CHAPTER III

ROPING LIONS IN THE GRAND CANYON

I

The Grand Canyon of Arizona is over two hundred miles long, thirteen

wide, and a mile and a half deep; a titanic gorge in which mountains,

tablelands, chasms and cliffs lie half veiled in purple haze. It is

wild and sublime, a thing of wonder, of mystery; beyond all else a

place to grip the heart of a man, to unleash his daring spirit.

On April 20th, 1908, after days on the hot desert, my weary party and

pack train reached the summit of Powell's Plateau, the most isolated,

inaccessible and remarkable mesa of any size in all the canyon

country. Cut off from the mainland it appeared insurmountable;

standing aloof from the towers and escarpments, rugged and bold in

outline, its forest covering like a strip of black velvet, its giant

granite walls gold in the sun, it seemed apart from the world,

haunting with its beauty, isolation and wild promise.

The members of my party harmoniously fitted the scene. Buffalo Jones,

burly-shouldered, bronze-faced, and grim, proved in his appearance

what a lifetime on the plains could make of a man. Emett was a Mormon,

a massively built grey-bearded son of the desert; he had lived his

life on it; he had conquered it and in his falcon eyes shone all its

fire and freedom. Ranger Jim Owens had the wiry, supple body and

careless, tidy garb of the cowboy, and the watchful gaze, quiet face

and locked lips of the frontiersman. The fourth member was a Navajo

Indian, a copper-skinned, raven-haired, beady-eyed desert savage.

I had told Emett to hire some one who could put the horses on grass in

the evening and then find them the next morning. In northern Arizona

this required more than genius. Emett secured the best trailer of the

desert Navajos. Jones hated an Indian; and Jim, who carried an ounce

of lead somewhere in his person, associated this painful addition to

his weight with an unfriendly Apache, and swore all Indians should

be dead. So between the two, Emett and I had trouble in keeping our

Navajo from illustrating the plainsman idea of a really good Indian--a

dead one.

While we were pitching camp among magnificent pine trees, and above a

hollow where a heavy bank of snow still lay, a sodden pounding in the

turf attracted our attention.

"Hold the horses!" yelled Emett.

As we all made a dive among our snorting and plunging horses the sound

seemed to be coming right into camp. In a moment I saw a string of

wild horses thundering by. A noble black stallion led them, and as he

ran with beautiful stride he curved his fine head backward to look at

us, and whistled his wild challenge.

Later a herd of large white-tailed deer trooped up the hollow. The

Navajo grew much excited and wanted me to shoot, and when Emett told

him we had not come out to kill, he looked dumbfounded. Even the

Indian felt it a strange departure from the usual mode of hunting to

travel and climb hundreds of miles over hot desert and rock-ribbed

canyons, to camp at last in a spot so wild that deer were tame as

cattle, and then not kill.

Nothing could have pleased me better, incident to the settling into

permanent camp. The wild horses and tame deer added the all-satisfying

touch to the background of forest, flowers and mighty pines and sunlit

patches of grass, the white tents and red blankets, the sleeping

hounds and blazing fire-logs all making a picture like that of a

hunter's dream.

"Come, saddle up," called the never restful Jones. "Leave the Indian

in camp with the hounds, and we'll get the lay of the land." All

afternoon we spent riding the plateau. What a wonderful place! We were

completely bewildered with its physical properties, and surprised

at the abundance of wild horses and mustangs, deer, coyotes, foxes,

grouse and other birds, and overjoyed to find innumerable lion trails.

When we returned to camp I drew a rough map, which Jones laid flat on

the ground as he called us around him.

"Now, boys, let's get our heads together."

In shape the plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side

wings were high and well wooded with heavy pines; the middle wing

was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar.

Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon,

the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near camp, and

ran parallel with two smaller ones, which we named Right and Left

Canyons. These three were lion runways and hundreds of deer carcasses

lined the thickets. North Hollow was the only depression, as well as

runway, on the northwest rim. West Point formed the extreme western

cape of the plateau. To the left of West Point was a deep cut-in of

the rim wall, called the Bay. The three important canyons opened into

it. From the Bay, the south rim was regular and impassable all the way

round to the narrow Saddle, which connected it to the mainland.

"Now then," said Jones, when we assured him that we were pretty well

informed as to the important features, "you can readily see our

advantage. The plateau is about nine or ten miles long, and six wide

at its widest. We can't get lost, at least for long. We know where

lions can go over the rim and we'll head them off, make short cut

chases, something new in lion hunting. We are positive the lions can

not get over the second wall, except where we came up, at the Saddle.

In regard to lion signs, I'm doubtful of the evidence of my own eyes.

This is virgin ground. No white man or Indian has ever hunted lions

here. We have stumbled on a lion home, the breeding place of hundreds

of lions that infest the north rim of the canyon."

The old plainsman struck a big fist into the palm of his hand, a rare

action with him. Jim lifted his broad hat and ran his fingers through

his white hair. In Emett's clear desert-eagle eyes shown a furtive,

anxious look, which yet could not overshadow the smouldering fire.

"If only we don't kill the horses!" he said.

More than anything else that remark from such a man thrilled me with

its subtle suggestion. He loved those beautiful horses. What wild

rides he saw in his mind's eye! In cold calculation we perceived the

wonderful possibilities never before experienced by hunters, and as

the wild spell clutched us my last bar of restraint let down.

During supper we talked incessantly, and afterward around the

camp-fire. Twilight fell with the dark shadows sweeping under the

silent pines; the night wind rose and began its moan.

"Shore there's some scent on the wind," said Jim, lighting his pipe

with a red ember. "See how uneasy Don is."

The hound raised his fine, dark head and repeatedly sniffed the air,

then walked to and fro as if on guard for his pack. Moze ground his

teeth on a bone and growled at one of the pups. Sounder was sleepy,

but he watched Don with suspicious eyes. The other hounds, mature and

somber, lay stretched before the fire.

"Tie them up, Jim," said Jones, "and let's turn in."

II

When I awakened next morning the sound of Emett's axe rang out

sharply. Little streaks of light from the camp-fire played between the

flaps of the tent. I saw old Moze get up and stretch himself. A jangle

of cow-bells from the forest told me we would not have to wait for the

horses that morning.

"The Injun's all right," Jones remarked to Emett.

"All rustle for breakfast," called Jim.

We ate in the semi-darkness with the gray shadow ever brightening.

Dawn broke as we saddled our horses. The pups were limber, and ran

to and fro on their chains, scenting the air; the older hounds stood

quietly waiting.

"Come Navvy--come chase cougie," said Emett.

"Dam! No!" replied the Indian.

"Let him keep camp," suggested Jim.

"All right; but he'll eat us out," Emett declared.

"Climb up you fellows," said Jones, impatiently. "Have I got

everything--rope, chains, collars, wire, nippers? Yes, all right.

Hyar, you lazy dogs--out of this!"

We rode abreast down the ridge. The demeanor of the hounds contrasted

sharply with what it had been at the start of the hunt the year

before. Then they had been eager, uncertain, violent; they did not

know what was in the air; now they filed after Don in an orderly trot.

We struck out of the pines at half past five. Floating mist hid the

lower end of the plateau. The morning had a cool touch but there was

no frost. Crossing Middle Canyon about half way down we jogged on.

Cedar trees began to show bright green against the soft gray sage. We

were nearing the dark line of the cedar forest when Jim, who led, held

up his hand in a warning check. We closed in around him.

"Watch Don," he said.

The hound stood stiff, head well up, nose working, and the hair on his

back bristling. All the other hounds whined and kept close to him.

"Don scents a lion," whispered Jim. "I've never known him to do that

unless there was the scent of a lion on the wind."

"Hunt 'em up Don, old boy," called Jones.

The pack commenced to work back and forth along the ridge. We neared

a hollow when Don barked eagerly. Sounder answered and likewise Jude.

Moze's short angry "bow-wow" showed the old gladiator to be in line.

"Ranger's gone," cried Jim. "He was farthest ahead. I'll bet he's

struck it. We'll know in a minute, for we're close."

The hounds were tearing through the sage, working harder and harder,

calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the

hollow.

Don suddenly let out a string of yelps. I saw him, running head up,

pass into the cedars like a yellow dart. Sounder howled his deep, full

bay, and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.

"They're off!" yelled Jim, and so were we.

In less than a minute we had lost one another. Crashings among the dry

cedars, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction. The

fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me. I remembered that Jim had

said Emett and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but that none

of the rest of us could.

It did not take me long to realize what my mustang was made of. His

name was Foxie, which suited him well. He carried me at a fast pace on

the trail of some one; and he seemed to know that by keeping in this

trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done

for him. Nevertheless, the sharp dead branches, more numerous in a

cedar forest than elsewhere, struck and stung us as we passed. We

climbed a ridge, and found the cedars thinning out into open patches.

Then we faced a bare slope of sage and I saw Emett below on his big

horse.

Foxie bolted down this slope, hurdling the bunches of sage, and

showing the speed of which Emett had boasted. The open ground, with

its brush, rock and gullies, was easy going for the little mustang. I

heard nothing save the wind singing in my ears. Emett's trail, plain

in the yellow ground showed me the way. On entering the cedars again

I pulled Foxie in and stopped twice to yell "waa-hoo!" I heard the

baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal. Then I attended to

the stern business of catching up. For what seemed a long time, I

threaded the maze of cedar, galloped the open sage flats, always on

Emett's track.

A signal cry, sharp to the right, turned me. I answered, and with the

exchange of signal cries found my way into an open glade where Jones

and Jim awaited me.

"Here's one," said Jim. "Emett must be with the hounds. Listen."

With the labored breathing of the horses filling our ears we could

hear no other sound. Dismounting, I went aside and turned my ear to

the breeze.

"I hear Don," I cried instantly.

"Which way?" both men asked.

"West."

"Strange," said Jones. "The hound wouldn't split, would he, Jim?"

"Don leave that hot trail? Shore he wouldn't," replied Jim. "But his

runnin' do seem queer this morning."

"The breeze is freshening," I said. "There! Now listen! Don, and

Sounder, too."

The baying came closer and closer. Our horses threw up long ears. It

was hard to sit still and wait. At a quick cry from Jim we saw Don

cross the lower end of the flat.

