by Zane Grey
CHAPTER 12.
OLD TOM
At daybreak our leader routed us out. The frost mantled the ground soheavily that it looked like snow, and the rare atmosphere bit like thebreath of winter. The forest stood solemn and gray; the canyon laywrapped in vapory slumber.
Hot biscuits and coffee, with a chop or two of the delicious Persianlamb meat, put a less Spartan tinge on the morning, and gave Wallaceand me more strength--we needed not incentive to leave the fire, hustleour saddles on the horses and get in line with our impatient leader.The hounds scampered over the frost, shoving their noses at the tuftsof grass and bluebells. Lawson and Jim remained in camp; the rest of ustrooped southwest.
A mile or so in that direction, the forest of pine ended abruptly, anda wide belt of low, scrubby old trees, breast high to a horse, fringedthe rim of the canyon and appeared to broaden out and grow wavysouthward. The edge of the forest was as dark and regular as if a bandof woodchoppers had trimmed it. We threaded our way through thisthicket, all peering into the bisecting deer trails for cougar tracksin the dust.
"Bring the dogs! Hurry!" suddenly called Jones from a thicket.
We lost no time complying, and found him standing in a trail, with hiseyes on the sand. "Take a look, boys. A good-sized male cougar passedhere last night. Hyar, Sounder, Don, Moze, come on!"
It was a nervous, excited pack of hounds. Old Jude got to Jones first,and she sang out; then Sounder opened with his ringing bay, and beforeJones could mount, a string of yelping dogs sailed straight for theforest.
"Ooze along, boys!" yelled Frank, wheeling Spot.
With the cowboy leading, we strung into the pines, and I found myselfbehind. Presently even Wallace disappeared. I almost threw the reins atSatan, and yelled for him to go. The result enlightened me. Like anarrow from a bow, the black shot forward. Frank had told me of hisspeed, that when he found his stride it was like riding a flyingfeather to be on him. Jones, fearing he would kill me, had cautioned mealways to hold him in, which I had done. Satan stretched out with longgraceful motions; he did not turn aside for logs, but cleared them witheasy and powerful spring, and he swerved only slightly to the trees.This latter, I saw at once, made the danger for me. It became a matterof saving my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of thiscame to me with convincing force. I dodged a branch on one tree, onlyto be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If thesnag had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, and I wouldhave been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition to the risksof the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then falling flat over thepommel to avoid a limb that would have brushed me off, and hugging theflanks of my horse with my knees. Soon I was at Wallace's heels, andhad Jones in sight. Now and then glimpses of Frank's white horsegleamed through the trees.
We began to circle toward the south, to go up and down shallow hollows,to find the pines thinning out; then we shot out of the forest into thescrubby oak. Riding through this brush was the cruelest kind of work,but Satan kept on close to the sorrel. The hollows began to get deeper,and the ridges between them narrower. No longer could we keep astraight course.
On the crest of one of the ridges we found Jones awaiting us. Jude,Tige and Don lay panting at his feet. Plainly the Colonel appearedvexed.
"Listen," he said, when we reined in.
We complied, but did not hear a sound.
"Frank's beyond there some place," continued Jones, "but I can't seehim, nor hear the hounds anymore. Don and Tige split again on deertrails. Old Jude hung on the lion track, but I stopped her here.There's something I can't figure. Moze held a beeline southwest, and heyelled seldom. Sounder gradually stopped baying. Maybe Frank can tellus something."
Jones's long drawn-out signal was answered from the direction heexpected, and after a little time, Frank's white horse shone out of thegray-green of a ledge a mile away.
