JACK KILLS A LION
As they started off this morning Jack felt good; he had been
promoted; he was riding a new horse. The grey, on which he had taken
his first lessons in riding, was old and steady and slow; very good
to travel over the prairie on, but past his usefulness for any
purpose except hunting or going after the saddle horses. So, a week
or two before, Hugh had caught up for him a new horse, and he had
tried it several times. It was a brown, seven years old, perfectly
gentle, yet with plenty of spirit. Hugh had ridden it a good deal,
and told him that it was one of the best horses at the ranch; kind,
gentle, very swift, and, better than all, a good hunting horse. He
had said, "You don't need to watch the Brown when you're riding over
the prairie, going anywhere, but if you ever start him after a bunch
of elk or a band of buffalo, look out for him, unless you want to
get right into the middle of them. He can catch elk too easy, and is
faster than any buffalo cow I ever saw."
Jack wanted a good name for the horse. He did not like to call him
merely Brown; he wanted a name that would mean something. Half a
dozen names had been suggested, but none of them seemed quite to
fit the horse. At last he decided that he would call the animal by
the name of some Indian tribe. Blackfoot seemed a pretty good name,
because the horse's feet were all black, but after thinking it over
with a good deal of care, he determined to call the horse Pawnee.
This morning when they mounted and rode away, young Powell was loud
in his praise of Jack's horse. He said, "I'll bet he's got the legs
of any of these three horses. Mine is pretty fast and keeps pretty
close to the dogs in the chase, but yours will run away from him as
if he was standing still."
"That's right," said Hugh, "he's an awful good horse, and what's
more, he's just as kind as he's good. You can get off him to hunt,
and leave him, and you'll feel sure when you come back he'll be
feeding in the same place. If you fire a shot, he puts up his head
and looks at you with his ears pricked up, to see whether you've
killed or not. Then, after you have butchered, if you lead him up
to an animal to put the meat on him, he'll snort and curve his neck
and look like he was terrible scared; but when you commence to lift
the meat to put it on his back, he'll kind of crouch down and lean
towards you, to make it easier for you to get it on. You can shoot
off him and he'll never move. Sometimes I've thought that when I
raised the gun to my shoulder to shoot he stopped breathing for a
minute. I know he always kind o' spreads his legs to hold himself
steady. You've got a good horse now, son, and I'd advise you to hang
on to him as long as you're here at the ranch."
The ride down the valley was a pleasant one. The blue iris stood
thick in the damp places. The brilliant red and yellow flowers of
the cactus dotted the hillsides. White poppy blossoms swung in the
wind, and, if one had been on foot the tiny blooms of the yellow
violets, which send their roots so far down into the hard dry soil of
the prairie, could have been seen thickly scattered on the slopes.
It was a time, too, of singing birds. The clear, sweet whistle of
the meadow-lark came from the hills near-by, and was answered from
other farther hills in a faint refrain, which sounded like an echo.
The little finches of the prairie rose from the ground high in air,
and then descended slowly on motionless wings, singing as if their
throats would burst. From far on high fell the tinkling notes of the
unseen prairie skylark floating above them. Little ground squirrels
and prairie dogs were busy everywhere, but as the horsemen and troop
of dogs drew near, they scattered to their holes, and, after a few
angry barks and squeaks, disappeared from sight. Now and then as
they passed over some swell of the prairie they startled an antelope
or two or three, which ran up on the neighbouring hills and stood
there stamping and snorting. The dogs would look at them eagerly yet
doubtfully, and would perhaps trot a little way toward them, but
young Powell always whistled them back. The prairie and the air
above it were full of pleasant sights and sounds.
Young Powell said to Jack, "The dogs had some hard runs yesterday,
and I don't want them to be chasing antelope to-day, and so far from
home. I don't run antelope often, anyhow, though I've got some with
these dogs, but I use them mainly for wolves and coyotes; and it's a
bad thing to have a lot of dogs think that they can run anything that
gets up before them on the prairie. If I was going to run antelope,
I'd have a special bunch of dogs for running them, and for nothing
else."
"Then they've caught antelopes, have they?" asked Jack. "It hardly
seems to me as if anything could catch an antelope, when it's really
running as hard as it can."
"Oh, I don't know," said Powell, "there's lots of difference in
antelopes. Some of them can run twice as fast as others. I almost
roped an old doe once in a fair chase, and I wasn't riding anything
but a slow cow pony at that. I never felt quite sure though whether
I could have caught her or not, or whether she was just fooling me.
