THE FIRE DANCE OF THE NAVAHO
“Hi, old-timer, this-all’s too many for me--I’m a fool and proud of
it!” roared Big John down at Sid, as Scotty came galloping up to the
brink of Lost Canyon and yelled delighted greetings. “What in thunder
are ye doin’ down thar? How’d ye git there, an’ how’d ye lose yore
pony? Speak up, _hombre_! We lost a varmint, hyarabouts,--y’ ain’t got
him, none, in yore pockets, has yer?”
Sid waved a hand up at the cliff dwellings as he laughed back gayly,
“There’s your bird, John--up in a cave yonder. Gorry, but I’m glad to
see you all! I’ve been shut up here for two days. That’s the Black
Panther you’re after and he’s got a lair in a cave back of those
pueblos----”
“Yeah? I jest knowed it war old Neyani’s identical black sheep-stealer!
Eh! Seems like a Navaho god or devil named Dsilyi owns him,--but Ruler,
here, he runs across his trail, ’smornin’, an’, very impolite, lights
out after the sacred critter! Me, I hops the cayuse an’ oozes along,
with Scotty scratchin’ gravel behind me, an’ hyar we is. We found yore
pony in Neyani’s corral, Sid,--Say! all h--l pops loose then, you bet!
Yore dad’s back thar now, settin’ on the lid and holdin’ the Injuns
quiet. You want to show up thar, pretty sudden, or some pore Injun’s
goin’ to git lynched.”
“But how in the nation are we ever going to get you _out_, Sid?” called
Scotty, who had been surveying the canyon intently while Big John was
speaking. “It’s all walls and cliffs, as far as I can see.”
“Search me!” grinned Sid, shrugging his shoulders. “And how are you two
going to get down to help me smoke out the cougar---- Mind the dogs,
boys!” he broke off suddenly. “They’ll be tumbling into the canyon,
next, if you don’t get leashes on them, pronto.”
Ruler and the pups had now worked around to the brink of the granite
slide. The big hound was even intrepidly venturing down it, with Pepper
at his heels. Big John roared; Scotty yelled; Sid aimed his revolver
and spanged a bullet on the rock in front of them, for a sheer fall
down into the canyon threatened them if they tried to go any further.
“Back up out of thar, Ruler--you ole fool critter!” shouted Big John,
shying a stone over with deft aim. The dogs yelped and started back,
but a challenging snarl, ringing out from the cave, brought them all
back again, barking madly. Ruler ran to the edge of the vertical ledges
and put his paws on the nearest, bellowing his disgust at being unable
to follow further.
“So there’s where he is, eh?” cried Scotty, reaching down to his
scabbard for his .405. “If I could only get a shot from here!”
He peered across at the cliff dwellings, but the Black Panther’s lair
was, of course, invisible from Scotty’s position.
“Don’t shoot, kid!” warned Big John. “We ain’t ready yet. Whar’s yore
rifle, Sid?” he called down.
Sid waved the little .32-20. “This is all I’ve got. Can’t you see?--I’m
locked up in here,” he yelled. “I climbed up by yonder wall, and now I
can’t get out of this box canyon or I’d have met you fellows long ago.”
“Yaas?--it works like the nigger’s eel trap, eh? Ketches ’em comin’ and
goin’!” hee-hawed Big John. “Cat in one end; kid in t’other!--waal,
how are we goin’ to git you out? I ain’t fixin’ to bombard no varmint,
with you down thar, right plumb intimate with him, nohow!” he declared
vigorously.
“Say!--chuck me down a lariat and I’ll get out, all right--both your
lariats!” called up Sid, suddenly, as a scheme for escape came to him.
“All right, son, anything that’s ourn is yourn,” grinned Big John as
he lifted his lariat coil from its saddle hook. After a few moments of
untying, the ropes soared out from the cliff walls, to drop down into
the underbrush.
