon below. The steely walls hurt my
+eyes; the sky was like hot copper. Though nearly wild with heat and
+aching bones and muscles and the long hours of wait—wait—wait, I was
+ashamed to complain, for there sat the old man, still and silent. I
+routed out a hairy tarantula from under a stone and teased him into a
+frenzy with my stick, and tried to get up a fight between him and a
+scallop-backed horned-toad that blinked wonderingly at me. Then I
+espied a green lizard on a stone. The beautiful reptile was about a
+foot in length, bright green, dotted with red, and he had diamonds for
+eyes. Nearby a purple flower blossomed, delicate and pale, with a bee
+sucking at its golden heart. I observed then that the lizard had his
+jewel eyes upon the bee; he slipped to the edge of the stone, flicked
+out a long, red tongue, and tore the insect from its honeyed perch.
+Here were beauty, life and death; and I had been weary for something to
+look at, to think about, to distract me from the wearisome wait!
+
+"Listen!" broke in Jones's sharp voice. His neck was stretched, his
+eyes were closed, his ear was turned to the wind.
+
+With thrilling, reawakened eagerness, I strained my hearing. I caught a
+faint sound, then lost it.
+
+"Put your ear to the ground," said Jones. I followed his advice, and
+detected the rhythmic beat of galloping horses.
+
+"The mustangs are coming, sure as you're born!" exclaimed Jones.
+
+"There I see the cloud of dust!" cried he a minute later.
+
+In the first bend of the cañon below, a splintered ruin of rock now
+lay under a rolling cloud of dust. A white flash appeared, a line of
+bobbing black objects, and more dust; then with a sharp pounding of
+hoofs, into clear vision shot a dense black band of mustangs, and well
+in front swung the White King.
+
+"Look! Look! I never saw the beat of that—never in my born days!"
+cried Jones. "How they move! yet that white fellow isn't half-stretched
+out. Get your picture before they pass. You'll never see the beat of
+that."
+
+With long manes and tails flying, the mustangs came on apace and passed
+us in a trampling roar, the white stallion in the front. Suddenly a
+shrill, whistling blast, unlike any sound I had ever heard, made the
+cañon fairly ring. The white stallion plunged back, and his band
+closed in behind him. He had seen our saddle horses. Then trembling,
+whinnying, and with arched neck and high-poised head, bespeaking his
+mettle, he advanced a few paces, and again whistled his shrill note of
+defiance. Pure creamy white he was, and built like a racer. He pranced,
+struck his hoofs hard and cavorted; then, taking sudden fright, he
+wheeled.
+
+It was then, when the mustangs were pivoting, with the white in the
+lead, that Jones jumped upon the stone, fired his pistol and roared
+with all his strength. Taking his cue, I did likewise. The band huddled
+back again, uncertain and frightened, then broke up the cañon.
+
+Jones jumped the ditch with surprising agility, and I followed close at
+his heels. When we reached our plunging horses, he shouted: "Mount, and
+hold this passage. Keep close in by that big stone at the turn so they
+can't run you down, or stampede you. If they head your way, scare them
+back."
+
+Satan quivered, and when I mounted, reared and plunged. I had to hold
+him in hard, for he was eager to run. At the cliff wall I was at some
+pains to check him. He kept champing his bit and stamping his feet.
+
+From my post I could see the mustangs flying before a cloud of dust.
+Jones was turning in his horse behind a large rock in the middle of the
+cañon, where he evidently intended to hide. Presently successive yells
+and shots from our comrades blended in a roar which the narrow
+box-cañon augmented and echoed from wall to wall. High the White
+Mustang reared, and above the roar whistled his snort of furious
+terror. His band wheeled with him and charged back, their hoofs ringing
+like hammers on iron.
+
+The crafty old buffalo-hunter had hemmed the mustangs in a circle and
+had left himself free in the center. It was a wily trick, born of his
+quick mind and experienced eye.
+
+The stallion, closely crowded by his followers, moved swiftly. I saw
+that he must pass near the stone. Thundering, crashing, the horses came
+on. Away beyond them I saw Frank and Wallace. Then Jones yelled to me:
+"Open up! open up!"
+
+I turned Satan into the middle of the narrow passage, screaming at the
+top of my voice and discharging my revolver rapidly.
+
+But the wild horses thundered on. Jones saw that they would not now be
+balked, and he spurred his bay directly in their path. The big horse,
+courageous as his intrepid master, dove forward.
+
+Then followed confusion for me. The pound of hoofs, the snorts, a
+screaming neigh that was frightful, the mad stampede of the mustangs
+with a whirling cloud of dust, bewildered and frightened me so that I
+lost sight of Jones. Danger threatened and passed me almost before I
+was aware of it. Out of the dust a mass of tossing manes, foam-flecked
+black horses, wild eyes and lifting hoofs rushed at me. Satan, with a
+presence of mind that shamed mine, leaped back and hugged the wall. My
+eyes were blinded by dust; the smell of dust choked me. I felt a strong
+rush of wind and a mustang grazed my stirrup. Then they had passed, on
+the wings of the dust-laden breeze.
+
+But not all, for I saw that Jones had, in some inexplicable manner, cut
+the White Mustang and two of his blacks out of the band. He had turned
+them back again and was pursuing them. The bay he rode had never before
+appeared to much advantage, and now, with his long, lean, powerful body
+in splendid action, imbued with the relentless will of his rider, what
+a picture he presented! How he did run! With all that, the White
+Mustang made him look dingy and slow. Nevertheless, it was a critical
+time in the wild career of that king of horses. He had been penned in a
+space two hundred by five hundred yards, half of which was separated
+from him by a wide ditch, a yawning chasm that he had refused, and
+behind him, always keeping on the inside, wheeled the yelling hunter,
+who savagely spurred his bay and whirled a deadly lasso. He had been
+cut off and surrounded; the very nature of the rocks and trails of the
+cañon threatened to end his freedom or his life. Certain it was he
+preferred to end the latter, for he risked death from the rocks as he
+went over them in long leaps.
+
+Jones could have roped either of the two blacks, but he hardly noticed
+them. Covered with dust and splotches of foam, they took their
+advantage, turned on the circle toward the passage way and galloped by
+me out of sight. Again Wallace, Frank and Jim let out strings of yells
+and volleys. The chase was narrowing down. Trapped, the White Mustang
+King had no chance. What a grand spirit he showed! Frenzied as I was
+with excitement, the thought occurred to me that this was an unfair
+battle, that I ought to stand aside and let him pass. But the blood and
+lust of primitive instinct held me fast. Jones, keeping back, met his
+every turn. Yet always with lithe and beautiful stride the stallion
+kept out of reach of the whirling lariat.
+
+"Close in!" yelled Jones, and his voice, powerful with a note of
+triumph, bespoke the knell of the king's freedom.
+
+The trap closed in. Back and forth at the upper end the White Mustang
+worked; then rendered desperate by the closing in, he circled round
+nearer to me. Fire shone in his wild eyes. The wily Jones was not to be
+outwitted; he kept in the middle, always on the move, and he yelled to
+me to open up.
+
+I lost my voice again, and fired my last shot. Then the White Mustang
+burst into a dash of daring, despairing speed. It was his last
+magnificent effort. Straight for the wash at the upper end he pointed
+his racy, spirited head, and his white legs stretched far apart,
+twinkled and stretched again. Jones galloped to cut him off, and the
+yells he emitted were demoniacal. It was a long, straight race for the
+mustang, a short curve for the bay.
+
+That the white stallion gained was as sure as his resolve to elude
+capture, and he never swerved a foot from his course. Jones might have
+headed him, but manifestly he wanted to ride with him, as well as to
+meet him, so in case the lasso went true, a terrible shock might be
+averted.
+
+Up went Jones's arm as the space shortened, and the lasso ringed his
+head. Out it shot, lengthened like a yellow, striking snake, and fell
+just short of the flying white tail.
+
+The White Mustang, fulfilling his purpose in a last heroic display of
+power, sailed into the air, up and up, and over the wide wash like a
+white streak. Free! the dust rolled in a cloud from under his hoofs,
+and he vanished.
+
+Jones's superb horse, crashing down on his haunches, just escaped
+sliding into the hole.
+
+I awoke to the realization that Satan had carried me, in pursuit of the
+thrilling chase, all the way across the circle without my knowing it.
+
+Jones calmly wiped the sweat from his face, calmly coiled his lasso,
+and calmly remarked:
+
+"In trying to capture wild animals a man must never be too sure. Now
+what I thought my strong point was my weak point—the wash. I made sure
+no horse could ever jump that hole."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7.
+
+SNAKE GULCH
+
+Not far from the scene of our adventure with the White Streak as we
+facetiously and appreciatively named the mustang, a deep, flat cave
+indented the cañon wall. By reason of its sandy floor and close
+proximity to Frank's trickling spring, we decided to camp in it. About
+dawn Lawson and Stewart straggled in on spent horse and found awaiting
+them a bright fire, a hot supper and cheery comrades.
+
+"Did yu fellars git to see him?" was the ranger's first question.
+
+"Did we get to see him?" echoed five lusty voice as one. "We did!"
+
+It was after Frank, in his plain, blunt speech had told of our
+experience, that the long Arizonian gazed fixedly at Jones.
+
+"Did yu acktully tech the hair of thet mustang with a rope?"
+
+In all his days Jones never had a greater compliment. By way of reply,
+he moved his big hand to a button of his coat, and, fumbling over it,
+unwound a string of long, white hairs, then said: "I pulled these out
+of his tail with my lasso; it missed his left hind hoof about six
+inches."
+
+There were six of the hairs, pure, glistening white, and over three
+feet long. Stewart examined then in expressive silence, then passed
+them along; and when they reached me, they stayed.
+
+The cave, lighted up by a blazing fire, appeared to me a forbidding,
+uncanny place. Small, peculiar round holes, and dark cracks, suggestive
+of hidden vermin, gave me a creepy feeling; and although not
+over-sensitive on the subject of crawling, creeping things, I voiced my
+disgust.
+
+"Say, I don't like the idea of sleeping in this hole. I'll bet it's
+full of spiders, snakes and centipedes and other poisonous things."
+
+Whatever there was in my inoffensive declaration to rouse the usually
+slumbering humor of the Arizonians, and the thinly veiled ridicule of
+Colonel Jones, and a mixture of both in my once loyal California
+friend, I am not prepared to state. Maybe it was the dry, sweet, cool
+air of Nail Cañon; maybe my suggestion awoke ticklish associations
+that worked themselves off thus; maybe it was the first instance of my
+committing myself to a breach of camp etiquette. Be that as it may, my
+innocently expressed sentiment gave rise to bewildering dissertations
+on entomology, and most remarkable and startling tales from first-hand
+experience.
+
+"Like as not," began Frank in matter-of-fact tone. "Them's tarantuler
+holes all right. An' scorpions, centipedes an' rattlers always rustle
+with tarantulers. But we never mind them—not us fellers! We're used to
+sleepin' with them. Why, I often wake up in the night to see a big
+tarantuler on my chest, an' see him wink. Ain't thet so, Jim?"
+
+"Shore as hell," drawled faithful, slow Jim.
+
+"Reminds me how fatal the bite of a centipede is," took up Colonel
+Jones, complacently. "Once I was sitting in camp with a hunter, who
+suddenly hissed out: 'Jones, for God's sake don't budge! There's a
+centipede on your arm!' He pulled his Colt, and shot the blamed
+centipede off as clean as a whistle. But the bullet hit a steer in the
+leg; and would you believe it, the bullet carried so much poison that
+in less than two hours the steer died of blood poisoning. Centipedes
+are so poisonous they leave a blue trail on flesh just by crawling over
+it. Look there!"
+
+He bared his arm, and there on the brown-corded flesh was a blue trail
+of something, that was certain. It might have been made by a centipede.
+
+"This is a likely place for them," put in Wallace, emitting a volume of
+smoke and gazing round the cave walls with the eye of a connoisseur.
+"My archaeological pursuits have given me great experience with
+centipedes, as you may imagine, considering how many old tombs, caves
+and cliff-dwellings I have explored. This Algonkian rock is about the
+right stratum for centipedes to dig in. They dig somewhat after the
+manner of the fluviatile long-tailed decapod crustaceans, of the genera
+Thoracostraca, the common crawfish, you know. From that, of course, you
+can imagine, if a centipede can bite rock, what a biter he is."
+
+I began to grow weak, and did not wonder to see Jim's long pipe fall
+from his lips. Frank looked queer around the gills, so to speak, but
+the gaunt Stewart never batted an eye.
+
+"I camped here two years ago," he said, "An' the cave was alive with
+rock-rats, mice, snakes, horned-toads, lizards an' a big Gila monster,
+besides bugs, scorpions' rattlers, an' as fer tarantulers an'
+centipedes—say! I couldn't sleep fer the noise they made fightin'."
+
+"I seen the same," concluded Lawson, as nonchalant as a wild-horse
+wrangler well could be. "An' as fer me, now I allus lays perfickly
+still when the centipedes an' tarantulers begin to drop from their
+holes in the roof, same as them holes up there. An' when they light on
+me, I never move, nor even breathe fer about five minutes. Then they
+take a notion I'm dead an' crawl off. But sure, if I'd breathed I'd
+been a goner!"
+
+All of this was playfully intended for the extinction of an unoffending
+and impressionable tenderfoot.
+
+With an admiring glance at my tormentors, I rolled out my sleeping-bag
+and crawled into it, vowing I would remain there even if devil-fish,
+armed with pikes, invaded our cave.
+
+Late in the night I awoke. The bottom of the cañon and the outer floor
+of our cave lay bathed in white, clear moonlight. A dense, gloomy black
+shadow veiled the opposite cañon wall. High up the pinnacles and
+turrets pointed toward a resplendent moon. It was a weird, wonderful
+scene of beauty entrancing, of breathless, dreaming silence that seemed
+not of life. Then a hoot-owl lamented dismally, his call fitting the
+scene and the dead stillness; the echoes resounded from cliff to cliff,
+strangely mocking and hollow, at last reverberating low and mournful in
+the distance.
+
+How long I lay there enraptured with the beauty of light and mystery of
+shade, thrilling at the lonesome lament of the owl, I have no means to
+tell; but I was awakened from my trance by the touch of something
+crawling over me. Promptly I raised my head. The cave was as light as
+day. There, sitting sociably on my sleeping-bag was a great black
+tarantula, as large as my hand.
+
+For one still moment, notwithstanding my contempt for Lawson's advice,
+I certainly acted upon it to the letter. If ever I was quiet, and if
+ever I was cold, the time was then. My companions snored in blissful
+ignorance of my plight. Slight rustling sounds attracted my wary gaze
+from the old black sentinel on my knee. I saw other black spiders
+running to and fro on the silver, sandy floor. A giant, as large as a
+soft-shell crab, seemed to be meditating an assault upon Jones's ear.
+Another, grizzled and shiny with age or moonbeams I could not tell
+which—pushed long, tentative feelers into Wallace's cap. I saw black
+spots darting over the roof. It was not a dream; the cave was alive
+with tarantulas!
+
+Not improbably my strong impression that the spider on my knee
+deliberately winked at me was the result of memory, enlivening
+imagination. But it sufficed to bring to mind, in one rapid, consoling
+flash, the irrevocable law of destiny—that the deeds of the wicked
+return unto them again.
+
+I slipped back into my sleeping-bag, with a keen consciousness of its
+nature, and carefully pulled the flap in place, which almost
+hermetically sealed me up.
+
+"Hey! Jones! Wallace! Frank! Jim!" I yelled, from the depths of my safe
+refuge.
+
+Wondering cries gave me glad assurance that they had awakened from
+their dreams.
+
+"The cave's alive with tarantulas!" I cried, trying to hide my unholy
+glee.
+
+"I'll be durned if it ain't!" ejaculated Frank.
+
+"Shore it beats hell!" added Jim, with a shake of his blanket.
+
+"Look out, Jones, there's one on your pillow!" shouted Wallace.
+
+Whack! A sharp blow proclaimed the opening of hostilities.
+
+Memory stamped indelibly every word of that incident; but innate
+delicacy prevents the repetition of all save the old warrior's
+concluding remarks: "! ! ! place I was ever in! Tarantulas by the
+million—centipedes, scorpions, bats! Rattlesnakes, too, I'll swear.
+Look out, Wallace! there, under your blanket!"
+
+From the shuffling sounds which wafted sweetly into my bed, I gathered
+that my long friend from California must have gone through motions
+creditable to a contortionist. An ensuing explosion from Jones
+proclaimed to the listening world that Wallace had thrown a tarantula
+upon him. Further fearful language suggested the thought that Colonel
+Jones had passed on the inquisitive spider to Frank. The reception
+accorded the unfortunate tarantula, no doubt scared out of its wits,
+began with a wild yell from Frank and ended in pandemonium.
+
+While the confusion kept up, with whacks and blows and threshing about,
+with language such as never before had disgraced a group of old
+campers, I choked with rapture, and reveled in the sweetness of revenge.
+
+When quiet reigned once more in the black and white cañon, only one
+sleeper lay on the moon-silvered sand of the cave.
+
+At dawn, when I opened sleepy eyes, Frank, Slim, Stewart and Lawson had
+departed, as pre-arranged, with the outfit, leaving the horses
+belonging to us and rations for the day. Wallace and I wanted to climb
+the divide at the break, and go home by way of Snake Gulch, and the
+Colonel acquiesced with the remark that his sixty-three years had
+taught him there was much to see in the world. Coming to undertake it,
+we found the climb—except for a slide of weathered rock—no great
+task, and we accomplished it in half an hour, with breath to spare and
+no mishap to horses.
+
+But descending into Snake Gulch, which was only a mile across the
+sparsely cedared ridge, proved to be tedious labor. By virtue of
+Satan's patience and skill, I forged ahead; which advantage, however,
+meant more risk for me because of the stones set in motion above. They
+rolled and bumped and cut into me, and I sustained many a bruise trying
+to protect the sinewy slender legs of my horse. The descent ended
+without serious mishap.
+
+Snake Gulch had a character and sublimity which cast Nail Cañon into
+the obscurity of forgetfulness. The great contrast lay in the diversity
+of structure. The rock was bright red, with parapet of yellow, that
+leaned, heaved, bulged outward. These emblazoned cliff walls, two
+thousand feet high, were cracked from turret to base; they bowled out
+at such an angle that we were afraid to ride under them. Mountains of
+yellow rock hung balanced, ready to tumble down at the first angry
+breath of the gods. We rode among carved stones, pillars, obelisks and
+sculptured ruined walls of a fallen Babylon. Slides reaching all the
+way across and far up the cañon wall obstructed our passage. On every
+stone silent green lizards sunned themselves, gliding swiftly as we
+came near to their marble homes.
+
+We came into a region of wind-worn caves, of all sizes and shapes, high
+and low on the cliffs; but strange to say, only on the north side of
+the cañon they appeared with dark mouths open and uninviting. One,
+vast and deep, though far off, menaced us as might the cave of a
+tawny-maned king of beasts; yet it impelled, fascinated and drew us on.
+
+"It's a long, hard climb," said Wallace to the Colonel, as we
+dismounted.
+
+"Boys, I'm with you," came the reply. And he was with us all the way,
+as we clambered over the immense blocks and threaded a passage between
+them and pulled weary legs up, one after the other. So steep lay the
+jumble of cliff fragments that we lost sight of the cave long before we
+got near it. Suddenly we rounded a stone, to halt and gasp at the thing
+looming before us.
+
+The dark portal of death or hell might have yawned there. A gloomy
+hole, large enough to admit a church, had been hollowed in the cliff by
+ages of nature's chiseling.
+
+"Vast sepulcher of Time's past, give up thy dead!" cried Wallace,
+solemnly.
+
+"Oh! dark Stygian cave forlorn!" quoted I, as feelingly as my friend.
+
+Jones hauled us down from the clouds.
+
+"Now, I wonder what kind of a prehistoric animal holed in here?" said
+he.
+
+Forever the one absorbing interest! If he realized the sublimity of
+this place, he did not show it.
+
+The floor of the cave ascended from the very threshold. Stony ridges
+circled from wall to wall. We climbed till we were two hundred feet
+from the opening, yet we were not half-way to the dome.
+
+Our horses, browsing in the sage far below, looked like ants. So steep
+did the ascent become that we desisted; for if one of us had slipped on
+the smooth incline, the result would have been terrible. Our voices
+rang clear and hollow from the walls. We were so high that the sky was
+blotted out by the overhanging square, cornice-like top of the door;
+and the light was weird, dim, shadowy, opaque. It was a gray tomb.
+
+"Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones with all the power of his wide, leather lungs.
+
+Thousands of devilish voices rushed at us, seemingly on puffs of wind.
+Mocking, deep echoes bellowed from the ebon shades at the back of the
+cave, and the walls, taking them up, hurled them on again in fiendish
+concatenation.
+
+We did not again break the silence of that tomb, where the spirits of
+ages lay in dusty shrouds; and we crawled down as if we had invaded a
+sanctuary and invoked the wrath of the gods.
+
+We all proposed names: Montezuma's Amphitheater being the only rival of
+Jones's selection, Echo cave, which we finally chose.
+
+Mounting our horses again, we made twenty miles of Snake Gulch by noon,
+when we rested for lunch. All the way up we had played the boy's game
+of spying for sights, with the honors about even. It was a question if
+Snake Gulch ever before had such a raking over. Despite its name,
+however, we discovered no snakes.
+
+From the sandy niche of a cliff where we lunched Wallace espied a tomb,
+and heralded his discovery with a victorious whoop. Digging in old
+ruins roused in him much the same spirit that digging in old books
+roused in me. Before we reached him, he had a big bowie-knife buried
+deep in the red, sandy floor of the tomb.
+
+This one-time sealed house of the dead had been constructed of small
+stones, held together by a cement, the nature of which, Wallace
+explained, had never become clear to civilization. It was red in color
+and hard as flint, harder than the rocks it glued together. The tomb
+was half-round in shape, and its floor was a projecting shelf of cliff
+rock. Wallace unearthed bits of pottery, bone and finely braided rope,
+all of which, to our great disappointment, crumbled to dust in our
+fingers. In the case of the rope, Wallace assured us, this was a sign
+of remarkable antiquity.
+
+In the next mile we traversed, we found dozens of these old cells, all
+demolished except a few feet of the walls, all despoiled of their
+one-time possessions. Wallace thought these depredations were due to
+Indians of our own time. Suddenly we came upon Jones, standing under a
+cliff, with his neck craned to a desperate angle.
+
+"Now, what's that?" demanded he, pointing upward.
+
+High on the cliff wall appeared a small, round protuberance. It was of
+the unmistakably red color of the other tombs; and Wallace, more
+excited than he had been in the cougar chase, said it was a sepulcher,
+and he believed it had never been opened.
+
+From an elevated point of rock, as high up as I could well climb, I
+decided both questions with my glass. The tomb resembled nothing so
+much as a mud-wasp's nest, high on a barn wall. The fact that it had
+never been broken open quite carried Wallace away with enthusiasm.
+
+"This is no mean discovery, let me tell you that," he declared. "I am
+familiar with the Aztec, Toltec and Pueblo ruins, and here I find no
+similarity. Besides, we are out of their latitude. An ancient race of
+people—very ancient indeed lived in this cañon. How long ago, it is
+impossible to tell."
+
+"They must have been birds," said the practical Jones. "Now, how'd that
+tomb ever get there? Look at it, will you?"
+
+As near as we could ascertain, it was three hundred feet from the
+ground below, five hundred from the rim wall above, and could not
+possibly have been approached from the top. Moreover, the cliff wall
+was as smooth as a wall of human make.
+
+"There's another one," called out Jones.
+
+"Yes, and I see another; no doubt there are many of them," replied
+Wallace. "In my mind, only one thing possible accounts for their
+position. You observe they appear to be about level with each other.
+Well, once the Cañon floor ran along that line, and in the ages gone
+by it has lowered, washed away by the rains."
+
+This conception staggered us, but it was the only one conceivable. No
+doubt we all thought at the same time of the little rainfall in that
+arid section of Arizona.
+
+"How many years?" queried Jones.
+
+"Years! What are years?" said Wallace. "Thousands of years, ages have
+passed since the race who built these tombs lived."
+
+Some persuasion was necessary to drag our scientific friend from the
+spot, where obviously helpless to do anything else, he stood and gazed
+longingly at the isolated tombs. The cañon widened as we proceeded;
+and hundreds of points that invited inspection, such as overhanging
+shelves of rock, dark fissures, caverns and ruins had to be passed by,
+for lack of time.
+
+Still, a more interesting and important discovery was to come, and the
+pleasure and honor of it fell to me. My eyes were sharp and peculiarly
+farsighted—the Indian sight, Jones assured me; and I kept them
+searching the walls in such places as my companions overlooked.
+Presently, under a large, bulging bluff, I saw a dark spot, which took
+the shape of a figure. This figure, I recollected, had been presented
+to my sight more than once, and now it stopped me. The hard climb up
+the slippery stones was fatiguing, but I did not hesitate, for I was
+determined to know. Once upon the ledge, I let out a yell that quickly
+set my companions in my direction. The figure I had seen was a dark,
+red devil, a painted image, rude, unspeakably wild, crudely executed,
+but painted by the hand of man. The whole surface of the cliff wall
+bore figures of all shapes—men, mammals, birds and strange devices,
+some in red paint, mostly in yellow. Some showed the wear of time;
+others were clear and sharp.
+
+Wallace puffed up to me, but he had wind enough left for another whoop.
+Jones puffed up also, and seeing the first thing a rude sketch of what
+might have been a deer or a buffalo, he commented thus: "Darn me if I
+ever saw an animal like that? Boys, this is a find, sure as you're
+born. Because not even the Piutes ever spoke of these figures. I doubt
+if they know they're here. And the cowboys and wranglers, what few ever
+get by here in a hundred years, never saw these things. Beats anything
+I ever saw on the Mackenzie, or anywhere else."
+
+The meaning of some devices was as mystical as that of others was
+clear. Two blood-red figures of men, the larger dragging the smaller
+by the hair, while he waved aloft a blood-red hatchet or club, left
+little to conjecture. Here was the old battle of men, as old as life.
+Another group, two figures of which resembled the foregoing in form
+and action, battling over a prostrate form rudely feminine in outline,
+attested to an age when men were as susceptible as they are in modern
+times, but more forceful and original. An odd yellow Indian waved aloft
+a red hand, which striking picture suggested the idea that he was an
+ancient Macbeth, listening to the knocking at the gate. There was a
+character representing a great chief, before whom many figures lay
+prostrate, evidently slain or subjugated. Large red paintings, in the
+shape of bats, occupied prominent positions, and must have represented
+gods or devils. Armies of marching men told of that blight of nations
+old or young—war. These, and birds unnamable, and beasts unclassable,
+with dots and marks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a
+bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that had gone into the dim
+past, leaving only these marks—forever unintelligible; yet while they
+stood, century after century, ineffaceable, reminders of the glory, the
+mystery, the sadness of life.
+
+"How could paint of any kind last so long? asked Jones, shaking his
+head doubtfully.
+
+"That is the unsolvable mystery," returned Wallace. "But the records
+are there. I am absolutely sure the paintings are at least a thousand
+years old. I have never seen any tombs or paintings similar to them.
+Snake Gulch is a find, and I shall some day study its wonders."
+
+Sundown caught us within sight of Oak Spring, and we soon trotted into
+camp to the welcoming chorus of the hounds. Frank and the others had
+reached the cabin some hours before. Supper was steaming on the hot
+coals with a delicious fragrance.
+
+Then came the pleasantest time of the day, after a long chase or
+jaunt—the silent moments, watching the glowing embers of the fire; the
+speaking moments when a red-blooded story rang clear and true; the
+twilight moments, when the wood-smoke smelled sweet.
+
+Jones seemed unusually thoughtful. I had learned that this
+preoccupation in him meant the stirring of old associations, and I
+waited silently. By and by Lawson snored mildly in a corner; Jim and
+Frank crawled into their blankets, and all was still. Wallace smoked
+his Indian pipe and hunted in firelit dreams.