No need to spur our mounts! The lifting of bridles served, and away

we raced. Foxie passed the others in short order. Don had long

disappeared, but with blended bays, Jude, Moze, and Sounder broke out

of the cedars hot on the trail. They, too, were out of sight in a

moment.

The crash of breaking brush and thunder of hoofs from where the hounds

had come out of the forest, attracted and even frightened me. I saw

the green of a low cedar tree shake, and split, to let out a huge,

gaunt horse with a big man doubled over his saddle. The onslaught

of Emett and his desert charger stirred a fear in me that checked

admiration.

"Hounds running wild," he yelled, and the dark shadows of the cedars

claimed him again.

A hundred yards within the forest we came again upon Emett,

dismounted, searching the ground. Moze and Sounder were with him,

apparently at fault. Suddenly Moze left the little glade and venting

his sullen, quick bark, disappeared under the trees. Sounder sat on

his haunches and yelped.

"Now what the hell is wrong?" growled Jones tumbling off his saddle.

"Shore something is," said Jim, also dismounting.

"Here's a lion track," interposed Emett.

"Ha! and here's another," cried Jones, in great satisfaction. "That's

the trail we were on, and here's another crossing it at right angles.

Both are fresh: one isn't fifteen minutes old. Don and Jude have split

one way and Moze another. By George! that's great of Sounder to hang

fire!"

"Put him on the fresh trail," said Jim, vaulting into his saddle.

Jones complied, with the result that we saw Sounder start off on the

trail Moze had taken. All of us got in some pretty hard riding, and

managed to stay within earshot of Sounder. We crossed a canyon, and

presently reached another which, from its depth, must have been Middle

Canyon. Sounder did not climb the opposite slope, so we followed the

rim. From a bare ridge we distinguished the line of pines above us,

and decided that our location was in about the center of the plateau.

Very little time elapsed before we heard Moze. Sounder had caught up

with him. We came to a halt where the canyon widened and was not so

deep, with cliffs and cedars opposite us, and an easy slope leading

down. Sounder bayed incessantly; Moze emitted harsh, eager howls, and

both hounds, in plain sight, began working in circles.

"The lion has gone up somewhere," cried Jim. "Look sharp!"

Repeatedly Moze worked to the edge of a low wall of stone and looked

over; then he barked and ran back to the slope, only to return. When

I saw him slide down a steep place, make for the bottom of the stone

wall, and jump into the low branches of a cedar I knew where to look.

Then I descried the lion a round yellow ball, cunningly curled up in a

mass of dark branches. He had leaped into the tree from the wall.

"There he is! Treed! Treed!" I yelled. "Moze has found him."

"Down boys, down into the canyon," shouted Jones, in sharp voice.

"Make a racket, we don't want him to jump."

How he and Jim and Emett rolled and cracked the stone! For a moment I

could not get off my horse; I was chained to my saddle by a strange

vacillation that could have been no other thing than fear.

"Are you afraid?" called Jones from below.

"Yes, but I am coming," I replied, and dismounted to plunge down the

hill. It may have been shame or anger that dominated me then; whatever

it was I made directly for the cedar, and did not halt until I was

under the snarling lion.

"Not too close!" warned Jones. "He might jump. It's a Tom, a

two-year-old, and full of fight."

It did not matter to me then whether he jumped or not. I knew I had to

be cured of my dread, and the sooner it was done the better.

Old Moze had already climbed a third of the distance up to the lion.

"Hyar Moze! Out of there, you rascal coon chaser!" Jones yelled as he

threw stones and sticks at the hound. Moze, however, replied with his

snarly bark and climbed on steadily.

"I've got to pull him out. Watch close boys and tell me if the lion

starts down."

When Jones climbed the first few branches of the tree, Tom let out an

ominous growl.

"Make ready to jump. Shore he's comin'," called Jim.

The lion, snarling viciously, started to descend. It was a ticklish

moment for all of us, particularly Jones. Warily he backed down.

"Boys, maybe he's bluffing," said Jones, "Try him out. Grab sticks and

run at the tree and yell, as if you were going to kill him."

Not improbably the demonstration we executed under the tree would

have frightened even an African lion. Tom hesitated, showed his white

fangs, returned to his first perch, and from there climbed as far as

he could. The forked branch on which he stood swayed alarmingly.

"Here, punch Moze out," said Jim handing up a long pole.

The old hound hung like a leech to the tree, making it difficult to

dislodge him. At length he fell heavily, and venting his thick battle

cry, attempted to climb again.

Jim seized him, made him fast to the rope with which Sounder had

already been tied.

"Say Emett, I've no chance here," called Jones. "You try to throw at

him from the rock."

Emett ran up the rock, coiled his lasso and cast the noose. It sailed

perfectly in between the branches and circled Tom's head. Before it

could be slipped tight he had thrown it off. Then he hid behind the

branches.

"I'm going farther up," said Jones.

"Be quick," yelled Jim.

Jones evidently had that in mind. When he reached the middle fork of

the cedar, he stood erect and extended the noose of his lasso on the

point of his pole. Tom, with a hiss and snap, struck at it savagely.

The second trial tempted the lion to saw the rope with his teeth. In

a flash Jones withdrew the pole, and lifted a loop of the slack rope

over the lion's ears.

"Pull!" he yelled.

Emett, at the other end of the lasso, threw his great strength into

action, pulling the lion out with a crash, and giving the cedar such a

tremendous shaking that Jones lost his footing and fell heavily.

Thrilling as the moment was, I had to laugh, for Jones came up out of

a cloud of dust, as angry as a wet hornet, and made prodigious leaps

to get out of the reach of the whirling lion.

"Look out!" he bawled.

Tom, certainly none the worse for his tumble, made three leaps, two at

Jones, one at Jim, which was checked by the short length of the rope

in Emett's hands. Then for a moment, a thick cloud of dust enveloped

the wrestling lion, during which the quick-witted Jones tied the free

end of the lasso to a sapling.

"Dod gast the luck!" yelled Jones reaching for another lasso. "I

didn't mean for you to pull him out of the tree. Now he'll get loose

or kill himself."

When the dust cleared away, we discovered our prize stretched out at

full length and frothing at the mouth. As Jones approached, the lion

began a series of evolutions so rapid as to be almost indiscernible to

the eye. I saw a wheel of dust and yellow fur. Then came a thud and

the lion lay inert.

Jones pounced upon him and loosed the lasso around his neck.

"I think he's done for, but maybe not. He's breathing yet. Here, help

me tie his paws together. Look out! He's coming to!"

The lion stirred and raised his head. Jones ran the loop of the second

lasso around the two hind paws and stretched the lion out. While in

this helpless position and with no strength and hardly any breath left

in him the lion was easy to handle. With Emett's help Jones quickly

clipped the sharp claws, tied the four paws together, took off the

neck lasso and substituted a collar and chain.

"There, that's one. He'll come to all right," said Jones. "But we are

lucky. Emett, never pull another lion clear out of a tree. Pull him over

a limb and hang him there while some one below ropes his hind paws.

That's the only way, and if we don't stick to it, somebody is going to

get done for. Come, now, we'll leave this fellow here and hunt up Don

and Jude. They've treed another lion by this time."

Remarkable to me was to see how, as soon as the lion lay helpless,

Sounder lost his interest. Moze growled, yet readily left the spot.

Before we reached the level, both hounds had disappeared.

[Illustration: DOWN THE SHINUMO TRAIL OF THE NORTH RIVER]

[Illustration: CAMP AT THE SADDLE]

"Hear that?" yelled Jones, digging spurs into his horse. "Hi! Hi! Hi!"

From the cedars rang the thrilling, blending chorus of bays that told

of a treed lion. The forest was almost impenetrable. We had to pick

our way. Emett forged ahead; we heard him smashing the deadwood; and

soon a yell proclaimed the truth of Jones' assertion.

First I saw the men looking upward; then Moze climbing the cedar, and

the other hounds with noses skyward; and last, in the dead top of the

tree, a dark blot against the blue, a big tawny lion.

"Whoop!" The yell leaped past my lips. Quiet Jim was yelling; and

Emett, silent man of the desert, let from his wide cavernous chest a

booming roar that drowned ours.

Jones' next decisive action turned us from exultation to the grim

business of the thing. He pulled Moze out of the cedar, and while he

climbed up, Emett ran his rope under the collars of all of the hounds.

Quick as the idea flashed over me I leaped into the cedar adjoining

the one Jones was in, and went up hand over hand. A few pulls brought

me to the top, and then my blood ran hot and quick, for I was level

with the lion, too close for comfort, but in excellent position for

taking pictures.

The lion, not heeding me, peered down at Jones, between widespread

paws. I could hear nothing except the hounds. Jones' gray hat came

pushing up between the dead snags; then his burly shoulders. The

quivering muscles of the lion gathered tense, and his lithe body

crouched low on the branches. He was about to jump. His open dripping

jaws, his wild eyes, roving in terror for some means of escape, his

tufted tail, swinging against the twigs and breaking them, manifested

his extremity. The eager hounds waited below, howling, leaping.

It bothered me considerably to keep my balance, regulate my camera

and watch the proceedings. Jones climbed on with his rope between his

teeth, and a long stick. The very next instant it seemed to me, I

heard the cracking of branches and saw the lion biting hard at the

noose which circled his neck.

Here I swung down, branch to branch, and dropped to the ground, for

I wanted to see what went on below. Above the howls and yelps, I

distinguished Jones' yell. Emett ran directly under the lion with a

spread noose in his hands. Jones pulled and pulled, but the lion held

on firmly. Throwing the end of the lasso down to Jim, Jones yelled

again, and then they both pulled. The lion was too strong. Suddenly,

however, the branch broke, letting the lion fall, kicking frantically

with all four paws. Emett grasped one of the four whipping paws, and

even as the powerful animal sent him staggering he dexterously left

the noose fast on the paw. Jim and Jones in unison let go of their

lasso, which streaked up through the branches as the lion fell, and

then it dropped to the ground, where Jim made a flying grab for it.

Jones plunging out of the tree fell upon the rope at the same instant.

If the action up to then had been fast, it was slow to what followed.

It seemed impossible for two strong men with one lasso, and a giant

with another, to straighten out that lion. He was all over the little

space under the trees at once. The dust flew, the sticks snapped,

the gravel pattered like shot against the cedars. Jones ploughed the

ground flat on his stomach, holding on with one hand, with the other

trying to fasten the rope to something; Jim went to his knees; and on

the other side of the lion, Emett's huge bulk tipped a sharp angle,

and then fell.