“Scotty, you watch the trick panther’s hang-out while I climbs down an’
ties up them pisen-mean houn’ dawgs,” said Big John, as Sid started
retrieving the lariats and coiling them up. The cowman dismounted and
tied his mustang back in the timber. After a time his long form began
sliding down the steep shale slopes above the granite slab, where, at
the top of it, he drove in his heels and regained his feet.
“You’ll obleege me, Sid, by rockin’ them dawgs from whar you are,” he
called to Sid, who was waiting to see the outcome before putting off
on his own perilous climb.
Sid “obleeged,” sending the pups yelping up the slope. Ruler was harder
to manage. By no persuasion could he be coaxed to leave his position,
sniffing and whining with the implacable persistence of a hound over
the last foot of cougar trail that he could possibly follow. Big
John had at length to climb down the crevice and haul him up by main
strength. Sid breathed freely when man and dog once more reached the
comparative safety of the upper slopes.
“Well,--so long, fellows!” he called out. “I can let myself down to a
fir tree beyond that wall,” he explained, pointing out the blocked end
of the canyon. “It lands me in a side chasm of Cheyo Canyon, where I’ve
cached my saddle and rifle. I’ll whoopee, when I’m through the cleft.
Then burn out the cat, if you can, and ride down to join me.”
“All right, old-timer,--good luck to ye!” called Big John. “We’ll git
him, somehow.”
Sid made the climb up to the cleft in the end of the wall for the last
time. Once down through it, he secured the two lariats together and
let down their combined length. To his delight they reached well into
the top of the fir tree. Then he tied the upper end to a stout sapling
growing near the ledge and tested it for strength. Taking the rope
in his hands, he raised his voice in a loud _Whoopee!_ and began the
descent.
Distant shouts answered him, and then the bellow of rifles. They were
making it hot for the Black Panther, Sid hoped, as he picked his way
down from ledge to ledge. With the confidence born of the lariat in his
grip, it was now easy climbing. A scramble down from one huge slab to
the next below, often lowering himself vertically by the rope, brought
him at last to where he could grasp the swaying top of the fir tree.
Then, abandoning the friendly lariat, he climbed down rapidly, and with
a mighty whoop of joy stood on firm soil once more--free!
Then came the reaction--from all the strain and fatigue of the
past three days. A delicious sense of ease, of victory and repose,
crept over him as he retrieved his rifle and saddle and then rested
indolently against the latter, waiting for Scotty and Big John to come
down into the canyon. He had had his three-days’ trial, just like
any Indian boy. There had been no starvation, no vision; but there
had been plenty to test his nerve and courage and resourcefulness.
He decided that he was more in love with the great wild outdoors
than ever. His life would be here, that was sure, for to him it was
happiness. Just what he would do was still somewhat indistinct, but
there were lots of purposeful, worth-while activities to be carried on,
wholly in the wilderness. Something practical, something with an object
for those benighted children of the forest, the Indians, was as far as
he could see for the present.
It was perhaps an hour later when Ruler came in sight around a jutting
cliff down the canyon, with the three pups trotting along just behind
him. After them appeared the tossing heads of the ponies, the flash
of sunlight on Big John’s silver-mounted chaps and the white glare of
Scotty’s tall sombrero. As they caught sight of him, they burst into a
gallop and waved their hats.
“Well, how’s the Black Panther--did you get him?” laughed Sid
indolently from his saddle as they rode up.
“Naw,” growled Big John. “I climbs round whar I can sort of carrom him,
like, with the thutty-thutty, an’ for every whang we hears him spit
back,--growl fer whang, even-Steven--but it don’t interest him none.
Then Scotty, here, he tears loose with that old Four-O-Five pursuader,
like it hed a half stick of dynamite into it, an’ that’s jest a leetle
too much fer kitty! He crep’ back into a hole in his cave an’ pulls the
hole in atter him, like a tyrantula; an’ so we guv him up.”
Sid glanced up the cliff wall to where the lariats hung in a long black
streak down from the cleft ledge.