+
+"Boys," said our leader finally, "somehow the echoes dying away in that
+cave reminded me of the mourn of the big white wolves in the Barren
+Lands."
+
+Wallace puffed huge clouds of white smoke, and I waited, knowing that I
+was to hear at last the story of the Colonel's great adventure in the
+Northland.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8.
+
+NAZA! NAZA! NAZA!
+
+It was a waiting day at Fort Chippewayan. The lonesome, far-northern
+Hudson's Bay Trading Post seldom saw such life. Tepees dotted the banks
+of the Slave River and lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores.
+Near the boat landing a group of chiefs, grotesque in semi-barbaric,
+semicivilized splendor, but black-browed, austere-eyed, stood in savage
+dignity with folded arms and high-held heads. Lounging on the grassy
+bank were white men, traders, trappers and officials of the post.
+
+All eyes were on the distant curve of the river where, as it lost
+itself in a fine-fringed bend of dark green, white-glinting waves
+danced and fluttered. A June sky lay blue in the majestic stream;
+ragged, spear-topped, dense green trees massed down to the water;
+beyond rose bold, bald-knobbed hills, in remote purple relief.
+
+A long Indian arm stretched south. The waiting eyes discerned a black
+speck on the green, and watched it grow. A flatboat, with a man
+standing to the oars, bore down swiftly.
+
+Not a red hand, nor a white one, offered to help the voyager in the
+difficult landing. The oblong, clumsy, heavily laden boat surged with
+the current and passed the dock despite the boatman's efforts. He swung
+his craft in below upon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians
+crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form
+erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in craggy hardness, and
+cast from narrow eyes a keen, cool glance on those above. The silvery
+gleam in his fair hair told of years.
+
+Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of
+camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threw to a level, grassy bench
+on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar,
+and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, boxes
+and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun. Significant, too,
+were a couple of long Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin.
+
+The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a
+tall, thin, gray personage of official bearing, in a faded military
+coat.
+
+"Are you the musk-ox hunter?" he asked, in tones that contained no
+welcome.
+
+The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor with a cool laugh—a
+strange laugh, in which the muscles of his face appeared not to play.
+
+"Yes, I am the man," he said.
+
+"The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave tribes have been
+apprised of your coming. They have held council and are here to speak
+with you."
+
+At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to
+the level bench and formed a half-circle before the voyager. To a man
+who had stood before grim Sitting Bull and noble Black Thunder of the
+Sioux, and faced the falcon-eyed Geronimo, and glanced over the sights
+of a rifle at gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this
+semi-circle of savages—lords of the north—was a sorry comparison.
+Bedaubed and betrinketed, slouchy and slovenly, these low-statured
+chiefs belied in appearance their scorn-bright eyes and lofty mien.
+They made a sad group.
+
+One who spoke in unintelligible language, rolled out a haughty,
+sonorous voice over the listening multitude. When he had finished, a
+half-breed interpreter, in the dress of a white man, spoke at a signal
+from the commandant.
+
+"He says listen to the great orator of the Chippewayan. He has summoned
+all the chiefs of the tribes south of Great Slave Lake. He has held
+council. The cunning of the pale-face, who comes to take the musk-oxen,
+is well known. Let the pale-face hunter return to his own
+hunting-grounds; let him turn his face from the north. Never will the
+chiefs permit the white man to take musk-oxen alive from their country.
+The Ageter, the Musk-ox, is their god. He gives them food and fur. He
+will never come back if he is taken away, and the reindeer will follow
+him. The chiefs and their people would starve. They command the
+pale-face hunter to go back. They cry Naza! Naza! Naza!"
+
+"Say, for a thousand miles I've heard that word Naza!" returned the
+hunter, with mingled curiosity and disgust. "At Edmonton Indian runners
+started ahead of me, and every village I struck the redskins would
+crowd round me and an old chief would harangue at me, and motion me
+back, and point north with Naza! Naza! Naza! What does it mean?"
+
+"No white man knows; no Indian will tell," answered the interpreter.
+"The traders think it means the Great Slave, the North Star, the North
+Spirit, the North Wind, the North Lights and the musk-ox god."
+
+"Well, say to the chiefs to tell Ageter I have been four moons on the
+way after some of his little Ageters, and I'm going to keep on after
+them."
+
+"Hunter, you are most unwise," broke in the commandant, in his
+officious voice. "The Indians will never permit you to take a musk-ox
+alive from the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is a wonder you
+have not been stopped."
+
+"Who'll stop me?"
+
+"The Indians. They will kill you if you do not turn back."
+
+"Faugh! to tell an American plainsman that!" The hunter paused a steady
+moment, with his eyelids narrowing over slits of blue fire. "There is
+no law to keep me out, nothing but Indian superstition and Naza! And
+the greed of the Hudson's Bay people. I am an old fox, not to be fooled
+by pretty baits. For years the officers of this fur-trading company
+have tried to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an
+Englishman, could not buy food of them. The policy of the company is to
+side with the Indians, to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they
+can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing and food by
+trading a few trinkets and blankets, a little tobacco and rum for
+millions of dollars worth of furs. Have I failed to hire man after man,
+Indian after Indian, not to know why I cannot get a helper? Have I, a
+plainsman, come a thousand miles alone to be scared by you, or a lot of
+craven Indians? Have I been dreaming of musk-oxen for forty years, to
+slink south now, when I begin to feel the north? Not I."
+
+Deliberately every chief, with the sound of a hissing snake, spat in
+the hunter's face. He stood immovable while they perpetrated the
+outrage, then calmly wiped his cheeks, and in his strange, cool voice,
+addressed the interpreter.
+
+"Tell them thus they show their true qualities, to insult in council.
+Tell them they are not chiefs, but dogs. Tell them they are not even
+squaws, only poor, miserable starved dogs. Tell them I turn my back on
+them. Tell them the paleface has fought real chiefs, fierce, bold, like
+eagles, and he turns his back on dogs. Tell them he is the one who
+could teach them to raise the musk-oxen and the reindeer, and to keep
+out the cold and the wolf. But they are blinded. Tell them the hunter
+goes north."
+
+Through the council of chiefs ran a low mutter, as of gathering thunder.
+
+True to his word, the hunter turned his back on them. As he brushed by,
+his eye caught a gaunt savage slipping from the boat. At the hunter's
+stern call, the Indian leaped ashore, and started to run. He had stolen
+a parcel, and would have succeeded in eluding its owner but for an
+unforeseen obstacle, as striking as it was unexpected.
+
+A white man of colossal stature had stepped in the thief's passage, and
+laid two great hands on him. Instantly the parcel flew from the Indian,
+and he spun in the air to fall into the river with a sounding splash.
+Yells signaled the surprise and alarm caused by this unexpected
+incident. The Indian frantically swam to the shore. Whereupon the
+champion of the stranger in a strange land lifted a bag, which gave
+forth a musical clink of steel, and throwing it with the camp articles
+on the grassy bench, he extended a huge, friendly hand.
+
+"My name is Rea," he said, in deep, cavernous tones.
+
+"Mine is Jones," replied the hunter, and right quickly did he grip the
+proffered hand. He saw in Rea a giant, of whom he was but a stunted
+shadow. Six and one-half feet Rea stood, with yard-wide shoulders, a
+hulk of bone and brawn. His ponderous, shaggy head rested on a bull
+neck. His broad face, with its low forehead, its close-shut mastiff
+under jaw, its big, opaque eyes, pale and cruel as those of a jaguar,
+marked him a man of terrible brute force.
+
+"Free-trader!" called the commandant "Better think twice before you
+join fortunes with the musk-ox hunter."
+
+"To hell with you an' your rantin', dog-eared redskins!" cried Rea.
+"I've run agin a man of my own kind, a man of my own country, an' I'm
+goin' with him."
+
+With this he thrust aside some encroaching, gaping Indians so
+unconcernedly and ungently that they sprawled upon the grass.
+
+Slowly the crowd mounted and once more lined the bank.
+
+Jones realized that by some late-turning stroke of fortune, he had
+fallen in with one of the few free-traders of the province. These
+free-traders, from the very nature of their calling, which was to defy
+the fur company, and to trap and trade on their own account—were a
+hardy and intrepid class of men. Rea's worth to Jones exceeded that of
+a dozen ordinary men. He knew the ways of the north, the language of
+the tribes, the habits of animals, the handling of dogs, the uses of
+food and fuel. Moreover, it soon appeared that he was a carpenter and
+blacksmith.
+
+"There's my kit," he said, dumping the contents of his bag. It
+consisted of a bunch of steel traps, some tools, a broken ax, a box of
+miscellaneous things such as trappers used, and a few articles of
+flannel. "Thievin' redskins," he added, in explanation of his poverty.
+"Not much of an outfit. But I'm the man for you. Besides, I had a pal
+onct who knew you on the plains, called you 'Buff' Jones. Old Jim Bent
+he was."
+
+"I recollect Jim," said Jones. "He went down in Custer's last charge.
+So you were Jim's pal. That'd be a recommendation if you needed one.
+But the way you chucked the Indian overboard got me."
+
+Rea soon manifested himself as a man of few words and much action. With
+the planks Jones had on board he heightened the stern and bow of the
+boat to keep out the beating waves in the rapids; he fashioned a
+steering-gear and a less awkward set of oars, and shifted the cargo so
+as to make more room in the craft.
+
+"Buff, we're in for a storm. Set up a tarpaulin an' make a fire. We'll
+pretend to camp to-night. These Indians won't dream we'd try to run the
+river after dark, and we'll slip by under cover."
+
+The sun glazed over; clouds moved up from the north; a cold wind swept
+the tips of the spruces, and rain commenced to drive in gusts. By the
+time it was dark not an Indian showed himself. They were housed from
+the storm. Lights twinkled in the teepees and the big log cabins of the
+trading company. Jones scouted round till pitchy black night, when a
+freezing, pouring blast sent him back to the protection of the
+tarpaulin. When he got there he found that Rea had taken it down and
+awaited him. "Off!" said the free-trader; and with no more noise than a
+drifting feather the boat swung into the current and glided down till
+the twinkling fires no longer accentuated the darkness.
+
+By night the river, in common with all swift rivers, had a sullen
+voice, and murmured its hurry, its restraint, its menace, its meaning.
+The two boat-men, one at the steering gear, one at the oars, faced the
+pelting rain and watched the dim, dark line of trees. The craft slid
+noiselessly onward into the gloom.
+
+And into Jones's ears, above the storm, poured another sound, a steady,
+muffled rumble, like the roll of giant chariot wheels. It had come to
+be a familiar roar to him, and the only thing which, in his long life
+of hazard, had ever sent the cold, prickling, tight shudder over his
+warm skin. Many times on the Athabasca that rumble had presaged the
+dangerous and dreaded rapids.
+
+"Hell Bend Rapids!" shouted Rea. "Bad water, but no rocks."
+
+The rumble expanded to a roar, the roar to a boom that charged the air
+with heaviness, with a dreamy burr. The whole indistinct world appeared
+to be moving to the lash of wind, to the sound of rain, to the roar of
+the river. The boat shot down and sailed aloft, met shock on shock,
+breasted leaping dim white waves, and in a hollow, unearthly blend of
+watery sounds, rode on and on, buffeted, tossed, pitched into a black
+chaos that yet gleamed with obscure shrouds of light. Then the
+convulsive stream shrieked out a last defiance, changed its course
+abruptly to slow down and drown the sound of rapids in muffling
+distance. Once more the craft swept on smoothly, to the drive of the
+wind and the rush of the rain.
+
+By midnight the storm cleared. Murky cloud split to show shining,
+blue-white stars and a fitful moon, that silvered the crests of the
+spruces and sometimes hid like a gleaming, black-threaded peak behind
+the dark branches.
+
+Jones, a plainsman all his days, wonderingly watched the moon-blanched
+water. He saw it shade and darken under shadowy walls of granite, where
+it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard again the far-off
+rumble, faint on the night. High cliff banks appeared, walled out the
+mellow, light, and the river suddenly narrowed. Yawning holes,
+whirlpools of a second, opened with a gurgling suck and raced with the
+boat.
+
+On the craft flew. Far ahead, a long, declining plane of jumping
+frosted waves played dark and white with the moonbeams. The Slave
+plunged to his freedom, down his riven, stone-spiked bed, knowing no
+patient eddy, and white-wreathed his dark shiny rocks in spume and
+spray.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9.
+
+THE LAND OF THE MUSK-OX
+
+A far cry it was from bright June at Port Chippewayan to dim October on
+Great Slave Lake.
+
+Two long, laborious months Rea and Jones threaded the crooked shores of
+the great inland sea, to halt at the extreme northern end, where a
+plunging rivulet formed the source of a river. Here they found a stone
+chimney and fireplace standing among the darkened, decayed ruins of a
+cabin.
+
+"We mustn't lose no time," said Rea. "I feel the winter in the wind.
+An' see how dark the days are gettin' on us."
+
+"I'm for hunting musk-oxen," replied Jones.
+
+"Man, we're facin' the northern night; we're in the land of the
+midnight sun. Soon we'll be shut in for seven months. A cabin we want,
+an' wood, an' meat."
+
+A forest of stunted spruce trees edged on the lake, and soon its dreary
+solitudes rang to the strokes of axes. The trees were small and uniform
+in size. Black stumps protruded, here and there, from the ground,
+showing work of the steel in time gone by. Jones observed that the
+living trees were no larger in diameter than the stumps, and questioned
+Rea in regard to the difference in age.
+
+"Cut twenty-five, mebbe fifty years ago," said the trapper.
+
+"But the living trees are no bigger."
+
+"Trees an' things don't grow fast in the north land."
+
+They erected a fifteen-foot cabin round the stone chimney, roofed it
+with poles and branches of spruce and a layer of sand. In digging near
+the fireplace Jones unearthed a rusty file and the head of a whisky
+keg, upon which was a sunken word in unintelligible letters.
+
+"We've found the place," said Rea. "Frank built a cabin here in 1819.
+An' in 1833 Captain Back wintered here when he was in search of Captain
+Ross of the vessel Fury. It was those explorin' parties thet cut the
+trees. I seen Indian sign out there, made last winter, I reckon; but
+Indians never cut down no trees."
+
+The hunters completed the cabin, piled cords of firewood outside,
+stowed away the kegs of dried fish and fruits, the sacks of flour,
+boxes of crackers, canned meats and vegetables, sugar, salt, coffee,
+tobacco—all of the cargo; then took the boat apart and carried it up
+the bank, which labor took them less than a week.
+
+Jones found sleeping in the cabin, despite the fire, uncomfortably
+cold, because of the wide chinks between the logs. It was hardly better
+than sleeping under the swaying spruces. When he essayed to stop up the
+crack, a task by no means easy, considering the lack of material—Rea
+laughed his short "Ho! Ho!" and stopped him with the word, "Wait."
+Every morning the green ice extended farther out into the lake; the sun
+paled dim and dimmer; the nights grew colder. On October 8th the
+thermometer registered several degrees below zero; it fell a little
+more next night and continued to fall.
+
+"Ho! Ho!" cried Rea. "She's struck the toboggan, an' presently she'll
+commence to slide. Come on, Buff, we've work to do."
+
+He caught up a bucket, made for their hole in the ice, rebroke a
+six-inch layer, the freeze of a few hours, and filling his bucket,
+returned to the cabin. Jones had no inkling of the trapper's intention,
+and wonderingly he soused his bucket full of water and followed.
+
+By the time he had reached the cabin, a matter of some thirty or forty
+good paces, the water no longer splashed from his pail, for a thin film
+of ice prevented. Rea stood fifteen feet from the cabin, his back to
+the wind, and threw the water. Some of it froze in the air, most of it
+froze on the logs. The simple plan of the trapper to incase the cabin
+with ice was easily divined. All day the men worked, easing only when
+the cabin resembled a glistening mound. It had not a sharp corner nor a
+crevice. Inside it was warm and snug, and as light as when the chinks
+were open.
+
+A slight moderation of the weather brought the snow. Such snow! A
+blinding white flutter of grey flakes, as large as feathers! All day
+they rustle softly; all night they swirled, sweeping, seeping brushing
+against the cabin. "Ho! Ho!" roared Rea. "'Tis good; let her snow, an'
+the reindeer will migrate. We'll have fresh meat." The sun shone again,
+but not brightly. A nipping wind came down out of the frigid north and
+crusted the snows. The third night following the storm, when the
+hunters lay snug under their blankets, a commotion outside aroused them.
+
+"Indians," said Rea, "come north for reindeer."
+
+Half the night, shouting and yelling, barking dogs, hauling of sleds
+and cracking of dried-skin tepees murdered sleep for those in the
+cabin. In the morning the level plain and edge of the forest held an
+Indian village. Caribou hides, strung on forked poles, constituted
+tent-like habitations with no distinguishable doors. Fires smoked in
+the holes in the snow. Not till late in the day did any life manifest
+itself round the tepees, and then a group of children, poorly clad in
+ragged pieces of blankets and skins, gaped at Jones. He saw their
+pinched, brown faces, staring, hungry eyes, naked legs and throats, and
+noted particularly their dwarfish size. When he spoke they fled
+precipitously a little way, then turned. He called again, and all ran
+except one small lad. Jones went into the cabin and came out with a
+handful of sugar in square lumps.
+
+"Yellow Knife Indians," said Rea. "A starved tribe! We're in for it."
+
+Jones made motions to the lad, but he remained still, as if transfixed,
+and his black eyes stared wonderingly.
+
+"Molar nasu (white man good)," said Rea.
+
+The lad came out of his trance and looked back at his companions, who
+edged nearer. Jones ate a lump of sugar, then handed one to the little
+Indian. He took it gingerly, put it into his mouth and immediately
+jumped up and down.
+
+"Hoppiesharnpoolie! Hoppiesharnpoolie!" he shouted to his brothers and
+sisters. They came on the run.
+
+"Think he means sweet salt," interpreted Rea. "Of course these beggars
+never tasted sugar."
+
+The band of youngsters trooped round Jones, and after tasting the white
+lumps, shrieked in such delight that the braves and squaws shuffled out
+of the tepees.
+
+In all his days Jones had never seen such miserable Indians. Dirty
+blankets hid all their person, except straggling black hair, hungry,
+wolfish eyes and moccasined feet. They crowded into the path before the
+cabin door and mumbled and stared and waited. No dignity, no
+brightness, no suggestion of friendliness marked this peculiar attitude.
+
+"Starved!" exclaimed Rea. "They've come to the lake to invoke the Great
+Spirit to send the reindeer. Buff, whatever you do, don't feed them. If
+you do, we'll have them on our hands all winter. It's cruel, but, man,
+we're in the north!"
+
+Notwithstanding the practical trapper's admonition Jones could not
+resist the pleading of the children. He could not stand by and see them
+starve. After ascertaining there was absolutely nothing to eat in the
+tepees, he invited the little ones into the cabin, and made a great pot
+of soup, into which he dropped compressed biscuits. The savage children
+were like wildcats. Jones had to call in Rea to assist him in keeping
+the famished little aborigines from tearing each other to pieces. When
+finally they were all fed, they had to be driven out of the cabin.
+
+"That's new to me," said Jones. "Poor little beggars!"
+
+Rea doubtfully shook his shaggy head.
+
+Next day Jones traded with the Yellow Knives. He had a goodly supply of
+baubles, besides blankets, gloves and boxes of canned goods, which he
+had brought for such trading. He secured a dozen of the large-boned,
+white and black Indian dogs, huskies, Rea called them—two long sleds
+with harness and several pairs of snowshoes. This trade made Jones rub
+his hands in satisfaction, for during all the long journey north he had
+failed to barter for such cardinal necessities to the success of his
+venture.
+
+"Better have doled out the grub to them in rations," grumbled Rea.
+
+Twenty-four hours sufficed to show Jones the wisdom of the trapper's
+words, for in just that time the crazed, ignorant savages had glutted
+the generous store of food, which should have lasted them for weeks.
+The next day they were begging at the cabin door. Rea cursed and
+threatened them with his fists, but they returned again and again.
+
+Days passed. All the time, in light and dark, the Indians filled the
+air with dismal chant and doleful incantations to the Great Spirit, and
+the tum! tum! tum! tum! of tomtoms, a specific feature of their wild
+prayer for food.
+
+But the white monotony of the rolling land and level lake remained
+unbroken. The reindeer did not come. The days became shorter, dimmer,
+darker. The mercury kept on the slide.
+
+Forty degrees below zero did not trouble the Indians. They stamped till
+they dropped, and sang till their voices vanished, and beat the tomtoms
+everlastingly. Jones fed the children once each day, against the
+trapper's advice.
+
+One day, while Rea was absent, a dozen braves succeeded in forcing an
+entrance, and clamored so fiercely, and threatened so desperately, that
+Jones was on the point of giving them food when the door opened to
+admit Rea.
+
+With a glance he saw the situation. He dropped the bucket he carried,
+threw the door wide open and commenced action. Because of his great
+bulk he seemed slow, but every blow of his sledge-hammer fist knocked a
+brave against the wall, or through the door into the snow. When he
+could reach two savages at once, by way of diversion, he swung their
+heads together with a crack. They dropped like dead things. Then he
+handled them as if they were sacks of corn, pitching them out into the
+snow. In two minutes the cabin was clear. He banged the door and
+slipped the bar in place.
+
+"Buff, I'm goin' to get mad at these thievin' redskins some day," he
+said gruffly. The expanse of his chest heaved slightly, like the slow
+swell of a calm ocean, but there was no other indication of unusual
+exertion.
+
+Jones laughed, and again gave thanks for the comradeship of this
+strange man.
+
+Shortly afterward, he went out for wood, and as usual scanned the
+expanse of the lake. The sun shone mistier and warmer, and frost
+feathers floated in the air. Sky and sun and plain and lake—all were
+gray. Jones fancied he saw a distant moving mass of darker shade than
+the gray background. He called the trapper.
+
+"Caribou," said Rea instantly. "The vanguard of the migration. Hear the
+Indians! Hear their cry: "Aton! Aton!" they mean reindeer. The idiots
+have scared the herd with their infernal racket, an' no meat will they
+get. The caribou will keep to the ice, an' man or Indian can't stalk
+them there."
+
+For a few moments his companion surveyed the lake and shore with a
+plainsman's eye, then dashed within, to reappear with a Winchester in
+each hand. Through the crowd of bewailing, bemoaning Indians; he sped,
+to the low, dying bank. The hard crust of snow upheld him. The gray
+cloud was a thousand yards out upon the lake and moving southeast. If
+the caribou did not swerve from this course they would pass close to a
+projecting point of land, a half-mile up the lake. So, keeping a wary
+eye upon them, the hunter ran swiftly. He had not hunted antelope and
+buffalo on the plains all his life without learning how to approach
+moving game. As long as the caribou were in action, they could not tell
+whether he moved or was motionless. In order to tell if an object was
+inanimate or not, they must stop to see, of which fact the keen hunter
+took advantage. Suddenly he saw the gray mass slow down and bunch up.
+He stopped running, to stand like a stump. When the reindeer moved
+again, he moved, and when they slackened again, he stopped and became
+motionless. As they kept to their course, he worked gradually closer
+and closer. Soon he distinguished gray, bobbing heads. When the leader
+showed signs of halting in his slow trot the hunter again became a
+statue. He saw they were easy to deceive; and, daringly confident of
+success, he encroached on the ice and closed up the gap till not more
+than two hundred yards separated him from the gray, bobbing, antlered
+mass.
+
+Jones dropped on one knee. A moment only his eyes lingered admiringly
+on the wild and beautiful spectacle; then he swept one of the rifles to
+a level. Old habit made the little beaded sight cover first the stately
+leader. Bang! The gray monarch leaped straight forward, forehoofs up,
+antlered head back, to fall dead with a crash. Then for a few moments
+the Winchester spat a deadly stream of fire, and when emptied was
+thrown down for the other gun, which in the steady, sure hands of the
+hunter belched death to the caribou.
+
+The herd rushed on, leaving the white surface of the lake gray with a
+struggling, kicking, bellowing heap. When Jones reached the caribou he
+saw several trying to rise on crippled legs. With his knife he killed
+these, not without some hazard to himself. Most of the fallen ones were
+already dead, and the others soon lay still. Beautiful gray creatures
+they were, almost white, with wide-reaching, symmetrical horns.
+
+A medley of yells arose from the shore, and Rea appeared running with
+two sleds, with the whole tribe of Yellow Knives pouring out of the
+forest behind him.
+
+"Buff, you're jest what old Jim said you was," thundered Rea, as he
+surveyed the gray pile. "Here's winter meat, an' I'd not have given a
+biscuit for all the meat I thought you'd get."
+
+"Thirty shots in less than thirty seconds," said Jones, "An' I'll bet
+every ball I sent touched hair. How many reindeer?"
+
+"Twenty! twenty! Buff, or I've forgot how to count. I guess mebbe you
+can't handle them shootin' arms. Ho! here comes the howlin' redskins."
+
+Rea whipped out a bowie knife and began disemboweling the reindeer. He
+had not proceeded far in his task when the crazed savages were around
+him. Every one carried a basket or receptacle, which he swung aloft,
+and they sang, prayed, rejoiced on their knees. Jones turned away from
+the sickening scenes that convinced him these savages were little
+better than cannibals. Rea cursed them, and tumbled them over, and
+threatened them with the big bowie. An altercation ensued, heated on
+his side, frenzied on theirs. Thinking some treachery might befall his
+comrade, Jones ran into the thick of the group.
+
+"Share with them, Rea, share with them."
+
+Whereupon the giant hauled out ten smoking carcasses. Bursting into a
+babel of savage glee and tumbling over one another, the Indians pulled
+the caribou to the shore.
+
+"Thievin' fools," growled Rea, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Said
+they'd prevailed on the Great Spirit to send the reindeer. Why, they'd
+never smelled warm meat but for you. Now, Buff, they'll gorge every
+hair, hide an' hoof of their share in less than a week. Thet's the last
+we do for the damned cannibals. Didn't you see them eatin' of the raw
+innards?—faugh! I'm calculatin' we'll see no more reindeer. It's late
+for the migration. The big herd has driven southward. But we're lucky,
+thanks to your prairie trainin'. Come on now with the sleds, or we'll
+have a pack of wolves to fight."
+
+By loading three reindeer on each sled, the hunters were not long in
+transporting them to the cabin. "Buff, there ain't much doubt about
+them keepin' nice and cool," said Rea. "They'll freeze, an' we can skin
+them when we want."
+
+That night the starved wolf dogs gorged themselves till they could not
+rise from the snow. Likewise the Yellow Knives feasted. How long the
+ten reindeer might have served the wasteful tribe, Rea and Jones never
+found out. The next day two Indians arrived with dog-trains, and their
+advent was hailed with another feast, and a pow-wow that lasted into
+the night.
+
+"Guess we're goin' to get rid of our blasted hungry neighbors," said
+Rea, coming in next morning with the water pail, "An' I'll be durned,
+Buff, if I don't believe them crazy heathen have been told about you.
+Them Indians was messengers. Grab your gun, an' let's walk over and
+see."
+
+The Yellow Knives were breaking camp, and the hunters were at once
+conscious of the difference in their bearing. Rea addressed several
+braves, but got no reply. He laid his broad hand on the old wrinkled
+chief, who repulsed him, and turned his back. With a growl, the trapper
+spun the Indian round, and spoke as many words of the language as he
+knew. He got a cold response, which ended in the ragged old chief
+starting up, stretching a long, dark arm northward, and with eyes fixed
+in fanatical subjection, shouting: "Naza! Naza! Naza!"
+
+"Heathen!" Rea shook his gun in the faces of the messengers. "It'll go
+bad with you to come Nazain' any longer on our trail. Come, Buff, clear
+out before I get mad."
+
+When they were once more in the cabin, Rea told Jones that the
+messengers had been sent to warn the Yellow Knives not to aid the white
+hunters in any way. That night the dogs were kept inside, and the men
+took turns in watching. Morning showed a broad trail southward. And
+with the going of the Yellow Knives the mercury dropped to fifty, and
+the long, twilight winter night fell.
+
+So with this agreeable riddance and plenty of meat and fuel to cheer
+them, the hunters sat down in their snug cabin to wait many months for
+daylight.