I shouted and ran forward, having no idea what to do, but Emett rolled

backward, at the same instant the other men got a strong haul on

the lion. Short as that moment was in which the lasso slackened, it

sufficed for Jones to make the rope fast to a tree. Whereupon with the

three men pulling on the other side of the leaping lion, somehow I had

flashed into my mind the game that children play, called skipping the

rope, for the lion and lasso shot up and down.

This lasted for only a few seconds. They stretched the beast from tree

to tree, and Jones running with the third lasso, made fast the front

paws.

"It's a female," said Jones, as the lion lay helpless, her sides

swelling; "a good-sized female. She's nearly eight feet from tip to

tip, but not very heavy. Hand me another rope."

When all four lassos had been stretched, the lioness could not move.

Jones strapped a collar around her neck and clipped the sharp yellow

claws.

"Now to muzzle her," he continued.

Jones' method of performing this most hazardous part of the work was

characteristic of him. He thrust a stick between her open jaws, and

when she crushed it to splinters he tried another, and yet another,

until he found one that she could not break. Then while she bit on it,

he placed a wire loop over her nose, slowly tightening it, leaving the

stick back of her big canines.

The hounds ceased their yelping and when untied, Sounder wagged his

tail as if to say, "Well done," and then lay down; Don walked within

three feet of the lion, as if she were now beneath his dignity; Jude

began to nurse and lick her sore paw; only Moze the incorrigible

retained antipathy for the captive, and he growled, as always, low and

deep. And on the moment, Ranger, dusty and lame from travel, trotted

wearily into the glade and, looking at the lioness, gave one disgusted

bark and flopped down.

III

Transporting our captives to camp bade fair to make us work. When

Jones, who had gone after the pack horses, hove in sight on the sage

flat, it was plain to us that we were in for trouble. The bay stallion

was on the rampage.

"Why didn't you fetch the Indian?" growled Emett, who lost his temper

when matters concerning his horses went wrong. "Spread out, boys, and

head him off."

We contrived to surround the stallion, and Emett succeeded in getting

a halter on him.

"I didn't want the bay," explained Jones, "but I couldn't drive the

others without him. When I told that redskin that we had two lions, he

ran off into the woods, so I had to come alone."

"I'm going to scalp the Navajo," said Jim, complacently.

These remarks were exchanged on the open ridge at the entrance to the

thick cedar forest. The two lions lay just within its shady precincts.

Emett and I, using a long pole in lieu of a horse, had carried Tom up

from the Canyon to where we had captured the lioness.

Jones had brought a packsaddle and two panniers.

[Illustration: BUCKSKIN FOREST]

[Illustration: BUFFALO JONES WITH SOUNDER AND RANGER]

When Emett essayed to lead the horse which carried these, the animal

stood straight up and began to show some of his primal desert

instincts. It certainly was good luck that we unbuckled the packsaddle

straps before he left the vicinity. In about three jumps he had

separated himself from the panniers, which were then placed upon the

back of another horse. This one, a fine looking beast, and amiable

under surroundings where his life and health were considered even a

little, immediately disclaimed any intention of entering the forest.

"They scent the lions," said Jones. "I was afraid of it; never had but

one nag that would pack lions."

"Maybe we can't pack them at all," replied Emett dubiously. "It's

certainly new to me."

"We've got to," Jones asserted; "try the sorrel."

For the first time in a serviceable and honorable life, according to

Emett, the sorrel broke his halter and kicked like a plantation mule.

"It's a matter of fright. Try the stallion. He doesn't look afraid,"

said Jones, who never knew when he was beaten.

Emett gazed at Jones as if he had not heard right.

"Go ahead, try the stallion. I like the way he looks."

No wonder! The big stallion looked a king of horses--just what he

would have been if Emett had not taken him, when a colt, from his wild

desert brothers. He scented the lions, and he held his proud head up,

his ears erect, and his large, dark eyes shone fiery and expressive.

"I'll try to lead him in and let him see the lions. We can't fool

him," said Emett.

Marc showed no hesitation, nor anything we expected. He stood

stiff-legged, and looked as if he wanted to fight.

"He's all right; he'll pack them," declared Jones.

The packsaddle being strapped on and the panniers hooked to the horns,

Jones and Jim lifted Tom and shoved him down into the left pannier

while Emett held the horse. A madder lion than Tom never lived. It was

cruel enough to be lassoed and disgrace enough to be "hog-tied," as

Jim called it, but to be thrust down into a bag and packed on a horse

was adding insult to injury. Tom frothed at the mouth and seemed like

a fizzing torpedo about to explode. The lioness being considerably

longer and larger, was with difficulty gotten into the other pannier,

and her head and paws hung out. Both lions kept growling and snarling.

"I look to see Marc bolt over the rim," said Emett, resignedly, as

Jones took up the end of the rope halter.

"No siree!" sang out that worthy. "He's helping us out; he's proud to

show up the other nags."

Jones was always asserting strange traits in animals, and giving them

intelligence and reason. As to that, many incidents coming under my

observation while with him, and seen with his eyes, made me incline to

his claims, the fruit of a lifetime with animals.

Marc packed the lions to camp in short order, and, quoting Jones,

"without turning a hair." We saw the Navajo's head protruding from a

tree. Emett yelled for him, and Jones and Jim "hahaed" derisively;

whereupon the black head vanished and did not reappear. Then they

unhooked one of the panniers and dumped out the lioness. Jones

fastened her chain to a small pine tree, and as she lay powerless he

pulled out the stick back of her canines. This allowed the wire muzzle

to fall off. She signalled this freedom with a roar that showed her

health to be still unimpaired. The last action in releasing her from

her painful bonds Jones performed with sleight-of-hand dexterity. He

slipped the loop fastening one paw, which loosened the rope, and in a

twinkling let her work all of her other paws free. Up she sprang, ears

flat, eyes ablaze, mouth wide, once more capable of defense, true to

her instinct and her name.

Before the men lowered Tom from Marc's back I stepped closer and put

my face within six inches of the lion's. He promptly spat on me. I had

to steel my nerve to keep so close. But I wanted to see a wild lion's

eyes at close range. They were exquisitely beautiful, their physical

properties as wonderful as their expression. Great half globes of

tawny amber, streaked with delicate wavy lines of black, surrounding

pupils of intense purple fire. Pictures shone and faded in the amber

light--the shaggy tipped plateau, the dark pines and smoky canyons,

the great dotted downward slopes, the yellow cliffs and crags. Deep in

those live pupils, changing, quickening with a thousand vibrations,

quivered the soul of this savage beast, the wildest of all wild

Nature, unquenchable love of life and freedom, flame of defiance and

hate.

Jones disposed of Tom in the same manner as he had the lioness,

chaining him to an adjoining small pine, where he leaped and wrestled.

Presently I saw Emett coming through the woods leading and dragging

the Indian. I felt sorry for the Navvy, for I felt that his fear was

not so much physical as spiritual. And it seemed no wonder to me that

the Navvy should hang back from this sacrilegious treatment of his

god. A natural wisdom, which I had in common with all human beings who

consider self preservation the first law of life, deterred me from

acquainting my august companions with my belief. At least I did not

want to break up the camp.

In the remorseless grasp of Emett, forced along, the Navajo dragged

his feet and held his face sidewise, though his dark eyes gleamed

at the lions. Terror predominated among the expressions of his

countenance. Emett drew him within fifteen feet and held him there,

and with voice, and gesticulating of his free hand, tried to show the

poor fellow that the lions would not hurt him.

Navvy stared and muttered to himself. Here Jim had some deviltry in

mind, for he edged up closer; but what it was never transpired, for

Emett suddenly pointed to the horses and said to the Indian:

"_Chineago_ (feed)."

It appeared when Navvy swung himself over Marc's broad back, that our

great stallion had laid aside his transiently noble disposition and

was himself again. Marc proceeded to show us how truly Jim had spoken:

"Shore he ain't no use for the redskin." Before the Indian had fairly

gotten astride, Marc dropped his head, humped his shoulders, brought

his feet together and began to buck. Now the Navajo was a famous

breaker of wild mustangs, but Marc was a tougher proposition than the

wildest mustang that ever romped the desert. Not only was he unusually

vigorous; he was robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I had seen

him roll over in the dust three times each way, and do it easily--a

feat Emett declared he had never seen performed by another horse.

Navvy began to bounce. He showed his teeth and twisted his sinewy

hands in the horse's mane. Marc began to act like a demon; he plowed

the ground; apparently he bucked five feet straight up. As the Indian

had bounced he now began to shoot into the air. He rose the last time

with his heels over his head, to the full extent of his arms; and on

plunging down his hold broke. He spun around the horse, then went

hurtling to the ground some twenty feet away. He sat up, and seeing

Emett and Jones laughing, and Jim prostrated with joy, he showed his

white teeth in a smile and said:

"No bueno dam."

I think all of us respected Navvy for his good humor, and especially

when he walked up to Marc, and with no show of the mean Indian,

patted the glossy neck and then nimbly remounted. Marc, not being so

difficult to please as Jim in the way of discomfiting the Navajo,

appeared satisfied for the present, and trotted off down the hollow,

with the string of horses ahead, their bells jingling.

Camp-fire tasks were a necessary wage in order to earn the full

enjoyment and benefit of the hunting trip; and looking for some task

with which to turn my hand, I helped Jim feed the hounds. To feed

ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a bone; however, our dogs

were not ordinary. It took time to feed them, and a prodigious amount

of meat. We had packed between three and four hundred pounds of

wild-horse meat, which had been cut into small pieces and strung on

the branches of a scrub oak near camp.

Don, as befitted a gentleman and the leader of the greatest pack in

the West, had to be fed by hand. I believe he would rather had starved

than have demeaned himself by fighting. Starved he certainly would

have, if Jim had thrown meat indiscriminately to the ground. Sounder

asserted his rights and preferred large portions at a time. Jude

begged with great solemn eyes but was no slouch at eating for all her

gentleness. Ranger, because of imperfectly developed teeth rendering

mastication difficult, had to have his share cut into very small

pieces. As for Moze--well, great dogs have their faults as do great

men--he never got enough meat; he would fight even poor crippled Jude,

and steal even from the pups; when he had gotten all Jim would give

him, and all he could snatch, he would growl away with bulging sides.