“I was weeping real tears over leaving these good lariats behind,
boys,” he smiled, cherubically, “but now I see we’ve got a use for
them. Scotty and I’ll climb up there, some day, into Lost Canyon, while
you and father run the panther with the dogs. Then we’ll have a nice
roof party on top of those cliff houses--eh, Les?”
“Sure thing!” agreed Scotty. “But, Sid, the thing to do now is to get
back to Neyani’s hogan as fast as we can. You see, Ruler picked up
your pony’s tracks in the canyon yesterday, and led us out to Neyani’s
place. They’re in lots of trouble out there. This medicine panther,
as they insist he is, has been taking one of Neyani’s sheep every few
nights--a regular scourge. So what do they do but think that Dsilyi,
their demigod, is angry with the house of Neyani and, therefore, it
must be because someone has committed a crime and the panther is being
sent as a punishment. The suspicion rests on young Niltci, Neyani’s
son, a harmless, industrious Indian boy, so far as I can see, and a
peach of a silversmith. Well, Neyani was telling us all about it, when
John, I think it was, spied your pony up in Neyani’s corral!--Cracky,
but thunder broke loose then, you can bet! John, here, was for wringing
Neyani’s neck,” laughed Scotty, “and only your father saved it for
him. Of course, they all protested their ignorance of you, and swore
that the pony had come trotting to their hogan of his own accord.
First habitation he saw of any human beings, I suppose. Well, anyway,
Neyani turns and blames the whole thing on Niltci and accuses him of
murdering _you_! Of course Colonel Colvin interfered, then, but I’m
afraid the poor boy’s doomed, for the Navaho are holding their great
fire dance to-night to see who’s guilty, and the least unfavorable omen
will settle it for him. We all drew off and camped near by, to try
to save Niltci if it comes to the worst. Colonel Colvin told us that
the situation had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. We couldn’t
kill the sacred medicine cougar without starting an Indian uprising;
we couldn’t prove Niltci innocent with you unaccounted for--the whole
thing was a mess! Well, early, before dawn this morning the Black
Panther came again----”
“Funny, that war!” broke in Big John. “Shore tickled this _hombre’s_
sense of the reedic’lous! Thar we was, afraid to make a move fer fear
of offending them pore Injuns’ feelin’s, with their medicine panther
an’ all that. But Ruler, here, he don’t know nothin’ about no sacred
panther! All he smells is cat, red hot, an’--most impolite,--takes
out after the heap big medicine trick panther! I pilgrims out of me
blankets and heaves a saddle on wild Bill, an’ Scotty an’ I rolls our
tails after thet b’ilin’ of dawgs, leavin’ the Colonel to fix up some
lie that’ll pacify the Injuns. Now we shore is wanted back to home,
boys! I’ll tote that saddle of yourn, Sid, somehow, an’ Scotty, you
carry the extra rifle while Sid takes yore stirrup and runs with us.
Let’s get movin’--we’ve got all of ten miles to lope.”
Sid got to his feet and passed up the saddle to Big John. Then Scotty
took his rifle and, with Sid getting a grip on the stirrup, the ponies
started cantering down the side chasm. In a mile more they were out in
the main canyon and riding steadily up its huge amphitheater of cliffs.
Sid was dog-tired with the alternate walking and trotting of the horses
when, shortly before sunset, the wide plain of the Navaho settlement
came to view. Running with a stirrup-hold was far easier than he had
anticipated; walking was another story, for a horse’s stride is so
long as to take a very rapid pace to keep up with it. As they looked
about over the semidesert plain it was hard to realize that there must
be at least fifty hogans in plain sight at that very moment. But, so
carefully concealed were they that if this party of theirs had been
hostile invaders they would be walking right in to a first-class ambush.