+
+Those few intervals when the wind did not blow were the only times Rea
+and Jones got out of doors. To the plainsman, new to the north, the dim
+gray world about him was of exceeding interest. Out of the twilight
+shone a wan, round, lusterless ring that Rea said was the sun. The
+silence and desolation were heart-numbing.
+
+"Where are the wolves?" asked Jones of Rea.
+
+"Wolves can't live on snow. They're farther south after caribou, or
+farther north after musk-ox."
+
+In those few still intervals Jones remained out as long as he dared,
+with the mercury sinking to -sixty degrees. He turned from the wonder
+of the unreal, remote sun, to the marvel in the north—Aurora
+borealis—ever-present, ever-changing, ever-beautiful! and he gazed in
+rapt attention.
+
+"Polar lights," said Rea, as if he were speaking of biscuits. "You'll
+freeze. It's gettin' cold."
+
+Cold it became, to the matter of -seventy degrees. Frost covered the
+walls of the cabin and the roof, except just over the fire. The
+reindeer were harder than iron. A knife or an ax or a steel-trap burned
+as if it had been heated in fire, and stuck to the hand. The hunters
+experienced trouble in breathing; the air hurt their lungs.
+
+The months dragged. Rea grew more silent day by day, and as he sat
+before the fire his wide shoulders sagged lower and lower. Jones,
+unaccustomed to the waiting, the restraint, the barrier of the north,
+worked on guns, sleds, harness, till he felt he would go mad. Then to
+save his mind he constructed a windmill of caribou hides and pondered
+over it trying to invent, to put into practical use an idea he had once
+conceived.
+
+Hour after hour he lay under his blankets unable to sleep, and listened
+to the north wind. Sometimes Rea mumbled in his slumbers; once his
+giant form started up, and he muttered a woman's name. Shadows from the
+fire flickered on the walls, visionary, spectral shadows, cold and
+gray, fitting the north. At such times he longed with all the power of
+his soul to be among those scenes far southward, which he called home.
+For days Rea never spoke a word, only gazed into the fire, ate and
+slept. Jones, drifting far from his real self, feared the strange mood
+of the trapper and sought to break it, but without avail. More and more
+he reproached himself, and singularly on the one fact that, as he did
+not smoke himself, he had brought only a small store of tobacco. Rea,
+inordinate and inveterate smoker, had puffed away all the weed in
+clouds of white, then had relapsed into gloom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10.
+
+SUCCESS AND FAILURE
+
+At last the marvel in the north dimmed, the obscure gray shade lifted,
+the hope in the south brightened, and the mercury climbed reluctantly,
+with a tyrant's hate to relinquish power.
+
+Spring weather at twenty-five below zero! On April 12th a small band of
+Indians made their appearance. Of the Dog tribe were they, an offcast
+of the Great Slaves, according to Rea, and as motley, starring and
+starved as the Yellow Knives. But they were friendly, which presupposed
+ignorance of the white hunters, and Rea persuaded the strongest brave
+to accompany them as guide northward after musk-oxen.
+
+On April 16th, having given the Indians several caribou carcasses, and
+assuring them that the cabin was protected by white spirits, Rea and
+Jones, each with sled and train of dogs, started out after their guide,
+who was similarly equipped, over the glistening snow toward the north.
+They made sixty miles the first day, and pitched their Indian tepee on
+the shores of Artillery Lake. Traveling northeast, they covered its
+white waste of one hundred miles in two days. Then a day due north,
+over rolling, monotonously snowy plain; devoid of rock, tree or shrub,
+brought them into a country of the strangest, queerest little spruce
+trees, very slender, and none of them over fifteen feet in height. A
+primeval forest of saplings.
+
+"Ditchen Nechila," said the guide.
+
+"Land of Sticks Little," translated Rea.
+
+An occasional reindeer was seen and numerous foxes and hares trotted
+off into the woods, evincing more curiosity than fear. All were silver
+white, even the reindeer, at a distance, taking the hue of the north.
+Once a beautiful creature, unblemished as the snow it trod, ran up a
+ridge and stood watching the hunters. It resembled a monster dog, only
+it was inexpressibly more wild looking.
+
+"Ho! Ho! there you are!" cried Rea, reaching for his Winchester. "Polar
+wolf! Them's the white devils we'll have hell with."
+
+As if the wolf understood, he lifted his white, sharp head and uttered
+a bark or howl that was like nothing so much as a haunting, unearthly
+mourn. The animal then merged into the white, as if he were really a
+spirit of the world whence his cry seemed to come.
+
+In this ancient forest of youthful appearing trees, the hunters cut
+firewood to the full carrying capacity of the sleds. For five days the
+Indian guide drove his dogs over the smooth crust, and on the sixth
+day, about noon, halting in a hollow, he pointed to tracks in the snow
+and called out: "Ageter! Ageter! Ageter!"
+
+The hunters saw sharply defined hoof-marks, not unlike the tracks of
+reindeer, except that they were longer. The tepee was set up on the
+spot and the dogs unharnessed.
+
+The Indian led the way with the dogs, and Rea and Jones followed,
+slipping over the hard crust without sinking in and traveling swiftly.
+Soon the guide, pointing, again let out the cry: "Ageter!" at the same
+moment loosing the dogs.
+
+Some few hundred yards down the hollow, a number of large black
+animals, not unlike the shaggy, humpy buffalo, lumbered over the snow.
+Jones echoed Rea's yell, and broke into a run, easily distancing the
+puffing giant.
+
+The musk-oxen squared round to the dogs, and were soon surrounded by
+the yelping pack. Jones came up to find six old bulls uttering grunts
+of rage and shaking ram-like horns at their tormentors. Notwithstanding
+that for Jones this was the cumulation of years of desire, the crowning
+moment, the climax and fruition of long-harbored dreams, he halted
+before the tame and helpless beasts, with joy not unmixed with pain.
+
+"It will be murder!" he exclaimed. "It's like shooting down sheep."
+
+Rea came crashing up behind him and yelled, "Get busy. We need fresh
+meat, an' I want the skins."
+
+The bulls succumbed to well-directed shots, and the Indian and Rea
+hurried back to camp with the dogs to fetch the sleds, while Jones
+examined with warm interest the animals he had wanted to see all his
+life. He found the largest bull approached within a third of the size
+of a buffalo. He was of a brownish-black color and very like a large,
+woolly ram. His head was broad, with sharp, small ears; the horns had
+wide and flattened bases and lay flat on the head, to run down back of
+the eyes, then curve forward to a sharp point. Like the bison, the musk
+ox had short, heavy limbs, covered with very long hair, and small, hard
+hoofs with hairy tufts inside the curve of bone, which probably served
+as pads or checks to hold the hoof firm on ice. His legs seemed out of
+proportion to his body.
+
+Two musk-oxen were loaded on a sled and hauled to camp in one trip.
+Skinning them was but short work for such expert hands. All the choice
+cuts of meat were saved. No time was lost in broiling a steak, which
+they found sweet and juicy, with a flavor of musk that was disagreeable.
+
+"Now, Rea, for the calves," exclaimed Jones, "And then we're homeward
+bound."
+
+"I hate to tell this redskin," replied Rea. "He'll be like the others.
+But it ain't likely he'd desert us here. He's far from his base, with
+nothin' but thet old musket." Rea then commanded the attention of the
+brave, and began to mangle the Great Slave and Yellow Knife languages.
+Of this mixture Jones knew but few words. "Ageter nechila," which Rea
+kept repeating, he knew, however, meant "musk-oxen little."
+
+The guide stared, suddenly appeared to get Rea's meaning, then
+vigorously shook his head and gazed at Jones in fear and horror.
+Following this came an action as singular as inexplicable. Slowly
+rising, he faced the north, lifted his hand, and remained statuesque in
+his immobility. Then he began deliberately packing his blankets and
+traps on his sled, which had not been unhitched from the train of dogs.
+
+"Jackoway ditchen hula," he said, and pointed south.
+
+"Jackoway ditchen hula," echoed Rea. "The damned Indian says 'wife
+sticks none.' He's goin' to quit us. What do you think of thet? His
+wife's out of wood. Jackoway out of wood, an' here we are two days from
+the Arctic Ocean. Jones, the damned heathen don't go back!"
+
+The trapper coolly cocked his rifle. The savage, who plainly saw and
+understood the action, never flinched. He turned his breast to Rea, and
+there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest his relation to a craven
+tribe.
+
+"Good heavens, Rea, don't kill him!" exclaimed Jones, knocking up the
+leveled rifle.
+
+"Why not, I'd like to know?" demanded Rea, as if he were considering
+the fate of a threatening beast. "I reckon it'd be a bad thing for us
+to let him go."
+
+"Let him go," said Jones. "We are here on the ground. We have dogs and
+meat. We'll get our calves and reach the lake as soon as he does, and
+we might get there before."
+
+"Mebbe we will," growled Rea.
+
+No vacillation attended the Indian's mood. From friendly guide, he had
+suddenly been transformed into a dark, sullen savage. He refused the
+musk-ox meat offered by Jones, and he pointed south and looked at the
+white hunters as if he asked them to go with him. Both men shook their
+heads in answer. The savage struck his breast a sounding blow and with
+his index finger pointed at the white of the north, he shouted
+dramatically: "Naza! Naza! Naza!"
+
+He then leaped upon his sled, lashed his dogs into a run, and without
+looking back disappeared over a ridge.
+
+The musk-ox hunters sat long silent. Finally Rea shook his shaggy locks
+and roared. "Ho! Ho! Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood!
+Jackoway out of wood!"
+
+On the day following the desertion, Jones found tracks to the north of
+the camp, making a broad trail in which were numerous little imprints
+that sent him flying back to get Rea and the dogs. Musk-oxen in great
+numbers had passed in the night, and Jones and Rea had not trailed the
+herd a mile before they had it in sight. When the dogs burst into full
+cry, the musk-oxen climbed a high knoll and squared about to give
+battle.
+
+"Calves! Calves! Calves!" cried Jones.
+
+"Hold back! Hold back! Thet's a big herd, an' they'll show fight."
+
+As good fortune would have it, the herd split up into several sections,
+and one part, hard pressed by the dogs, ran down the knoll, to be
+cornered under the lee of a bank. The hunters, seeing this small
+number, hurried upon them to find three cows and five badly frightened
+little calves backed against the bank of snow, with small red eyes
+fastened on the barking, snapping dogs.
+
+To a man of Jones's experience and skill, the capturing of the calves
+was a ridiculously easy piece of work. The cows tossed their heads,
+watched the dogs, and forgot their young. The first cast of the lasso
+settled over the neck of a little fellow. Jones hauled him out over the
+slippery snow and laughed as he bound the hairy legs. In less time than
+he had taken to capture one buffalo calf, with half the escort, he had
+all the little musk-oxen bound fast. Then he signaled this feat by
+pealing out an Indian yell of victory.
+
+"Buff, we've got 'em," cried Rea; "An' now for the hell of it gettin'
+'em home. I'll fetch the sleds. You might as well down thet best cow
+for me. I can use another skin."
+
+Of all Jones's prizes of captured wild beasts—which numbered nearly
+every species common to western North America—he took greatest pride
+in the little musk-oxen. In truth, so great had been his passion to
+capture some of these rare and inaccessible mammals, that he considered
+the day's work the fulfillment of his life's purpose. He was happy.
+Never had he been so delighted as when, the very evening of their
+captivity, the musk-oxen, evincing no particular fear of him, began to
+dig with sharp hoofs into the snow for moss. And they found moss, and
+ate it, which solved Jones's greatest problem. He had hardly dared to
+think how to feed them, and here they were picking sustenance out of
+the frozen snow.
+
+"Rea, will you look at that! Rea, will you look at that!" he kept
+repeating. "See, they're hunting, feed."
+
+And the giant, with his rare smile, watched him play with the calves.
+They were about two and a half feet high, and resembled long-haired
+sheep. The ears and horns were undiscernible, and their color
+considerably lighter than that of the matured beasts.
+
+"No sense of fear of man," said the life-student of animals. "But they
+shrink from the dogs."
+
+In packing for the journey south, the captives were strapped on the
+sleds. This circumstance necessitated a sacrifice of meat and wood,
+which brought grave, doubtful shakes of Rea's great head.
+
+Days of hastening over the icy snow, with short hours for sleep and
+rest, passed before the hunters awoke to the consciousness that they
+were lost. The meat they had packed had gone to feed themselves and the
+dogs. Only a few sticks of wood were left.
+
+"Better kill a calf, an' cook meat while we've got little wood left,"
+suggested Rea.
+
+"Kill one of my calves? I'd starve first!" cried Jones.
+
+The hungry giant said no more.
+
+They headed southwest. All about them glared the grim monotony of the
+arctics. No rock or bush or tree made a welcome mark upon the hoary
+plain Wonderland of frost, white marble desert, infinitude of gleaming
+silences!
+
+Snow began to fall, making the dogs flounder, obliterating the sun by
+which they traveled. They camped to wait for clearing weather. Biscuits
+soaked in tea made their meal. At dawn Jones crawled out of the tepee.
+The snow had ceased. But where were the dogs? He yelled in alarm. Then
+little mounds of white, scattered here and there became animated,
+heaved, rocked and rose to dogs. Blankets of snow had been their
+covering.
+
+Rea had ceased his "Jackoway out of wood," for a reiterated question:
+"Where are the wolves?"
+
+"Lost," replied Jones in hollow humor.
+
+Near the close of that day, in which they had resumed travel, from the
+crest of a ridge they descried a long, low, undulating dark line. It
+proved to be the forest of "Little sticks," where, with grateful
+assurance of fire and of soon finding their old trail, they made camp.
+
+"We've four biscuits left, an' enough tea for one drink each," said
+Rea. "I calculate we're two hundred miles from Great Slave Lake. Where
+are the wolves?"
+
+At that moment the night wind wafted through the forest a long,
+haunting mourn. The calves shifted uneasily; the dogs raised sharp
+noses to sniff the air, and Rea, settling back against a tree, cried
+out: "Ho! Ho!" Again the savage sound, a keen wailing note with the
+hunger of the northland in it, broke the cold silence. "You'll see a
+pack of real wolves in a minute," said Rea. Soon a swift pattering of
+feet down a forest slope brought him to his feet with a curse to reach
+a brawny hand for his rifle. White streaks crossed the black of the
+tree trunks; then indistinct forms, the color of snow, swept up, spread
+out and streaked to and fro. Jones thought the great, gaunt, pure white
+beasts the spectral wolves of Rea's fancy, for they were silent, and
+silent wolves must belong to dreams only.
+
+"Ho! Ho!" yelled Rea. "There's green-fire eyes for you, Buff. Hell
+itself ain't nothin' to these white devils. Get the calves in the
+tepee, an' stand ready to loose the dogs, for we've got to fight."
+
+Raising his rifle he opened fire upon the white foe. A struggling,
+rustling sound followed the shots. But whether it was the threshing
+about of wolves dying in agony, or the fighting of the fortunate ones
+over those shot, could not be ascertained in the confusion.
+
+Following his example Jones also fired rapidly on the other side of the
+tepee. The same inarticulate, silently rustling wrestle succeeded this
+volley.
+
+"Wait!" cried Rea. "Be sparin' of cartridges."
+
+The dogs strained at their chains and bravely bayed the wolves. The
+hunters heaped logs and brush on the fire, which, blazing up, sent a
+bright light far into the woods. On the outer edge of that circle moved
+the white, restless, gliding forms.
+
+"They're more afraid of fire than of us," said Jones.
+
+So it proved. When the fire burned and crackled they kept well in the
+background. The hunters had a long respite from serious anxiety, during
+which time they collected all the available wood at hand. But at
+midnight, when this had been mostly consumed, the wolves grew bold
+again.
+
+"Have you any shots left for the 45-90, besides what's in the
+magazine?" asked Rea.
+
+"Yes, a good handful."
+
+"Well, get busy."
+
+With careful aim Jones emptied the magazine into the gray, gliding,
+groping mass. The same rustling, shuffling, almost silent strife ensued.
+
+"Rea, there's something uncanny about those brutes. A silent pack of
+wolves!"
+
+"Ho! Ho!" rolled the giant's answer through the woods.
+
+For the present the attack appeared to have been effectually checked.
+The hunters, sparingly adding a little of their fast diminishing pile
+of fuel to the fire, decided to lie down for much needed rest, but not
+for sleep. How long they lay there, cramped by the calves, listening
+for stealthy steps, neither could tell; it might have been moments and
+it might have been hours. All at once came a rapid rush of pattering
+feet, succeeded by a chorus of angry barks, then a terrible commingling
+of savage snarls, growls, snaps and yelps.
+
+"Out!" yelled Rea. "They're on the dogs!"
+
+Jones pushed his cocked rifle ahead of him and straightened up outside
+the tepee. A wolf, large as a panther and white as the gleaming snow,
+sprang at him. Even as he discharged his rifle, right against the
+breast of the beast, he saw its dripping jaws, its wicked green eyes,
+like spurts of fire and felt its hot breath. It fell at his feet and
+writhed in the death struggle. Slender bodies of black and white,
+whirling and tussling together, sent out fiendish uproar. Rea threw a
+blazing stick of wood among them, which sizzled as it met the furry
+coats, and brandishing another he ran into the thick of the fight.
+Unable to stand the proximity of fire, the wolves bolted and loped off
+into the woods.
+
+"What a huge brute!" exclaimed Jones, dragging the one he had shot into
+the light. It was a superb animal, thin, supple, strong, with a coat of
+frosty fur, very long and fine. Rea began at once to skin it, remarking
+that he hoped to find other pelts in the morning.
+
+Though the wolves remained in the vicinity of camp, none ventured near.
+The dogs moaned and whined; their restlessness increased as dawn
+approached, and when the gray light came, Jones founds that some of
+them had been badly lacerated by the fangs of the wolves. Rea hunted
+for dead wolves and found not so much as a piece of white fur.
+
+Soon the hunters were speeding southward. Other than a disposition to
+fight among themselves, the dogs showed no evil effects of the attack.
+They were lashed to their best speed, for Rea said the white rangers of
+the north would never quit their trail. All day the men listened for
+the wild, lonesome, haunting mourn. But it came not.
+
+A wonderful halo of white and gold, that Rea called a sun-dog, hung in
+the sky all afternoon, and dazzlingly bright over the dazzling world of
+snow circled and glowed a mocking sun, brother of the desert mirage,
+beautiful illusion, smiling cold out of the polar blue.
+
+The first pale evening star twinkled in the east when the hunters made
+camp on the shore of Artillery Lake. At dusk the clear, silent air
+opened to the sound of a long, haunting mourn.
+
+"Ho! Ho!" called Rea. His hoarse, deep voice rang defiance to the foe.
+
+While he built a fire before the tepee, Jones strode up and down,
+suddenly to whip out his knife and make for the tame little musk-oxen,
+now digging the snow. Then he wheeled abruptly and held out the blade
+to Rea.
+
+"What for?" demanded the giant.
+
+"We've got to eat," said Jones. "And I can't kill one of them. I can't,
+so you do it."
+
+"Kill one of our calves?" roared Rea. "Not till hell freezes over! I
+ain't commenced to get hungry. Besides, the wolves are going to eat us,
+calves and all."
+
+Nothing more was said. They ate their last biscuit. Jones packed the
+calves away in the tepee, and turned to the dogs. All day they had
+worried him; something was amiss with them, and even as he went among
+them a fierce fight broke out. Jones saw it was unusual, for the
+attacked dogs showed craven fear, and the attacking ones a howling,
+savage intensity that surprised him. Then one of the vicious brutes
+rolled his eyes, frothed at the mouth, shuddered and leaped in his
+harness, vented a hoarse howl and fell back shaking and retching.
+
+"My God! Rea!" cried Jones in horror. "Come here! Look! That dog is
+dying of rabies! Hydrophobia! The white wolves have hydrophobia!"
+
+"If you ain't right!" exclaimed Rea. "I seen a dog die of thet onct,
+an' he acted like this. An' thet one ain't all. Look, Buff! look at
+them green eyes! Didn't I say the white wolves was hell? We'll have to
+kill every dog we've got."
+
+Jones shot the dog, and soon afterward three more that manifested signs
+of the disease. It was an awful situation. To kill all the dogs meant
+simply to sacrifice his life and Rea's; it meant abandoning hope of
+ever reaching the cabin. Then to risk being bitten by one of the
+poisoned, maddened brutes, to risk the most horrible of agonizing
+deaths—that was even worse.
+
+"Rea, we've one chance," cried Jones, with pale face. "Can you hold the
+dogs, one by one, while I muzzle them?"
+
+"Ho! Ho!" replied the giant. Placing his bowie knife between his teeth,
+with gloved hands he seized and dragged one of the dogs to the
+campfire. The animal whined and protested, but showed no ill spirit.
+Jones muzzled his jaws tightly with strong cords. Another and another
+were tied up, then one which tried to snap at Jones was nearly crushed
+by the giant's grip. The last, a surly brute, broke out into mad
+ravings the moment he felt the touch of Jones's hands, and writhing,
+frothing, he snapped Jones's sleeve. Rea jerked him loose and held him
+in the air with one arm, while with the other he swung the bowie. They
+hauled the dead dogs out on the snow, and returning to the fire sat
+down to await the cry they expected.
+
+Presently, as darkness fastened down tight, it came—the same cry,
+wild, haunting, mourning. But for hours it was not repeated.
+
+"Better rest some," said Rea; "I'll call you if they come."
+
+Jones dropped to sleep as he touched his blankets. Morning dawned for
+him, to find the great, dark, shadowy figure of the giant nodding over
+the fire.
+
+"How's this? Why didn't you call me?" demanded Jones.
+
+"The wolves only fought a little over the dead dogs."
+
+On the instant Jones saw a wolf skulking up the bank. Throwing up his
+rifle, which he had carried out of the tepee, he took a snap-shot at
+the beast. It ran off on three legs, to go out of sight over the hank.
+Jones scrambled up the steep, slippery place, and upon arriving at the
+ridge, which took several moments of hard work, he looked everywhere
+for the wolf. In a moment he saw the animal, standing still some
+hundred or more paces down a hollow. With the quick report of Jones's
+second shot, the wolf fell and rolled over. The hunter ran to the spot
+to find the wolf was dead. Taking hold of a front paw, he dragged the
+animal over the snow to camp. Rea began to skin the animal, when
+suddenly he exclaimed:
+
+"This fellow's hind foot is gone!"
+
+"That's strange. I saw it hanging by the skin as the wolf ran up the
+bank. I'll look for it."
+
+By the bloody trail on the snow he returned to the place where the wolf
+had fallen, and thence back to the spot where its leg had been broken
+by the bullet. He discovered no sign of the foot.
+
+"Didn't find it, did you?" said Rea.
+
+"No, and it appears odd to me. The snow is so hard the foot could not
+have sunk."
+
+"Well, the wolf ate his foot, thet's what," returned Rea. "Look at them
+teeth marks!"
+
+"Is it possible?" Jones stared at the leg Rea held up.
+
+"Yes, it is. These wolves are crazy at times. You've seen thet. An' the
+smell of blood, an' nothin' else, mind you, in my opinion, made him eat
+his own' foot. We'll cut him open."
+
+Impossible as the thing seemed to Jones—and he could not but believe
+further evidence of his own eyes—it was even stranger to drive a
+train of mad dogs. Yet that was what Rea and he did, and lashed them,
+beat them to cover many miles in the long day's journey. Rabies had
+broken out in several dogs so alarmingly that Jones had to kill them at
+the end of the run. And hardly had the sound of the shots died when
+faint and far away, but clear as a bell, bayed on the wind the same
+haunting mourn of a trailing wolf.
+
+"Ho! Ho! where are the wolves?" cried Rea.
+
+A waiting, watching, sleepless night followed. Again the hunters faced
+the south. Hour after hour, riding, running, walking, they urged the
+poor, jaded, poisoned dogs. At dark they reached the head of Artillery
+Lake. Rea placed the tepee between two huge stones. Then the hungry
+hunters, tired, grim, silent, desperate, awaited the familiar cry.
+
+It came on the cold wind, the same haunting mourn, dreadful in its
+significance.
+
+Absence of fire inspirited the wary wolves. Out of the pale gloom gaunt
+white forms emerged, agile and stealthy, slipping on velvet-padded
+feet, closer, closer, closer. The dogs wailed in terror.
+
+"Into the tepee!" yelled Rea.
+
+Jones plunged in after his comrade. The despairing howls of the dogs,
+drowned in more savage, frightful sounds, knelled one tragedy and
+foreboded a more terrible one. Jones looked out to see a white mass,
+like leaping waves of a rapid.
+
+"Pump lead into thet!" cried Rea.
+
+Rapidly Jones emptied his rifle into the white fray. The mass split;
+gaunt wolves leaped high to fall back dead; others wriggled and limped
+away; others dragged their hind quarters; others darted at the tepee.
+
+"No more cartridges!" yelled Jones.
+
+The giant grabbed the ax, and barred the door of the tepee. Crash! the
+heavy iron cleaved the skull of the first brute. Crash! it lamed the
+second. Then Rea stood in the narrow passage between the rocks, waiting
+with uplifted ax. A shaggy, white demon, snapping his jaws, sprang like
+a dog. A sodden, thudding blow met him and he slunk away without a cry.
+Another rabid beast launched his white body at the giant. Like a flash
+the ax descended. In agony the wolf fell, to spin round and round,
+running on his hind legs, while his head and shoulders and forelegs
+remained in the snow. His back was broken.
+
+Jones crouched in the opening of the tepee, knife in hand. He doubted
+his senses. This was a nightmare. He saw two wolves leap at once. He
+heard the crash of the ax; he saw one wolf go down and the other slip
+under the swinging weapon to grasp the giant's hip. Jones's heard the
+rend of cloth, and then he pounced like a cat, to drive his knife into
+the body of the beast. Another nimble foe lunged at Rea, to sprawl
+broken and limp from the iron. It was a silent fight. The giant shut
+the way to his comrade and the calves; he made no outcry; he needed but
+one blow for every beast; magnificent, he wielded death and faced
+it—silent. He brought the white wild dogs of the north down with
+lightning blows, and when no more sprang to the attack, down on the
+frigid silence he rolled his cry: "Ho! Ho!"
+
+"Rea! Rea! how is it with you?" called Jones, climbing out.
+
+"A torn coat—no more, my lad."
+
+Three of the poor dogs were dead; the fourth and last gasped at the
+hunters and died.
+
+The wintry night became a thing of half-conscious past, a dream to the
+hunters, manifesting its reality only by the stark, stiff bodies of
+wolves, white in the gray morning.
+
+"If we can eat, we'll make the cabin," said Rea. "But the dogs an'
+wolves are poison."
+
+"Shall I kill a calf?" asked Jones.
+
+"Ho! Ho! when hell freezes over—if we must!"
+
+Jones found one 45-90 cartridge in all the outfit, and with that in the
+chamber of his rifle, once more struck south. Spruce trees began to
+show on the barrens and caribou trails roused hope in the hearts of the
+hunters.
+
+"Look in the spruces," whispered Jones, dropping the rope of his sled.
+Among the black trees gray objects moved.
+
+"Caribou!" said Rea. "Hurry! Shoot! Don't miss!"
+
+But Jones waited. He knew the value of the last bullet. He had a
+hunter's patience. When the caribou came out in an open space, Jones
+whistled. It was then the rifle grew set and fixed; it was then the red
+fire belched forth.
+
+At four hundred yards the bullet took some fraction of time to strike.
+What a long time that was! Then both hunters heard the spiteful spat of
+the lead. The caribou fell, jumped up, ran down the slope, and fell
+again to rise no more.
+
+An hour of rest, with fire and meat, changed the world to the hunters;
+still glistening, it yet had lost its bitter cold, its deathlike clutch.
+
+"What's this?" cried Jones.
+
+Moccasin tracks of different sizes, all toeing north, arrested the
+hunters.
+
+"Pointed north! Wonder what thet means?" Rea plodded on, doubtfully
+shaking his head.
+
+Night again, clear, cold, silver, starlit, silent night! The hunters
+rested, listening ever for the haunting mourn. Day again, white,
+passionless, monotonous, silent day. The hunters traveled on—on—on,
+ever listening for the haunting mourn.