"How about feeding the lions?" asked Emett.

"They'll drink to-night," replied Jones, "but won't eat for days; then

we'll tempt them with fresh rabbits."

We made a hearty meal, succeeding which Jones and I walked through

the woods toward the rim. A yellow promontory, huge and glistening,

invited us westward, and after a detour of half a mile we reached it.

The points of the rim, striking out into the immense void, always drew

me irresistibly. We found the view from this rock one of startling

splendor. The corrugated rim-wall of the middle wing extended to the

west, at this moment apparently running into the setting sun. The gold

glare touching up the millions of facets of chiseled stone, created

color and brilliance too glorious and intense for the gaze of men. And

looking downward was like looking into the placid, blue, bottomless

depths of the Pacific.

"Here, help me push off this stone," I said to Jones. We heaved a huge

round stone, and were encouraged to feel it move. Fortunately we had a

little slope; the boulder groaned, rocked and began to slide. Just as

it toppled over I glanced at the second hand of my watch. Then with

eyes over the rim we waited. The silence was the silence of the

canyon, dead and vast, intensified by our breathless earstrain. Ten

long palpitating seconds and no sound! I gave up. The distance was too

great for sound to reach us. Fifteen seconds--seventeen--eighteen--

With that a puff of air seemed to rise, and on it the most awful

bellow of thunderous roar. It rolled up and widened, deadened to burst

out and roll louder, then slowly, like mountains on wheels, rumbled

under the rim-walls, passing on and on, to roar back in echo from the

cliffs of the mesas. Roar and rumble--roar and rumble! for two long

moments the dull and hollow echoes rolled at us, to die away slowly in

the far-distant canyons.

"That's a darned deep hole," commented Jones.

Twilight stole down on us idling there, silent, content to watch the

red glow pass away from the buttes and peaks, the color deepening

downward to meet the ebon shades of night creeping up like a dark

tide.

On turning toward the camp we essayed a short cut, which brought us to

a deep hollow with stony walls, which seemed better to go around. The

hollow, however, was quite long and we decided presently to cross it.

We descended a little way when Jones suddenly barred my progress with

his big arm.

"Listen," he whispered.

It was quiet in the woods; only a faint breeze stirred the pine

needles; and the weird, gray darkness seemed to be approaching under

the trees.

I heard the patter of light, hard hoofs on the scaly sides of the

hollow.

"Deer?" I asked my companion in a low voice.

"Yes; see," he replied, pointing ahead, "just right under that broken

wall of rock; right there on this side; they're going down."

I descried gray objects the color of the rocks, moving down like

shadows.

"Have they scented us?"

"Hardly; the breeze is against us. Maybe they heard us break a twig.

They've stopped, but they are not looking our way. Now I wonder--"

Rattling of stones set into movement by some quick, sharp action, an

indistinct crash, but sudden, as of the impact of soft, heavy bodies,

a strange wild sound preceded in rapid succession violent brushings

and thumpings in the scrub of the hollow.

"Lion jumped a deer," yelled Jones. "Right under our eyes! Come on!

Hi! Hi! Hi!"

He ran down the incline yelling all of the way, and I kept close to

him, adding my yells to his, and gripping my revolver. Toward the

bottom the thicket barred our progress so that we had to smash through

and I came out a little ahead of Jones. And farther up the hollow I

saw a gray swiftly bounding object too long and too low for a deer,

and I hurriedly shot six times at it.

"By George! Come here," called my companion. "How's this for quick

work? It's a yearling doe."

In another moment I leaned over a gray mass huddled at Jones feet. It

was a deer gasping and choking. I plainly heard the wheeze of blood

in its throat, and the sound, like a death-rattle, affected me

powerfully. Bending closer, I saw where one side of the neck, low

down, had been terribly lacerated.

"Waa-hoo!" pealed down the slope.

"That's Emett," cried Jones, answering the signal. "If you have

another shot put this doe out of agony."

But I had not a shot left, nor did either of us have a clasp knife.

We stood there while the doe gasped and quivered. The peculiar sound,

probably made by the intake of air through the laceration of the

throat, on the spur of the moment seemed pitifully human.

I felt that the struggle for life and death in any living thing was

a horrible spectacle. With great interest I had studied natural

selection, the variability of animals under different conditions of

struggling existence, the law whereby one animal struck down and

devoured another. But I had never seen and heard that law enacted on

such a scale; and suddenly I abhorred it.

Emett strode to us through the gathering darkness.

"What's up?" he asked quickly.

He carried my Remington in one hand and his Winchester in the other;

and he moved so assuredly and loomed up so big in the dusk that I

experienced a sudden little rush of feeling as to what his advent

might mean at a time of real peril.

[Illustration: JONES ABOUT TO LASSO A MOUNTAIN LION]

[Illustration: REMAINS OF A DEER KILLED BY LIONS]

"Emett, I've lived to see many things," replied Jones, "but this is

the first time I ever saw a lion jump a deer right under my nose!"

As Emett bent over to seize the long ears of the deer, I noticed the

gasping had ceased.

"Neck broken," he said, lifting the head. "Well, I'm danged. Must have

been an all-fired strong lion. He'll come back, you may be sure of

that. Let's skin out the quarters and hang the carcass up in a tree!"

We returned to camp in a half an hour, the richer for our walk by a

quantity of fresh venison. Upon being acquainted with our adventure,

Jim expressed himself rather more fairly than was his customary way.

"Shore that beats hell! I knowed there was a lion somewheres, because

Don wouldn't lie down. I'd like to get a pop at the brute."

I believed Jim's wish found an echo in all our hearts. At any rate

to hear Emett and Jones express regret over the death of the doe

justified in some degree my own feelings, and I thought it was not

so much the death, but the lingering and terrible manner of it, and

especially how vividly it connoted the wild-life drama of the plateau.

The tragedy we had all but interrupted occurred every night, perhaps

often in the day and likely at different points at the same time.

Emett told how he had found fourteen piles of bleached bones and dried

hair in the thickets of less than a mile of the hollow on which we

were encamped.

"We'll rope the danged cats, boys, or we'll kill them."

"It's blowing cold. Hey, Navvy, _coco! coco!_" called Emett.

The Indian, carefully laying aside his cigarette, kicked up the fire

and threw on more wood.

"_Discass!_ (cold)," he said to me. "_Coco, bueno_ (fire good)."

I replied, "Me savvy--yes."

"Sleep-ie?" he asked.

"Mucha," I returned.

While we carried on a sort of novel conversation full of Navajo,

English, and gestures, darkness settled down black. I saw the stars

disappear; the wind changing to the north grew colder and carried

a breath of snow. I like north wind best--from under the warm

blankets--because of the roar and lull and lull and roar in the pines.

Crawling into the bed presently, I lay there and listened to the

rising storm-wind for a long time. Sometimes it swelled and crashed

like the sound of a breaker on the beach, but mostly, from a low

incessant moan, it rose and filled to a mighty rush, then suddenly

lulled. This lull, despite a wakeful, thronging mind, was conducive to

sleep.

IV

To be awaked from pleasant dreams is the lot of man. The Navajo

aroused me with his singing, and when I peeped languidly from under

the flap of my sleeping bag, I felt a cold air and saw fleecy flakes

of white drifting through the small window of my tent.

"Snow; by all that's lucky!" I exclaimed, remembering Jones' hopes.

Straightway my langour vanished and getting into my boots and coat I

went outside. Navvy's bed lay in six inches of snow. The forest was

beautifully white. A fine dazzling snow was falling. I walked to the

roaring camp-fire. Jim's biscuits, well-browned and of generous

size, had just been dumped into the middle of our breakfast cloth, a

tarpaulin spread on the ground; the coffee pot steamed fragrantly, and

a Dutch oven sizzled with a great number of slices of venison. "Did

you hear the Indian chanting?" asked Jones, who sat with his horny

hands to the blaze.

"I heard his singing."

"No, it wasn't a song; the Navajo never sings in the morning. What you

heard was his morning prayer, a chant, a religious and solemn ritual

to the break of day. Emett says it is a custom of the desert tribe.

You remember how we saw the Mokis sitting on the roofs of their little

adobe huts in the gray of the morning. They always greet the sun in

that way. The Navajos chant."

It certainly was worth remembering, I thought, and mentally observed

that I would wake up thereafter and listen to the Indian.

"Good luck and bad!" went on Jones. "Snow is what we want, but now we

can't find the scent of our lion of last night."

Low growls and snarls attracted me. Both our captives presented sorry

spectacles; they were wet, dirty, bedraggled. Emett had chopped down a

small pine, the branches of which he was using to make shelter for the

lions. While I looked on Tom tore his to pieces several times, but the

lioness crawled under hers and began licking her chops. At length

Tom, seeing that Emett meant no underhand trick, backed out of the

drizzling snow and lay down.

Emett had already constructed a shack for the hounds. It was a way of

his to think of everything. He had the most extraordinary ability. A

stroke of his axe, a twist of his great hands, a turn of this or that

made camp a more comfortable place. And if something, no matter what,

got out of order or broken, there was Emett to show what it was to be

a man of the desert. It had been my good fortune to see many able

men on the trail and round the camp-fire, but not one of them even

approached Emett's class. When I said a word to him about his knack

with things, his reply was illuminating: "I'm fifty-eight, and four

out of every five nights of my life I have slept away from home on the

ground."

"_Chineago!_" called Jim, who had begun with all of us to assimilate a

little of the Navajo's language.

Whereupon we fell to eating with appetite unknown to any save hunters.

Somehow the Indian had gravitated to me at meal times, and now he sat

cross-legged beside me, holding out his plate and looking as hungry as

Moze. At first he had always asked for the same kind of food that

I happened to have on my own plate. When I had finished and had no

desire to eat more, he gave up his faculty of imitation and asked for

anything he could get. The Navajo had a marvelous appetite. He liked

sweet things, sugar best of all. It was a fatal error to let him get

his hands on a can of fruit. Although he inspired Jones with disgust

and Jim with worse, he was a source of unfailing pleasure to me. He

called me "Mista Gay" and he pronounced the words haltingly in low

voice and with unmistakable respect.

"What's on for today?" queried Emett.