But, as they drew near Neyani’s, the entire vicinity seemed dotted
with busy Indians, all preparing for the great Fire Dance. From every
direction they were dragging in wood, small dead mesquites, greasewood
bushes, anything that would burn. A huge pile of it twenty feet high
was being assembled near the hogan, with an inclosure of brush formed
in a ring about it. Indians passed them, gayly decorated with barbaric
jewelry, in white cotton shirts and colored leggings, the older ones
wearing broad, striped “chief” blankets. All were noisy, and busy on
one errand or another, and behind brushwood screens they could see
the young men and warriors of the various clans and secret societies
decking themselves in ceremonial costumes.
Then Colonel Colvin came galloping out, his face one huge smile of glad
relief and astonishment.
“Sid, my boy!--where _have_ you been? What in the devil has happened to
you, son?” he cried, as he reined up his horse to lean over and wring
Sid’s hand. “You have come just in the nick of time. It will at least
relieve young Niltci of any suspicion of having harmed a white man.
But the Fire Dance ceremony must go ahead, I fear. Any news of that
infernal panther, John?”
“Yaas; the dawgs run him into a leetle box canyon back thar in
Cheyo--an’ you can steal my hoss if thar ain’t Sid, ez ornery and ez
nat’ral ez ever! I told ye not to worry, Colonel,” he wagged his head.
“Thet rope’s still waitin’ for him! He clumb up thar, an’ then he
couldn’t git out again. The varmint’s got a lair in that canyon, too,
in a cave behind some of them cliff houses.”
“So you didn’t get him, eh? That’s bad!” said Colonel Colvin,
disappointedly. “He’ll come back for some more lamb in a day or so.
I’ve sent for Major Hinchman, but he’ll get here too late to do any
good, for the Indians are so wrought up that they’re like to throw
Niltci into the big fire if anything goes wrong during the ceremonies.
He and Neyani are to be leaders in it, so they’ll be right in the
limelight.
“I tell you what we’ll do!” exclaimed the Colonel suddenly, as they
walked the horses toward the hogan, “we’ll break camp right now, and
get everything ready for the ride across the desert to the Grand
Canyon. Then if things go wrong at the dance we’ll watch our chance
and get Niltci away and take him with us across the desert, until this
business blows over. You, Sid and Scotty, keep near him. Watch where
they put him if they tie him up; get him free and join us out on the
plain, as it will be pitch dark. We’ll start right out and put fifty
miles between us and this hogan during the night. I’ll strike for Lee’s
Ferry on the Big Colorado.”
Sid and Scotty winked at each other gleefully. A cutting-out party of
this nature was right in their line! Big John and the Colonel rode on
to their camp, while the boys dismounted at the hogan and went inside.
Neither Neyani nor Niltci were anywhere in sight, for they were off
in the brush somewhere, dressing for their parts. But a group of old
medicine men were making sand paintings on the floor of the hogan,
pouring various colored sands deftly through their fingers. The boys
looked around curiously, at the huge beams of the hogan slanting up
overhead and the square smoke hole over a small fire in the center
which gave light for the sand-painting ceremonies. Around the walls ran
a log-and-clay shelf which served as both bench and sleeping bunks.
Pottery water jars stood in the corners, with granary baskets of corn
and pinyon nuts and bowls of corn meal. The young girl knelt beside
the fire, making _piké_ bread by pouring a thin batter deftly through
a crack in her fingers on a smooth, hot stone. As fast as a layer
cooked she rolled it around itself and spread a fresh batch. Paper-thin
pancakes of corn meal were they! Her mother crouched in a corner,
grinding meal in a stone trough with a long stone pestle.
Then they turned to watch the sand paintings. Brilliantly hued, they
told the legends of the Navaho brought down from the Far North--Dsilyi
in the house of the Snakes, who taught him the prayer-stick mysteries;
Dsilyi in the Rainbow Hogan of the Butterfly Woman, who gave him
command of the Rain Lightnings; Dsilyi in the cave of the Sacred
Mountain, where the Four Panthers taught him the secrets of the
cultivated plants. It all became intelligible to Sid as he studied out
the symbolical figures, while one of the medicine men explained him the
legends.