+
+Another dusk found them within thirty miles of their cabin. Only one
+more day now.
+
+Rea talked of his furs, of the splendid white furs he could not bring.
+Jones talked of his little musk-oxen calves and joyfully watched them
+dig for moss in the snow.
+
+Vigilance relaxed that night. Outworn nature rebelled, and both hunters
+slept.
+
+Rea awoke first, and kicking off the blankets, went out. His terrible
+roar of rage made Jones fly to his side.
+
+Under the very shadow of the tepee, where the little musk-oxen had been
+tethered, they lay stretched out pathetically on crimson snow—stiff
+stone-cold, dead. Moccasin tracks told the story of the tragedy.
+
+Jones leaned against his comrade.
+
+The giant raised his huge fist.
+
+"Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood!"
+
+Then he choked.
+
+The north wind, blowing through the thin, dark, weird spruce trees,
+moaned and seemed to sigh, "Naza! Naza! Naza!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11.
+
+ON TO THE SIWASH
+
+"Who all was doin' the talkin' last night?" asked Frank next morning,
+when we were having a late breakfast. "Cause I've a joke on somebody.
+Jim he talks in his sleep often, an' last night after you did finally
+get settled down, Jim he up in his sleep an' says: 'Shore he's windy as
+hell! Shore he's windy as hell'!"
+
+At this cruel exposure of his subjective wanderings, Jim showed extreme
+humiliation; but Frank's eyes fairly snapped with the fun he got out of
+telling it. The genial foreman loved a joke. The week's stay at Oak, in
+which we all became thoroughly acquainted, had presented Jim as always
+the same quiet character, easy, slow, silent, lovable. In his brother
+cowboy, however, we had discovered in addition to his fine, frank,
+friendly spirit, an overwhelming fondness for playing tricks. This
+boyish mischievousness, distinctly Arizonian, reached its acme whenever
+it tended in the direction of our serious leader.
+
+Lawson had been dispatched on some mysterious errand about which my
+curiosity was all in vain. The order of the day was leisurely to get in
+readiness, and pack for our journey to the Siwash on the morrow. I
+watered my horse, played with the hounds, knocked about the cliffs,
+returned to the cabin, and lay down on my bed. Jim's hands were white
+with flour. He was kneading dough, and had several low, flat pans on
+the table. Wallace and Jones strolled in, and later Frank, and they all
+took various positions before the fire. I saw Frank, with the quickness
+of a sleight-of-hand performer, slip one of the pans of dough on the
+chair Jones had placed by the table. Jim did not see the action;
+Jones's and Wallace's backs were turned to Frank, and he did not know I
+was in the cabin. The conversation continued on the subject of Jones's
+big bay horse, which, hobbles and all, had gotten ten miles from camp
+the night before.
+
+"Better count his ribs than his tracks," said Frank, and went on
+talking as easily and naturally as if he had not been expecting a very
+entertaining situation.
+
+But no one could ever foretell Colonel Jones's actions. He showed every
+intention of seating himself in the chair, then walked over to his pack
+to begin searching for something or other. Wallace, however, promptly
+took the seat; and what began to be funnier than strange, he did not
+get up. Not unlikely this circumstance was owing to the fact that
+several of the rude chairs had soft layers of old blanket tacked on
+them. Whatever were Frank's internal emotions, he presented a
+remarkably placid and commonplace exterior; but when Jim began to
+search for the missing pan of dough, the joker slowly sagged in his
+chair.
+
+"Shore that beats hell!" said Jim. "I had three pans of dough. Could
+the pup have taken one?"
+
+Wallace rose to his feet, and the bread pan clattered to the floor,
+with a clang and a clank, evidently protesting against the indignity it
+had suffered. But the dough stayed with Wallace, a great white
+conspicuous splotch on his corduroys. Jim, Frank and Jones all saw it
+at once.
+
+"Why—Mr. Wal—lace—you set—in the dough!" exclaimed Frank, in a
+queer, strangled voice. Then he exploded, while Jim fell over the table.
+
+It seemed that those two Arizona rangers, matured men though they were,
+would die of convulsions. I laughed with them, and so did Wallace,
+while he brought his bone-handled bowie knife into novel use. Buffalo
+Jones never cracked a smile, though he did remark about the waste of
+good flour.
+
+Frank's face was a study for a psychologist when Jim actually
+apologized to Wallace for being so careless with his pans. I did not
+betray Frank, but I resolved to keep a still closer watch on him. It
+was partially because of this uneasy sense of his trickiness in the
+fringe of my mind that I made a discovery. My sleeping-bag rested on a
+raised platform in one corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the
+bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed a string turning out
+through a chink between the logs. I found it came from a thick layer of
+straw under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a flatly coiled
+lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I went outside and carelessly
+chased the hounds round the cabin. The string stretched along the logs
+to another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a point near
+where Frank slept. No great power of deduction was necessary to
+acquaint me with full details of the plot to spoil my slumbers. So I
+patiently awaited developments.
+
+Lawson rode in near sundown with the carcasses of two beasts of some
+species hanging over his saddle. It turned out that Jones had planned a
+surprise for Wallace and me, and it could hardly have been a more
+enjoyable one, considering the time and place. We knew he had a flock
+of Persian sheep on the south slope of Buckskin, but had no idea it was
+within striking distance of Oak. Lawson had that day hunted up the
+shepherd and his sheep, to return to us with two sixty-pound Persian
+lambs. We feasted at suppertime on meat which was sweet, juicy, very
+tender and of as rare a flavor as that of the Rocky Mountain sheep.
+
+My state after supper was one of huge enjoyment and with intense
+interest I awaited Frank's first spar for an opening. It came
+presently, in a lull of the conversation.
+
+"Saw a big rattler run under the cabin to-day," he said, as if he were
+speaking of one of Old Baldy's shoes. "I tried to get a whack at him,
+but he oozed away too quick."
+
+"Shore I seen him often," put in Jim. Good, old, honest Jim, led away
+by his trickster comrade! It was very plain. So I was to be frightened
+by snakes.
+
+"These old cañon beds are ideal dens for rattle snakes," chimed in my
+scientific California friend. "I have found several dens, but did not
+molest them as this is a particularly dangerous time of the year to
+meddle with the reptiles. Quite likely there's a den under the cabin."
+
+While he made this remarkable statement, he had the grace to hide his
+face in a huge puff of smoke. He, too, was in the plot. I waited for
+Jones to come out with some ridiculous theory or fact concerning the
+particular species of snake, but as he did not speak, I concluded they
+had wisely left him out of the secret. After mentally debating a
+moment, I decided, as it was a very harmless joke, to help Frank into
+the fulfillment of his enjoyment.
+
+"Rattlesnakes!" I exclaimed. "Heavens! I'd die if I heard one, let
+alone seeing it. A big rattler jumped at me one day, and I've never
+recovered from the shock."
+
+Plainly, Frank was delighted to hear of my antipathy and my unfortunate
+experience, and he proceeded to expatiate on the viciousness of
+rattlesnakes, particularly those of Arizona. If I had believed the
+succeeding stories, emanating from the fertile brains of those three
+fellows, I should have made certain that Arizona cañons were Brazilian
+jungles. Frank's parting shot, sent in a mellow, kind voice, was the
+best point in the whole trick. "Now, I'd be nervous if I had a sleepin'
+bag like yours, because it's just the place for a rattler to ooze into."
+
+In the confusion and dim light of bedtime I contrived to throw the end
+of my lasso over the horn of a saddle hanging on the wall, with the
+intention of augmenting the noise I soon expected to create; and I
+placed my automatic rifle and .38 S. and W. Special within easy reach
+of my hand. Then I crawled into my bag and composed myself to listen.
+Frank soon began to snore, so brazenly, so fictitiously, that I
+wondered at the man's absorbed intensity in his joke; and I was at
+great pains to smother in my breast a violent burst of riotous
+merriment. Jones's snores, however, were real enough, and this made me
+enjoy the situation all the more; because if he did not show a mild
+surprise when the catastrophe fell, I would greatly miss my guess. I
+knew the three wily conspirators were wide-awake. Suddenly I felt a
+movement in the straw under me and a faint rustling. It was so soft, so
+sinuous, that if I had not known it was the lasso, I would assuredly
+have been frightened. I gave a little jump, such as one will make
+quickly in bed. Then the coil ran out from under the straw. How subtly
+suggestive of a snake! I made a slight outcry, a big jump, paused a
+moment for effectiveness in which time Frank forgot to snore—then let
+out a tremendous yell, grabbed my guns, sent twelve thundering shots
+through the roof and pulled my lasso.
+
+Crash! the saddle came down, to be followed by sounds not on Frank's
+programme and certainly not calculated upon by me. But they were all
+the more effective. I gathered that Lawson, who was not in the secret,
+and who was a nightmare sort of sleeper anyway, had knocked over Jim's
+table, with its array of pots and pans and then, unfortunately for
+Jones had kicked that innocent person in the stomach.
+
+As I lay there in my bag, the very happiest fellow in the wide world,
+the sound of my mirth was as the buzz of the wings of a fly to the
+mighty storm. Roar on roar filled the cabin.
+
+When the three hypocrites recovered sufficiently from the startling
+climax to calm Lawson, who swore the cabin had been attacked by
+Indians; when Jones stopped roaring long enough to hear it was only a
+harmless snake that had caused the trouble, we hushed to repose once
+more—not, however, without hearing some trenchant remarks from the
+boiling Colonel anent fun and fools, and the indubitable fact that
+there was not a rattlesnake on Buckskin Mountain.
+
+Long after this explosion had died away, I heard, or rather felt, a
+mysterious shudder or tremor of the cabin, and I knew that Frank and
+Jim were shaking with silent laughter. On my own score, I determined to
+find if Jones, in his strange make-up, had any sense of humor, or
+interest in life, or feeling, or love that did not center and hinge on
+four-footed beasts. In view of the rude awakening from what, no doubt,
+were pleasant dreams of wonderful white and green animals, combining
+the intelligence of man and strength of brutes—a new species
+creditable to his genius—I was perhaps unjust in my conviction as to
+his lack of humor. And as to the other question, whether or not he had
+any real human feeling for the creatures built in his own image, that
+was decided very soon and unexpectedly.
+
+The following morning, as soon as Lawson got in with the horses, we
+packed and started. Rather sorry was I to bid good-by to Oak Spring.
+Taking the back trail of the Stewarts, we walked the horses all day up
+a slowly narrowing, ascending cañon. The hounds crossed coyote and
+deer trails continually, but made no break. Sounder looked up as if to
+say he associated painful reminiscences with certain kinds of tracks.
+At the head of the cañon we reached timber at about the time dusk
+gathered, and we located for the night. Being once again nearly nine
+thousand feet high, we found the air bitterly cold, making a blazing
+fire most acceptable.
+
+In the haste to get supper we all took a hand, and some one threw upon
+our tarpaulin tablecloth a tin cup of butter mixed with carbolic
+acid—a concoction Jones had used to bathe the sore feet of the dogs.
+Of course I got hold of this, spread a generous portion on my hot
+biscuit, placed some red-hot beans on that, and began to eat like a
+hungry hunter. At first I thought I was only burned. Then I recognized
+the taste and burn of the acid and knew something was wrong. Picking up
+the tin, I examined it, smelled the pungent odor and felt a queer numb
+sense of fear. This lasted only for a moment, as I well knew the use
+and power of the acid, and had not swallowed enough to hurt me. I was
+about to make known my mistake in a matter-of-fact way, when it flashed
+over me the accident could be made to serve a turn.
+
+"Jones!" I cried hoarsely. "What's in this butter?"
+
+"Lord! you haven't eaten any of that. Why, I put carbolic acid in it."
+
+"Oh—oh—oh—I'm poisoned! I ate nearly all of it! Oh—I'm burning up!
+I'm dying!" With that I began to moan and rock to and fro and hold my
+stomach.
+
+Consternation preceded shock. But in the excitement of the moment,
+Wallace—who, though badly scared, retained his wits made for me with a
+can of condensed milk. He threw me back with no gentle hand, and was
+squeezing the life out of me to make me open my mouth, when I gave him
+a jab in his side. I imagined his surprise, as this peculiar reception
+of his first-aid-to-the-injured made him hold off to take a look at me,
+and in this interval I contrived to whisper to him: "Joke! Joke! you
+idiot! I'm only shamming. I want to see if I can scare Jones and get
+even with Frank. Help me out! Cry! Get tragic!"
+
+From that moment I shall always believe that the stage lost a great
+tragedian in Wallace. With a magnificent gesture he threw the can of
+condensed milk at Jones, who was so stunned he did not try to dodge.
+"Thoughtless man! Murderer! it's too late!" cried Wallace, laying me
+back across his knees. "It's too late. His teeth are locked. He's far
+gone. Poor boy! poor boy! Who's to tell his mother?"
+
+I could see from under my hat-brim that the solemn, hollow voice had
+penetrated the cold exterior of the plainsman. He could not speak; he
+clasped and unclasped his big hands in helpless fashion. Frank was as
+white as a sheet. This was simply delightful to me. But the expression
+of miserable, impotent distress on old Jim's sun-browned face was more
+than I could stand, and I could no longer keep up the deception. Just
+as Wallace cried out to Jones to pray—I wished then I had not weakened
+so soon—I got up and walked to the fire.
+
+"Jim, I'll have another biscuit, please."
+
+His under jaw dropped, then he nervously shoveled biscuits at me. Jones
+grabbed my hand and cried out with a voice that was new to me: "You can
+eat? You're better? You'll get over it?"
+
+"Sure. Why, carbolic acid never phases me. I've often used it for
+rattlesnake bites. I did not tell you, but that rattler at the cabin
+last night actually bit me, and I used carbolic to cure the poison."
+
+Frank mumbled something about horses, and faded into the gloom. As for
+Jones, he looked at me rather incredulously, and the absolute, almost
+childish gladness he manifested because I had been snatched from the
+grave, made me regret my deceit, and satisfied me forever on one score.
+
+On awakening in the morning I found frost half an inch thick covered my
+sleeping-bag, whitened the ground, and made the beautiful silver spruce
+trees silver in hue as well as in name.
+
+We were getting ready for an early start, when two riders, with
+pack-horses jogging after them, came down the trail from the direction
+of Oak Spring. They proved to be Jeff Clarke, the wild-horse wrangler
+mentioned by the Stewarts, and his helper. They were on the way into
+the breaks for a string of pintos. Clarke was a short, heavily bearded
+man, of jovial aspect. He said he had met the Stewarts going into
+Fredonia, and being advised of our destination, had hurried to come up
+with us. As we did not know, except in a general way, where we were
+making for, the meeting was a fortunate event.
+
+Our camping site had been close to the divide made by one of the long,
+wooded ridges sent off by Buckskin Mountain, and soon we were
+descending again. We rode half a mile down a timbered slope, and then
+out into a beautiful, flat forest of gigantic pines. Clarke informed us
+it was a level bench some ten miles long, running out from the slopes
+of Buckskin to face the Grand Cañon on the south, and the 'breaks of
+the Siwash on the west. For two hours we rode between the stately lines
+of trees, and the hoofs of the horses gave forth no sound. A long,
+silvery grass, sprinkled with smiling bluebells, covered the ground,
+except close under the pines, where soft red mats invited lounging and
+rest. We saw numerous deer, great gray mule deer, almost as large as
+elk. Jones said they had been crossed with elk once, which accounted
+for their size. I did not see a stump, or a burned tree, or a windfall
+during the ride.
+
+Clarke led us to the rim of the cañon. Without any preparation—for
+the giant trees hid the open sky—we rode right out to the edge of the
+tremendous chasm. At first I did not seem to think; my faculties were
+benumbed; only the pure sensorial instinct of the savage who sees, but
+does not feel, made me take note of the abyss. Not one of our party had
+ever seen the cañon from this side, and not one of us said a word. But
+Clarke kept talking.
+
+"Wild place this is hyar," he said. "Seldom any one but horse wranglers
+gits over this far. I've hed a bunch of wild pintos down in a cañon
+below fer two years. I reckon you can't find no better place fer camp
+than right hyar. Listen. Do you hear thet rumble? Thet's Thunder Falls.
+You can only see it from one place, an' thet far off, but thar's brooks
+you can git at to water the hosses. Fer thet matter, you can ride up
+the slopes an' git snow. If you can git snow close, it'd be better, fer
+thet's an all-fired bad trail down fer water."
+
+"Is this the cougar country the Stewarts talked about?" asked Jones.
+
+"Reckon it is. Cougars is as thick in hyar as rabbits in a spring-hole
+cañon. I'm on the way now to bring up my pintos. The cougars hev cost
+me hundreds I might say thousands of dollars. I lose hosses all the
+time; an' damn me, gentlemen, I've never raised a colt. This is the
+greatest cougar country in the West. Look at those yellow crags! Thar's
+where the cougars stay. No one ever hunted 'em. It seems to me they
+can't be hunted. Deer and wild hosses by the thousand browse hyar on
+the mountain in summer, an' down in the breaks in winter. The cougars
+live fat. You'll find deer and wild-hoss carcasses all over this
+country. You'll find lions' dens full of bones. You'll find warm deer
+left for the coyotes. But whether you'll find the cougars, I can't say.
+I fetched dogs in hyar, an' tried to ketch Old Tom. I've put them on
+his trail an' never saw hide nor hair of them again. Jones, it's no
+easy huntin' hyar."
+
+"Well, I can see that," replied our leader. "I never hunted lions in
+such a country, and never knew any one who had. We'll have to learn
+how. We've the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us."
+
+"I hope you fellars git some cougars, an' I believe you will. Whatever
+you do, kill Old Tom."
+
+"We'll catch him alive. We're not on a hunt to kill cougars," said
+Jones.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones to us. His rugged face
+wore a half-smile.
+
+"Jones ropes cougars, an' ties them up," replied Frank.
+
+"I'm — — if he'll ever rope Old Tom," burst out Clarke, ejecting a
+huge quid of tobacco. "Why, man alive! it'd be the death of you to git
+near thet old villain. I never seen him, but I've seen his tracks fer
+five years. They're larger than any hoss tracks you ever seen. He'll
+weigh over three hundred, thet old cougar. Hyar, take a look at my
+man's hoss. Look at his back. See them marks? Wal, Old Tom made them,
+an' he made them right in camp last fall, when we were down in the
+cañon."
+
+The mustang to which Clarke called our attention was a sleek cream and
+white pinto. Upon his side and back were long regular scars, some an
+inch wide, and bare of hair.
+
+"How on earth did he get rid of the cougar?" asked Jones.
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps he got scared of the dogs. It took thet pinto a
+year to git well. Old Tom is a real lion. He'll kill a full-grown hoss
+when he wants, but a yearlin' colt is his especial likin'. You're sure
+to run acrost his trail, an' you'll never miss it. Wal, if I find any
+cougar sign down in the cañon, I'll build two fires so as to let you
+know. Though no hunter, I'm tolerably acquainted with the varmints. The
+deer an' hosses are rangin' the forest slopes now, an' I think the
+cougars come up over the rim rock at night an' go back in the mornin'.
+Anyway, if your dogs can follow the trails, you've got sport, an'
+more'n sport comin' to you. But take it from me—don't try to rope Old
+Tom."
+
+After all our disappointments in the beginning of the expedition, our
+hardship on the desert, our trials with the dogs and horses, it was
+real pleasure to make permanent camp with wood, water and feed at hand,
+a soul-stirring, ever-changing picture before us, and the certainty
+that we were in the wild lairs of the lions—among the Lords of the
+Crags!
+
+While we were unpacking, every now and then I would straighten up and
+gaze out beyond. I knew the outlook was magnificent and sublime beyond
+words, but as yet I had not begun to understand it. The great pine
+trees, growing to the very edge of the rim, received their full quota
+of appreciation from me, as did the smooth, flower-decked aisles
+leading back into the forest.
+
+The location we selected for camp was a large glade, fifty paces or
+more from the precipice—far enough, the cowboys averred, to keep our
+traps from being sucked down by some of the whirlpool winds, native to
+the spot. In the center of this glade stood a huge gnarled and blasted
+old pine, that certainly by virtue of hoary locks and bent shoulders
+had earned the right to stand aloof from his younger companions. Under
+this tree we placed all our belongings, and then, as Frank so
+felicitously expressed it, we were free to "ooze round an' see things."
+
+I believe I had a sort of subconscious, selfish idea that some one
+would steal the cañon away from me if I did not hurry to make it mine
+forever; so I sneaked off, and sat under a pine growing on the very
+rim. At first glance, I saw below me, seemingly miles away, a wild
+chaos of red and buff mesas rising out of dark purple clefts. Beyond
+these reared a long, irregular tableland, running south almost to the
+extent of my vision, which I remembered Clarke had called Powell's
+Plateau. I remembered, also, that he had said it was twenty miles
+distant, was almost that many miles long, was connected to the mainland
+of Buckskin Mountain by a very narrow wooded dip of land called the
+Saddle, and that it practically shut us out of a view of the Grand
+Cañon proper. If that was true, what, then, could be the name of the
+cañon at my feet? Suddenly, as my gaze wandered from point to point,
+it was attested by a dark, conical mountain, white-tipped, which rose
+in the notch of the Saddle. What could it mean? Were there such things
+as cañon mirages? Then the dim purple of its color told of its great
+distance from me; and then its familiar shape told I had come into my
+own again—I had found my old friend once more. For in all that plateau
+there was only one snow-capped mountain—the San Francisco Peak; and
+there, a hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred miles away, far beyond
+the Grand Cañon, it smiled brightly at me, as it had for days and days
+across the desert.
+
+Hearing Jones yelling for somebody or everybody, I jumped up to find a
+procession heading for a point farther down the rim wall, where our
+leader stood waving his arms. The excitement proved to have been caused
+by cougar signs at the head of the trail where Clarke had started down.
+
+"They're here, boys, they're here," Jones kept repeating, as he showed
+us different tracks. "This sign is not so old. Boys, to-morrow we'll
+get up a lion, sure as you're born. And if we do, and Sounder sees him,
+then we've got a lion-dog! I'm afraid of Don. He has a fine nose; he
+can run and fight, but he's been trained to deer, and maybe I can't
+break him. Moze is still uncertain. If old Jude only hadn't been lamed!
+She would be the best of the lot. But Sounder is our hope. I'm almost
+ready to swear by him."
+
+All this was too much for me, so I slipped off again to be alone, and
+this time headed for the forest. Warm patches of sunlight, like gold,
+brightened the ground; dark patches of sky, like ocean blue, gleamed
+between the treetops. Hardly a rustle of wind in the fine-toothed green
+branches disturbed the quiet. When I got fully out of sight of camp, I
+started to run as if I were a wild Indian. My running had no aim; just
+sheer mad joy of the grand old forest, the smell of pine, the wild
+silence and beauty loosed the spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran
+with it till the physical being failed.
+
+While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, endeavoring to regain
+control over a truant mind, trying to subdue the encroaching of the
+natural man on the civilized man, I saw gray objects moving under the
+trees. I lost them, then saw them, and presently so plainly that, with
+delight on delight, I counted seventeen deer pass through an open arch
+of dark green. Rising to my feet, I ran to get round a low mound. They
+saw me and bounded away with prodigiously long leaps. Bringing their
+forefeet together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, like
+rubber balls, yet they were graceful.
+
+The forest was so open that I could watch them for a long way; and as I
+circled with my gaze, a glimpse of something white arrested my
+attention. A light, grayish animal appeared to be tearing at an old
+stump. Upon nearer view, I recognized a wolf, and he scented or sighted
+me at the same moment, and loped off into the shadows of the trees.
+Approaching the spot where I had marked him I found he had been feeding
+from the carcass of a horse. The remains had been only partly eaten,
+and were of an animal of the mustang build that had evidently been
+recently killed. Frightful lacerations under the throat showed where a
+lion had taken fatal hold. Deep furrows in the ground proved how the
+mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken himself. I traced roughly
+defined tracks fifty paces to the lee of a little bank, from which I
+concluded the lion had sprung.
+
+I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the forest dark, silent,
+peopled by none but its savage denizens, The lion crept like a shadow,
+crouched noiselessly down, then leaped on his sleeping or browsing
+prey. The lonely night stillness split to a frantic snort and scream of
+terror, and the stricken mustang with his mortal enemy upon his back,
+dashed off with fierce, wild love of life. As he went he felt his foe
+crawl toward his neck on claws of fire; he saw the tawny body and the
+gleaming eyes; then the cruel teeth snapped with the sudden bite, and
+the woodland tragedy ended.
+
+On the spot I conceived an antipathy toward lions. It was born of the
+frightful spectacle of what had once been a glossy, prancing mustang,
+of the mute, sickening proof of the survival of the fittest, of the law
+that levels life.
+
+Upon telling my camp-fellows about my discovery, Jones and Wallace
+walked out to see it, while Jim told me the wolf I had seen was a
+"lofer," one of the giant buffalo wolves of Buckskin; and if I would
+watch the carcass in the mornings and evenings, I would "shore as hell
+get a plunk at him."
+
+White pine burned in a beautiful, clear blue flame, with no smoke; and
+in the center of the campfire left a golden heart. But Jones would not
+have any sitting up, and hustled us off to bed, saying we would be
+"blamed" glad of it in about fifteen hours. I crawled into my
+sleeping-bag, made a hood of my Navajo blanket, and peeping from under
+it, watched the fire and the flickering shadows. The blaze burned down
+rapidly. Then the stars blinked. Arizona stars would be moons in any
+other State! How serene, peaceful, august, infinite and wonderfully
+bright! No breeze stirred the pines. The clear tinkle of the cowbells
+on the hobbled horses rang from near and distant parts of the forest.
+The prosaic bell of the meadow and the pasture brook, here, in this
+environment, jingled out different notes, as clear, sweet, musical as
+silver bells.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12.
+
+OLD TOM
+
+At daybreak our leader routed us out. The frost mantled the ground so
+heavily that it looked like snow, and the rare atmosphere bit like the
+breath of winter. The forest stood solemn and gray; the cañon lay
+wrapped in vapory slumber.
+
+Hot biscuits and coffee, with a chop or two of the delicious Persian
+lamb meat, put a less Spartan tinge on the morning, and gave Wallace
+and me more strength—we needed not incentive to leave the fire, hustle
+our saddles on the horses and get in line with our impatient leader.
+The hounds scampered over the frost, shoving their noses at the tufts
+of grass and bluebells. Lawson and Jim remained in camp; the rest of us
+trooped southwest.
+
+A mile or so in that direction, the forest of pine ended abruptly, and
+a wide belt of low, scrubby old trees, breast high to a horse, fringed
+the rim of the cañon and appeared to broaden out and grow wavy
+southward. The edge of the forest was as dark and regular as if a band
+of woodchoppers had trimmed it. We threaded our way through this
+thicket, all peering into the bisecting deer trails for cougar tracks
+in the dust.
+
+"Bring the dogs! Hurry!" suddenly called Jones from a thicket.
+
+We lost no time complying, and found him standing in a trail, with his
+eyes on the sand. "Take a look, boys. A good-sized male cougar passed
+here last night. Hyar, Sounder, Don, Moze, come on!"
+
+It was a nervous, excited pack of hounds. Old Jude got to Jones first,
+and she sang out; then Sounder opened with his ringing bay, and before
+Jones could mount, a string of yelping dogs sailed straight for the
+forest.
+
+"Ooze along, boys!" yelled Frank, wheeling Spot.
+
+With the cowboy leading, we strung into the pines, and I found myself
+behind. Presently even Wallace disappeared. I almost threw the reins at
+Satan, and yelled for him to go. The result enlightened me. Like an
+arrow from a bow, the black shot forward. Frank had told me of his
+speed, that when he found his stride it was like riding a flying
+feather to be on him. Jones, fearing he would kill me, had cautioned me
+always to hold him in, which I had done. Satan stretched out with long
+graceful motions; he did not turn aside for logs, but cleared them with
+easy and powerful spring, and he swerved only slightly to the trees.