"I guess we may as well hang around camp and rest the hounds," replied

Jones. "I did intend to go after the lion that killed the deer, but

this snow has taken away the scent."

"Shore it'll stop snowin' soon," said Jim.

The falling snow had thinned out and looked like flying powder; the

leaden clouds, rolling close to the tree-tops, grew brighter and

brighter; bits of azure sky shone through rifts.

Navvy had tramped off to find the horses, and not long after his

departure he sent out a prolonged yell that echoed through the forest.

"Something's up," said Emett instantly. "An Indian never yells like

that at a horse."

[Illustration: A LION TIED]

[Illustration: FIGHTING WEETAHS (BUFFALO BULLS) ON BUFFALO JONES'S

DESERT RANCH]

We waited quietly for a moment, expecting to hear the yell repeated.

It was not, though we soon heard the jangle of bells, which told us he

had the horses coming. He appeared off to the right, riding Foxie and

racing the others toward camp.

"Cougie--mucha big--dam!" he said leaping off the mustang to confront

us.

"Emett, does he mean he saw a cougar or a track?" questioned Jones.

"Me savvy," replied the Indian. "_Butteen, butteen_!"

"He says, trail--trail," put in Emett. "I guess I'd better go and

see."

"I'll go with you," said Jones. "Jim, keep the hounds tight and hurry

with the horses' oats."

We followed the tracks of the horses which lead southwest toward the

rim, and a quarter of a mile from camp we crossed a lion trail running

at right angles with our direction.

"Old Sultan!" I cried, breathlessly, recognizing that the tracks had

been made by a giant lion we had named Sultan. They were huge, round,

and deep, and with my spread hand I could not reach across one of

them.

Without a word, Jones strode off on the trail. It headed east and

after a short distance turned toward camp. I suppose Jones knew what

the lion had been about, but to Emett and me it was mystifying. Two

hundred yards from camp we came to a fallen pine, the body of which

was easily six feet high. On the side of this log, almost on top, were

two enormous lion tracks, imprinted in the mantle of snow. From here

the trail led off northeast.

"Darn me!" ejaculated Jones. "The big critter came right into camp; he

scented our lions, and raised up on this log to look over."

Wheeling, he started for camp on the trot. Emett and I kept even

with him. Words were superfluous. We knew what was coming. A

made--to--order lion trail could not have equalled the one right in

the back yard of our camp.

"Saddle up!" said Jones, with the sharp inflection of words that had

come to thrill me. "Jim, Old Sultan has taken a look at us since break

of day."

I got into my chaps, rammed my little automatic into its saddle

holster and mounted. Foxie seemed to want to go. The hounds came out

of their sheds and yawned, looking at us knowingly. Emett spoke a word

to the Navajo, and then we were trotting down through the forest. The

sun had broken out warm, causing water to drip off the snow laden

pines. The three of us rode close behind Jones, who spoke low and

sternly to the hounds.

What an opportunity to watch Don! I wondered how soon he would catch

the scent of the trail. He led the pack as usual and kept to a

leisurely dog--trot. When within twenty yards of the fallen log, he

stopped for an instant and held up his head, though without exhibiting

any suspicion or uneasiness.

The wind blew strong at our backs, a circumstance that probably

kept Don so long in ignorance of the trail. A few yards further on,

however, he stopped and raised his fine head. He lowered it and

trotted on only to stop again. His easy air of satisfaction with

the morning suddenly vanished. His savage hunting instinct awakened

through some channel to raise the short yellow hair on his neck and

shoulders and make it stand stiff. He stood undecided with warily

shifting nose, then jumped forward with a yelp. Another jump brought

another sharp cry from him. Sounder, close behind, echoed the yelp.

Jude began to whine. Then Don, with a wild howl, leaped ten feet to

alight on the lion trail and to break into wonderfully rapid flight.

The seven other hounds, bunched in a black and yellow group, tore

after him filling the forest with their wild uproar.

Emett's horse bounded as I have seen a great racer leave the post, and

his desert brothers, loving wild bursts of speed, needing no spur,

kept their noses even with his flanks. The soft snow, not too deep,

rather facilitated than impeded this wild movement, and the open

forest was like a highway.

So we rode, bending low in the saddle, keen eyes alert for branches,

vaulting the white--blanketed logs, and swerving as we split to pass

the pines. The mist from the melting snow moistened our faces, and the

rushing air cooled them with fresh, soft sensation. There were moments

when we rode abreast and others when we sailed single file, with white

ground receding, vanishing behind us.

My feeling was one of glorious excitation in the swift, smooth flight

and a grim assurance of soon seeing the old lion. But I hoped we would

not rout him too soon from under a windfall, or a thicket where he

had dragged a deer, because the race was too splendid a thing to cut

short. Through my mind whirled with inconceivable rapidity the great

lion chases on which we had ridden the year before. And this was

another chase, only more stirring, more beautiful, because it was the

nature of the thing to grow always with experience.

Don slipped out of sight among the pines. The others strung along the

trail, glinted across the sunlit patches. The black pup was neck and

neck with Ranger. Sounder ran at their heels, leading the other pups.

Moze dashed on doggedly ahead of Jude.

But for us to keep to the open forest, close to the hounds, was not in

the nature of a lion chase. Old Sultan's trail turned due west when he

began to go down the little hollows and their intervening ridges. We

lost ground. The pack left us behind. The slope of the plateau became

decided. We rode out of the pines to find the snow failing in the

open. Water ran in little gullies and glistened on the sagebrush. A

half mile further down the snow had gone. We came upon the hounds

running at fault, except Sounder, and he had given up.

"All over," sang out Jones, turning his horse. "The lion's track and

his scent have gone with the snow. I reckon we'll do as well to wait

until to-morrow. He's down in the middle wing somewhere and it is my

idea we might catch his trail as he comes back."

The sudden dashing aside of our hopes was exasperating. There seemed

no help for it; abrupt ending to exciting chases were but features of

the lion hunt. The warm sun had been hours on the lower end of the

plateau, where the snow never lay long; and even if we found a fresh

morning trail in the sand, the heat would have burned out the scent.

So rapidly did the snow thaw that by the time we reached camp only the

shady patches were left.

It was almost eleven o'clock when I lay down on my bed to rest awhile

and fell asleep. The tramp of a horse awakened me. I heard Jim calling

Jones. Thinking it was time to eat I went out. The snow had all

disappeared and the forest was brown as ever. Jim sat on his horse and

Navvy appeared riding up to the hollow, leading the saddle horses.

"Jones, get out," called Jim.

"Can't you let a fellow sleep? I'm not hungry," replied Jones testily.

"Get out and saddle up," continued Jim.

Jones burst out of his tent, with rumpled hair and sleepy eyes.

"I went over to see the carcass of the deer an' found a lion sittin'

up in the tree, feedin' for all he was worth. Pie jumped out an' ran

up the hollow an' over the rim. So I rustled back for you fellows.

Lively now, we'll get this one sure."

"Was it the big fellow?" I asked

"No, but he ain't no kitten; an' he's a fine color, sort of reddish. I

never seen one just as bright. Where's Emett?"

"I don't know. He was here a little while ago. Shall I signal for

him?"

"Don't yell," cried Jones holding up his fingers. "Be quiet now."

Without another word we finished saddling, mounted and, close

together, with the hounds in front, rode through the forest toward the

rim.

V

We rode in different directions toward the hollow, the better to

chance meeting with Emett, but none of us caught a glimpse of him.

It happened that when we headed into the hollow it was at a point just

above where the deer carcass hung in the scrub oak. Don in spite of

Jones' stern yells, let out his eager hunting yelp and darted down the

slope. The pack bolted after him and in less than ten seconds were

racing up the hollow, their thrilling, blending bays a welcome spur to

action. Though I spoke not a word to my mustang nor had time to raise

the bridle, he wheeled to one side and began to run. The other horses

also kept to the ridge, as I could tell by the pounding of hoofs on

the soft turf. The hounds in full cry right under us urged our good

steeds to a terrific pace. It was well that the ridge afforded clear

going.

The speed at which we traveled, however, fast as it was, availed not

to keep up with the pack. In a short half mile, just as the hollow

sloped and merged into level ground, they left us behind and

disappeared so quickly as almost to frighten me. My mustang plunged

out of the forest to the rim and dashed along, apparently unmindful of

the chasm. The red and yellow surface blurred in a blinding glare. I

heard the chorus of hounds, but as its direction baffled me I trusted

to my horse and I did well, for soon he came to a dead halt on the

rim.

Then I heard the hounds below me. I had but time to see the character

of the place--long, yellow promontories running out and slopes of

weathered stone reaching up between to a level with the rim--when in a

dwarf pine growing just over the edge I caught sight of a long, red,

pantherish body.

I whooped to my followers now close upon me and leaping off hauled out

my Remington and ran to the cliff. The lion's long, slender body, of a

rare golden-red color, bright, clean, black-tipped and white-bellied,

proclaimed it a female of exceeding beauty. I could have touched her

with a fishing rod and saw how easily she could be roped from where I

stood. The tree in which she had taken refuge grew from the head of

a weathered slope and rose close to the wall. At that point it was

merely a parapet of crumbling yellow rock. No doubt she had lain

concealed under the shelving wall and had not had time to get away

before the hounds were right upon her.

"She's going to jump," yelled Jones, in my rear, as he dismounted.

I saw a golden-red streak flash downward, heard a mad medley from the

hounds, a cloud of dust rose, then something bright shone for a second

to the right along the wall. I ran with all my might to a headland of

rock upon which I scrambled and saw with joy that I could command the

situation.

The lioness was not in sight, nor were the hounds. The latter,

however, were hot on the trail. I knew the lioness had taken to

another tree or a hole under the wall, and would soon be routed out.

This time I felt sure she would run down and I took a rapid glance

below. The slope inclined at a steep angle and was one long slide of

bits of yellow stone with many bunches of scrub oak and manzanita.

Those latter I saw with satisfaction, because in case I had to go down

they would stop the little avalanches. The slope reached down perhaps

five hundred yards and ended in a thicket and jumble of rocks from

which rose on the right a bare yellow slide. This ran up to a low

cliff. I hoped the lion would not go that way, for it led to great

broken battlements of rim. Left of the slide was a patch of cedars.