Later came the young men of the tribe, to look in and study the
paintings. It was as good as the Iliad was to the Greeks, thought
Sid,--an easily read symbolism of Navaho heroes and gods that was being
passed down to the younger generation in this way.
Then every one trooped out to the inclosure around the brush pile. Just
at dusk the qcali (medicine chanter) stationed himself to one side and
began the chant of the legend of Dsilyi. Immediately torches were set
to the wood, and great roaring flames forty feet high swept up into
the night. The heat was so intense that the boys had to shield their
faces with their buckskin gloves, but into the narrow ring between them
and the fire dashed a band of twenty young men headed by Niltci. They
were daubed all over with white clay, but it seemed beyond the power of
human endurance for anyone to remain there a moment. Each youth bore
in his hand a wand tipped with eagle down, representing snowflakes.
Writhing and twisting, they advanced to the flames, their object being
to burn the down to balls of red cinders, while the qcali chanted the
story of how the gods changed the snowflakes to mud balls and pelted
the Utes with them when Dsilyi was surrounded and nearly overpowered
by his enemies. The performers lashed their way toward the fire, their
long hair singed and smoking, their eyelids scorched and their faces
streaming sweat. Niltci wriggled along the ground like a lizard,
his prayer stick advanced toward the fire, his back tortured by the
blistering heat. So eager was he to do his part well that he overdid
it, for, when the others arose, whirling their wands with red-hot
cinders at the ends, his was burned off and showed only a tiny point of
fire.
At this a grunt of disapproval ran around the spectators and accusing
fingers pointed at him. Then, at a certain measure in the chant all the
wands blossomed into snowballs again, a clever trick done by a string
through a hole near the end and a second ball of down concealed in the
hand. All but Niltci’s! His wand end was burned off, string and all.
A shout of rage greeted him as he stood irresolute, the others dancing
about, waving their prayer sticks. Then the performers ran out of the
inclosure, and the first of the legend plays was finished.
A muttering and murmuring ran around the circle of Navahos. It looked
bad for the poor youth, already. Sid and Scotty whispered together,
wondering how they were going to get in touch with him if matters grew
any worse. They had not yet formed a plan, when the qcali started
chanting again and two old chiefs of the tribe danced in, dressed in
the ceremonial costumes of the Plumed Arrow-Swallowers. The leader
was Neyani, and, as they watched him closely, the boys could detect
a nervousness in all his movements. The honor of his family was at
stake, now, since Niltci had bungled his part, for the omens were going
against him and his. The qcali sang the story of how Dsilyi went to the
Rainbow Hogan of the Butterfly Woman, where the Plumed Arrow-Swallowers
put his feet on the white lightnings and gave him command of the rains.
At this climax of the mystery play he suddenly stopped chanting,
while Neyani and the other chief halted and raised their arrows up
vertically. The spectators held their breath. Slowly, inch by inch,
the long arrows disappeared down the throats of the performers. To
anyone who did not know that the arrows were made of collapsible reeds,
the illusion of swallowing them was complete.
But Neyani, in the eagerness of his grasp, had somehow bent his
arrow. By no force of self-torture could he make it go down further!
Stubbornly it stuck, while a mighty growl rose from all the Navaho
watching him. A babel of voices burst out in accusations; fingers
pointed, knives flashed out. Over near the chiefs Sid could see his
father shaking his head anxiously, while Big John beside him fumbled at
his gun holster.
Dramatically the qcali raised his arm and pointed, while a dead silence
struck the throng motionless.
“Neyani--it is thou!” his voice rang out. “Behold the judgment of
Dsilyi! Confess! Confess thou before the Navaho!” he declared in
guttural Indian speech.
The boys could not understand a word of it, but his tones and actions
were unmistakable. Equally significant were Neyani’s. He drew forth
the arrow and dashed it on the ground. “Not I!--Not I!” his head shook
in negation. “These years have never yet taken blame! This viper in
my house, it is!” he yelled, turning to point at Niltci, who stood
cowering without the inclosure.