This drew my attention to our position. We were on a high ridge out inthe open, and I could see fifty miles of the shaggy slopes of Buckskin.Southward the gray, ragged line seemed to stop suddenly, and beyond itpurple haze hung over a void I knew to be the canyon. And facing west,I came, at last, to understand perfectly the meaning of the breaks inthe Siwash. They were nothing more than ravines that headed up on theslopes and ran down, getting steeper and steeper, though scarcelywider, to break into the canyon. Knife-crested ridges rolled westward,wave on wave, like the billows of a sea. I appreciated that thesebreaks were, at their sources, little washes easy to jump across, andat their mouths a mile deep and impassable. Huge pine trees shadedthese gullies, to give way to the gray growth of stunted oak, which inturn merged into the dark green of pinyon. A wonderful country for deerand lions, it seemed to me, but impassable, all but impossible for ahunter.
Frank soon appeared, brushing through the bending oaks, and Soundertrotted along behind him.
"Where's Moze?" inquired Jones.
"The last I heard of Moze he was out of the brush, goin' across thepinyon flat, right for the canyon. He had a hot trail."
"Well, we're certain of one thing; if it was a deer, he won't come backsoon, and if it was a lion, he'll tree it, lose the scent, and comeback. We've got to show the hounds a lion in a tree. They'd run a hottrail, bump into a tree, and then be at fault. What was wrong withSounder?"
"I don't know. He came back to me."
"We can't trust him, or any of them yet. Still, maybe they're doingbetter than we know."
The outcome of the chase, so favorably started was a disappointment,which we all felt keenly. After some discussion, we turned south,intending to ride down to the rim wall and follow it back to camp. Ihappened to turn once, perhaps to look again at the far-distant pinkcliffs of Utah, or the wave-like dome of Trumbull Mountain, when I sawMoze trailing close behind me. My yell halted the Colonel.
"Well, I'll be darned!" ejaculated he, as Moze hove in sight. "Comehyar, you rascal!"
He was a tired dog, but had no sheepish air about him, such as he hadworn when lagging in from deer chases. He wagged his tail, and floppeddown to pant and pant, as if to say: "What's wrong with you guys?"
"Boys, for two cents I'd go back and put Jude on that trail. It's justpossible that Moze treed a lion. But--well, I expect there's morelikelihood of his chasing the lion over the rim; so we may as well keepon. The strange thing is that Sounder wasn't with Moze. There may havebeen two lions. You see we are up a tree ourselves. I have known lionsto run in pairs, and also a mother keep four two-year-olds with her.But such cases are rare. Here, in this country, though, maybe they runround and have parties."
As we left the breaks behind we got out upon a level pinyon flat. A fewcedars grew with the pinyons. Deer runways and trails were thick.
"Boys, look at that," said Jones. "This is great lion country, the bestI ever saw."
He pointed to the sunken, red, shapeless remain of two horses, and nearthem a ghastly scattering of bleached bones. "A lion-lair right here onthe flat. Those two horses were killed early this spring, and I see nosigns of their carcasses having been covered with brush and dirt. I'vegot to learn lion lore over again, that's certain."
As we paused at the head of a depression, which appeared to be a gap inthe rim wall, filled with massed pinyons and splintered piles of yellowstone, caught Sounder going through some interesting moves. He stoppedto smell a bush. Then he lifted his head, and electrified me with agreat, deep sounding bay.
"Hi! there, listen to that!" yelled Jones "What's Sounder got? Give himroom--don't run him down. Easy now, old dog, easy, easy!"
Sounder suddenly broke down a trail. Moze howled, Don barked, and Tigelet out his staccato yelp. They ran through the brush here, there,every where. Then all at once old Jude chimed in with her mellow voice,and Jones tumbled off his horse.
"By the Lord Harry! There's something here."
"Here, Colonel, here's the bush Sounder smelt and there's a sandy trailunder it," I called.
"There go Don an' Tige down into the break!" cried Frank. "They've g
ota hot scent!"
Jones stooped over the place I designated, to jerk up with reddeningface, and as he flung himself into the saddle roared out: "AfterSounder! Old Tom! Old Tom! Old Tom!"