Jim's yell pealed out, followed by the familiar penetrating howl of

the pack when it sighted game. With that I saw the lioness leaping

down the slope and close behind her a yellow hound.

"Go it, Don, old boy!" I yelled, wild with delight.

A crushing step on the stones told me Jones had arrived.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" roared he.

I thought then that if the lioness did not cover thirty feet at every

jump I was not in a condition to judge distance. She ran away from Don

as if he had been tied and reached the thicket below a hundred yards

ahead of him. And when Don leaving his brave pack far up the slide

entered the thicket the lioness came out on the other side and bounded

up the bare slope of yellow shale.

"Shoot ahead of her! Head her off! Turn her back!" cried Jones.

With the word I threw forward the Remington and let drive. Following

the bellow of the rifle, so loud in that thin air, a sharp, harsh

report cracked up from below. A puff of yellow dust rose in front of

the lioness. I was in line, but too far ahead. I fired again. The

steel jacketed bullet hit a stone and spitefully whined away into the

canyon. I tried once more. This time I struck close to the lioness.

Disconcerted by a cloud of dust rising before her very eyes she

wheeled and ran back.

We had forgotten Don and suddenly he darted out of the thicket,

straight up the slide. Always, in every chase, we were afraid the

great hound would run to meet his death. We knew it was coming

sometime. When the lioness saw him and stopped, both Jones and I felt

that this was to be the end of Don.

"Shoot her! Shoot her!" cried Jones. "She'll kill him! She'll kill

him!"

As I knelt on the rock I had a hard contraction of my throat, and

then all my muscles set tight and rigid. I pulled the trigger of my

automatic once, twice. It was wonderful how closely the two bullets

followed each other, as we could tell by the almost simultaneous

puffs of dust rising from under the beast's nose. She must have been

showered and stung with gravel, for she bounded off to the left and

disappeared in the cedars. I had missed, but the shots had served to a

better end than if I had killed her.

As Don raced up the ground where a moment before a battle and probably

death had awaited him, the other hounds burst from the thicket. With

that, a golden form seemed to stand out from the green of the cedar,

to move and to rise.

"She's treed! She's treed!" shouted Jones. "Go down and keep her there

while I follow."

From the back of the promontory where I met the main wall, I let

myself down a niche, foot here and there, a hand hard on the soft

stone, braced knee and back until I jumped to the edge of the slope.

The scrub oak and manzanita saved me many a fall. I set some stones

rolling and I beat them to the bottom. Having passed the thicket, I

bent my efforts to the yellow slide and when I had surmounted it my

breath came in labored pants. The howling of the hounds guided me

through the cedars.

First I saw Moze in the branches of cedar and above him the lioness. I

ran out into a little open patch of stony ground at the end of which

the tree stood leaning over a precipice. In truth the lioness was

swaying over a chasm.

Those details I grasped in a glance, then suddenly awoke to the fact

that the lioness was savagely snarling at Moze.

"Moze! Moze! Get down!" I yelled.

He climbed on serenely. He was a most exasperating dog. I screamed at

him and hit him with a rock big enough to break his bones. He kept on

climbing. Here was a predicament. Moze would surely get to the lioness

if I did not stop him, and this seemed impossible. It was out of the

question for me to climb after him. And if the lioness jumped she

would have to pass me or come straight at me. So I slipped down the

safety catch on my automatic and stood ready to save Moze or myself.

The lioness with a show of fury that startled me, descended her branch

a few steps, and reaching below gave Moze a sounding smack with her

big paw. The hound dropped as if he had been shot and hit the ground

with a thud. Whereupon she returned to her perch.

This reassured me and I ran among the dogs and caught Moze already

starting for the tree again and tied him, with a strap I always carried,

to a small bush nearby. I heard the yells of my companions

and looking back over the tops of the cedars I saw Jim riding down and

higher to the left Jones sliding, falling, running at a great rate. I

encouraged them to keep up the good work, and then gave my attention to

the lioness.

She regarded me with a cold, savage stare and showed her teeth. I

repaid this incivility on her part by promptly photographing her from

different points.

Jones and Jim were on the spot before I expected them and both were

dusty and dripping with sweat. I found to my surprise that my face was

wet as was also my shirt. Jones carried two lassos, and my canteen,

which I had left on the promontory.

"Ain't she a beauty?" he panted, wiping his face. "Wait--till I get my

breath."

When finally he walked toward the cedar the lioness stood up and

growled as if she realized the entrance of the chief actor upon the

scene. Jones cast his lasso apparently to try her out, and the noose

spread out and fell over her head. As he tightened the rope the

lioness backed down behind a branch.

"Tie the dogs!" yelled Jones.

"Quick!" added Jim. "She's goin' to jump."

Jim had only time to aid me in running my lasso under the collar of

Don, Sounder, Jude and one of the pups. I made them fast to a cedar.

I got my hands on Ranger just as Moze broke his strap. I grabbed his

collar and held on.

Right there was where trouble commenced for me. Ranger tussled valiantly

and Moze pulled me all over the place. Behind me I heard Jones' roar and

Jim's yell; the breaking of branches, the howling of the other dogs.

Ranger broke away from me and so enabled me to get my other hand on the

neck of crazy Moze. On more than one occasion I had tried to hold him

and had failed; this time I swore I would do it if he rolled me

over the precipice. As to that, only a bush saved me.

More and louder roars and yells, hoarser howls and sharper

wrestling, snapping sounds told me what was going on while I tried to

subdue Moze. I had a grim thought that I would just as lief have had

hold of the lioness. The hound presently stopped his plunging which gave

me an opportunity to look about. The little space was smoky with a smoke

of dust. I saw the lioness stretched out with one lasso around a bush

and another around a cedar with the end in the hands of Jim. He looked

as if he had dug up the ground. While he tied this lasso securely Jones

proceeded to rope the dangerous front paws.

The hounds quieted down and I took advantage of this absence of tumult

to get rid of Moze.

"Pretty lively," said Jones, spitting gravel as I walked up. Sand and

dust lay thick in his beard and blackened his face. "I tell you she

made us root."

Either the lioness had been much weakened or choked, or Jones had

unusual luck, for we muzzled her and tied up her paws in short order.

"Where's Ranger?" I asked suddenly, missing him from the panting

hounds.

"I grabbed him by the heels when he tackled the lion, and I gave him a

sling somewheres," replied Jim.

Ranger put in an appearance then under the cedars limping painfully.

"Jim, darn me, if I don't believe you pitched him over the precipice!"

said Jones.

Examination proved this surmise to be correct. We saw where Ranger had

slipped over a twenty-foot wall. If he had gone over just under the

cedar where the depth was much greater he would never have come back.

"The hounds are choking with dust and heat," I said. When I poured

just a little water from my canteen into the crown of my hat, the

hounds began fighting around and over me and spilled the water.

"Behave, you coyotes!" I yelled. Either they were insulted or fully

realized the exigency of the situation, for each one came up and

gratefully lapped every drop of his portion.

"Shore, now comes the hell of it," said Jim appearing with a long

pole. "Packin' the critter out."

An argument arose in regard to the best way up the slope, and by

virtue of a majority we decided to try the direction Jim and I thought

best. My companions led the way, carrying the lioness suspended on the

pole. I brought up the rear, packing my rifle, camera, lasso, canteen

and a chain.

It was killing work. We had to rest every few steps. Often we would

fall. Jim laughed, Jones swore, and I groaned. Sometimes I had to drop

my things to help my companions. So we toiled wearily up the loose,

steep way.

"What's she shakin' like that for?" asked Jim suddenly.

Jones let down his end of the pole and turned quickly. Little tremors

quivered over the lissome body of the lioness.

"She's dying," cried Jim, jerking out the stick between her teeth and

slipping off the wire muzzle.

Her mouth opened and her frothy tongue lolled out. Jones pointed to

her quivering sides and then raised her eyelids. We saw the eyes

already glazing, solemnly fixed.

"She's gone," he said.

Very soon she lay inert and lifeless. Then we sat beside her without

a word, and we could hardly for the moment have been more stunned and

heartbroken if it had been the tragic death of one of our kind.

In that wild environment, obsessed by the desire to capture those

beautiful cats alive, the fateful ending of the successful chase was

felt out of all proportion.

"Shore she's dead," said Jim. "And wasn't she a beauty? What was

wrong?"

"The heat and lack of water," replied Jones. "She choked. What idiots

we were! Why didn't we think to give her a drink."

So we passionately protested against our want of fore-thought, and

looked again and again with the hope that she might come to. But death

had stilled the wild heart. We gave up presently, still did not move

on. We were exhausted, and all the while the hounds lay panting on the

rocks, the bees hummed, the flies buzzed. The red colors of the upper

walls and the purple shades of the lower darkened silently.

VI

"Shore we can't set here all night," said Jim. "Let's skin the lion

an' feed the hounds."

The most astonishing thing in our eventful day was the amount of meat

stowed away by the dogs. Lion flesh appealed to their appetites. If

hungry Moze had an ounce of meat, he had ten pounds. It seemed a good

opportunity to see how much the old gladiator could eat; and Jim and I

cut chunks of meat as fast as possible. Moze gulped them with absolute

unconcern of such a thing as mastication. At length he reached his

limit, possibly for the first time in his life, and looking longingly

at a juicy red strip Jim held out, he refused it with manifest shame.

Then he wobbled and fell down.

We called to him as we started to climb the slope, but he did not

come. Then the business of conquering that ascent of sliding stone

absorbed all our faculties and strength. Little headway could we have

made had it not been for the brush. We toiled up a few feet only to

slide back and so it went on until we were weary of life.

When one by one we at last gained the rim and sat there to recover

breath, the sun was a half globe of fire burning over the western

ramparts. A red sunset bathed the canyon in crimson, painting the

walls, tinting the shadows to resemble dropping mists of blood. It was

beautiful and enthralling to my eyes, but I turned away because it

wore the mantle of tragedy.

Dispirited and worn out, we trooped into camp to find Emett and a

steaming supper. Between bites the three of us related the story of

the red lioness. Emett whistled long and low and then expressed his

regret in no light terms.

"Roping wild steers and mustangs is play to this work," he said in

conclusion.

I was too tired to tease our captive lions that evening; even the

glowing camp-fire tempted me in vain, and I crawled into my bed with

eyes already glued shut.