“Ai!--We shall see!” exclaimed the qcali, significantly. He waved
his arm for the final ceremony to begin, and then took up the legend
of Dsilyi again, telling of his final defeat of the Utes. Once more
Niltci’s band came charging in, this time beating each other on the
backs with flaming torches, signifying the utter rout of the Utes by
Dsilyi. Round and round the scorching inclosure they raced. The smell
of singed hair and scorched flesh told that many a blanket would hide a
sore back next morning! In the middle of the third round, Niltci, who
was belaboring the youth in front of him with the eagerness of despair,
tripped over a root and fell sprawling on the ground. Instantly the
whole tribe rose as one man and swarmed over him. That last omen had
been more than enough to damn him! Twenty hands grabbed for the poor
unfortunate, while the boys shoved their way into the throng, eager to
be of some help, yet not knowing what to do in the present fanatical
mood of the Indians. Colonel Colvin beckoned vigorously for them to
stand aside and keep out of it.
Niltci was dragged to his feet and hustled, amid the yelling of angry
voices, to the nearest tree. Big John pranced over with a six-gun in
each hand, about to wade into the whole crowd, regardless, but the
Colonel grabbed him and forced his guns down. For the present there
seemed no immediate danger, for buckskin thongs were being passed
around Niltci instead of the rope which the cowman had usually seen
produced by a frenzied mob. Then the Indians stood aside, waiting the
judgment of the qcali.
The latter stalked forward and began a long harangue. He seemed urging
Niltci to confess, but the boy shook his head, his eyes piteous with
injured innocence, his face looking at them terrified over the fearful
predicament into which the superstition of the Black Panther had
brought him.
“What does he say, Neyani?” demanded Colonel Colvin. “The white men do
not understand this at all!”
Neyani shrugged his shoulders. He was through with his renegade son, it
was quite evident. His interest was merely that for some criminal.
“Perhaps a man in the desert lies dead because of him; perhaps some
girl she lives dishonored by him. Who knows? For that Dsilyi his Black
Panther sends. But the sun god, he tell,” he remarked, stolidly.
“What do you mean?” asked the Colonel, quickly.
“To-morrow he must look at the sun god till he tell. No good!”
explained Neyani, coolly.
As the qcali finished, a group of young braves stepped forward and
bound Niltci so that he faced to the east. Then a fork was secured
about his head, the purpose evidently being for someone to hold it so
that the poor youth would have to face the desert sun until its torture
forced him to tell something or invent a confession if he had none.
The whites looked at one another significantly. “Well, boys--we must be
getting back to camp,” said the Colonel. “Neyani, the white men think
that your son is innocent. There is some other reason for the Black
Panther. But to-morrow Major Hinchman will come. My advice to you is
to wait until the White Father arrives, before doing anything that you
yourself may regret for all the rest of your life.”
And with this he turned away, leaving the old Indian shaking his head
and staring at him stolidly.
Two hours later all was quiet. The Navahos had departed to their
hogans; the desert was as still, under its canopy of stars, as if never
the doings of foolish men had disturbed its peace. And, out toward the
west moved the Colvin pack train, silent and shrouded in darkness.
There was yet an hour before the moon would rise.
About two miles from Neyani’s hogan the horses were reined up and Sid
and Scotty dismounted. They were about to vanish into the darkness
of the sage, when Big John threw a long leg over the white mustang’s
saddle and leaped to the ground.
“Hyar! I’m goin’ to be in on this!” he declared, truculently, handing
the Colonel his reins. “Them pesky boys is all right, I’ll admit, to
save having it proved on me, but thar’s times when they needs a man
around--which same is me!”
Colonel Colvin hesitated a moment. Then--“I guess I can manage the
pack train alone, John. You’d better go,” said he at length. “Use no
violence, now, unless you have to. I’ll ride the horses slowly toward
the Canyon. Good luck to you, boys.”