I ran her and she took down a valley, and I caught up with her, and
got so close that I was just getting my rope ready to throw, when she
ran across a little green place where the grass stood pretty high.
I would not have tried to cross it if I hadn't been after her, for
it looked kind of wet, but I couldn't stop, and I put the spurs into
the old horse, and he jumped right into the middle of it and stayed
there, and I kept going and hit the hard ground on the other side.
When I got up and caught the horse, the antelope was out of sight.
Still, I know mighty well that there's a big difference in antelope.
You take an old buck, and even if you get a good start on him, the
dogs have a hard time to get up to him. You take an old doe, or a
yearling buck, and it's almost always caught a heap easier. You see
those two little blue dogs, the smooth ones, the two that are ahead?
They're the fastest dogs I've got. I always depend on them to stop a
coyote or a wolf. If they can catch him and throw him it's a mighty
short time till the other dogs get up, and then they all pitch in and
chew him. These two yellow, rough-haired dogs here, the biggest ones,
they're the fighters. They bring up the tail of the chase, but when
they get to the wolf they don't stop, they pitch right in. If it's
a coyote, one of them generally gets him across the chest and the
other in the flank, and then the rest of the dogs take hold wherever
they can, and they all pull in different directions. It don't take no
time at all to kill a coyote, but of course a big wolf is different.
I've had three dogs killed by wolves, and each one only had one bite.
They're terrible strong, powerful animals.
"I want to show you twelve pups that I've got at the ranch. They're
little fellows yet, but I expect to get some awful good dogs out of
them. I tell you a dog don't last any time at all at this sort of
work. Some of 'em get cut up by the wolves, and some break their legs
or sprain their shoulders, running, and some get hurt by the horses.
It's a pretty rough life on a dog; but while they last they've an
awful good time." Chatting thus, they covered mile after mile of
prairie. Jack's horse stepped along lightly and easily. From time to
time Hugh lit his pipe and smoked. Powell watched his dogs. The sun
was warm, the air clear and pleasant, and Jack thought that he had
never enjoyed a morning more.
Suddenly, just in front of the two blue hounds that were trotting
before them, a jack-rabbit bounced up and scurried away at top speed.
In an instant all the dogs were running for it, and Jack and young
Powell were close at their heels. It was a short run. The leading
blue dog pressed the rabbit hard; he dodged in front of the second
dog, and in a moment had to dodge again, which threw him into the
jaws of the first and he had run his last race. It was short but
exciting; doubly so to Jack who had never seen anything of the
sort. Powell jumped down among the hounds and cuffed and scolded
them, while he took from them the fragments of the rabbit, and then
mounted, and they all went on. A little later the dogs all broke away
again after a badger which showed himself on the side hill; but he
dodged into his hole before they reached him, and the dogs came back,
looking foolish. Powell now took from a pocket in his saddle a whip,
with a handle about a foot and a half long, and a lash of eight or
ten feet, and whenever a dog pressed forward ahead of the horses, he
struck at it, and after a little while the whole pack followed
obediently at his horse's heels.
[Illustration: "THE ANIMAL LAUNCHED ITSELF FROM ITS PERCH FULL
TOWARDS JACK."
--_Page 131_.]
It was long past noon when they reached some high hills, rough and
scarred with broken bad lands, on which grew a few stunted pines and
cedars. They were climbing these hills, Jack a little in advance,
when he saw rise from a shelf in the rocks, a long, slim, yellow
animal, which began to sneak away up a ravine.
"Oh, Hugh, what's that?" the boy cried; and at the same time Powell
gave a yell, which started all the dogs forward. "A mountain lion,"
Hugh called back: "The dogs will tree him, sure! Look out for him!"
Jack hardly heard the words, for he was pressing forward close after
the dogs, not thinking of the rough ground over which he was riding,
but half wild with the excitement of the chase. The horses climbed
the steep scarp of the hills at a run, and in a moment Jack found
himself galloping over smooth, bare, yellow soil, fifty yards behind
the last of the hounds, while the two blue dogs seemed but a few
feet behind the lion. In a moment more the beast was safe among the
branches of a cedar, the dogs clustered about its trunk, leaping
into the air and showing the greatest excitement. When he was almost
at the foot of the tree, Jack drew up his horse, and the moment it
stopped, threw his gun to his shoulder and fired full into the chest
of the lion, which stood facing him snarling and angrily twitching
his tail this way and that. As the gun cracked, the animal launched
itself from its perch full toward Jack; and, as he looked up at it
and saw it flying toward him, with gleaming teeth and outstretched
paws, his heart jumped up into his throat. It looked about forty feet
long. He never knew whether he spurred Pawnee or whether the horse
started of its own accord, but it made three or four jumps, and when
Jack looked back, there was the lion on the ground surrounded by all
the dogs, which were pulling and tugging at it viciously. The beast
was still, and Jack rode back near to it, to be heartily scolded by
Hugh, who had just come up.