We all heard Sounder, and at the moment of Jones's discovery, Moze gotthe scent and plunged ahead of us.
"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" yelled the Colonel. Frank sent Spot forward like awhite streak. Sounder called to us in irresistible bays, which Mozeanswered, and then crippled Jude bayed in baffled impotent distress.
The atmosphere was charged with that lion. As if by magic, theexcitation communicated itself to all, and men, horses and dogs actedin accord. The ride through the forest had been a jaunt. This was asteeplechase, a mad, heedless, perilous, glorious race. And we had fora pacemaker a cowboy mounted on a tireless mustang.
Always it seemed to me, while the wind rushed, the brush whipped, I sawFrank far ahead, sitting his saddle as if glued there, holding hisreins loosely forward. To see him ride so was a beautiful sight. Joneslet out his Comanche yell at every dozen jumps and Wallace sent back athrilling "Waa-hoo-o!" In the excitement I had again checked my horse,and when Jones remembered, and loosed the bridle, how the noble animalresponded! The pace he settled into dazed me; I could hardlydistinguish the deer trail down which he was thundering. I lost mycomrades ahead; the pinyons blurred in my sight; I only faintly heardthe hounds. It occurred to me we were making for the breaks, but I didnot think of checking Satan. I thought only of flying on faster andfaster.
"On! On! old fellow! Stretch out! Never lose this race! We've got to bethere at the finish!" I called to Satan, and he seemed to understandand stretched lower, farther, quicker.
The brush pounded my legs and clutched and tore my clothes; the windwhistled; the pinyon branches cut and whipped my face. Once I dodged tothe left, as Satan swerved to the right, with the result that I flewout of the saddle, and crashed into a pinyon tree, which marvelouslybrushed me back into the saddle. The wild yells and deep bays soundednearer. Satan tripped and plunged down, throwing me as gracefully as anaerial tumbler wings his flight. I alighted in a bush, without feelingof scratch or pain. As Satan recovered and ran past, I did not seek tomake him stop, but getting a good grip on the pommel, I vaulted upagain. Once more he raced like a wild mustang. And from nearer andnearer in front pealed the alluring sounds of the chase.
Satan was creeping close to Wallace and Jones, with Frank looming whitethrough the occasional pinyons. Then all dropped out of sight, toappear again suddenly. They had reached the first break. Soon I wasupon it. Two deer ran out of the ravine, almost brushing my horse inthe haste. Satan went down and up in a few giant strides. Only thenarrow ridge separated us from another break. It was up and down thenfor Satan, a work to which he manfully set himself. Occasionally I sawWallace and Jones, but heard them oftener. All the time the breaks grewdeeper, till finally Satan had to zigzag his way down and up.Discouragement fastened on me, when from the summit of the next ridge Isaw Frank far down the break, with Jones and Wallace not a quarter of amile away from him. I sent out a long, exultant yell as Satan crashedinto the hard, dry wash in the bottom of the break.
I knew from the way he quickened under me that he intended to overhaulsomebody. Perhaps because of the clear going, or because my frenzy hadcooled to a thrilling excitement which permitted detail, I saw clearlyand distinctly the speeding horsemen down the ravine. I picked out thesmooth pieces of ground ahead, and with the slightest touch of the reinon his neck, guided Satan into them. How he ran! The light, quick beatsof his hoofs were regular, pounding. Seeing Jones and Wallace sail highinto the air, I knew they had jumped a ditch. Thus prepared, I managedto stick on when it yawned before me; and Satan, never slackening,leaped up and up, giving me a new swing.
Dust began to settle in little clouds before me; Frank, far ahead, hadturned his mustang up the side of the break; Wallace, within hailingdistance, now turned to wave me a hand. The rushing wind fairly sang inmy ears; the walls of the break were confused blurs of yellow andgreen; at every stride Satan seemed to swallow a rod of the white trail.