+This latter, I saw at once, made the danger for me. It became a matter
+of saving my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of this
+came to me with convincing force. I dodged a branch on one tree, only
+to be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If the
+snag had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, and I would
+have been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition to the risks
+of the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then falling flat over the
+pommel to avoid a limb that would have brushed me off, and hugging the
+flanks of my horse with my knees. Soon I was at Wallace's heels, and
+had Jones in sight. Now and then glimpses of Frank's white horse
+gleamed through the trees.
+
+We began to circle toward the south, to go up and down shallow hollows,
+to find the pines thinning out; then we shot out of the forest into the
+scrubby oak. Riding through this brush was the cruelest kind of work,
+but Satan kept on close to the sorrel. The hollows began to get deeper,
+and the ridges between them narrower. No longer could we keep a
+straight course.
+
+On the crest of one of the ridges we found Jones awaiting us. Jude,
+Tige and Don lay panting at his feet. Plainly the Colonel appeared
+vexed.
+
+"Listen," he said, when we reined in.
+
+We complied, but did not hear a sound.
+
+"Frank's beyond there some place," continued Jones, "but I can't see
+him, nor hear the hounds anymore. Don and Tige split again on deer
+trails. Old Jude hung on the lion track, but I stopped her here.
+There's something I can't figure. Moze held a beeline southwest, and he
+yelled seldom. Sounder gradually stopped baying. Maybe Frank can tell
+us something."
+
+Jones's long drawn-out signal was answered from the direction he
+expected, and after a little time, Frank's white horse shone out of the
+gray-green of a ledge a mile away.
+
+This drew my attention to our position. We were on a high ridge out in
+the open, and I could see fifty miles of the shaggy slopes of Buckskin.
+Southward the gray, ragged line seemed to stop suddenly, and beyond it
+purple haze hung over a void I knew to be the cañon. And facing west,
+I came, at last, to understand perfectly the meaning of the breaks in
+the Siwash. They were nothing more than ravines that headed up on the
+slopes and ran down, getting steeper and steeper, though scarcely
+wider, to break into the cañon. Knife-crested ridges rolled westward,
+wave on wave, like the billows of a sea. I appreciated that these
+breaks were, at their sources, little washes easy to jump across, and
+at their mouths a mile deep and impassable. Huge pine trees shaded
+these gullies, to give way to the gray growth of stunted oak, which in
+turn merged into the dark green of pinyon. A wonderful country for deer
+and lions, it seemed to me, but impassable, all but impossible for a
+hunter.
+
+Frank soon appeared, brushing through the bending oaks, and Sounder
+trotted along behind him.
+
+"Where's Moze?" inquired Jones.
+
+"The last I heard of Moze he was out of the brush, goin' across the
+pinyon flat, right for the cañon. He had a hot trail."
+
+"Well, we're certain of one thing; if it was a deer, he won't come back
+soon, and if it was a lion, he'll tree it, lose the scent, and come
+back. We've got to show the hounds a lion in a tree. They'd run a hot
+trail, bump into a tree, and then be at fault. What was wrong with
+Sounder?"
+
+"I don't know. He came back to me."
+
+"We can't trust him, or any of them yet. Still, maybe they're doing
+better than we know."
+
+The outcome of the chase, so favorably started was a disappointment,
+which we all felt keenly. After some discussion, we turned south,
+intending to ride down to the rim wall and follow it back to camp. I
+happened to turn once, perhaps to look again at the far-distant pink
+cliffs of Utah, or the wave-like dome of Trumbull Mountain, when I saw
+Moze trailing close behind me. My yell halted the Colonel.
+
+"Well, I'll be darned!" ejaculated he, as Moze hove in sight. "Come
+hyar, you rascal!"
+
+He was a tired dog, but had no sheepish air about him, such as he had
+worn when lagging in from deer chases. He wagged his tail, and flopped
+down to pant and pant, as if to say: "What's wrong with you guys?"
+
+"Boys, for two cents I'd go back and put Jude on that trail. It's just
+possible that Moze treed a lion. But—well, I expect there's more
+likelihood of his chasing the lion over the rim; so we may as well keep
+on. The strange thing is that Sounder wasn't with Moze. There may have
+been two lions. You see we are up a tree ourselves. I have known lions
+to run in pairs, and also a mother keep four two-year-olds with her.
+But such cases are rare. Here, in this country, though, maybe they run
+round and have parties."
+
+As we left the breaks behind we got out upon a level pinyon flat. A few
+cedars grew with the pinyons. Deer runways and trails were thick.
+
+"Boys, look at that," said Jones. "This is great lion country, the best
+I ever saw."
+
+He pointed to the sunken, red, shapeless remain of two horses, and near
+them a ghastly scattering of bleached bones. "A lion-lair right here on
+the flat. Those two horses were killed early this spring, and I see no
+signs of their carcasses having been covered with brush and dirt. I've
+got to learn lion lore over again, that's certain."
+
+As we paused at the head of a depression, which appeared to be a gap
+in the rim wall, filled with massed pinyons and splintered piles of
+yellow stone, I caught Sounder going through some interesting moves. He
+stopped to smell a bush. Then he lifted his head, and electrified me
+with a great, deep sounding bay.
+
+"Hi! there, listen to that!" yelled Jones "What's Sounder got? Give him
+room—don't run him down. Easy now, old dog, easy, easy!"
+
+Sounder suddenly broke down a trail. Moze howled, Don barked, and Tige
+let out his staccato yelp. They ran through the brush here, there,
+everywhere. Then all at once old Jude chimed in with her mellow voice,
+and Jones tumbled off his horse.
+
+"By the Lord Harry! There's something here."
+
+"Here, Colonel, here's the bush Sounder smelt and there's a sandy trail
+under it," I called.
+
+"There go Don an' Tige down into the break!" cried Frank. "They've got
+a hot scent!"
+
+Jones stooped over the place I designated, to jerk up with reddening
+face, and as he flung himself into the saddle roared out: "After
+Sounder! Old Tom! Old Tom! Old Tom!"
+
+We all heard Sounder, and at the moment of Jones's discovery, Moze got
+the scent and plunged ahead of us.
+
+"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" yelled the Colonel. Frank sent Spot forward like a
+white streak. Sounder called to us in irresistible bays, which Moze
+answered, and then crippled Jude bayed in baffled impotent distress.
+
+The atmosphere was charged with that lion. As if by magic, the
+excitation communicated itself to all, and men, horses and dogs acted
+in accord. The ride through the forest had been a jaunt. This was a
+steeplechase, a mad, heedless, perilous, glorious race. And we had for
+a pacemaker a cowboy mounted on a tireless mustang.
+
+Always it seemed to me, while the wind rushed, the brush whipped, I saw
+Frank far ahead, sitting his saddle as if glued there, holding his
+reins loosely forward. To see him ride so was a beautiful sight. Jones
+let out his Comanche yell at every dozen jumps and Wallace sent back a
+thrilling "Waa-hoo-o!" In the excitement I had again checked my horse,
+and when Jones remembered, and loosed the bridle, how the noble animal
+responded! The pace he settled into dazed me; I could hardly
+distinguish the deer trail down which he was thundering. I lost my
+comrades ahead; the pinyons blurred in my sight; I only faintly heard
+the hounds. It occurred to me we were making for the breaks, but I did
+not think of checking Satan. I thought only of flying on faster and
+faster.
+
+"On! On! old fellow! Stretch out! Never lose this race! We've got to be
+there at the finish!" I called to Satan, and he seemed to understand
+and stretched lower, farther, quicker.
+
+The brush pounded my legs and clutched and tore my clothes; the wind
+whistled; the pinyon branches cut and whipped my face. Once I dodged to
+the left, as Satan swerved to the right, with the result that I flew
+out of the saddle, and crashed into a pinyon tree, which marvelously
+brushed me back into the saddle. The wild yells and deep bays sounded
+nearer. Satan tripped and plunged down, throwing me as gracefully as an
+aerial tumbler wings his flight. I alighted in a bush, without feeling
+of scratch or pain. As Satan recovered and ran past, I did not seek to
+make him stop, but getting a good grip on the pommel, I vaulted up
+again. Once more he raced like a wild mustang. And from nearer and
+nearer in front pealed the alluring sounds of the chase.
+
+Satan was creeping close to Wallace and Jones, with Frank looming white
+through the occasional pinyons. Then all dropped out of sight, to
+appear again suddenly. They had reached the first break. Soon I was
+upon it. Two deer ran out of the ravine, almost brushing my horse in
+the haste. Satan went down and up in a few giant strides. Only the
+narrow ridge separated us from another break. It was up and down then
+for Satan, a work to which he manfully set himself. Occasionally I saw
+Wallace and Jones, but heard them oftener. All the time the breaks grew
+deeper, till finally Satan had to zigzag his way down and up.
+Discouragement fastened on me, when from the summit of the next ridge I
+saw Frank far down the break, with Jones and Wallace not a quarter of a
+mile away from him. I sent out a long, exultant yell as Satan crashed
+into the hard, dry wash in the bottom of the break.
+
+I knew from the way he quickened under me that he intended to overhaul
+somebody. Perhaps because of the clear going, or because my frenzy had
+cooled to a thrilling excitement which permitted detail, I saw clearly
+and distinctly the speeding horsemen down the ravine. I picked out the
+smooth pieces of ground ahead, and with the slightest touch of the rein
+on his neck, guided Satan into them. How he ran! The light, quick beats
+of his hoofs were regular, pounding. Seeing Jones and Wallace sail high
+into the air, I knew they had jumped a ditch. Thus prepared, I managed
+to stick on when it yawned before me; and Satan, never slackening,
+leaped up and up, giving me a new swing.
+
+Dust began to settle in little clouds before me; Frank, far ahead, had
+turned his mustang up the side of the break; Wallace, within hailing
+distance, now turned to wave me a hand. The rushing wind fairly sang in
+my ears; the walls of the break were confused blurs of yellow and
+green; at every stride Satan seemed to swallow a rod of the white trail.
+
+Jones began to scale the ravine, heading up obliquely far on the side
+of where Frank had vanished, and as Wallace followed suit, I turned
+Satan. I caught Wallace at the summit, and we raced together out upon
+another flat of pinyon. We heard Frank and Jones yelling in a way that
+caused us to spur our horses frantically. Spot, gleaming white near a
+clump of green pinyons, was our guiding star. That last quarter of a
+mile was a ringing run, a ride to remember.
+
+As our mounts crashed back with stiff forelegs and haunches, Wallace
+and I leaped off and darted into the clump of pinyons, whence issued a
+hair-raising medley of yells and barks. I saw Jones, then Frank, both
+waving their arms, then Moze and Sounder running wildly, airlessly
+about.
+
+"Look there!" rang in my ear, and Jones smashed me on the back with a
+blow, which at any ordinary time would have laid me flat.
+
+In a low, stubby pinyon tree, scarce twenty feet from us, was a tawny
+form. An enormous mountain lion, as large as an African lioness, stood
+planted with huge, round legs on two branches; and he faced us
+gloomily, neither frightened nor fierce. He watched the running dogs
+with pale, yellow eyes, waved his massive head and switched a long,
+black tufted tail.
+
+"It's Old Tom! sure as you're born! It's Old Tom!" yelled Jones.
+"There's no two lions like that in one country. Hold still now. Jude is
+here, and she'll see him, she'll show him to the other hounds. Hold
+still!"
+
+We heard Jude coming at a fast pace for a lame dog, and we saw her
+presently, running with her nose down for a moment, then up. She
+entered the clump of trees, and bumped her nose against the pinyon Old
+Tom was in, and looked up like a dog that knew her business. The series
+of wild howls she broke into quickly brought Sounder and Moze to her
+side. They, too, saw the big lion, not fifteen feet over their heads.
+
+We were all yelling and trying to talk at once, in some such state as
+the dogs.
+
+"Hyar, Moze! Come down out of that!" hoarsely shouted Jones.
+
+Moze had begun to climb the thick, many-branched, low pinyon tree. He
+paid not the slightest attention to Jones, who screamed and raged at
+him.
+
+"Cover the lion!" cried he to me. "Don't shoot unless he crouches to
+jump on me."
+
+The little beaded front-sight wavered slightly as I held my rifle
+leveled at the grim, snarling face, and out of the corner of my eye, as
+it were, I saw Jones dash in under the lion and grasp Moze by the hind
+leg and haul him down. He broke from Jones and leaped again to the
+first low branch. His master then grasped his collar and carried him to
+where we stood and held him choking.
+
+"Boys, we can't keep Tom up there. When he jumps, keep out of his way.
+Maybe we can chase him up a better tree."
+
+Old Tom suddenly left the branches, swinging violently; and hitting the
+ground like a huge cat on springs, he bounded off, tail up, in a most
+ludicrous manner. His running, however, did not lack speed, for he
+quickly outdistanced the bursting hounds.
+
+A stampede for horses succeeded this move. I had difficulty in closing
+my camera, which I had forgotten until the last moment, and got behind
+the others. Satan sent the dust flying and the pinyon branches
+crashing. Hardly had I time to bewail my ill-luck in being left, when I
+dashed out of a thick growth of trees to come upon my companions, all
+dismounted on the rim of the Grand Cañon.
+
+"He's gone down! He's gone down!" raged Jones, stamping the ground.
+"What luck! What miserable luck! But don't quit; spread along the rim,
+boys, and look for him. Cougars can't fly. There's a break in the rim
+somewhere."
+
+The rock wall, on which we dizzily stood, dropped straight down for a
+thousand feet, to meet a long, pinyon-covered slope, which graded a
+mile to cut off into what must have been the second wall. We were far
+west of Clarke's trail now, and faced a point above where Kanab Cañon,
+a red gorge a mile deep, met the great cañon. As I ran along the rim,
+looking for a fissure or break, my gaze seemed impellingly drawn by the
+immensity of this thing I could not name, and for which I had as yet no
+intelligible emotion.
+
+Two "Waa-hoos" in the rear turned me back in double-quick time, and
+hastening by the horses, I found the three men grouped at the head of a
+narrow break.
+
+"He went down here. Wallace saw him round the base of that tottering
+crag."
+
+The break was wedge-shaped, with the sharp end off toward the rim, and
+it descended so rapidly as to appear almost perpendicular. It was a
+long, steep slide of small, weathered shale, and a place that no man in
+his right senses would ever have considered going down. But Jones,
+designating Frank and me, said in his cool, quick voice:
+
+"You fellows go down. Take Jude and Sounder in leash. If you find his
+trail below along the wall, yell for us. Meanwhile, Wallace and I will
+hang over the rim and watch for him."
+
+Going down, in one sense, was much easier than had appeared, for the
+reason that once started we moved on sliding beds of weathered stone.
+Each of us now had an avalanche for a steed. Frank forged ahead with a
+roar, and then seeing danger below, tried to get out of the mass. But
+the stones were like quicksand; every step he took sunk him in deeper.
+He grasped the smooth cliff, to find holding impossible. The slide
+poured over a fall like so much water. He reached and caught a branch
+of a pinyon, and lifting his feet up, hung on till the treacherous area
+of moving stones had passed.
+
+While I had been absorbed in his predicament, my avalanche augmented
+itself by slide on slide, perhaps loosened by his; and before I knew
+it, I was sailing down with ever-increasing momentum. The sensation was
+distinctly pleasant, and a certain spirit, before restrained in me, at
+last ran riot. The slide narrowed at the drop where Frank had jumped,
+and the stones poured over in a stream. I jumped also, but having a
+rifle in one hand, failed to hold, and plunged down into the slide
+again. My feet were held this time, as in a vise. I kept myself upright
+and waited. Fortunately, the jumble of loose stone slowed and stopped,
+enabling me to crawl over to one side where there was comparatively
+good footing. Below us, for fifty yards was a sheet of rough stone, as
+bare as washed granite well could be. We slid down this in regular
+schoolboy fashion, and had reached another restricted neck in the
+fissure, when a sliding crash above warned us that the avalanches had
+decided to move of their own free will. Only a fraction of a moment had
+we to find footing along the yellow cliff, when, with a cracking roar,
+the mass struck the slippery granite. If we had been on that slope, our
+lives would not have been worth a grain of the dust flying in clouds
+above us. Huge stones, that had formed the bottom of the slides, shot
+ahead, and rolling, leaping, whizzed by us with frightful velocity, and
+the remainder groaned and growled its way down, to thunder over the
+second fall and die out in a distant rumble.
+
+The hounds had hung back, and were not easily coaxed down to us. From
+there on, down to the base of the gigantic cliff, we descended with
+little difficulty.
+
+"We might meet the old gray cat anywheres along here," said Frank.
+
+The wall of yellow limestone had shelves, ledges, fissures and cracks,
+any one of which might have concealed a lion. On these places I turned
+dark, uneasy glances. It seemed to me events succeeded one another so
+rapidly that I had no time to think, to examine, to prepare. We were
+rushed from one sensation to another.
+
+"Gee! look here," said Frank; "here's his tracks. Did you ever see the
+like of that?"
+
+Certainly I had never fixed my eyes on such enormous cat-tracks as
+appeared in the yellow dust at the base of the rim wall. The mere sight
+of them was sufficient to make a man tremble.
+
+"Hold in the dogs, Frank," I called. "Listen. I think I heard a yell."
+
+From far above came a yell, which, though thinned out by distance, was
+easily recognized as Jones's. We returned to the opening of the break,
+and throwing our heads back, looked up the slide to see him coming down.
+
+"Wait for me! Wait for me! I saw the lion go in a cave. Wait for me!"
+
+With the same roar and crack and slide of rocks as had attended our
+descent, Jones bore down on us. For an old man it was a marvelous
+performance. He walked on the avalanches as though he wore seven-league
+boots, and presently, as we began to dodge whizzing bowlders, he
+stepped down to us, whirling his coiled lasso. His jaw bulged out; a
+flash made fire in his cold eyes.
+
+"Boys, we've got Old Tom in a corner. I worked along the rim north and
+looked over every place I could. Now, maybe you won't believe it, but I
+heard him pant. Yes, sir, he panted like the tired lion he is. Well,
+presently I saw him lying along the base of the rim wall. His tongue
+was hanging out. You see, he's a heavy lion, and not used to running
+long distances. Come on, now. It's not far. Hold in the dogs. You there
+with the rifle, lead off, and keep your eyes peeled."
+
+Single file, we passed along in the shadow of the great cliff. A wide
+trail had been worn in the dust.
+
+"A lion run-way," said Jones. "Don't you smell the cat?"
+
+Indeed, the strong odor of cat was very pronounced; and that, without
+the big fresh tracks, made the skin on my face tighten and chill. As we
+turned a jutting point in the wall, a number of animals, which I did
+not recognize, plunged helter-skelter down the cañon slope.
+
+"Rocky Mountain sheep!" exclaimed Jones. "Look! Well, this is a
+discovery. I never heard of a bighorn in the Cañon."
+
+It was indicative of the strong grip Old Tom had on us that we at once
+forgot the remarkable fact of coming upon those rare sheep in such a
+place.
+
+Jones halted us presently before a deep curve described by the rim
+wall, the extreme end of which terminated across the slope in an
+impassable projecting corner.
+
+"See across there, boys. See that black hole. Old Tom's in there."
+
+"What's your plan?" queried the cowboy sharply.
+
+"Wait. We'll slip up to get better lay of the land."
+
+We worked our way noiselessly along the rim-wall curve for several
+hundred yards and came to a halt again, this time with a splendid
+command of the situation. The trail ended abruptly at the dark cave, so
+menacingly staring at us, and the corner of the cliff had curled back
+upon itself. It was a box-trap, with a drop at the end, too great for
+any beast, a narrow slide of weathered stone running down, and the rim
+wall trail. Old Tom would plainly be compelled to choose one of these
+directions if he left his cave.
+
+"Frank, you and I will keep to the wall and stop near that scrub
+pinyon, this side of the hole. If I rope him, I can use that tree."
+
+Then he turned to me:
+
+"Are you to be depended on here?"
+
+"I? What do you want me to do?" I demanded, and my whole breast seemed
+to sink in.
+
+"You cut across the head of this slope and take up your position in the
+slide below the cave, say just by that big stone. From there you can
+command the cave, our position and your own. Now, if it is necessary to
+kill this lion to save me or Frank, or, of course, yourself, can you be
+depended upon to kill him?"
+
+I felt a queer sensation around my heart and a strange tightening of
+the skin upon my face! What a position for me to be placed in! For one
+instant I shook like a quivering aspen leaf. Then because of the pride
+of a man, or perhaps inherited instincts cropping out at this perilous
+moment, I looked up and answered quietly:
+
+"Yes. I will kill him!"
+
+"Old Tom is cornered, and he'll come out. He can run only two ways:
+along this trail, or down that slide. I'll take my stand by the scrub
+pinyon there so I can get a hitch if I rope him. Frank, when I give the
+word, let the dogs go. Grey, you block the slide. If he makes at us,
+even if I do get my rope on him, kill him! Most likely he'll jump down
+hill—then you'll HAVE to kill him! Be quick. Now loose the hounds. Hi!
+Hi! Hi! Hi!"
+
+I jumped into the narrow slide of weathered stone and looked up.
+Jones's stentorian yell rose high above the clamor of the hounds. He
+whirled his lasso.
+
+A huge yellow form shot over the trail and hit the top of the slide
+with a crash. The lasso streaked out with arrowy swiftness, circled,
+and snapped viciously close to Old Tom's head. "Kill him! Kill him!"
+roared Jones. Then the lion leaped, seemingly into the air above me.
+Instinctively I raised my little automatic rifle. I seemed to hear a
+million bellowing reports. The tawny body, with its grim, snarling
+face, blurred in my sight. I heard a roar of sliding stones at my feet.
+I felt a rush of wind. I caught a confused glimpse of a whirling wheel
+of fur, rolling down the slide.
+
+Then Jones and Frank were pounding me, and yelling I know not what.
+From far above came floating down a long "Waa-hoo!" I saw Wallace
+silhouetted against the blue sky. I felt the hot barrel of my rifle,
+and shuddered at the bloody stones below me—then, and then only, did I
+realize, with weakening legs, that Old Tom had jumped at me, and had
+jumped to his death.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13.
+
+SINGING CLIFFS
+
+Old Tom had rolled two hundred yards down the cañon, leaving a red
+trail and bits of fur behind him. When I had clambered down to the
+steep slide where he had lodged, Sounder and Jude had just decided he
+was no longer worth biting, and were wagging their tails. Frank was
+shaking his head, and Jones, standing above the lion, lasso in hand,
+wore a disconsolate face.
+
+"How I wish I had got the rope on him!"
+
+"I reckon we'd be gatherin' up the pieces of you if you had," said
+Frank, dryly.
+
+We skinned the old king on the rocky slope of his mighty throne, and
+then, beginning to feel the effects of severe exertion, we cut across
+the slope for the foot of the break. Once there, we gazed up in
+disarray. That break resembled a walk of life—how easy to slip down,
+how hard to climb! Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil,
+began to swear and wipe his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of
+the ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to mention the danger
+of it, to work a few feet up a slide, and then feel it start to move.
+We had to climb in single file, which jeopardized the safety of those
+behind the leader. Sometimes we were all sliding at once, like boys on
+a pond, with the difference that we were in danger. Frank forged ahead,
+turning to yell now and then for us to dodge a cracking stone. Faithful
+old Jude could not get up in some places, so laying aside my rifle, I
+carried her, and returned for the weapon. It became necessary,
+presently, to hide behind cliff projections to escape the avalanches
+started by Frank, and to wait till he had surmounted the break. Jones
+gave out completely several times, saying the exertion affected his
+heart. What with my rifle, my camera and Jude, I could offer him no
+assistance, and was really in need of that myself. When it seemed as if
+one more step would kill us, we reached the rim, and fell panting with
+labored chests and dripping skins. We could not speak. Jones had worn a
+pair of ordinary shoes without thick soles and nails, and it seemed
+well to speak of them in the past tense. They were split into ribbons
+and hung on by the laces. His feet were cut and bruised.
+
+On the way back to camp, we encountered Moze and Don coming out of the
+break where we had started Sounder on the trail. The paws of both
+hounds were yellow with dust, which proved they had been down under the
+rim wall. Jones doubted not in the least that they had chased a lion.
+
+Upon examination, this break proved to be one of the two which Clarke
+used for trails to his wild horse corral in the cañon. According to
+him, the distance separating them was five miles by the rim wall, and
+less than half that in a straight line. Therefore, we made for the
+point of the forest where it ended abruptly in the scrub oak. We got
+into camp, a fatigued lot of men, horses and dogs. Jones appeared
+particularly happy, and his first move, after dismounting, was to
+stretch out the lion skin and measure it.
+
+"Ten feet, three inches and a half!" he sang out.
+
+"Shore it do beat hell!" exclaimed Jim in tones nearer to excitement
+than any I had ever heard him use.
+
+"Old Tom beats, by two inches, any cougar I ever saw," continued Jones.
+"He must have weighed more than three hundred. We'll set about curing
+the hide. Jim, stretch it well on a tree, and we'll take a hand in
+peeling off the fat."
+
+All of the party worked on the cougar skin that afternoon. The gristle
+at the base of the neck, where it met the shoulders, was so tough and
+thick we could not scrape it thin. Jones said this particular spot was
+so well protected because in fighting, cougars were most likely to bite
+and claw there. For that matter, the whole skin was tough, tougher than
+leather; and when it dried, it pulled all the horseshoe nails out of
+the pine tree upon which we had it stretched.
+
+About time for the sun to set, I strolled along the rim wall to look
+into the cañon. I was beginning to feel something of its character and
+had growing impressions. Dark purple smoke veiled the clefts deep down
+between the mesas. I walked along to where points of cliff ran out like
+capes and peninsulas, all seamed, cracked, wrinkled, scarred and yellow
+with age, with shattered, toppling ruins of rocks ready at a touch to
+go thundering down. I could not resist the temptation to crawl out to
+the farthest point, even though I shuddered over the yard-wide ridges;
+and when once seated on a bare promontory, two hundred feet from the
+regular rim wall, I felt isolated, marooned.
+
+The sun, a liquid red globe, had just touched its under side to the
+pink cliffs of Utah, and fired a crimson flood of light over the
+wonderful mountains, plateaus, escarpments, mesas, domes and turrets of
+the gorge. The rim wall of Powell's Plateau was a thin streak of fire;
+the timber above like grass of gold; and the long slopes below shaded
+from bright to dark. Point Sublime, bold and bare, ran out toward the
+plateau, jealously reaching for the sun. Bass's Tomb peeped over the
+Saddle. The Temple of Vishnu lay bathed in vapory shading clouds, and
+the Shinumo Altar shone with rays of glory.
+
+The beginning of the wondrous transformation, the dropping of the day's
+curtain, was for me a rare and perfect moment. As the golden splendor
+of sunset sought out a peak or mesa or escarpment, I gave it a name to
+suit my fancy; and as flushing, fading, its glory changed, sometimes I
+rechristened it. Jupiter's Chariot, brazen wheeled, stood ready to roll
+into the clouds. Semiramis's Bed, all gold, shone from a tower of
+Babylon. Castor and Pollux clasped hands over a Stygian river. The Spur
+of Doom, a mountain shaft as red as hell, and inaccessible,
+insurmountable, lured with strange light. Dusk, a bold, black dome, was
+shrouded by the shadow of a giant mesa. The Star of Bethlehem glittered
+from the brow of Point Sublime. The Wraith, fleecy, feathered curtain
+of mist, floated down among the ruins of castles and palaces, like the
+ghost of a goddess. Vales of Twilight, dim, dark ravines, mystic homes
+of specters, led into the awful Valley of the Shadow, clothed in purple
+night.
+
+Suddenly, as the first puff of the night wind fanned my cheek, a
+strange, sweet, low moaning and sighing came to my ears. I almost
+thought I was in a dream. But the cañon, now blood-red, was there in
+overwhelming reality, a profound, solemn, gloomy thing, but real. The
+wind blew stronger, and then I was listening to a sad, sweet song,
+which lulled as the wind lulled. I realized at once that the sound was
+caused by the wind blowing into the peculiar formations of the cliffs.