A heavy weight on my feet stirred me from oblivion. At first, when

only half awake, I could not realize what had fallen on my bed, then

hearing a deep groan I knew Moze had come back. I was dropping off

again when a strange, low sound caused my eyes to open wide. The black

night had faded to the gray of dawn. The sound I recognized at once

to be the Navajo's morning chant. I lay there and listened. Soft and

monotonous, wild and swelling, but always low and strange, the savage

song to the break of day was exquisitely beautiful and harmonious. I

wondered what the literal meaning of his words could have been. The

significance needed no translation. To the black shadows fading away,

to the brightening of the gray light, to the glow of the east, to the

morning sun, to the Giver of Life--to these the Indian chanted his

prayer.

Could there have been a better prayer? Pagan or not, the Navajo with

his forefathers felt the spiritual power of the trees, the rocks, the

light and sun, and he prayed to that which was divinely helpful to him

in all the mystery of his unintelligible life.

We did not crawl out that morning as early as usual, for it was to be

a day of rest. When we did, a mooted question arose--whether we or the

hounds were the more crippled. Ranger did not show himself; Don could

just walk and that was all; Moze was either too full or too tired to

move; Sounder nursed a foot and Jude favored her lame leg.

After lunch we brightened up somewhat and set ourselves different

tasks. Jones had misplaced or lost his wire and began to turn the camp

topsy-turvy in his impatient efforts to locate it. The wire, however,

was not to be found. This was a calamity, for, as we asked each other,

how could we muzzle lions without wire? Moreover, a half dozen heavy

leather straps which I had bought in Kanab for use as lion collars had

disappeared. We had only one collar left, the one that Jones had put

on the red lioness.

Whereupon we began to blame each other, to argue, to grow heated and

naturally from that to become angry. It seems a fatality of campers

along a wild trail, like explorers in an unknown land, to be prone to

fight. If there is an explanation of this singular fact, it must be

that men at such time lose their poise and veneer of civilization; in

brief, they go back. At all events we had it hot and heavy, with the

center of attack gradually focusing on Jones, and as he was always

losing something, naturally we united in force against him.

Fortunately, we were interrupted by yells from the Navajo off in the

woods. The brushing of branches and pounding of hoofs preceded his

appearance. In some remarkable manner he had gotten a bridle on Marc,

and from the way the big stallion hurled his huge bulk over logs and

through thickets, it appeared evident he meant to usurp Jim's ambition

and kill the Navajo. Hearing Emett yell, the Indian turned Marc toward

camp. The horse slowed down when he neared the glade and tried to

buck. But Navvy kept his head up. With that Marc seemed to give way to

ungovernable rage and plunged right through camp; he knocked over the

dogs' shelter and thundered down the ridge.

Now the Navajo, with the bridle in his hand was thoroughly at home. He

was getting his revenge on Marc, and he would have kept his seat on a

wild mustang, but Marc swerved suddenly under a low branch of a pine,

sweeping the Indian off.

When Navvy did not rise we began to fear he had been seriously hurt,

perhaps killed, and we ran to where he lay.

Face downward, hands outstretched, with no movement of body or muscle,

he certainly appeared dead.

"Badly hurt," said Emett, "probably back broken. I have seen it before

from just such accidents."

"Oh no!" cried Jones, and I felt so deeply I could not speak. Jim, who

always wanted Navvy to be a dead Indian, looked profoundly sorry.

"He's a dead Indian, all right," replied Emett.

We rose from our stooping postures and stood around, uncertain and

deeply grieved, until a mournful groan from Navvy afforded us much

relief.

"That's your dead Indian," exclaimed Jones.

Emett stooped again and felt the Indian's back and got in reward

another mournful groan.

"It's his back," said Emett, and true to his ruling passion, forever

to minister to the needs of horses, men, and things, he began to rub

the Indian and call for the liniment.

[Illustration: TREED LION]

[Illustration: TREED LION]

Jim went to fetch it, while I, still believing the Navvy to be

dangerously hurt, knelt by him and pulled up his shirt, exposing the

hollow of his brown back.

"Here we are," said Jim, returning on the run with the bottle.

"Pour some on," replied Emett.

Jim removed the cork and soused the liniment all over the Indian's

back.

"Don't waste it," remonstrated Emett, starting to rub Navvy's back.

Then occurred a most extraordinary thing. A convulsion seemed to

quiver through the Indian's body; he rose at a single leap, and

uttering a wild, piercing yell broke into a run. I never saw an Indian

or anybody else run so fleetly. Yell after yell pealed back to us.

Absolutely dumfounded we all gazed at each other.

"That's your dead Indian!" ejaculated Jim.

"What the hell!" exclaimed Emett, who seldom used such language.

"Look here!" cried Jones, grabbing the bottle. "See! Don't you see

it?"

Jim fell face downward and began to shake.

"What?" shouted Emett and I together.

"Turpentine, you idiots! Turpentine! Jim brought the wrong bottle!"

In another second three more forms lay stretched out on the sward, and

the forest rang with sounds of mirth.

VII

That night the wind switched and blew cold from the north, and so

strong that the camp-fire roared like a furnace. "More snow" was the

verdict of all of us, and in view of this, I invited the Navajo to

share my tent.

"Sleepie-me," I said to him.

"Me savvy," he replied and forthwith proceeded to make his bed with

me.

Much to my surprise all my comrades raised protestations, which

struck me as being singularly selfish considering they would not be

inconvenienced in any way.

"Why not?" I asked. "It's a cold night. There'll be frost if not

snow."

"Shore you'll get 'em," said Jim.

"There never was an Indian that didn't have 'em," added Jones.

"What?" I questioned.

They made mysterious signs that rather augmented my ignorance as to

what I might get from the Indian, but in no wise changed my mind. When

I went to bed I had to crawl over Navvy. Moze lay at my feet as usual

and he growled so deep that I could not but think he, too, resented

the addition to my small tent.

"Mista Gay!" came in the Indian's low voice.

"Well Navvy?" I asked.

"Sleepie--sleepie?"

"Yes, Navvy, sleepy and tired. Are you?"

"Me savvy--mucha sleepie--mucha--no bueno."

I did not wonder at his feeling sleepy, tired and bad. He did not

awaken me in the morning, for when my eyes unclosed the tent was light

and he had gone. I found my companions up and doing.

We had breakfast and got into our saddles by the time the sun, a red

ball low down among the pines, began to brighten and turn to gold. No

snow had fallen but a thick frost encrusted the ground. The hounds,

wearing cloth moccasins, which plainly they detested, trotted in

front. Don showed no effects of his great run down the sliding slope

after the red lioness; it was one of his remarkable qualities that he

recuperated so quickly. Ranger was a little stiff, and Sounder favored

his injured foot. The others were as usual.

Jones led down the big hollow to which he kept after we had passed the

edge of the pines; then marking a herd of deer ahead, he turned his

horse up the bank.

We breasted the ridge and jogged toward the cedar forest, which we

entered without having seen the hounds show interest in anything.

Under the cedars in the soft yellow dust we crossed lion tracks, many

of them, but too old to carry a scent. Even North Hollow with its

regular beaten runway failed to win a murmur from the pack.

"Spread out," said Jones, "and look for tracks. I'll keep the center

and hold in the hounds."

Signalling occasionally to one another we crossed almost the breadth

of the cedar forest to its western end, where the open sage flats

inclined to the rim. In one of those flats I came upon a broken sage

bush, the grass being thick thereabout. I discovered no track but

dismounted and scrutinized the surroundings carefully. A heavy body

had been dragged across the sage, crushing it. The ends of broken

bushes were green, the leaves showed bruises.

I began to feel like Don when he scented game. Leading my mustang I

slowly proceeded across the open, guided by an occasional down-trodden

bush or tuft of grass. As I neared the cedars again Foxie snorted.

Under the first tree I found a ghastly bunch of red bones, a spread of

grayish hairs and a split skull. The bones, were yet wet; two long doe

ears were still warm. Then I saw big lion tracks in the dust and even

a well pressed imprint of a lion's body where he had rolled or lain.

The two yells I sent ringing into the forest were productive of

interesting results. Answers came from near and far. Then, what with

my calling and the replies, the forest rang so steadily with shrill

cries that the echoes had no chance to follow.

An elephant in the jungle could not have caused more crashing and

breaking of brush than did Emett as he made his way to me. He arrived

from the forest just as Jim galloped across the flat. Mutely I held up

the two long ears.

"Get on your horse!" cried Jim after one quick glance at the spread of

bones and hair.

It was well he said that, for I might have been left behind. I ran to

Foxie and vaulted upon him. A flash of yellow appeared among the sage

and a string of yelps split the air.

"It's Don!" yelled Jim.

Well we knew that. What a sight to see him running straight for us! He

passed, a savage yellow wolf in his ferocity, and disappeared like a

gleam under the gloomy cedars.

We spurred after him. The other hounds sped by. Jones closed in on us

from the left, and in a few minutes we were strung out behind Emett,

fighting the branches, dodging and swerving, hugging the saddle, and

always sending out our sharp yells.

The race was furious but short. The three of us coming up together

found Emett dismounted on the extreme end of West Point.

"The hounds have gone down," he said, pointing to the runway.

We all listened to the meaning bays.

"Shore they've got him up!" asserted Jim. "Like as not they found him

under the rim here, sleeping off his gorge. Now fellows, I'll go down.

It might be a good idea for you to spread along the rim."

[Illustration: TREED LION]

[Illustration: HIDING]

With that we turned our horses eastward and rode as close to the rim

as possible. Clumps of cedars and deep fissures often forced us to

circle them. The hounds, traveling under the walls below, kept pace

with us and then forged ahead, which fact caused Jones to dispatch

Emett on the gallop for the next runway at North Hollow.

Soon Jones bade me dismount and make my way out upon one of the

promontories, while he rode a little farther on. As I tied my mustang

I heard the hounds, faint and far beneath. I waded through the sage

and cedar to the rim.

Cape after cape jutted out over the abyss. Some were very sharp and

bare, others covered with cedar; some tottering crags with a crumbling

bridge leading to their rims; and some ran down like giant steps. From

one of these I watched below. The slope here under the wall was like

the side of a rugged mountain. Somewhere down among the dark patches

of cedar and the great blocks of stone the hounds were hunting the

lion, but I could not see one of them.

