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 Canyon 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 canyons 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 Canyon
fer the deep snow on the north rim. Wal, ye're lucky. Now, yer
hit the trail fer New York, an' keep goint! 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? 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 Canyon, 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 Canyon trail.
Rust's instructions were to bring Moze to Flagstaff in two weeks.
He brought the dog a little ahead time, and roared his
appreciation of the relief it 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 canyon 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 blue 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 Canyon 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 canyon 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 Canyon 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 Canyon
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 Canyon--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 Canyon. 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 he
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 Canyon, 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 Canyon 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 Canyon--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 Canyon 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 canyon."

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 o 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 Canyon 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 canyons 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, add 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 gettin 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 Canyon.
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 relucant 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 Canyon 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 canyon 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 Canyon runs into Kanab Canyon. He's so
cunnn' 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 Canyon, an' wait. Then send
some one slippin' down to the water-hole at Kanab Canyon, 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 Canyon 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 Canyon we marked, in every dusty trail
and sandy wash, the small, oval, sharply defined tracks of the
White Mustang and his band.

The canyon 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 Canyon 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 Canyon, 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 canyon. Stewart knew the lay of the
ridges and run of the canyons 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 canyon 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 canyon wall, rough, uneven, tortuous
and choked with fallen rocks--no more than a wonderful crack in
solid stone, opening into another canyon. 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 canyon. No hunter could have seen it, or
suspected it from that side.

"This is Grand Canyon country, an' nobody knows what he's goin'
to find," was Frank's comment.

"Now we're in Nail Canyon proper," said Stewart; "An' I know my
bearin's. I can climb out a mile below an' cut across to Kanab
Canyon, an' slip up into Nail Canyon agin, ahead of the mustangs,
an' drive 'em up. I can't miss 'em, fer Kanab Canyon 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 canyon.

We were early on the march. As we proceeded the canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon 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
canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon.

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 canyon, where he evidently intended to hide.
Presently successive yells and shots from our comrades blended in
a roar which the narrow box-canyon 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 canyon 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 8. SNAKE GULCH

Not far from the scene of our adventure with the White Streak as
we facetious and appreciatively named the mustang, deep, flat
cave indented the canyon 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 complement. By way of
reply, he moved his big hand to 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 Canyon; 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 canyon and the outer
floor of our cave lay bathed in white, clear moonlight. A dense,
gloomy black shadow veiled the opposite canyon 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
delicatly 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 canyon, 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 Canyon
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
canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon.
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 Canyon 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 canyon 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, {Symbols recording the history of a bygone people.}
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.
Walllace 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' red, skins 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. Muskoxen 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 world 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 Artilery 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 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 muskoxen 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 one-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 canyon 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 canyons 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 canyon. 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
canyon 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 Canyon
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 canyon. 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 canyon
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 canyon 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 canyon. 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 canyon."

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 canyon,
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 canyon 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 Canyon
proper. If that was true, what, then, could be the name of the
canyon 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 canyon 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 Canyon, 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon. 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 canyon. 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 canyon. 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, 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, every where. 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
Canyon.

"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 Canyon, a red gorge a mile deep, met the great
canyon. 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 canyon slope.

"Rocky Mountain sheep!" exclaimed Jones. "Look! Well, this is a
discovery. I never heard of a bighorn in the Canyon."

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 canyon, 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 canyon.
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 canyon. 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 or 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 canyon, now blood-red, was
there in overwhelming reality, a profound, solemn, gloomy thing,
but real. The wind blew stronger, and then I was 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 canyon 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 canyon, 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, 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 canyon. 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 canyon 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 in 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 canyon. 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
canyon 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 canyon,
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 canyon. Now as to the mountain range
crossing the canyon 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 canyons 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 canyon--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 Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold
promise, a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted
away in its dust, yet the canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon 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
canyon 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 canyon, 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 canyon. 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 canyon 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 canyon, 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 canyon 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
canyon 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 canyon
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 Canyon, 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 canyon
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 canyon. 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 Canyon.

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 canyon. 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
canyon, with me hot-footin' it after him. An' somewhere he treed
thet lion, right below me, in a box canyon, 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon, 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 canyon
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 canyon, 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
canyon 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 Canyon. 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 canyon, 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 Canyon
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 canyon 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 canyon. 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 rivited 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 canyon 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 canyon 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 canyon; 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
canyon 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 canyons
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.