Jones began to scale the ravine, heading up obliquely far on the sideof where Frank had vanished, and as Wallace followed suit, I turnedSatan. I caught Wallace at the summit, and we raced together out uponanother flat of pinyon. We heard Frank and Jones yelling in a way thatcaused us to spur our horses frantically. Spot, gleaming white near aclump of green pinyons, was our guiding star. That last quarter of amile was a ringing run, a ride to remember.
As our mounts crashed back with stiff forelegs and haunches, Wallaceand I leaped off and darted into the clump of pinyons, whence issued ahair-raising medley of yells and barks. I saw Jones, then Frank, bothwaving their arms, then Moze and Sounder running wildly, airlesslyabout.
"Look there!" rang in my ear, and Jones smashed me on the back with ablow, which at any ordinary time would have laid me flat.
In a low, stubby pinyon tree, scarce twenty feet from us, was a tawnyform. An enormous mountain lion, as large as an African lioness, stoodplanted with huge, round legs on two branches; and he faced usgloomily, neither frightened nor fierce. He watched the running dogswith pale, yellow eyes, waved his massive head and switched a long,black tufted tail.
"It's Old Tom! sure as you're born! It's Old Tom!" yelled Jones."There's no two lions like that in one country. Hold still now. Jude ishere, and she'll see him, she'll show him to the other hounds. Holdstill!"
We heard Jude coming at a fast pace for a lame dog, and we saw herpresently, running with her nose down for a moment, then up. Sheentered the clump of trees, and bumped her nose against the pinyon OldTom was in, and looked up like a dog that knew her business. The seriesof wild howls she broke into quickly brought Sounder and Moze to herside. They, too, saw the big lion, not fifteen feet over their heads.
We were all yelling and trying to talk at once, in some such state asthe dogs.
"Hyar, Moze! Come down out of that!" hoarsely shouted Jones.
Moze had begun to climb the thick, many-branched, low pinyon tree. Hepaid not the slightest attention to Jones, who screamed and raged athim.
"Cover the lion!" cried he to me. "Don't shoot unless he crouches tojump on me."
The little beaded front-sight wavered slightly as I held my rifleleveled at the grim, snarling face, and out of the corner of my eye, asit were, I saw Jones dash in under the lion and grasp Moze by the hindleg and haul him down. He broke from Jones and leaped again to thefirst low branch. His master then grasped his collar and carried him towhere we stood and held him choking.
"Boys, we can't keep Tom up there. When he jumps, keep out of his way.Maybe we can chase him up a better tree."
Old Tom suddenly left the branches, swinging violently; and hitting theground like a huge cat on springs, he bounded off, tail up, in a mostludicrous manner. His running, however, did not lack speed, for hequickly outdistanced the bursting hounds.
A stampede for horses succeeded this move. I had difficulty in closingmy camera, which I had forgotten until the last moment, and got behindthe others. Satan sent the dust flying and the pinyon branchescrashing. Hardly had I time to bewail my ill-luck in being left, when Idashed out of a thick growth of trees to come upon my companions, alldismounted on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
"He's gone down! He's gone down!" raged Jones, stamping the ground."What luck! What miserable luck! But don't quit; spread along the rim,boys, and look for him. Cougars can't fly. There's a break in the rimsomewhere."
The rock wall, on which we dizzily stood, dropped straight down for athousand feet, to meet a long, pinyon-covered slope, which graded amile to cut off into what must have been the second wall. We were farwest of Clarke's trail now, and faced a point above where Kanab Canyon,a red gorge a mile deep, met the great canyon. As I ran along the rim,looking for a fissure or break, my gaze seemed impellingly drawn by theimmensity of this thing I could not name, and for which I had as yet nointelligible emotion.
Two "Waa-hoos" in the rear turned me back in double-q
uick time, andhastening by the horses, I found the three men grouped at the head of anarrow break.
"He went down here. Wallace saw him round the base of that totteringcrag."