The promontory I had chosen had a split, and choked as this was with

brush, rock, and shale, it seemed a place where I might climb down.

Once started, I could not turn back, and sliding, clinging to what

afforded, I worked down the crack. A wall of stone hid the sky from

me part of the way. I came out a hundred feet below upon a second

promontory of huge slabs of yellow stone. Over these I clambered, to

sit with my feet swinging over the last one.

Straight before my gaze yawned the awful expanse of the canyon. In the

soft morning light the red mesas, the yellow walls, the black domes

were less harsh than in the full noonday sun, purer than in the tender

shadow of twilight. Below me were slopes and slides divided by ravines

full of stones as large as houses, with here and there a lonesome

leaning crag, giving irresistible proof of the downward trend, of the

rolling, weathering ruins of the rim. Above the wall bulged out full

of fissures, ragged and rotten shelves, toppling columns of yellow

limestone, beaded with quartz and colored by wild flowers wonderfully

growing in crannies.

Wild and rare as was this environment, I gave it but a glance and a

thought. The bay of the hounds caused me to bend sharp and eager eyes

to the open spaces of stone and slide below. Luck was mine as usual;

the hounds were working up toward me. How I strained my sight! Hearing

a single cry I looked eastward to see Jones silhouetted against the

blue on a black promontory. He seemed a giant primeval man overlooking

the ruin of a former world. I signalled him to make for my point.

Black Ranger hove in sight at the top of a yellow slide. He was at

fault but hunting hard. Jude and Sounder bayed off to his left. I

heard Don's clear voice, permeating the thin, cool air, seemingly

to leave a quality of wildness upon it; yet I could not locate him.

Ranger disappeared. Then for a time I only heard Jim. Moze was next to

appear and he, too, was upward bound. A jumble of stone hid him, and

then Ranger again showed. Evidently he wanted to get around the bottom

of a low crag, for he jumped and jumped only to fall back.

Quite naturally my eyes searched that crag. Stretched out upon the top

of it was the long, slender body of a lion.

"Hi! hi! hi! hi! hi!" I yelled till my lungs failed me.

"Where are you?" came from above.

"Here! Here!" I cried seeing Jones on the rim. "Come down. Climb down

the crack. The lion is here; on top of that round crag. He's fooled

the hounds and they can't find him."

"I see him! I see him!" yelled Jones. Then he roared out a single call

for Emett that pealed like a clear clarion along the curved broken rim

wall, opening up echoes which clapped like thunder.

While Jones clattered down I turned again to the lion. He lay with

head hidden under a little shelf and he moved not a muscle. What a

place for him to choose! But for my accidental venturing down the

broken fragments and steps of the rim he could have remained safe from

pursuit.

Suddenly, right under my feet, Don opened his string of yelps. I could

not see him but decided he must be above the lion on the crag. I

leaned over as far as I dared. At that moment among the varied and

thrilling sounds about me I became vaguely aware of hard, panting

breaths, like coughs somewhere in my vicinity. As Jones had set in

motion bushels of stone and had already scraped his feet over the

rocks behind me I thought the forced respiration came from him. When

I turned he was yet far off--too far for me to hear him breathe. I

thought this circumstance strange but straightway forgot it.

On the moment from my right somewhere Don pealed out his bugle blast,

and immediately after Sounder and Jude joining him, sent up the thrice

welcome news of a treed lion.

"There 're two! There 're two!" I yelled to Jones, now working down to

my right.

"He's treed down here. I've got him spotted!" replied Jones. "You stay

there and watch your lion. Yell for Emett."

Signal after signal for Emett earned no response, though Jim far below

to the left sent me an answer.

The next few minutes, or more likely half an hour, passed with Jones

and me separated from each other by a wall of broken stone, waiting

impatiently for Jim and Emett, while the hounds bayed one lion and I

watched the other.

Calmness was impossible under such circumstances. No man could have

gazed into that marvel of color and distance, with wild life about

him, with wild sounds ringing in his ears, without yielding to the

throb and race of his wild blood.

Emett did not come. Jim had not answered a yell for minutes. No doubt

he needed his breath. He came into sight just to the left of our

position, and he ran down one side of the ravine to toil up the other.

I hailed him, Jones hailed him and the hounds hailed him.

"Steer to your left Jim!" I called.. "There's a lion on that crag

above you. He might jump. Round the cliff to the left--Jones is

there!"

The most painful task it was for me to sit there and listen to the

sound rising from below without being able to see what happened. My

lion had peeped up once, and, seeing me, had crouched closer to his

crag, evidently believing he was unseen, which obviously made it

imperative for me to keep my seat and hold him there as long as

possible.

But to hear the various exclamations thrilled me enough.

"Hyar Moze--get out of that. Catch him--hold him! Damn these rotten

limbs. Hand me a pole--Jones, back down--back down! he's comin'--Hi!

Hi! Whoop! Boo--o! There--now you've got him! No, no; it slipped! Now!

Look out, Jim, from under--he's going to jump!"

A smashing and rattling of loose stones and a fiery burst of yelps

with trumpet-like yells followed close upon Jones' last words. Then

two yellow streaks leaped down the ravine. The first was the lion, the

second was Don. The rest of the pack came tumbling helter-skelter in

their wake. Following them raced Jim in long kangaroo leaps, with

Jones in the rear, running for all he was worth. The animated

and musical procession passed up out of the ravine and gradually

lengthened as the lion gained and Jones lost, till it passed

altogether from my jealous sight.

On the other side of the ridge of cedars the hounds treed their quarry

again, as was easy to tell by their change from sharp intermittent

yelping to an unbroken, full, deep chorus. Then presently all quieted

down, and for long moments at a time the still silence enfolded the

slope. Shouts now and then floated up on the wind and an occasional

bark.

I sat there for an hour by my watch, though it seemed only a few

minutes, and all that time my lion lay crouched on his crag and never

moved.

I looked across the curve of the canyon to the purple breaks of the

Siwash and the shaggy side of Buckskin Mountain and far beyond to

where Kanab Canyon opened its dark mouth, and farther still to the

Pink Cliffs of Utah, weird and dim in the distance.

Something swelled within my breast at the thought that for the time I

was part of that wild scene. The eye of an eagle soaring above would

have placed me as well as my lion among the few living things in the

range of his all-compassing vision. Therefore, all was mine, not

merely the lion--for he was only the means to an end--but the

stupendous, unnameable thing beneath me, this chasm that hid mountains

in the shades of its cliffs, and the granite tombs, some gleaming

pale, passionless, others red and warm, painted by a master hand; and

the wind-caves, dark-portaled under their mist curtains, and all

that was deep and far off, unapproachable, unattainable, of beauty

exceeding, dressed in ever-changing hues, was mine by right of

presence, by right of the eye to see and the mind to keep.

"Waa-hoo!"

The cry lifted itself out of the depths. I saw Jones on the ridge of

cedars.

"All right here--have you kept your line there?" he yelled.

"All's well--come along, come along," I replied.

I watched them coming, and all the while my lion never moved. The

hounds reached the base of the cliff under me, but they could not

find the lion, though they scented him, for they kept up a continual

baying. Jim got up to the shelf under me and said they had tied up the

lion and left him below. Jones toiled slowly up the slope.

"Some one ought to stay down there; he might jump," I called in

warning.

"That crag is forty feet high on this side," he replied.

I clambered back over the uneven mass, let myself down between the

boulders and crawled under a dark ridge, and finally with Jim catching

my rifle and camera and then lending his shoulders, I reached the

bench below. Jones came puffing around a corner of the cliff, and soon

all three of us with the hounds stood out on the rocky shelf with only

a narrow space between us and the crouching lion.

Before we had a moment to speak, much less form a plan of attack, the

lion rose, spat at us defiantly, and deliberately jumped off the crag.

We heard him strike with a frightful thud.

Surprise held us dumb. To take the leap to the slope below seemed

beyond any beast not endowed with wings. We saw the lion bounding down

the identical trail which the other lion had taken. Jones came out of

his momentary indecision.

"Hold the dogs! Call them back!" he yelled hoarsely. "They'll kill the

lion we tied! They'll kill him!"

The hounds had scattered off the bench here and there, everywhere, to

come together on the trail below. Already they were in full cry with

the matchless Don at the fore. Manifestly to call them back was an

injustice, as well as impossible. In ten seconds they were out of

sight.

In silence we waited, each listening, each feeling the tragedy of the

situation, each praying that they would pass by the poor, helpless,

bound lion. Suddenly the regular baying swelled to a burst of savage,

snarling fury, such as the pack made in a vicious fight. This

ceased--short silence ensued; Don's sharp voice woke the echoes, then

the regular baying continued.

As with one thought, we all sat down. Painful as the certainty was it

was not so painful as that listening, hoping suspense.

"Shore they can't be blamed," said Jim finally. "Bumping their nose

into a tied lion that way--how'd they know?"

"Who could guess the second lion would jump off that quick and run

back to our captive?" burst out Jones.

"Shore we might have knowed it," replied Jim. "Well, I'm goin' after

the pack."

He gathered up his lasso and strode off the bench. Jones said he would

climb back to the rim, and I followed Jim.

Why the lions ran in that particular direction was clear to me when

I saw the trail. It was a runway, smooth and hard packed. I trudged

along it with rather less enjoyment than on any trail I had ever

followed to the canyon. Jim waited for me over the cedar ridge and

showed me where the captive lion lay dead. The hounds had not torn

him. They had killed him and passed on after the other.

"He was a fine fellow, all of seven feet, we'll skin him on our way

back."

Only dogged determination coupled with a sense of duty to the hounds

kept us on that trail. For the time being enthusiasm had been

submerged. But we had to follow the pack.

Jim, less weighted down and perhaps less discouraged, forged ahead up

and down. The sun had burned all the morning coolness out of the air.

I perspired and panted and began to grow weary. Jim's signal called me

to hurry. I took to a trot and came upon him and the hounds under a

small cedar. The lion stood among the dead branches. His sides where

shaking convulsively, and his short breaths could be plainly heard.

He had the most blazing eyes and most untamed expression of any wild

creature I have ever seen; and this amazed me considering I had kept

him on a crag for over an hour, and had come to look upon him as my

own.

"What'll we do, Jim, now that we have him treed?"

"Shore, we'll tie him up," declared Jim.