+It changed, softened, shaded, mellowed, but it was always sad. It rose
+from low, tremulous, sweetly quavering sighs, to a sound like the last
+woeful, despairing wail of a woman. It was the song of the sea sirens
+and the music of the waves; it had the soft sough of the night wind in
+the trees, and the haunting moan of lost spirits.
+
+With reluctance I turned my back to the gorgeously changing spectacle
+of the cañon and crawled in to the rim wall. At the narrow neck of
+stone I peered over to look down into misty blue nothingness.
+
+That night Jones told stories of frightened hunters, and assuaged my
+mortification by saying "buck-fever" was pardonable after the danger
+had passed, and especially so in my case, because of the great size and
+fame of Old Tom.
+
+"The worst case of buck-fever I ever saw was on a buffalo hunt I had
+with a fellow named Williams," went on Jones. "I was one of the scouts
+leading a wagon-train west on the old Santa Fe trail. This fellow said
+he was a big hunter, and wanted to kill buffalo, so I took him out. I
+saw a herd making over the prairie for a hollow where a brook ran, and
+by hard work, got in ahead of them. I picked out a position just below
+the edge of the bank, and we lay quiet, waiting. From the direction of
+the buffalo, I calculated we'd be just about right to get a shot at no
+very long range. As it was, I suddenly heard thumps on the ground, and
+cautiously raising my head, saw a huge buffalo bull just over us, not
+fifteen feet up the bank. I whispered to Williams: 'For God's sake,
+don't shoot, don't move!' The bull's little fiery eyes snapped, and he
+reared. I thought we were goners, for when a bull comes down on
+anything with his forefeet, it's done for. But he slowly settled back,
+perhaps doubtful. Then, as another buffalo came to the edge of the
+bank, luckily a little way from us, the bull turned broadside,
+presenting a splendid target. Then I whispered to Williams: 'Now's your
+chance. Shoot!' I waited for the shot, but none came. Looking at
+Williams, I saw he was white and trembling. Big drops of sweat stood
+out on his brow his teeth chattered, and his hands shook. He had
+forgotten he carried a rifle."
+
+"That reminds me," said Frank. "They tell a story over at Kanab on a
+Dutchman named Schmitt. He was very fond of huntin', an' I guess had
+pretty good success after deer an' small game. One winter he was out in
+the Pink Cliffs with a Mormon named Shoonover, an' they run into a
+lammin' big grizzly track, fresh an' wet. They trailed him to a clump
+of chaparral, an' on goin' clear round it, found no tracks leadin' out.
+Shoonover said Schmitt commenced to sweat. They went back to the place
+where the trail led in, an' there they were, great big silver tip
+tracks, bigger'n hoss-tracks, so fresh thet water was oozin' out of
+'em. Schmitt said: 'Zake, you go in und ged him. I hef took sick right
+now.'"
+
+Happy as we were over the chase of Old Tom, and our prospects—for
+Sounder, Jude and Moze had seen a lion in a tree—we sought our blankets
+early. I lay watching the bright stars, and listening to the roar of
+the wind in the pines. At intervals it lulled to a whisper, and then
+swelled to a roar, and then died away. Far off in the forest a coyote
+barked once. Time and time again, as I was gradually sinking into
+slumber, the sudden roar of the wind startled me. I imagined it was the
+crash of rolling, weathered stone, and I saw again that huge outspread
+flying lion above me.
+
+I awoke sometime later to find Moze had sought the warmth of my side,
+and he lay so near my arm that I reached out and covered him with an
+end of the blanket I used to break the wind. It was very cold and the
+time must have been very late, for the wind had died down, and I heard
+not a tinkle from the hobbled horses. The absence of the cowbell music
+gave me a sense of loneliness, for without it the silence of the great
+forest was a thing to be felt.
+
+This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a far-distant cry, unlike
+any sound I had ever heard. Not sure of myself, I freed my ears from
+the blanketed hood and listened. It came again, a wild cry, that made
+me think first of a lost child, and then of the mourning wolf of the
+north. It must have been a long distance off in the forest. An interval
+of some moments passed, then it pealed out again, nearer this time, and
+so human that it startled me. Moze raised his head and growled low in
+his throat and sniffed the keen air.
+
+"Jones, Jones," I called, reaching over to touch the old hunter.
+
+He awoke at once, with the clear-headedness of the light sleeper.
+
+"I heard the cry of some beast," I said, "And it was so weird, so
+strange. I want to know what it was."
+
+Such a long silence ensued that I began to despair of hearing the cry
+again, when, with a suddenness which straightened the hair on my head,
+a wailing shriek, exactly like a despairing woman might give in death
+agony, split the night silence. It seemed right on us.
+
+"Cougar! Cougar! Cougar!" exclaimed Jones.
+
+"What's up?" queried Frank, awakened by the dogs.
+
+Their howling roused the rest of the party, and no doubt scared the
+cougar, for his womanish screech was not repeated. Then Jones got up
+and gatherered his blankets in a roll.
+
+"Where you oozin' for now?" asked Frank, sleepily.
+
+"I think that cougar just came up over the rim on a scouting hunt, and
+I'm going to go down to the head of the trail and stay there till
+morning. If he returns that way, I'll put him up a tree."
+
+With this, he unchained Sounder and Don, and stalked off under the
+trees, looking like an Indian. Once the deep bay of Sounder rang out;
+Jones's sharp command followed, and then the familiar silence
+encompassed the forest and was broken no more.
+
+When I awoke all was gray, except toward the cañon, where the little
+bit of sky I saw through the pines glowed a delicate pink. I crawled
+out on the instant, got into my boots and coat, and kicked the
+smoldering fire. Jim heard me, and said:
+
+"Shore you're up early."
+
+"I'm going to see the sunrise from the north rim of the Grand Canon," I
+said, and knew when I spoke that very few men, out of all the millions
+of travelers, had ever seen this, probably the most surpassingly
+beautiful pageant in the world. At most, only a few geologists,
+scientists, perhaps an artist or two, and horse wranglers, hunters and
+prospectors have ever reached the rim on the north side; and these men,
+crossing from Bright Angel or Mystic Spring trails on the south rim,
+seldom or never get beyond Powell's Plateau.
+
+The frost cracked under my boots like frail ice, and the bluebells
+peeped wanly from the white. When I reached the head of Clarke's trail
+it was just daylight; and there, under a pine, I found Jones rolled in
+his blankets, with Sounder and Moze asleep beside him. I turned without
+disturbing him, and went along the edge of the forest, but back a
+little distance from the rim wall.
+
+I saw deer off in the woods, and tarrying, watched them throw up
+graceful heads, and look and listen. The soft pink glow through the
+pines deepened to rose, and suddenly I caught a point of red fire. Then
+I hurried to the place I had named Singing Cliffs, and keeping my eyes
+fast on the stone beneath me, trawled out to the very farthest point,
+drew a long, deep breath, and looked eastward.
+
+The awfulness of sudden death and the glory of heaven stunned me! The
+thing that had been mystery at twilight, lay clear, pure, open in the
+rosy hue of dawn. Out of the gates of the morning poured a light which
+glorified the palaces and pyramids, purged and purified the afternoon's
+inscrutable clefts, swept away the shadows of the mesas, and bathed
+that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately spars of rock,
+sculptured cathedrals and alabaster terraces in an artist's dream of
+color. A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into
+this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak,
+mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the
+new-born life of another day.
+
+I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene
+changed, yet I could not tell how. I knew I sat high over a hole of
+broken, splintered, barren mountains; I knew I could see a hundred
+miles of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width of it, and a
+mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and rays of rose light on a
+million glancing, many-hued surfaces at once; but that knowledge was no
+help to me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to myself, and
+I found words inadequate and superfluous. The spectacle was too elusive
+and too great. It was life and death, heaven and hell.
+
+I tried to call up former favorite views of mountain and sea, so as to
+compare them with this; but the memory pictures refused to come, even
+with my eyes closed. Then I returned to camp, with unsettled, troubled
+mind, and was silent, wondering at the strange feeling burning within
+me.
+
+Jones talked about our visitor of the night before, and said the trail
+near where he had slept showed only one cougar track, and that led down
+into the cañon. It had surely been made, he thought, by the beast we
+had heard. Jones signified his intention of chaining several of the
+hounds for the next few nights at the head of this trail; so if the
+cougar came up, they would scent him and let us know. From which it was
+evident that to chase a lion bound into the cañon and one bound out
+were two different things.
+
+The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on the warm, fragrant
+pine-needle beds, or mending a rent in a coat, or working on some camp
+task impossible of commission on exciting days.
+
+About four o'clock, I took my little rifle and walked off through the
+woods in the direction of the carcass where I had seen the gray wolf.
+Thinking it best to make a wide detour, so as to face the wind, I
+circled till I felt the breeze was favorable to my enterprise, and then
+cautiously approached the hollow were the dead horse lay. Indian
+fashion, I slipped from tree to tree, a mode of forest travel not
+without its fascination and effectiveness, till I reached the height of
+a knoll beyond which I made sure was my objective point. On peeping out
+from behind the last pine, I found I had calculated pretty well, for
+there was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round, starfish-shaped
+roots exposed to the bright sun, and near that, the carcass. Sure
+enough, pulling hard at it, was the gray-white wolf I recognized as my
+"lofer."
+
+But he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. Backing down the ridge,
+I ran a little way to come up behind another tree, from which I soon
+shifted to a fallen pine. Over this I peeped, to get a splendid view of
+the wolf. He had stopped tugging at the horse, and stood with his nose
+in the air. Surely he could not have scented me, for the wind was
+strong from him to me; neither could he have heard my soft footfalls on
+the pine needles; nevertheless, he was suspicious. Loth to spoil the
+picture he made, I risked a chance, and waited. Besides, though I
+prided myself on being able to take a fair aim, I had no great hope
+that I could hit him at such a distance. Presently he returned to his
+feeding, but not for long. Soon he raised his long, fine-pointed head,
+and trotted away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, then went back to
+his gruesome work.
+
+At this juncture, I noiselessly projected my rifle barrel over the log.
+I had not, however, gotten the sights in line with him, when he trotted
+away reluctantly, and ascended the knoll on his side of the hollow. I
+lost him, and had just begun sourly to call myself a mollycoddle
+hunter, when he reappeared. He halted in an open glade, on the very
+crest of the knoll, and stood still as a statue wolf, a white,
+inspiriting target, against a dark green background. I could not stifle
+a rush of feeling, for I was a lover of the beautiful first, and a
+hunter secondly; but I steadied down as the front sight moved into the
+notch through which I saw the black and white of his shoulder.
+
+Spang! How the little Remington sang! I watched closely, ready to send
+five more missiles after the gray beast. He jumped spasmodically, in a
+half-curve, high in the air, with loosely hanging head, then dropped in
+a heap. I yelled like a boy, ran down the hill, up the other side of
+the hollow, to find him stretched out dead, a small hole in his
+shoulder where the bullet had entered, a great one where it had come
+out.
+
+The job I made of skinning him lacked some hundred degrees the
+perfection of my shot, but I accomplished it, and returned to camp in
+triumph.
+
+"Shore I knowed you'd plunk him," said Jim very much pleased. "I shot
+one the other day same way, when he was feedin' off a dead horse. Now
+thet's a fine skin. Shore you cut through once or twice. But he's only
+half lofer, the other half is plain coyote. Thet accounts fer his
+feedin' on dead meat."
+
+My naturalist host and my scientific friend both remarked somewhat
+grumpily that I seemed to get the best of all the good things. I might
+have retaliated that I certainly had gotten the worst of all the bad
+jokes; but, being generously happy over my prize, merely remarked: "If
+you want fame or wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them."
+
+Five o'clock supper left a good margin of day, in which my thoughts
+reverted to the cañon. I watched the purple shadows stealing out of
+their caverns and rolling up about the base of the mesas. Jones came
+over to where I stood, and I persuaded him to walk with me along the
+rim wall. Twilight had stealthily advanced when we reached the Singing
+Cliffs, and we did not go out upon my promontory, but chose a more
+comfortable one nearer the wall.
+
+The night breeze had not sprung up yet, so the music of the cliffs was
+hushed.
+
+"You cannot accept the theory of erosion to account for this chasm?" I
+asked my companion, referring to a former conversation.
+
+"I can for this part of it. But what stumps me is the mountain range
+three thousand feet high, crossing the desert and the cañon just above
+where we crossed the river. How did the river cut through that without
+the help of a split or earthquake?"
+
+"I'll admit that is a poser to me as well as to you. But I suppose
+Wallace could explain it as erosion. He claims this whole western
+country was once under water, except the tips of the Sierra Nevada
+mountains. There came an uplift of the earth's crust, and the great
+inland sea began to run out, presumably by way of the Colorado. In so
+doing it cut out the upper cañon, this gorge eighteen miles wide. Then
+came a second uplift, giving the river a much greater impetus toward
+the sea, which cut out the second, or marble cañon. Now as to the
+mountain range crossing the cañon at right angles. It must have come
+with the second uplift. If so, did it dam the river back into another
+inland sea, and then wear down into that red perpendicular gorge we
+remember so well? Or was there a great break in the fold of granite,
+which let the river continue on its way? Or was there, at that
+particular point, a softer stone, like this limestone here, which
+erodes easily?"
+
+"You must ask somebody wiser than I."
+
+"Well, let's not perplex our minds with its origin. It is, and that's
+enough for any mind. Ah! listen! Now you will hear my Singing Cliffs."
+
+From out of the darkening shadows murmurs rose on the softly rising
+wind. This strange music had a depressing influence; but it did not
+fill the heart with sorrow, only touched it lightly. And when, with the
+dying breeze, the song died away, it left the lonely crags lonelier for
+its death.
+
+The last rosy gleam faded from the tip of Point Sublime; and as if that
+were a signal, in all the clefts and cañons below, purple, shadowy
+clouds marshaled their forces and began to sweep upon the battlements,
+to swing colossal wings into amphitheaters where gods might have
+warred, slowly to enclose the magical sentinels. Night intervened, and
+a moving, changing, silent chaos pulsated under the bright stars.
+
+"How infinite all this is! How impossible to understand!" I exclaimed.
+
+"To me it is very simple," replied my comrade. "The world is strange.
+But this cañon—why, we can see it all! I can't make out why people
+fuss so over it. I only feel peace. It's only bold and beautiful,
+serene and silent."
+
+With the words of this quiet old plainsman, my sentimental passion
+shrank to the true appreciation of the scene. Self passed out to the
+recurring, soft strains of cliff song. I had been reveling in a species
+of indulgence, imagining I was a great lover of nature, building
+poetical illusions over storm-beaten peaks. The truth, told by one who
+had lived fifty years in the solitudes, among the rugged mountains,
+under the dark trees, and by the sides of the lonely streams, was the
+simple interpretation of a spirit in harmony with the bold, the
+beautiful, the serene, the silent.
+
+He meant the Grand Cañon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise, a
+beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted away in its dust,
+yet the cañon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be humble. This
+cataclysm of the earth, this playground of a river was not inscrutable;
+it was only inevitable—as inevitable as nature herself. Millions of
+years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would
+bask silent under a rayless sun, in the onward edge of time.
+
+It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the
+strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the glory and the
+tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words were
+grand: "My spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. Man is
+little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be gone. Peace!
+Peace!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14.
+
+ALL HEROES BUT ONE
+
+As we rode up the slope of Buckskin, the sunrise glinted red-gold
+through the aisles of frosted pines, giving us a hunter's glad greeting.
+
+With all due respect to, and appreciation of, the breaks of the Siwash,
+we unanimously decided that if cougars inhabited any other section of
+cañon country, we preferred it, and were going to find it. We had
+often speculated on the appearance of the rim wall directly across the
+neck of the cañon upon which we were located. It showed a long stretch
+of breaks, fissures, caves, yellow crags, crumbled ruins and clefts
+green with pinyon pine. As a crow flies, it was only a mile or two
+straight across from camp, but to reach it, we had to ascend the
+mountain and head the cañon which deeply indented the slope.
+
+A thousand feet or more above the level bench, the character of the
+forest changed; the pines grew thicker, and interspersed among them
+were silver spruces and balsams. Here in the clumps of small trees and
+underbrush, we began to jump deer, and in a few moments a greater
+number than I had ever seen in all my hunting experiences loped within
+range of my eye. I could not look out into the forest where an aisle or
+lane or glade stretched to any distance, without seeing a big gray deer
+cross it. Jones said the herds had recently come up from the breaks,
+where they had wintered. These deer were twice the size of the Eastern
+species, and as fat as well-fed cattle. They were almost as tame, too.
+A big herd ran out of one glade, leaving behind several curious does,
+which watched us intently for a moment, then bounded off with the
+stiff, springy bounce that so amused me.
+
+Sounder crossed fresh trails one after another; Jude, Tige and Ranger
+followed him, but hesitated often, barked and whined; Don started off
+once, to come sneaking back at Jones's stern call. But surly old Moze
+either would not or could not obey, and away he dashed. Bang! Jones
+sent a charge of fine shot after him. He yelped, doubled up as if
+stung, and returned as quickly as he had gone.
+
+"Hyar, you white and black coon dog," said Jones, "get in behind, and
+stay there."
+
+We turned to the right after a while and got among shallow ravines.
+Gigantic pines grew on the ridges and in the hollows, and everywhere
+bluebells shone blue from the white frost. Why the frost did not kill
+these beautiful flowers was a mystery to me. The horses could not step
+without crushing them.
+
+Before long, the ravines became so deep that we had to zigzag up and
+down their sides, and to force our horses through the aspen thickets in
+the hollows. Once from a ridge I saw a troop of deer, and stopped to
+watch them. Twenty-seven I counted outright, but there must have been
+three times that number. I saw the herd break across a glade, and
+watched them until they were lost in the forest. My companions having
+disappeared, I pushed on, and while working out of a wide, deep hollow,
+I noticed the sunny patches fade from the bright slopes, and the golden
+streaks vanish among the pines. The sky had become overcast, and the
+forest was darkening. The "Waa-hoo," I cried out returned in echo only.
+The wind blew hard in my face, and the pines began to bend and roar. An
+immense black cloud enveloped Buckskin.
+
+Satan had carried me no farther than the next ridge, when the forest
+frowned dark as twilight, and on the wind whirled flakes of snow. Over
+the next hollow, a white pall roared through the trees toward me.
+Hardly had I time to get the direction of the trail, and its relation
+to the trees nearby, when the storm enfolded me. Of his own accord
+Satan stopped in the lee of a bushy spruce. The roar in the pines
+equaled that of the cave under Niagara, and the bewildering, whirling
+mass of snow was as difficult to see through as the tumbling, seething
+waterfall.
+
+I was confronted by the possibility of passing the night there, and
+calming my fears as best I could, hastily felt for my matches and
+knife. The prospect of being lost the next day in a white forest was
+also appalling, but I soon reassured myself that the storm was only a
+snow squall, and would not last long. Then I gave myself up to the
+pleasure and beauty of it. I could only faintly discern the dim trees;
+the limbs of the spruce, which partially protected me, sagged down to
+my head with their burden; I had but to reach out my hand for a
+snowball. Both the wind and snow seemed warm. The great flakes were
+like swan feathers on a summer breeze. There was something joyous in
+the whirl of snow and roar of wind. While I bent over to shake my
+holster, the storm passed as suddenly as it had come. When I looked up,
+there were the pines, like pillars of Parian marble, and a white
+shadow, a vanishing cloud fled, with receding roar, on the wings of the
+wind. Fast on this retreat burst the warm, bright sun.
+
+I faced my course, and was delighted to see, through an opening where
+the ravine cut out of the forest, the red-tipped peaks of the cañon,
+and the vaulted dome I had named St. Marks. As I started, a new and
+unexpected after-feature of the storm began to manifest itself. The sun
+being warm, even to melt the snow, and under the trees a heavy rain
+fell, and in the glades and hollows a fine mist blew. Exquisite
+rainbows hung from white-tipped branches and curved over the hollows.
+Glistening patches of snow fell from the pines, and broke the showers.
+
+In a quarter of an hour, I rode out of the forest to the rim wall on
+dry ground. Against the green pinyons Frank's white horse stood out
+conspicuously, and near him browsed the mounts of Jim and Wallace. The
+boys were not in evidence. Concluding they had gone down over the rim,
+I dismounted and kicked off my chaps, and taking my rifle and camera,
+hurried to look the place over.
+
+To my surprise and interest, I found a long section of rim wall in
+ruins. It lay in a great curve between the two giant capes; and many
+short, sharp, projecting promontories, like the teeth of a saw,
+overhung the cañon. The slopes between these points of cliff were
+covered with a deep growth of pinyon, and in these places descent would
+be easy. Everywhere in the corrugated wall were rents and rifts; cliffs
+stood detached like islands near a shore; yellow crags rose out of
+green clefts; jumble of rocks, and slides of rim wall, broken into
+blocks, massed under the promontories.
+
+The singular raggedness and wildness of the scene took hold of me, and
+was not dispelled until the baying of Sounder and Don roused action in
+me. Apparently the hounds were widely separated. Then I heard Jim's
+yell. But it ceased when the wind lulled, and I heard it no more.
+Running back from the point, I began to go down. The way was steep,
+almost perpendicular; but because of the great stones and the absence
+of slides, was easy. I took long strides and jumps, and slid over
+rocks, and swung on pinyon branches, and covered distance like a
+rolling stone. At the foot of the rim wall, or at a line where it would
+have reached had it extended regularly, the slope became less
+pronounced. I could stand up without holding on to a support. The
+largest pinyons I had seen made a forest that almost stood on end.
+These trees grew up, down, and out, and twisted in curves, and many
+were two feet in thickness. During my descent, I halted at intervals to
+listen, and always heard one of the hounds, sometimes several. But as I
+descended for a long time, and did not get anywhere or approach the
+dogs, I began to grow impatient.
+
+A large pinyon, with a dead top, suggested a good outlook, so I climbed
+it, and saw I could sweep a large section of the slope. It was a
+strange thing to look down hill, over the tips of green trees. Below,
+perhaps four hundred yards, was a slide open for a long way; all the
+rest was green incline, with many dead branches sticking up like spars,
+and an occasional crag. From this perch I heard the hounds; then
+followed a yell I thought was Jim's, and after it the bellowing of
+Wallace's rifle. Then all was silent. The shots had effectually checked
+the yelping of the hounds. I let out a yell. Another cougar that Jones
+would not lasso! All at once I heard a familiar sliding of small rocks
+below me, and I watched the open slope with greedy eyes.
+
+Not a bit surprised was I to see a cougar break out of the green, and
+go tearing down the slide. In less than six seconds, I had sent six
+steel-jacketed bullets after him. Puffs of dust rose closer and closer
+to him as each bullet went nearer the mark and the last showered him
+with gravel and turned him straight down the cañon slope.
+
+I slid down the dead pinyon and jumped nearly twenty feet to the soft
+sand below, and after putting a loaded clip in my rifle, began kangaroo
+leaps down the slope. When I reached the point where the cougar had
+entered the slide, I called the hounds, but they did not come nor
+answer me. Notwithstanding my excitement, I appreciated the distance to
+the bottom of the slope before I reached it. In my haste, I ran upon
+the verge of a precipice twice as deep as the first rim wall, but one
+glance down sent me shatteringly backward.
+
+With all the breath I had left I yelled: "Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo!" From the
+echoes flung at me, I imagined at first that my friends were right on
+my ears. But no real answer came. The cougar had probably passed along
+this second rim wall to a break, and had gone down. His trail could
+easily be taken by any of the hounds. Vexed and anxious, I signaled
+again and again. Once, long after the echo had gone to sleep in some
+hollow cañon, I caught a faint "Wa-a-ho-o-o!" But it might have come
+from the clouds. I did not hear a hound barking above me on the slope;
+but suddenly, to my amazement, Sounder's deep bay rose from the abyss
+below. I ran along the rim, called till I was hoarse, leaned over so
+far that the blood rushed to my head, and then sat down. I concluded
+this cañon hunting could bear some sustained attention and thought, as
+well as frenzied action.
+
+Examination of my position showed how impossible it was to arrive at
+any clear idea of the depth or size, or condition of the cañon slopes
+from the main rim wall above. The second wall—a stupendous,
+yellow-faced cliff two thousand feet high—curved to my left round to a
+point in front of me. The intervening cañon might have been a half
+mile wide, and it might have been ten miles. I had become disgusted
+with judging distance. The slope above this second wall facing me ran
+up far above my head; it fairly towered, and this routed all my former
+judgments, because I remembered distinctly that from the rim this
+yellow and green mountain had appeared an insignificant little ridge.
+But it was when I turned to gaze up behind me that I fully grasped the
+immensity of the place. This wall and slope were the first two steps
+down the long stairway of the Grand Cañon, and they towered over me,
+straight up a half-mile in dizzy height. To think of climbing it took
+my breath away.
+
+Then again Sounder's bay floated distinctly to me, but it seemed to
+come from a different point. I turned my ear to the wind, and in the
+succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay sounded from
+below and next from far to the right; another from the left. I could
+not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic properties of the
+amphitheater beneath me were too wonderful for my comprehension.
+
+As the bay grew sharper, and correspondingly more significant, I became
+distracted, and focused a strained vision on the cañon deeps. I looked
+along the slope to the notch where the wall curved and followed the
+base line of the yellow cliff. Quite suddenly I saw a very small black
+object moving with snail-like slowness. Although it seemed impossible
+for Sounder to be so small, I knew it was he. Having something now to
+judge distance from, I conceived it to be a mile, without the drop. If
+I could hear Sounder, he could hear me, so I yelled encouragement. The
+echoes clapped back at me like so many slaps in the face. I watched the
+hound until he disappeared among broken heaps of stone, and long after
+that his bay floated to me.
+
+Having rested, I essayed the discovery of some of my lost companions or
+the hounds, and began to climb. Before I started, however, I was wise
+enough to study the rim wall above, to familiarize myself with the
+break so I would have a landmark. Like horns and spurs of gold the
+pinnacles loomed up. Massed closely together, they were not unlike an
+astounding pipe-organ. I had a feeling of my littleness, that I was
+lost, and should devote every moment and effort to the saving of my
+life. It did not seem possible I could be hunting. Though I climbed
+diagonally, and rested often, my heart pumped so hard I could hear it.
+A yellow crag, with a round head like an old man's cane, appealed to me
+as near the place where I last heard from Jim, and toward it I labored.
+Every time I glanced up, the distance seemed the same. A climb which I
+decided would not take more than fifteen minutes, required an hour.
+
+While resting at the foot of the crag, I heard more baying of hounds,
+but for my life I could not tell whether the sound came from up or
+down, and I commenced to feel that I did not much care. Having signaled
+till I was hoarse, and receiving none but mock answers, I decided that
+if my companions had not toppled over a cliff, they were wisely
+withholding their breath.
+
+Another stiff pull up the slope brought me under the rim wall, and
+there I groaned, because the wall was smooth and shiny, without a
+break. I plodded slowly along the base, with my rifle ready. Cougar
+tracks were so numerous I got tired of looking at them, but I did not
+forget that I might meet a tawny fellow or two among those narrow
+passes of shattered rock, and under the thick, dark pinyons. Going on
+in this way, I ran point-blank into a pile of bleached bones before a
+cave. I had stumbled on the lair of a lion and from the looks of it one
+like that of Old Tom. I flinched twice before I threw a stone into the
+dark-mouthed cave. What impressed me as soon as I found I was in no
+danger of being pawed and clawed round the gloomy spot, was the fact of
+the bones being there. How did they come on a slope where a man could
+hardly walk? Only one answer seemed feasible. The lion had made his
+kill one thousand feet above, had pulled his quarry to the rim and
+pushed it over. In view of the theory that he might have had to drag
+his victim from the forest, and that very seldom two lions worked
+together, the fact of the location of the bones as startling. Skulls of
+wild horses and deer, antlers and countless bones, all crushed into
+shapelessness, furnished indubitable proof that the carcasses had
+fallen from a great height. Most remarkable of all was the skeleton of
+a cougar lying across that of a horse. I believed—I could not help but
+believe that the cougar had fallen with his last victim.