The break was wedge-shaped, with the sharp end off toward the rim, andit descended so rapidly as to appear almost perpendicular. It was along, steep slide of small, weathered shale, and a place that no man inhis right senses would ever have considered going down. But Jones,designating Frank and me, said in his cool, quick voice:
"You fellows go down. Take Jude and Sounder in leash. If you find histrail below along the wall, yell for us. Meanwhile, Wallace and I willhang over the rim and watch for him."
Going down, in one sense, was much easier than had appeared, for thereason that once started we moved on sliding beds of weathered stone.Each of us now had an avalanche for a steed. Frank forged ahead with aroar, and then seeing danger below, tried to get out of the mass. Butthe stones were like quicksand; every step he took sunk him in deeper.He grasped the smooth cliff, to find holding impossible. The slidepoured over a fall like so much water. He reached and caught a branchof a pinyon, and lifting his feet up, hung on till the treacherous areaof moving stones had passed.
While I had been absorbed in his predicament, my avalanche augmenteditself by slide on slide, perhaps loosened by his; and before I knewit, I was sailing down with ever-increasing momentum. The sensation wasdistinctly pleasant, and a certain spirit, before restrained in me, atlast ran riot. The slide narrowed at the drop where Frank had jumped,and the stones poured over in a stream. I jumped also, but having arifle in one hand, failed to hold, and plunged down into the slideagain. My feet were held this time, as in a vise. I kept myself uprightand waited. Fortunately, the jumble of loose stone slowed and stopped,enabling me to crawl over to one side where there was comparativelygood footing. Below us, for fifty yards was a sheet of rough stone, asbare as washed granite well could be. We slid down this in regularschoolboy fashion, and had reached another restricted neck in thefissure, when a sliding crash above warned us that the avalanches haddecided to move of their own free will. Only a fraction of a moment hadwe to find footing along the yellow cliff, when, with a cracking roar,the mass struck the slippery granite. If we had been on that slope, ourlives would not have been worth a grain of the dust flying in cloudsabove us. Huge stones, that had formed the bottom of the slides, shotahead, and rolling, leaping, whizzed by us with frightful velocity, andthe remainder groaned and growled its way down, to thunder over thesecond fall and die out in a distant rumble.
The hounds had hung back, and were not easily coaxed down to us. Fromthere on, down to the base of the gigantic cliff, we descended withlittle difficulty.
"We might meet the old gray cat anywheres along here," said Frank.
The wall of yellow limestone had shelves, ledges, fissures and cracks,any one of which might have concealed a lion. On these places I turneddark, uneasy glances. It seemed to me events succeeded one another sorapidly that I had no time to think, to examine, to prepare. We wererushed from one sensation to another.
"Gee! look here," said Frank; "here's his tracks. Did you ever see thelike of that?"
Certainly I had never fixed my eyes on such enormous cat-tracks asappeared in the yellow dust at the base of the rim wall. The mere sightof them was sufficient to make a man tremble.
"Hold in the dogs, Frank," I called. "Listen. I think I heard a yell."
From far above came a yell, which, though thinned out by distance, waseasily recognized as Jones's. We returned to the opening of the break,and throwing our heads back, looked up the slide to see him coming down.
"Wait for me! Wait for me! I saw the lion go in a cave. Wait for me!"
With the same roar and crack and slide of rocks as had attended ourdescent, Jones bore down on us. For an old man it was a marvelousperformance. He walked on the avalanches as though he wore seven-leagueboots, and presently, as we began to dodge whizzing bowlders, hestepped down to us, whirling his coiled lasso. His jaw bulged out; aflash made fire in his cold eyes.
"Boys, we've got Old Tom in a corner. I worked along the rim north andlooked over every place I could. Now, maybe you won't believe it, but Iheard him pant. Yes, sir, he panted like the tired lion he is. Well,presently I saw him lying along the base of the rim wall. His tonguewas hanging out. You see, he's a heavy lion, and not used to runninglong distances. Come on, now. It's not far. Hold in the dogs. You therewith the rifle, lead off, and keep your eyes peeled."