"Son," said he, "you done a fool trick that time. If you'd been on
any other horse you might have been badly scratched. If you wanted
to shoot at the lion, and I make no doubt you did, you'd ought to
have stopped further off. You'll never make no sort of a hunter if
ye don't think. It's all right for a man to take risks if there's
anything to be made by taking them, but a man who takes risks just
because he don't know no better is a fool. What's more, if you act
this way, you're liable to make a fool of me. I'd have looked nice,
wouldn't I, if you'd gone back to the ranch all scratched up. Now,
of course," he went on more mildly, "I know you ain't anything but
a boy, and you can't be expected to have a man's sense, but I want
you to get sense as fast as you can, and sense means experience. I'm
trying to give you as fast as I can the sense that it's took me forty
years to learn. Now, let's see where you hit that fellow. I expect
you made a right good shot, for I didn't see the critter stir after
he struck the ground."
Meantime young Powell had driven the dogs from the lion, and they had
all stretched themselves out in the shade of a cedar, where they were
lying, panting, with their tongues hanging far out of their mouths.
One of them, Jack noticed, had a long bright red cut, extending
nearly from shoulder to hip, from which the blood was dripping fast.
They turned the lion over and found the bullet hole in the middle of
the chest. It was a good shot, indeed, and the animal's wild spring
out of the tree was his expiring effort. He was a very large animal,
and quite old, as shown by the condition of his teeth.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "you certainly are in the biggest kind of
luck. It's seven years since I've seen a lion about here, and they're
never anyways common. Of course we wouldn't have got this fellow if
it hadn't been for the dogs; and it's great luck for you who have
only been out a month or two now, to have had such a chance as this.
You made a mighty good shot, too, and when you take this hide back
east you'll sure have something to talk about. I expect, though, your
Ma wouldn't have been very happy if she'd been here and seen that
lion come sailing out of that tree after you."
When they looked at the wounded hound they found that the long cut in
its skin was much less serious than it seemed at first; it was hardly
more than a scratch made by a last convulsive kick by the lion, and,
while it had cut the skin, and would leave a scar, it did not really
injure the dog. They skinned the lion, leaving the claws on the hide,
and rolled up the skin, tying it behind Jack's saddle, and then
started on their way.
The sun was low in the west when they came in sight of the Powell
ranch. They rode up to the barn and began to unsaddle, while the
dogs went straight to the house. Before they had stabled the horses
they heard a clear voice calling, "Why, Charley, what's the matter
with Blue Dan? He's all cut up." And when they reached the door of
the house they saw Mrs. Powell and Charley's sister, Bess, a little
girl of thirteen, bathing the wounded dog, which seemed proud of the
attention he was receiving. Hugh and Jack were cordially welcomed by
Mrs. Powell, and later by her husband, when he came in from riding;
and the story of the killing of the lion had to be told twice over.
Every one congratulated Jack on his good fortune, and it appeared
that this was the first time the dogs had ever seen a lion. "They
have killed plenty of wolves, foxes, and coyotes," said Mr. Powell,
"and two or three wolverenes, and of course a few bob-cats, but I
think they never chased a lion before."
After supper Charley took Jack out, and after considerable whistling,
succeeded in bringing up to the house two tame coyotes, pets of which
Charley was very proud. "We dug them out of a hole in the bank of a
gulch a couple of miles from here," he told jack. "There were three
of them, and they were so small that their eyes weren't open yet.
I had to kill one, for it took to killing chickens. I sort of hated
to do it, but I knew it was no use to try to keep him and hens both,
and I was afraid he would teach the other two his tricks, so I shot
him. These two fellows are all right. There's only one thing they do
that makes me mad. Sometimes they wander away off onto the prairie,
hunting for themselves; and two or three times I have gone after them
with the dogs, thinking that they were wild coyotes. They will run
and run as hard as they know how, and then, when the dogs are just
about catching up to them, they'll flop over on their backs and lie
there with their legs in the air until the dogs come up to them. Of
course when the dogs get up to them and smell them, they know them,
and won't touch them. Then the coyotes get up and play around and wag
their tails and jump about, like they'd been doing something almighty
smart. In that way they just have fun with us."
When bed-time came that night, Jack was ready for it. His thirty-mile
ride and the excitement of the day had made him very weary.