+
+Not many rods beyond the lion den, the rim wall split into towers,
+crags and pinnacles. I thought I had found my pipe organ, and began to
+climb toward a narrow opening in the rim. But I lost it. The
+extraordinarily cut-up condition of the wall made holding to one
+direction impossible. Soon I realized I was lost in a labyrinth. I
+tried to find my way down again, but the best I could do was to reach
+the verge of a cliff, from which I could see the cañon. Then I knew
+where I was, yet I did not know, so I plodded wearily back. Many a
+blind cleft did I ascend in the maze of crags. I could hardly crawl
+along, still I kept at it, for the place was conducive to dire
+thoughts. A tower of Babel menaced me with tons of loose shale. A tower
+that leaned more frightfully than the Tower of Pisa threatened to build
+my tomb. Many a lighthouse-shaped crag sent down little scattering
+rocks in ominous notice.
+
+After toiling in and out of passageways under the shadows of these
+strangely formed cliffs, and coming again and again to the same point,
+a blind pocket, I grew desperate. I named the baffling place Deception
+Pass, and then ran down a slide. I knew if I could keep my feet I could
+beat the avalanche. More by good luck than management I outran the
+roaring stones and landed safely. Then rounding the cliff below, I
+found myself on a narrow ledge, with a wall to my left, and to the
+right the tips of pinyon trees level with my feet.
+
+Innocently and wearily I passed round a pillar-like corner of wall, to
+come face to face with an old lioness and cubs. I heard the mother
+snarl, and at the same time her ears went back flat, and she crouched.
+The same fire of yellow eyes, the same grim snarling expression so
+familiar in my mind since Old Tom had leaped at me, faced me here.
+
+My recent vow of extermination was entirely forgotten and one frantic
+spring carried me over the ledge.
+
+Crash! I felt the brushing and scratching of branches, and saw a green
+blur. I went down straddling limbs and hit the ground with a thump.
+Fortunately, I landed mostly on my feet, in sand, and suffered no
+serious bruise. But I was stunned, and my right arm was numb for a
+moment. When I gathered myself together, instead of being grateful the
+ledge had not been on the face of Point Sublime—from which I would
+most assuredly have leaped—I was the angriest man ever let loose in
+the Grand Cañon.
+
+Of course the cougars were far on their way by that time, and were
+telling neighbors about the brave hunter's leap for life; so I devoted
+myself to further efforts to find an outlet. The niche I had jumped
+into opened below, as did most of the breaks, and I worked out of it to
+the base of the rim wall, and tramped a long, long mile before I
+reached my own trail leading down. Resting every five steps, I climbed
+and climbed. My rifle grew to weigh a ton; my feet were lead; the
+camera strapped to my shoulder was the world. Soon climbing meant
+trapeze work—long reach of arm, and pull of weight, high step of foot,
+and spring of body. Where I had slid down with ease, I had to strain
+and raise myself by sheer muscle. I wore my left glove to tatters and
+threw it away to put the right one on my left hand. I thought many
+times I could not make another move; I thought my lungs would burst,
+but I kept on. When at last I surmounted the rim, I saw Jones, and
+flopped down beside him, and lay panting, dripping, boiling, with
+scorched feet, aching limbs and numb chest.
+
+"I've been here two hours," he said, "and I knew things were happening
+below; but to climb up that slide would kill me. I am not young any
+more, and a steep climb like this takes a young heart. As it was I had
+enough work. Look!" He called my attention to his trousers. They had
+been cut to shreds, and the right trouser leg was missing from the knee
+down. His shin was bloody. "Moze took a lion along the rim, and I went
+after him with all my horse could do. I yelled for the boys, but they
+didn't come. Right here it is easy to go down, but below, where Moze
+started this lion, it was impossible to get over the rim. The lion lit
+straight out of the pinyons. I lost ground because of the thick brush
+and numerous trees. Then Moze doesn't bark often enough. He treed the
+lion twice. I could tell by the way he opened up and bayed. The rascal
+coon-dog climbed the trees and chased the lion out. That's what Moze
+did! I got to an open space and saw him, and was coming up fine when he
+went down over a hollow which ran into the cañon. My horse tripped and
+fell, turning clear over with me before he threw me into the brush. I
+tore my clothes, and got this bruise, but wasn't much hurt. My horse is
+pretty lame."
+
+I began a recital of my experience, modestly omitting the incident
+where I bravely faced an old lioness. Upon consulting my watch, I found
+I had been almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, Frank poked
+a red face over the rim. He was in shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and
+wore a frown I had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise, and at
+first could hardly speak.
+
+"Where were—you—all?" he panted. "Say! but mebbe this hasn't been a
+chase! Jim and Wallace an' me went tumblin' down after the dogs, each
+one lookin' out for his perticilar dog, an' darn me if I don't believe
+his lion, too. Don took one oozin' down the cañon, with me hot-footin'
+it after him. An' somewhere he treed thet lion, right below me, in a
+box cañon, sort of an offshoot of the second rim, an' I couldn't
+locate him. I blamed near killed myself more'n once. Look at my
+knuckles! Barked em slidin' about a mile down a smooth wall. I thought
+once the lion had jumped Don, but soon I heard him barkin' again. All
+thet time I heard Sounder, an' once I heard the pup. Jim yelled, an'
+somebody was shootin'. But I couldn't find nobody, or make nobody hear
+me. Thet cañon is a mighty deceivin' place. You'd never think so till
+you go down. I wouldn't climb up it again for all the lions in
+Buckskin. Hello, there comes Jim oozin' up."
+
+Jim appeared just over the rim, and when he got up to us, dusty, torn
+and fagged out, with Don, Tige and Ranger showing signs of collapse, we
+all blurted out questions. But Jim took his time.
+
+"Shore thet cañon is one hell of a place," he began finally. "Where
+was everybody? Tige and the pup went down with me an' treed a cougar.
+Yes, they did, an' I set under a pinyon holdin' the pup, while Tige
+kept the cougar treed. I yelled an' yelled. After about an hour or two,
+Wallace came poundin' down like a giant. It was a sure thing we'd get
+the cougar; an' Wallace was takin' his picture when the blamed cat
+jumped. It was embarrassin', because he wasn't polite about how he
+jumped. We scattered some, an' when Wallace got his gun, the cougar was
+humpin' down the slope, an' he was goin' so fast an' the pinyons was so
+thick thet Wallace couldn't get a fair shot, an' missed. Tige an' the
+pup was so scared by the shots they wouldn't take the trail again. I
+heard some one shoot about a million times, an' shore thought the
+cougar was done for. Wallace went plungin' down the slope an' I
+followed. I couldn't keep up with him—he shore takes long steps—an' I
+lost him. I'm reckonin' he went over the second wall. Then I made
+tracks for the top. Boys, the way you can see an' hear things down in
+thet cañon, an' the way you can't hear an' see things is pretty funny."
+
+"If Wallace went over the second rim wall, will he get back to-day?" we
+all asked.
+
+"Shore, there's no tellin'."
+
+We waited, lounged, and slept for three hours, and were beginning to
+worry about our comrade when he hove in sight eastward, along the rim.
+He walked like a man whose next step would be his last. When he reached
+us, he fell flat, and lay breathing heavily for a while.
+
+"Somebody once mentioned Israel Putnam's ascent of a hill," he said
+slowly. "With all respect to history and a patriot, I wish to say
+Putnam never saw a hill!"
+
+"Ooze for camp," called out Frank.
+
+Five o'clock found us round a bright fire, all casting ravenous eyes at
+a smoking supper. The smell of the Persian meat would have made a wolf
+of a vegetarian. I devoured four chops, and could not have been counted
+in the running. Jim opened a can of maple syrup which he had been
+saving for a grand occasion, and Frank went him one better with two
+cans of peaches. How glorious to be hungry—to feel the craving for
+food, and to be grateful for it, to realize that the best of life lies
+in the daily needs of existence, and to battle for them!
+
+Nothing could be stronger than the simple enumeration and statement of
+the facts of Wallace's experience after he left Jim. He chased the
+cougar, and kept it in sight, until it went over the second rim wall.
+Here he dropped over a precipice twenty feet high, to alight on a
+fan-shaped slide which spread toward the bottom. It began to slip and
+move by jerks, and then started off steadily, with an increasing roar.
+He rode an avalanche for one thousand feet. The jar loosened bowlders
+from the walls. When the slide stopped, Wallace extricated his feet and
+began to dodge the bowlders. He had only time to jump over the large
+ones or dart to one side out of their way. He dared not run. He had to
+watch them coming. One huge stone hurtled over his head and smashed a
+pinyon tree below.
+
+When these had ceased rolling, and he had passed down to the red shale,
+he heard Sounder baying near, and knew a cougar had been treed or
+cornered. Hurdling the stones and dead pinyons, Wallace ran a mile down
+the slope, only to find he had been deceived in the direction. He
+sheered off to the left. Sounder's illusive bay came up from a deep
+cleft. Wallace plunged into a pinyon, climbed to the ground, skidded
+down a solid slide, to come upon an impassable the obstacle in the form
+of a solid wall of red granite. Sounder appeared and came to him,
+evidently having given up the chase.
+
+Wallace consumed four hours in making the ascent. In the notch of the
+curve of the second rim wall, he climbed the slippery steps of a
+waterfall. At one point, if he had not been six feet five inches tall
+he would have been compelled to attempt retracing his trail—an
+impossible task. But his height enabled him to reach a root, by which
+he pulled himself up. Sounder he lassoed a la Jones, and hauled up. At
+another spot, which Sounder climbed, he lassoed a pinyon above, and
+walked up with his feet slipping from under him at every step. The
+knees of his corduroy trousers were holes, as were the elbows of his
+coat. The sole of his left boot, which he used most in climbing—was
+gone, and so was his hat.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15.
+
+JONES ON COUGARS
+
+The mountain lion, or cougar, of our Rocky Mountain region, is nothing
+more nor less than the panther. He is a little different in shape,
+color and size, which vary according to his environment. The panther of
+the Rockies is usually light, taking the grayish hue of the rocks. He
+is stockier and heavier of build, and stronger of limb than the Eastern
+species, which difference comes from climbing mountains and springing
+down the cliffs after his prey.
+
+In regions accessible to man, or where man is encountered even rarely,
+the cougar is exceedingly shy, seldom or never venturing from cover
+during the day. He spends the hours of daylight high on the most rugged
+cliffs, sleeping and basking in the sunshine, and watching with
+wonderfully keen sight the valleys below. His hearing equals his sight,
+and if danger threatens, he always hears it in time to skulk away
+unseen. At night he steals down the mountain side toward deer or elk he
+has located during the day. Keeping to the lowest ravines and thickets,
+he creeps upon his prey. His cunning and ferocity are keener and more
+savage in proportion to the length of time he has been without food. As
+he grows hungrier and thinner, his skill and fierce strategy
+correspondingly increase. A well-fed cougar will creep upon and secure
+only about one in seven of the deer, elk, antelope or mountain sheep
+that he stalks. But a starving cougar is another animal. He creeps like
+a snake, is as sure on the scent as a vulture, makes no more noise than
+a shadow, and he hides behind a stone or bush that would scarcely
+conceal a rabbit. Then he springs with terrific force, and intensity of
+purpose, and seldom fails to reach his victim, and once the claws of a
+starved lion touch flesh, they never let go.
+
+A cougar seldom pursues his quarry after he has leaped and missed,
+either from disgust or failure, or knowledge that a second attempt
+would be futile. The animal making the easiest prey for the cougar is
+the elk. About every other elk attacked falls a victim. Deer are more
+fortunate, the ratio being one dead to five leaped at. The antelope,
+living on the lowlands or upland meadows, escapes nine times out of
+ten; and the mountain sheep, or bighorn, seldom falls to the onslaught
+of his enemy.
+
+Once the lion gets a hold with the great forepaw, every movement of the
+struggling prey sinks the sharp, hooked claws deeper. Then as quickly
+as is possible, the lion fastens his teeth in the throat of his prey
+and grips till it is dead. In this way elk have carried lions for many
+rods. The lion seldom tears the skin of the neck, and never, as is
+generally supposed, sucks the blood of its victim; but he cuts into the
+side, just behind the foreshoulder, and eats the liver first. He rolls
+the skin back as neatly and tightly as a person could do it. When he
+has gorged himself, he drags the carcass into a ravine or dense
+thicket, and rakes leaves, sticks or dirt over it to hide it from other
+animals. Usually he returns to his cache on the second night, and after
+that the frequency of his visits depends on the supply of fresh prey.
+In remote regions, unfrequented by man, the lion will guard his cache
+from coyote and buzzards.
+
+In sex there are about five female lions to one male. This is caused by
+the jealous and vicious disposition of the male. It is a fact that the
+old Toms kill every young lion they can catch. Both male and female of
+the litter suffer alike until after weaning time, and then only the
+males. In this matter wise animal logic is displayed by the Toms. The
+domestic cat, to some extent, possesses the same trait. If the litter
+is destroyed, the mating time is sure to come about regardless of the
+season. Thus this savage trait of the lions prevents overproduction,
+and breeds a hardy and intrepid race. If by chance or that cardinal
+feature of animal life—the survival of the fittest—a young male lion
+escapes to the weaning time, even after that he is persecuted. Young
+male lions have been killed and found to have had their flesh beaten
+until it was a mass of bruises and undoubtedly it had been the work of
+an old Tom. Moreover, old males and females have been killed, and found
+to be in the same bruised condition. A feature, and a conclusive one,
+is the fact that invariably the female is suckling her young at this
+period, and sustains the bruises in desperately defending her litter.
+
+It is astonishing how cunning, wise and faithful an old lioness is. She
+seldom leaves her kittens. From the time they are six weeks old she
+takes them out to train them for the battles of life, and the struggle
+continues from birth to death. A lion hardly ever dies naturally. As
+soon as night descends, the lioness stealthily stalks forth, and
+because of her little ones, takes very short steps. The cubs follow,
+stepping in their mother's tracks. When she crouches for game, each
+little lion crouches also, and each one remains perfectly still until
+she springs, or signals them to come. If she secures the prey, they all
+gorge themselves. After the feast the mother takes her back trail,
+stepping in the tracks she made coming down the mountain. And the cubs
+are very careful to follow suit, and not to leave marks of their trail
+in the soft snow. No doubt this habit is practiced to keep their deadly
+enemies in ignorance of their existence. The old Toms and white hunters
+are their only foes. Indians never kill a lion. This trick of the lions
+has fooled many a hunter, concerning not only the direction, but
+particularly the number.
+
+The only successful way to hunt lions is with trained dogs. A good
+hound can trail them for several hours after the tracks have been made,
+and on a cloudy or wet day can hold the scent much longer. In snow the
+hound can trail for three or four days after the track has been made.
+
+When Jones was game warden of the Yellowstone National Park, he had
+unexampled opportunities to hunt cougars and learn their habits. All
+the cougars in that region of the Rockies made a rendezvous of the game
+preserve. Jones soon procured a pack of hounds, but as they had been
+trained to run deer, foxes and coyotes he had great trouble. They would
+break on the trail of these animals, and also on elk and antelope just
+when this was farthest from his wish. He soon realized that to train
+the hounds was a sore task. When they refused to come back at his call,
+he stung them with fine shot, and in this manner taught obedience. But
+obedience was not enough; the hounds must know how to follow and tree a
+lion. With this in mind, Jones decided to catch a lion alive and give
+his dogs practical lessons.
+
+A few days after reaching this decision, he discovered the tracks of
+two lions in the neighborhood of Mt. Everett. The hounds were put on
+the trail and followed it into an abandoned coal shaft. Jones
+recognized this as his opportunity, and taking his lasso and an extra
+rope, he crawled into the hole. Not fifteen feet from the opening sat
+one of the cougars, snarling and spitting. Jones promptly lassoed it,
+passed his end of the lasso round a side prop of the shaft, and out to
+the soldiers who had followed him. Instructing them not to pull till he
+called, he cautiously began to crawl by the cougar, with the intention
+of getting farther back and roping its hind leg, so as to prevent
+disaster when the soldiers pulled it out. He accomplished this, not
+without some uneasiness in regard to the second lion, and giving the
+word to his companions, soon had his captive hauled from the shaft and
+tied so tightly it could not move.
+
+Jones took the cougar and his hounds to an open place in the park,
+where there were trees, and prepared for a chase. Loosing the lion, he
+held his hounds back a moment, then let them go. Within one hundred
+yards the cougar climbed a tree, and the dogs saw the performance.
+Taking a forked stick, Jones mounted up to the cougar, caught it under
+the jaw with the stick, and pushed it out. There was a fight, a
+scramble, and the cougar dashed off to run up another tree. In this
+manner, he soon trained his hounds to the pink of perfection.
+
+Jones discovered, while in the park, that the cougar is king of all the
+beasts of North America. Even a grizzly dashed away in great haste when
+a cougar made his appearance. At the road camp, near Mt. Washburn,
+during the fall of 1904, the bears, grizzlies and others, were always
+hanging round the cook tent. There were cougars also, and almost every
+evening, about dusk, a big fellow would come parading past the tent.
+The bears would grunt furiously and scamper in every direction. It was
+easy to tell when a cougar was in the neighborhood, by the peculiar
+grunts and snorts of the bears, and the sharp, distinct, alarmed yelps
+of coyotes. A lion would just as lief kill a coyote as any other animal
+and he would devour it, too. As to the fighting of cougars and
+grizzlies, that was a mooted question, with the credit on the side of
+the former.
+
+The story of the doings of cougars, as told in the snow, was intensely
+fascinating and tragic! How they stalked deer and elk, crept to within
+springing distance, then crouched flat to leap, was as easy to read as
+if it had been told in print. The leaps and bounds were beyond belief.
+The longest leap on a level measured eighteen and one-half feet. Jones
+trailed a half-grown cougar, which in turn was trailing a big elk. He
+found where the cougar had struck his game, had clung for many rods, to
+be dashed off by the low limb of a spruce tree. The imprint of the body
+of the cougar was a foot deep in the snow; blood and tufts of hair
+covered the place. But there was no sign of the cougar renewing the
+chase.
+
+In rare cases cougars would refuse to run, or take to trees. One day
+Jones followed the hounds, eight in number, to come on a huge Tom
+holding the whole pack at bay. He walked to and fro, lashing his tail
+from side to side, and when Jones dashed up, he coolly climbed a tree.
+Jones shot the cougar, which, in falling, struck one of the hounds,
+crippling him. This hound would never approach a tree after this
+incident, believing probably that the cougar had sprung upon him.
+
+Usually the hounds chased their quarry into a tree long before Jones
+rode up. It was always desirable to kill the animal with the first
+shot. If the cougar was wounded, and fell or jumped among the dogs,
+there was sure to be a terrible fight, and the best dogs always
+received serious injuries, if they were not killed outright. The lion
+would seize a hound, pull him close, and bite him in the brain.
+
+Jones asserted that a cougar would usually run from a hunter, but that
+this feature was not to be relied upon. And a wounded cougar was as
+dangerous as a tiger. In his hunts Jones carried a shotgun, and shells
+loaded with ball for the cougar, and others loaded with fine shot for
+the hounds. One day, about ten miles from the camp, the hounds took a
+trail and ran rapidly, as there were only a few inches of snow. Jones
+found a large lion had taken refuge in a tree that had fallen against
+another, and aiming at the shoulder of the beast, he fired both
+barrels. The cougar made no sign he had been hit. Jones reloaded and
+fired at the head. The old fellow growled fiercely, turned in the tree
+and walked down head first, something he would not have been able to do
+had the tree been upright. The hounds were ready for him, but wisely
+attacked in the rear. Realizing he had been shooting fine shot at the
+animal, Jones began a hurried search for a shell loaded with ball. The
+lion made for him, compelling him to dodge behind trees. Even though
+the hounds kept nipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursued
+the hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just as the cougar
+reached for him. Major, the leader of the hounds, darted bravely in,
+and grasped the leg of the beast just in the nick of time. This enabled
+Jones to take aim and fire at close range, which ended the fight. Upon
+examination, it was discovered the cougar had been half-blinded by the
+fine shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts he had made to
+catch Jones.
+
+The mountain lion rarely attacks a human being for the purpose of
+eating. When hungry he will often follow the tracks of people, and
+under favorable circumstances may ambush them. In the park where game
+is plentiful, no one has ever known a cougar to follow the trail of a
+person; but outside the park lions have been known to follow hunters,
+and particularly stalk little children. The Davis family, living a few
+miles north of the park, have had children pursued to the very doors of
+their cabin. And other families relate similar experiences. Jones heard
+of only one fatality, but he believes that if the children were left
+alone in the woods, the cougars would creep closer and closer, and when
+assured there was no danger, would spring to kill.
+
+Jones never heard the cry of a cougar in the National Park, which
+strange circumstance, considering the great number of the animals
+there, he believed to be on account of the abundance of game. But he
+had heard it when a boy in Illinois, and when a man all over the West,
+and the cry was always the same, weird and wild, like the scream of a
+terrified woman. He did not understand the significance of the cry,
+unless it meant hunger, or the wailing mourn of a lioness for her
+murdered cubs.
+
+The destructiveness of this savage species was murderous. Jones came
+upon one old Tom's den, where there was a pile of nineteen elk, mostly
+yearlings. Only five or six had been eaten. Jones hunted this old
+fellow for months, and found that the lion killed on the average three
+animals a week. The hounds got him up at length, and chased him to the
+Yellowstone River, which he swam at a point impassable for man or
+horse. One of the dogs, a giant bloodhound named Jack, swam the swift
+channel, kept on after the lion, but never returned. All cougars have
+their peculiar traits and habits, the same as other creatures, and all
+old Toms have strongly marked characteristics, but this one was the
+most destructive cougar Jones ever knew.
+
+During Jones's short sojourn as warden in the park, he captured
+numerous cougars alive, and killed seventy-two.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16.
+
+KITTY
+
+It seemed my eyelids had scarcely touched when Jones's exasperating,
+yet stimulating, yell aroused me. Day was breaking. The moon and stars
+shone with wan luster. A white, snowy frost silvered the forest. Old
+Moze had curled close beside me, and now he gazed at me reproachfully
+and shivered. Lawson came hustling in with the horses. Jim busied
+himself around the campfire. My fingers nearly froze while I saddled my
+horse.
+
+At five o'clock we were trotting up the slope of Buckskin, bound for
+the section of ruined rim wall where we had encountered the convention
+of cougars. Hoping to save time, we took a short cut, and were soon
+crossing deep ravines.
+
+The sunrise coloring the purple curtain of cloud over the cañon was
+too much for me, and I lagged on a high ridge to watch it, thus falling
+behind my more practical companions. A far-off "Waa-hoo!" brought me to
+a realization of the day's stern duty and I hurried Satan forward on
+the trail.
+
+I came suddenly upon our leader, leading his horse through the scrub
+pinyon on the edge of the cañon, and I knew at once something had
+happened, for he was closely scrutinizing the ground.
+
+"I declare this beats me all hollow!" began Jones. "We might be hunting
+rabbits instead of the wildest animals on the continent. We jumped a
+bunch of lions in this clump of pinyon. There must have been at least
+four. I thought first we'd run upon an old lioness with cubs, but all
+the trails were made by full-grown lions. Moze took one north along the
+rim, same as the other day, but the lion got away quick. Frank saw one
+lion. Wallace is following Sounder down into the first hollow. Jim has
+gone over the rim wall after Don. There you are! Four lions playing tag
+in broad daylight on top of this wall! I'm inclined to believe Clarke
+didn't exaggerate. But confound the luck! the hounds have split again.
+They're doing their best, of course, and it's up to us to stay with
+them. I'm afraid we'll lose some of them. Hello! I hear a signal.
+That's from Wallace. Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo! There he is, coming out of the
+hollow."
+
+The tall Californian reached us presently with Sounder beside him. He
+reported that the hound had chased a lion into an impassable break. We
+then joined Frank on a jutting crag of the cañon wall.
+
+"Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones. There was no answer except the echo, and it
+rolled up out of the chasm with strange, hollow mockery.
+
+"Don took a cougar down this slide," said Frank. "I saw the brute, an'
+Don was makin' him hump. A—ha! There! Listen to thet!"
+
+From the green and yellow depths soared the faint yelp of a hound.
+
+"That's Don! that's Don!" cried Jones. "He's hot on something. Where's
+Sounder? Hyar, Sounder! By George! there he goes down the slide. Hear
+him! He's opened up! Hi! Hi! Hi!"
+
+The deep, full mellow bay of the hound came ringing on the clear air.
+
+"Wallace, you go down. Frank and I will climb out on that pointed crag.
+Grey, you stay here. Then we'll have the slide between us. Listen and
+watch!"
+
+From my promontory I watched Wallace go down with his gigantic strides,
+sending the rocks rolling and cracking; and then I saw Jones and Frank
+crawl out to the end of a crumbling ruin of yellow wall which
+threatened to go splintering and thundering down into the abyss.
+
+I thought, as I listened to the penetrating voice of the hound, that
+nowhere on earth could there be a grander scene for wild action, wild
+life. My position afforded a commanding view over a hundred miles of
+the noblest and most sublime work of nature. The rim wall where I stood
+sheered down a thousand feet, to meet a long wooded slope which cut
+abruptly off into another giant precipice; a second long slope
+descended, and jumped off into what seemed the grave of the world. Most
+striking in that vast void were the long, irregular points of rim wall,
+protruding into the Grand Cañon. From Point Sublime to the Pink Cliffs
+of Utah there were twelve of these colossal capes, miles apart, some
+sharp, some round, some blunt, all rugged and bold. The great chasm in
+the middle was full of purple smoke. It seemed a mighty sepulcher from
+which misty fumes rolled upward. The turrets, mesas, domes, parapets
+and escarpments of yellow and red rock gave the appearance of an
+architectural work of giant hands. The wonderful river of silt, the
+blood-red, mystic and sullen Rio Colorado, lay hidden except in one
+place far away, where it glimmered wanly. Thousands of colors were
+blended before my rapt gaze. Yellow predominated, as the walls and
+crags lorded it over the lower cliffs and tables; red glared in the
+sunlight; green softened these two, and then purple and violet, gray,
+blue and the darker hues shaded away into dim and distinct obscurity.
+
+Excited yells from my companions on the other crag recalled me to the
+living aspect of the scene. Jones was leaning far down in a niche, at
+seeming great hazard of life, yelling with all the power of his strong
+lungs. Frank stood still farther out on a cracked point that made me
+tremble, and his yell reenforced Jones's. From far below rolled up a
+chorus of thrilling bays and yelps, and Jim's call, faint, but distinct
+on that wonderfully thin air, with its unmistakable note of warning.
+
+Then on the slide I saw a lion headed for the rim wall and climbing
+fast. I added my exultant cry to the medley, and I stretched my arms
+wide to that illimitable void and gloried in a moment full to the brim
+of the tingling joy of existence. I did not consider how painful it
+must have been to the toiling lion. It was only the spell of wild
+environment, of perilous yellow crags, of thin, dry air, of voice of
+man and dog, of the stinging expectation of sharp action, of life.
+
+I watched the lion growing bigger and bigger. I saw Don and Sounder run
+from the pinyon into the open slide, and heard their impetuous burst of
+wild yelps as they saw their game. Then Jones's clarion yell made me
+bound for my horse. I reached him, was about to mount, when Moze came
+trotting toward me. I caught the old gladiator. When he heard the
+chorus from below, he plunged like a mad bull. With both arms round him
+I held on. I vowed never to let him get down that slide. He howled and
+tore, but I held on. My big black horse with ears laid back stood like
+a rock.
+
+I heard the pattering of little sliding rocks below; stealthy padded
+footsteps and hard panting breaths, almost like coughs; then the lion
+passed out of the slide not twenty feet away. He saw us, and sprang
+into the pinyon scrub with the leap of a scared deer.
+
+Samson himself could no longer have held Moze. Away he darted with his
+sharp, angry bark. I flung myself upon Satan and rode out to see Jones
+ahead and Frank flashing through the green on the white horse.
+
+At the end of the pinyon thicket Satan overhauled Jones's bay, and we
+entered the open forest together. We saw Frank glinting across the dark
+pines.
+
+"Hi! Hi!" yelled the Colonel.