He waved them a farewell as the three set out. All of them were busily
thinking over some plan to rescue Niltci that would work. To steal upon
him, even under cover of darkness was playing the Indian’s own game,
they knew, a tremendously difficult one for mere whites to succeed at
undetected. To make a big detour and come down by way of the sheep
corral would be fatal, for the dogs there would surely give a warning.
Niltci would undoubtedly be guarded. If they overpowered the guards, it
would be known who had kidnaped the prisoner. That would never do!
“As I see it, fellows, the only stunt for us is for one of us to entice
Niltci’s guards away for a time, while the other two get to him and
cut him loose,” said Sid in low tones as they crept through the sage.
“Anyone got any notion of what might attract a Navaho’s curiosity?” he
inquired.
There was a silence as the others shook their heads. Then Big John
spoke up. “I got a better layout than that, Sid. These Injuns are
superstitious, an’ thar’s one thing they’re scairt of wuss than
anythin’ else. You-all got plenty of matches?” he asked suddenly.
The boys stopped and got out their emergency kits. Out of each they
produced a bundle of about fifty matches. “Ef these was the good old
brimstone sticks they’d go better,” said Big John enigmatically, taking
them in his big paw, “but I’ll make out with them, all right. You boys
run along, now, an’ git as near Niltci’s tree as ye kin. Then lay low
and watch my smoke.”
He disappeared into the sage without a further word. Sid and Scotty
looked at each other, puzzled, but they knew Big John had a mighty good
head on him, and he would be unlikely to try anything that would not
work. As they drew near Neyani’s hogan they redoubled their caution,
crawling through the sage and taking advantage of every little ridge of
rock. At length they were quite near Niltci’s tree and well concealed
in a patch of scrub bear grass. They could make out the Indian boy’s
blurred form, now, bound upright to the tree. Beside him on the ground
squatted two Navaho guards, silent, motionless. They might be dead, for
all the movement either made; but that they were quite awake and on
watch the boys could not doubt.
For a long time nothing happened. All the desert was still as death,
shrouded in the gloom of a faint mist that hung over the barren ground.
Overhead the stars swung in their great courses, but their light
penetrated but feebly through the dust and mist and haze of smoke that
drifted over from the ashes of the great fire.
Then--“_Hist!_” whispered Scotty, at length, gripping Sid’s arm.
“What’s _that_?”
There, quite near,--over by a little nest of bowlders--_something
moved_! Dim, dark, hardly discernible, a round, black head peered out,
advancing fearsomely, with two phosphorescent disks of fire glaring at
them, balefully!--Then a wild, mortal shriek rent the night! It was the
Black Panther, himself!
The boys tugged feverishly at their revolvers, their hair standing
on end with fright. As for the two Navahos, one wild leap, one
terror-stricken grunt of dismay, and they were off like the wind,
bolting out into the sage. It was not until they were some distance
away that they raised terrified screams of fright, running like deer as
they yelled.
The panther crept nearer, and, just as Sid was about to fire, Big
John’s low voice called out to them reassuringly.
“Don’t shoot!--Up an’ git young Niltci, boys!” he gritted.--“How did my
fox-fire look?”
Sid went nearly hysterical with the reaction. “Was that you, John? It
was _great_! Simply great!” he chuckled, springing forward to wring
the cowman’s hand. Bubbling with delight, they all dashed for Niltci.
Swiftly his thongs were cut, and then, each grabbing an arm, they
started for the canyon.
“Run, fellers--I’m a good kitty, all right, but we ain’t got no time to
lose!” whispered Big John, hoarsely.--“Listen!”
Voices and yells came from hogans all about them. The night was hideous
with uproar--then it suddenly ceased and all was silent again.
“Well, I’ll be derned!” grunted Big John, as they hustled along, “what
d’ye make of that?--I’m wise, boys!” he laughed. “Them brave bucks has
told the hogans that their friend, Mister Black Panther, has come and
took _Niltci_--an’ they’re all stickin’ close to home, scairt to death!
Hep, boys--hep!”