Single file, we passed along in the shadow of the great cliff. A widetrail had been worn in the dust.
"A lion run-way," said Jones. "Don't you smell the cat?"
Indeed, the strong odor of cat was very pronounced; and that, withoutthe big fresh tracks, made the skin on my face tighten and chill. As weturned a jutting point in the wall, a number of animals, which I didnot recognize, plunged helter-skelter down the canyon slope.
"Rocky Mountain sheep!" exclaimed Jones. "Look! Well, this is adiscovery. I never heard of a bighorn in the Canyon."
It was indicative of the strong grip Old Tom had on us that we at onceforgot the remarkable fact of coming upon those rare sheep in such aplace.
Jones halted us presently before a deep curve described by the rimwall, the extreme end of which terminated across the slope in animpassable projecting corner.
"See across there, boys. See that black hole. Old Tom's in there."
"What's your plan?" queried the cowboy sharply.
"Wait. We'll slip up to get better lay of the land."
We worked our way noiselessly along the rim-wall curve for severalhundred yards and came to a halt again, this time with a splendidcommand of the situation. The trail ended abruptly at the dark cave, somenacingly staring at us, and the corner of the cliff had curled backupon itself. It was a box-trap, with a drop at the end, too great forany beast, a narrow slide of weathered stone running down, and the rimwall trail. Old Tom would plainly be compelled to choose one of thesedirections if he left his cave.
"Frank, you and I will keep to the wall and stop near that scrubpinyon, this side of the hole. If I rope him, I can use that tree."
Then he turned to me:
"Are you to be depended on here?"
"I? What do you want me to do?" I demanded, and my whole breast seemedto sink in.
"You cut across the head of this slope and take up your position in theslide below the cave, say just by that big stone. From there you cancommand the cave, our position and your own. Now, if it is necessary tokill this lion to save me or Frank, or, of course, yourself, can you bedepended upon to kill him?"
I felt a queer sensation around my heart and a strange tightening ofthe skin upon my face! What a position for me to be placed in! For oneinstant I shook like a quivering aspen leaf. Then because of the prideof a man, or perhaps inherited instincts cropping out at this perilousmoment, I looked up and answered quietly:
"Yes. I will kill him!"
"Old Tom is cornered, and he'll come out. He can run only two ways:along this trail, or down that slide. I'll take my stand by the scrubpinyon there so I can get a hitch if I rope him. Frank, when I give theword, let the dogs go. Grey, you block the slide. If he makes at us,even if I do get my rope on him, kill him! Most likely he'll jump downhill--then you'll HAVE to kill him! Be quick. Now loose the hounds. Hi!Hi! Hi! Hi!"
I jumped into the narrow slide of weathered stone and looked up.Jones's stentorian yell rose high above the clamor of the hounds. Hewhirled his lasso.
A huge yellow form shot over the trail and hit the top of the slidewith a crash. The lasso streaked out with arrowy swiftness, circled,and snapped viciously close to Old Tom's head. "Kill him! Kill him!"roared Jones. Then the lion leaped, seemingly into the air above me.Instinctively I raised my little automatic rifle. I seemed to hear amillion bellowing reports. The tawny body, with its grim, snarlingface, blurred in my sight. I heard a roar of sliding stones at my feet.I felt a rush of wind. I caught a confused glimpse of a whirling wheelof fur,
rolling down the slide.
Then Jones and Frank were pounding me, and yelling I know not what.From far above came floating down a long "Waa-hoo!" I saw Wallacesilhouetted against the blue sky. I felt the hot barrel of my rifle,and shuddered at the bloody stones below me--then, and then only, did Irealize, with weakening legs, that Old Tom had jumped at me, and hadjumped to his death.