+
+No need was there to whip or spur those magnificent horses. They were
+fresh; the course was open, and smooth as a racetrack, and the
+impelling chorus of the hounds was in full blast. I gave Satan a loose
+rein, and he stayed neck and neck with the bay. There was not a log,
+nor a stone, nor a gully. The hollows grew wider and shallower as we
+raced along, and presently disappeared altogether. The lion was running
+straight from the cañon, and the certainty that he must sooner or
+later take to a tree, brought from me a yell of irresistible wild joy.
+
+"Hi! Hi! Hi!" answered Jones.
+
+The whipping wind with its pine-scented fragrance, warm as the breath
+of summer, was intoxicating as wine. The huge pines, too kingly for
+close communion with their kind, made wide arches under which the
+horses stretched out long and low, with supple, springy, powerful
+strides. Frank's yell rang clear as a bell. We saw him curve to the
+right, and took his yell as a signal for us to cut across. Then we
+began to close in on him, and to hear more distinctly the baying of the
+hounds.
+
+"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" bawled Jones, and his great trumpet voice rolled down
+the forest glades.
+
+"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" I screeched, in wild recognition of the spirit of the
+moment.
+
+Fast as they were flying, the bay and the black responded to our cries,
+and quickened, strained and lengthened under us till the trees sped by
+in blurs.
+
+There, plainly in sight ahead ran the hounds, Don leading, Sounder
+next, and Moze not fifty yards behind a desperately running lion.
+
+There are all-satisfying moments of life. That chase through the open
+forest, under the stately pines, with the wild, tawny quarry in plain
+sight, and the glad staccato yelps of the hounds filling my ears and
+swelling my heart, with the splendid action of my horse carrying me on
+the wings of the wind, was glorious answer and fullness to the call and
+hunger of a hunter's blood.
+
+But as such moments must be, they were brief. The lion leaped
+gracefully into the air, splintering the bark from a pine fifteen feet
+up, and crouched on a limb. The hounds tore madly round the tree.
+
+"Full-grown female," said Jones calmly, as we dismounted, "and she's
+ours. We'll call her Kitty."
+
+Kitty was a beautiful creature, long, slender, glossy, with white belly
+and black-tipped ears and tail. She did not resemble the heavy,
+grim-faced brute that always hung in the air of my dreams. A low,
+brooding menacing murmur, that was not a snarl nor a growl, came from
+her. She watched the dogs with bright, steady eyes, and never so much
+as looked at us.
+
+The dogs were worth attention, even from us, who certainly did not need
+to regard them from her personally hostile point of view. Don stood
+straight up, with his forepaws beating the air; he walked on his hind
+legs like the trained dog in the circus; he yelped continuously, as if
+it agonized him to see the lion safe out of his reach. Sounder had lost
+his identity. Joy had unhinged his mind and had made him a dog of
+double personality. He had always been unsocial with me, never
+responding to my attempts to caress him, but now he leaped into my arms
+and licked my face. He had always hated Jones till that moment, when he
+raised his paws to his master's breast. And perhaps more remarkable,
+time and time again he sprang up at Satan's nose, whether to bite him
+or kiss him, I could not tell. Then old Moze, he of Grand Cañon fame,
+made the delirious antics of his canine fellows look cheap. There was a
+small, dead pine that had fallen against a drooping branch of the tree
+Kitty had taken refuge in, and up this narrow ladder Moze began to
+climb. He was fifteen feet up, and Kitty had begun to shift uneasily,
+when Jones saw him.
+
+"Hyar! you wild coon hyar! Git out of that! Come down! Come down!"
+
+But Jones might have been in the bottom of the cañon for all Moze
+heard or cared. Jones removed his coat, carefully coiled his lasso, and
+began to go hand and knee up the leaning pine.
+
+"Hyar! dad-blast you, git down!" yelled Jones, and he kicked Moze off.
+The persistent hound returned, and followed Jones to a height of twenty
+feet, where again he was thrust off.
+
+"Hold him, one of you!" called Jones.
+
+"Not me," said Frank, "I'm lookin' out for myself."
+
+ "Same here," I cried, with a camera in one hand and a rifle in
+the other. "Let Moze climb if he likes."
+
+Climb he did, to be kicked off again. But he went back. It was a way he
+had. Jones at last recognized either his own waste of time or Moze's
+greatness, for he desisted, allowing the hound to keep close after him.
+
+The cougar, becoming uneasy, stood up, reached for another limb,
+climbed out upon it, and peering down, spat hissingly at Jones. But he
+kept steadily on with Moze close on his heels. I snapped my camera on
+them when Kitty was not more than fifteen feet above them. As Jones
+reached the snag which upheld the leaning tree, she ran out on her
+branch, and leaped into an adjoining pine. It was a good long jump, and
+the weight of the animal bent the limb alarmingly.
+
+Jones backed down, and laboriously began to climb the other tree. As
+there were no branches low down, he had to hug the trunk with arms and
+legs as a boy climbs. His lasso hampered his progress. When the slow
+ascent was accomplished up to the first branch, Kitty leaped back into
+her first perch. Strange to say Jones did not grumble; none of his
+characteristic impatience manifested itself. I supposed with him all
+the exasperating waits, vexatious obstacles, were little things
+preliminary to the real work, to which he had now come. He was calm and
+deliberate, and slid down the pine, walked back to the leaning tree,
+and while resting a moment, shook his lasso at Kitty. This action
+fitted him, somehow; it was so compatible with his grim assurance.
+
+To me, and to Frank, also, for that matter, it was all new and
+startling, and we were as excited as the dogs. We kept continually
+moving about, Frank mounted, and I afoot, to get good views of the
+cougar. When she crouched as if to leap, it was almost impossible to
+remain under the tree, and we kept moving.
+
+Once more Jones crept up on hands and knees. Moze walked the slanting
+pine like a rope performer. Kitty began to grow restless. This time she
+showed both anger and impatience, but did not yet appear frightened.
+She growled low and deep, opened her mouth and hissed, and swung her
+tufted tail faster and faster.
+
+"Look out, Jones! look out!" yelled Frank warningly.
+
+Jones, who had reached the trunk of the tree, halted and slipped round
+it, placing it between him and Kitty. She had advanced on her limb, a
+few feet above Jones, and threateningly hung over.
+
+Jones backed down a little till she crossed to another branch, then he
+resumed his former position.
+
+"Watch below," called he.
+
+Hardly any doubt was there as to how we watched. Frank and I were all
+eyes, except very high and throbbing hearts. When Jones thrashed the
+lasso at Kitty we both yelled. She ran out on the branch and jumped.
+This time she fell short of her point, clutched a dead snag, which
+broke, letting her through a bushy branch from where she hung head
+downward. For a second she swung free, then reaching toward the tree
+caught it with front paws, ran down like a squirrel, and leaped off
+when thirty feet from the ground. The action was as rapid as it was
+astonishing.
+
+Like a yellow rubber ball she bounded up, and fled with the yelping
+hounds at her heels. The chase was short. At the end of a hundred yards
+Moze caught up with her and nipped her. She whirled with savage
+suddenness, and lunged at Moze, but he cunningly eluded the vicious
+paws. Then she sought safety in another pine.
+
+Frank, who was as quick as the hounds, almost rode them down in his
+eagerness. While Jones descended from his perch, I led the two horses
+down the forest.
+
+This time the cougar was well out on a low spreading branch. Jones
+conceived the idea of raising the loop of his lasso on a long pole, but
+as no pole of sufficient length could be found, he tried from the back
+of his horse. The bay walked forward well enough; when, however, he got
+under the beast and heard her growl, he reared and almost threw Jones.
+Frank's horse could not be persuaded to go near the tree. Satan evinced
+no fear of the cougar, and without flinching carried Jones directly
+beneath the limb and stood with ears back and forelegs stiff.
+
+"Look at that! look at that!" cried Jones, as the wary cougar pawed the
+loop aside. Three successive times did Jones have the lasso just ready
+to drop over her neck, when she flashed a yellow paw and knocked the
+noose awry. Then she leaped far out over the waiting dogs, struck the
+ground with a light, sharp thud, and began to run with the speed of a
+deer. Frank's cowboy training now stood us in good stead. He was off
+like a shot and turned the cougar from the direction of the cañon.
+Jones lost not a moment in pursuit, and I, left with Jones's badly
+frightened bay, got going in time to see the race, but not to assist.
+For several hundred yards Kitty made the hounds appear slow. Don, being
+swiftest, gained on her steadily toward the close of the dash, and
+presently was running under her upraised tail. On the next jump he
+nipped her. She turned and sent him reeling. Sounder came flying up to
+bite her flank, and at the same moment fierce old Moze closed in on
+her. The next instant a struggling mass whirled on the ground. Jones
+and Frank, yelling like demons, almost rode over it. The cougar broke
+from her assailants, and dashing away leaped on the first tree. It was
+a half-dead pine with short snags low down and a big branch extending
+out over a ravine.
+
+"I think we can hold her now," said Jones. The tree proved to be a most
+difficult one to climb. Jones made several ineffectual attempts before
+he reached the first limb, which broke, giving him a hard fall. This
+calmed me enough to make me take notice of Jones's condition. He was
+wet with sweat and covered with the black pitch from the pines; his
+shirt was slit down the arm, and there was blood on his temple and his
+hand. The next attempt began by placing a good-sized log against the
+tree, and proved to be the necessary help. Jones got hold of the second
+limb and pulled himself up.
+
+As he kept on, Kitty crouched low as if to spring upon him. Again Frank
+and I sent warning calls to him, but he paid no attention to us or to
+the cougar, and continued to climb. This worried Kitty as much as it
+did us. She began to move on the snags, stepping from one to the other,
+every moment snarling at Jones, and then she crawled up. The big branch
+evidently took her eye. She tried several times to climb up to it, but
+small snags close together made her distrustful. She walked uneasily
+out upon two limbs, and as they bent with her weight she hurried back.
+Twice she did this, each time looking up, showing her desire to leap to
+the big branch. Her distress became plainly evident; a child could have
+seen that she feared she would fall. At length, in desperation, she
+spat at Jones, then ran out and leaped. She all but missed the branch,
+but succeeded in holding to it and swinging to safety. Then she turned
+to her tormentor, and gave utterance to most savage sounds. As she did
+not intimidate her pursuer, she retreated out on the branch, which
+sloped down at a deep angle, and crouched on a network of small limbs.
+
+When Jones had worked up a little farther, he commanded a splendid
+position for his operations. Kitty was somewhat below him in a
+desirable place, yet the branch she was on joined the tree considerably
+above his head. Jones cast his lasso. It caught on a snag. Throw after
+throw he made with like result. He recoiled and recast nineteen times,
+to my count, when Frank made a suggestion.
+
+"Rope those dead snags an' break them off."
+
+This practical idea Jones soon carried out, which left him a clear
+path. The next fling of the lariat caused the cougar angrily to shake
+her head. Again Jones sent the noose flying. She pulled it off her back
+and bit it savagely.
+
+Though very much excited, I tried hard to keep sharp, keen faculties
+alert so as not to miss a single detail of the thrilling scene. But I
+must have failed, for all of a sudden I saw how Jones was standing in
+the tree, something I had not before appreciated. He had one hand hold,
+which he could not use while recoiling the lasso, and his feet rested
+upon a precariously frail-appearing, dead snag. He made eleven casts of
+the lasso, all of which bothered Kitty, but did not catch her. The
+twelfth caught her front paw. Jones jerked so quickly and hard that he
+almost lost his balance, and he pulled the noose off. Patiently he
+recoiled the lasso.
+
+"That's what I want. If I can get her front paw she's ours. My idea is
+to pull her off the limb, let her hang there, and then lasso her hind
+legs."
+
+Another cast, the unlucky thirteenth, settled the loop perfectly round
+her neck. She chewed on the rope with her front teeth and appeared to
+have difficulty in holding it.
+
+"Easy! Easy! Ooze thet rope! Easy!" yelled the cowboy.
+
+Cautiously Jones took up the slack and slowly tightened the nose, then
+with a quick jerk, fastened it close round her neck.
+
+We heralded this achievement with yells of triumph that made the forest
+ring.
+
+Our triumph was short-lived. Jones had hardly moved when the cougar
+shot straight out into the air. The lasso caught on a branch, hauling
+her up short, and there she hung in mid-air, writhing, struggling and
+giving utterance to sounds terribly human. For several seconds she
+swung, slowly descending, in which frenzied time I, with ruling passion
+uppermost, endeavored to snap a picture of her.
+
+The unintelligible commands Jones was yelling to Frank and me ceased
+suddenly with a sharp crack of breaking wood. Then crash! Jones fell
+out of the tree. The lasso streaked up, ran over the limb, while the
+cougar dropped pell-mell into the bunch of waiting, howling dogs.
+
+The next few moments it was impossible for me to distinguish what
+actually transpired. A great flutter of leaves whirled round a swiftly
+changing ball of brown and black and yellow, from which came a fiendish
+clamor.
+
+Then I saw Jones plunge down the ravine and bounce here and there in
+mad efforts to catch the whipping lasso. He was roaring in a way that
+made all his former yells merely whispers. Starting to run, I tripped
+on a root, fell prone on my face into the ravine, and rolled over and
+over until I brought up with a bump against a rock.
+
+What a tableau riveted my gaze! It staggered me so I did not think of
+my camera. I stood transfixed not fifteen feet from the cougar. She sat
+on her haunches with body well drawn back by the taut lasso to which
+Jones held tightly. Don was standing up with her, upheld by the hooked
+claws in his head. The cougar had her paws outstretched; her mouth open
+wide, showing long, cruel, white fangs; she was trying to pull the head
+of the dog to her. Don held back with all his power, and so did Jones.
+Moze and Sounder were tussling round her body. Suddenly both ears of
+the dog pulled out, slit into ribbons. Don had never uttered a sound,
+and once free, he made at her again with open jaws. One blow sent him
+reeling and stunned. Then began again that wrestling whirl.
+
+"Beat off the dogs! Beat off the dogs!" roared Jones. "She'll kill
+them! She'll kill them!"
+
+Frank and I seized clubs and ran in upon the confused furry mass,
+forgetful of peril to ourselves. In the wild contagion of such a savage
+moment the minds of men revert wholly to primitive instincts. We swung
+our clubs and yelled; we fought all over the bottom of the ravine,
+crashing through the bushes, over logs and stones. I actually felt the
+soft fur of the cougar at one fleeting instant. The dogs had the
+strength born of insane fighting spirit. At last we pulled them to
+where Don lay, half-stunned, and with an arm tight round each, I held
+them while Frank turned to help Jones.
+
+The disheveled Jones, bloody, grim as death, his heavy jaw locked,
+stood holding to the lasso. The cougar, her sides shaking with short,
+quick pants, crouched low on the ground with eyes of purple fire.
+
+"For God's sake, get a half-hitch on the saplin'!" called the cowboy.
+
+His quick grasp of the situation averted a tragedy. Jones was nearly
+exhausted, even as he was beyond thinking for himself or giving up. The
+cougar sprang, a yellow, frightful flash. Even as she was in the air,
+Jones took a quick step to one side and dodged as he threw his lasso
+round the sapling. She missed him, but one alarmingly outstretched paw
+grazed his shoulder. A twist of Jones's big hand fastened the
+lasso—and Kitty was a prisoner. While she fought, rolled, twisted,
+bounded, whirled, writhed with hissing, snarling fury, Jones sat
+mopping the sweat and blood from his face.
+
+Kitty's efforts were futile; she began to weaken from the choking.
+Jones took another rope, and tightening a noose around her back paws,
+which he lassoed as she rolled over, he stretched her out. She began to
+contract her supple body, gave a savage, convulsive spring, which
+pulled Jones flat on the ground, then the terrible wrestling started
+again. The lasso slipped over her back paws. She leaped the whole
+length of the other lasso. Jones caught it and fastened it more
+securely; but this precaution proved unnecessary, for she suddenly sank
+down either exhausted or choked, and gasped with her tongue hanging
+out. Frank slipped the second noose over her back paws, and Jones did
+likewise with a third lasso over her right front paw. These lassoes
+Jones tied to different saplings.
+
+"Now you are a good Kitty," said Jones, kneeling by her. He took a pair
+of clippers from his hip pocket, and grasping a paw in his powerful
+fist he calmly clipped the points of the dangerous claws. This done, he
+called to me to get the collar and chain that were tied to his saddle.
+I procured them and hurried back. Then the old buffalo hunter loosened
+the lasso which was round her neck, and as soon as she could move her
+head, he teased her to bite a club. She broke two good sticks with her
+sharp teeth, but the third, being solid, did not break. While she was
+chewing it Jones forced her head back and placed his heavy knee on the
+club. In a twinkling he had strapped the collar round her neck. The
+chain he made fast to the sapling. After removing the club from her
+mouth he placed his knee on her neck, and while her head was in this
+helpless position he dexterously slipped a loop of thick copper wire
+over her nose, pushed it back and twisted it tight Following this, all
+done with speed and precision, he took from his pocket a piece of steel
+rod, perhaps one-quarter of an inch thick, and five inches long. He
+pushed this between Kitty's jaws, just back of her great white fangs,
+and in front of the copper wire. She had been shorn of her sharp
+weapons; she was muzzled, bound, helpless, an object to pity.
+
+Lastly Jones removed the three lassoes. Kitty slowly gathered her
+lissom body in a ball and lay panting, with the same brave wildfire in
+her eyes. Jones stroked her black-tipped ears and ran his hand down her
+glossy fur. All the time he had kept up a low monotone, talking to her
+in the strange language he used toward animals. Then he rose to his
+feet.
+
+"We'll go back to camp now, and get a pack, saddle and horse," he said.
+"She'll be safe here. We'll rope her again, tie her up, throw her over
+a pack-saddle, and take her to camp."
+
+To my utter bewilderment the hounds suddenly commenced fighting among
+themselves. Of all the vicious bloody dog-fights I ever saw that was
+the worst. I began to belabor them with a club, and Frank sprang to my
+assistance. Beating had no apparent effect. We broke a dozen sticks,
+and then Frank grappled with Moze and I with Sounder. Don kept on
+fighting either one till Jones secured him. Then we all took a rest,
+panting and weary.
+
+"What's it mean?" I ejaculated, appealing to Jones.
+
+"Jealous, that's all. Jealous over the lion."
+
+We all remained seated, men and hounds, a sweaty, dirty, bloody, ragged
+group. I discovered I was sorry for Kitty. I forgot all the carcasses
+of deer and horses, the brutality of this species of cat; and even
+forgot the grim, snarling yellow devil that had leaped at me. Kitty was
+beautiful and helpless. How brave she was, too! No sign of fear shone
+in her wonderful eyes, only hate, defiance, watchfulness.
+
+On the ride back to camp Jones expressed himself thus: "How happy I am
+that I can keep this lion and the others we are going to capture, for
+my own. When I was in the Yellowstone Park I did not get to keep one of
+the many I captured. The military officials took them from me."
+
+When we reached camp Lawson was absent, but fortunately Old Baldy
+browsed near at hand, and was easily caught. Frank said he would rather
+take Old Baldy for the cougar than any other horse we had. Leaving me
+in camp, he and Jones rode off to fetch Kitty.
+
+About five o'clock they came trotting up through the forest with Jim,
+who had fallen in with them on the way. Old Baldy had remained true to
+his fame—nothing, not even a cougar bothered him. Kitty, evidently no
+worse for her experience, was chained to a pine tree about fifty feet
+from the campfire.
+
+Wallace came riding wearily in, and when he saw the captive, he greeted
+us with an exultant yell. He got there just in time to see the first
+special features of Kitty's captivity. The hounds surrounded her, and
+could not be called off. We had to beat them. Whereupon the six jealous
+canines fell to fighting among themselves, and fought so savagely as to
+be deaf to our cries and insensible to blows. They had to be torn apart
+and chained.
+
+About six o'clock Lawson loped in with the horses. Of course he did not
+know we had a cougar, and no one seemed interested enough to inform
+him. Perhaps only Frank and I thought of it; but I saw a merry snap in
+Frank's eyes, and kept silent. Kitty had hidden behind the pine tree.
+Lawson, astride Jones' pack horse, a crochety animal, reined in just
+abreast of the tree, and leisurely threw his leg over the saddle. Kitty
+leaped out to the extent of her chain, and fairly exploded in a
+frightful cat-spit.
+
+Lawson had stated some time before that he was afraid of cougars, which
+was a weakness he need not have divulged in view of what happened. The
+horse plunged, throwing him ten feet, and snorting in terror, stampeded
+with the rest of the bunch and disappeared among the pines.
+
+"Why the hell didn't you tell a feller?" reproachfully growled the
+Arizonian. Frank and Jim held each other upright, and the rest of us
+gave way to as hearty if not as violent mirth.
+
+We had a gay supper, during which Kitty sat her pine and watched our
+every movement.
+
+"We'll rest up for a day or two," said Jones "Things have commenced to
+come our way. If I'm not mistaken we'll bring an old Tom alive into
+camp. But it would never do for us to get a big Tom in the fix we had
+Kitty to-day. You see, I wanted to lasso her front paw, pull her off
+the limb, tie my end of the lasso to the tree, and while she hung I'd
+go down and rope her hind paws. It all went wrong to-day, and was as
+tough a job as I ever handled."
+
+Not until late next morning did Lawson corral all the horses. That day
+we lounged in camp mending broken bridles, saddles, stirrups, lassoes,
+boots, trousers, leggins, shirts and even broken skins.
+
+During this time I found Kitty a most interesting study. She reminded
+me of an enormous yellow kitten. She did not appear wild or untamed
+until approached. Then she slowly sank down, laid back her ears, opened
+her mouth and hissed and spat, at the same time throwing both paws out
+viciously. Kitty may have rested, but did not sleep. At times she
+fought her chain, tugging and straining at it, and trying to bite it
+through. Everything in reach she clawed, particularly the bark of the
+tree. Once she tried to hang herself by leaping over a low limb. When
+any one walked by her she crouched low, evidently imagining herself
+unseen. If one of us walked toward her, or looked at her, she did not
+crouch. At other times, noticeably when no one was near, she would roll
+on her back and extend all four paws in the air. Her actions were
+beautiful, soft, noiseless, quick and subtle.
+
+The day passed, as all days pass in camp, swiftly and pleasantly, and
+twilight stole down upon us round the ruddy fire. The wind roared in
+the pines and lulled to repose; the lonesome, friendly coyote barked;
+the bells on the hobbled horses jingled sweetly; the great watch stars
+blinked out of the blue.
+
+The red glow of the burning logs lighted up Jones's calm, cold face.
+Tranquil, unalterable and peaceful it seemed; yet beneath the peace I
+thought I saw a suggestion of wild restraint, of mystery, of unslaked
+life.
+
+Strangely enough, his next words confirmed my last thought.
+
+"For forty years I've had an ambition. It's to get possession of an
+island in the Pacific, somewhere between Vancouver and Alaska, and then
+go to Siberia and capture a lot of Russian sables. I'd put them on the
+island and cross them with our silver foxes. I'm going to try it next
+year if I can find the time."
+
+The ruling passion and character determine our lives. Jones was
+sixty-three years old, yet the thing that had ruled and absorbed his
+mind was still as strong as the longing for freedom in Kitty's wild
+heart.
+
+Hours after I had crawled into my sleeping-bag, in the silence of night
+I heard her working to get free. In darkness she was most active,
+restless, intense. I heard the clink of her chain, the crack of her
+teeth, the scrape of her claws. How tireless she was. I recalled the
+wistful light in her eyes that saw, no doubt, far beyond the campfire
+to the yellow crags, to the great downward slopes, to freedom. I
+slipped my elbow out of the bag and raised myself. Dark shadows were
+hovering under the pines. I saw Kitty's eyes gleam like sparks, and I
+seemed to see in them the hate, the fear, the terror she had of the
+clanking thing that bound her!
+
+I shivered, perhaps from the cold night wind which moaned through the
+pines; I saw the stars glittering pale and far off, and under their wan
+light the still, set face of Jones, and blanketed forms of my other
+companions.
+
+The last thing I remembered before dropping into dreamless slumber was
+hearing a bell tinkle in the forest, which I recognized as the one I
+had placed on Satan.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17.
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+Kitty was not the only cougar brought into camp alive. The ensuing days
+were fruitful of cougars and adventure. There were more wild rides to
+the music of the baying hounds, and more heart-breaking cañon slopes
+to conquer, and more swinging, tufted tails and snarling savage faces
+in the pinyons. Once again, I am sorry to relate, I had to glance down
+the sights of the little Remington, and I saw blood on the stones.
+Those eventful days sped by all too soon.
+
+When the time for parting came it took no little discussion to decide
+on the quickest way of getting me to a railroad. I never fully
+appreciated the inaccessibility of the Siwash until the question arose
+of finding a way out. To return on our back trail would require two
+weeks, and to go out by the trail north to Utah meant half as much time
+over the same kind of desert. Lawson came to our help, however, with
+the information that an occasional prospector or horse hunter crossed
+the cañon from the Saddle, where a trail led down to the river.
+
+"I've heard the trail is a bad one," said Lawson, "an' though I never
+seen it, I reckon it could be found. After we get to the Saddle we'll
+build two fires on one of the high points an' keep them burnin' well
+after dark. If Mr. Bass, who lives on the other side, sees the fires
+he'll come down his trail next mornin' an' meet us at the river. He
+keeps a boat there. This is takin' a chance, but I reckon it's worth
+while."
+
+So it was decided that Lawson and Frank would try to get me out by way
+of the cañon; Wallace intended to go by the Utah route, and Jones was
+to return at once to his range and his buffalo.
+
+That night round the campfire we talked over the many incidents of the
+hunt. Jones stated he had never in his life come so near getting his
+"everlasting" as when the big bay horse tripped on a cañon slope and
+rolled over him. Notwithstanding the respect with which we regarded his
+statement we held different opinions. Then, with the unfailing optimism
+of hunters, we planned another hunt for the next year.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said Jones. "Up in Utah there's a wild region
+called Pink Cliffs. A few poor sheep-herders try to raise sheep in the
+valleys. They wouldn't be so poor if it was not for the grizzly and
+black bears that live on the sheep. We'll go up there, find a place
+where grass and water can be had, and camp. We'll notify the
+sheep-herders we are there for business. They'll be only too glad to
+hustle in with news of a bear, and we can get the hounds on the trail
+by sun-up. I'll have a dozen hounds then, maybe twenty, and all
+trained. We'll put every black bear we chase up a tree, and we'll rope
+and tie him. As to grizzlies—well, I'm not saying so much. They can't
+climb trees, and they are not afraid of a pack of hounds. If we rounded
+up a grizzly, got him cornered, and threw a rope on him—there'd be
+some fun, eh, Jim?"
+
+"Shore there would," Jim replied.
+
+On the strength of this I stored up food for future thought and thus
+reconciled myself to bidding farewell to the purple cañons and shaggy
+slopes of Buckskin Mountain.
+
+At five o'clock next morning we were all stirring. Jones yelled at the
+hounds and untangled Kitty's chain. Jim was already busy with the
+biscuit dough. Frank shook the frost off the saddles. Wallace was
+packing. The merry jangle of bells came from the forest, and presently
+Lawson appeared driving in the horses. I caught my black and saddled
+him, then realizing we were soon to part I could not resist giving him
+a hug.
+
+An hour later we all stood at the head of the trail leading down into
+the chasm. The east gleamed rosy red. Powell's Plateau loomed up in the
+distance, and under it showed the dark-fringed dip in the rim called
+the Saddle. Blue mist floated round the mesas and domes.
+
+Lawson led the way down the trail. Frank started Old Baldy with the
+pack.
+
+"Come," he called, "be oozin' along."
+
+I spoke the last good-by and turned Satan into the narrow trail. When I
+looked back Jones stood on the rim with the fresh glow of dawn shining
+on his face. The trail was steep, and claimed my attention and care,
+but time and time again I gazed back. Jones waved his hand till a huge
+jutting cliff walled him from view. Then I cast my eyes on the rough
+descent and the wonderful void beneath me. In my mind lingered a
+pleasing consciousness of my last sight of the old plainsman. He fitted
+the scene; he belonged there among the silent pines and the yellow
+crags.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2057 ***