by Zane Grey
Jim seized Mux and made him fast to the lasso with which Curley had already been secured.
“Wal, fellers, I can’t reach him hyar. I’m goin’ farther up,” said the hunter.
“Rustle, now,” yelled Jim.
I saw that Hiram evidently had that in mind. He climbed quickly. It was enough to make even a man catch his breath to watch him, and I heard Ken gasping. Hiram reached the middle fork of the cedar, stood erect and extended the noose of his lasso on the point of his pole. Tom, with a hiss and a snap, savagely struck at it. A second trial tempted the lion to seize the rope with his teeth. In a flash Hiram withdrew the pole and lifted a loop of the slack noose over the lion’s ears. The other end of the lasso he threw down to Jim.
“Pull!” he yelled.
Jim threw all his weight into action, pulling the lion out with a crash, and giving the cedar such a tremendous shake that Hiram lost his footing. Grasping at branches and failing to hold, he fell, apparently right upon the lion. A whirling cloud of dust arose, out of which Hiram made prodigious leaps.
“Look out!” he bawled.
His actions, without words, would have been electrifying enough. As I ran to one side the lion just missed Hiram. Then with a spring that sent the stones rattling he made at Ken. The lad dove straight downhill into a thicket. When the furious lion turned on Jim, that worthy dropped the lasso and made tracks. Here the quick-witted Hiram seized the free end of the trailing lasso and tied it to a sapling. Then the wrestling lion disappeared in a thick cloud of dust.
“Dod gast the luck!” yelled Hiram, picking up Jim’s lasso. “I didn’t mean for you to pull him out of the tree. He’ll kill himself now or git loose.”
When the dust cleared away I discovered our prize stretched out at full length, frothing at the mouth. As Hiram approached, swinging the other lasso, the lion began a series of evolutions that made him resemble a wheel of yellow fur and dust. Then came a thud and he lay inert.
Hiram pounced upon him and loosened the lasso round his neck.
“I’m afraid he’s done fer. But mebbe not. They’re hard-lived critters. He’s breathin’ yet. Hyar, Leslie, help me tie his paws together...Be watchful.”
As I came up the lion stirred and raised his head. Hiram ran the loop of the second lasso round the two hind paws and stretched Tom out. While in this helpless position, with no strength and scarcely any breath, he was easy to handle. With Jim and me attending strictly to orders Hiram clipped the sharp claws, tied the four paws together, took off the neck lasso and substituted a collar and chain.
“Let him breathe a little. He’s comin’ round all right,” said Hiram. “But we’re lucky. Jim, never pull another cougar clear out of a tree. Pull him off over a limb an’ hang him thar while some one below ropes his hind paws. Thet’s the only way, an’ if we don’t stick to it somebody’ll git chewed up.”
Ken appeared, all scratched and torn from his header into the thorny brake. As he gazed at our captive he whooped for Hal. The lad edged down the slope and approached us eagerly. He was absolutely unconscious that we were laughing at him. His face was in a flush, with brow moist and his telltale eyes protruding. Whatever the few thrilling moments had been to us, they must have been tame compared to what they had been to Hal.
“Wal, youngster, whar were you when it came off?” inquired Hiram, with a smile.
“Have we got him — really?” whispered Hal. “Shore, Kid. He’s a good cougar now,” answered Jim.
“Come along an’ watch me put on his muzzle,” said Hiram.
Hiram’s method of performing this part of his work was the most hazardous of all. He thrust a stick between Tom’s open jaws, and when the lion crushed it into splinters he tried another and yet another, till he found one that did not break. Then, while Tom bit on it, Hiram placed a wire loop over the animal’s nose, slowly tightening it till the stick would not slip forward of the great canine teeth.
“Thar, thet’s one, ready to pack to camp. We’ll leave him hyar an’ hunt up Prince an’ Queen. They’ve treed the other cougar by this time.”
When Jim untied Mux and Curley it was remarkable to see what little interest they had in the now helpless lion. Mux growled, then followed Curley up the slope. We all climbed out and mounted our horses.
“Hear thet!” yelled Hiram. “Thar’s Prince yelpin’. Hi! Hi! Hi!”
From the cedars across the ridge rang a thrilling chorus of bays. Hiram spurred his horse and we fell in behind him at a gallop. We leveled a lane of sage in that short race, and when Hiram leaped off at the edge of the impenetrable cedar forest we were close at his heels. He disappeared and Jim and Ken followed him. I heard them smashing the dead wood, and soon a deep yell mingled with shouts and the yelps of the hounds. I waited to tie Ken’s mustang, and I had to perform a like office for Hal, whose hands trembled so he could not do it. He jerked his rifle out of his scabbard.
“No, no, Hal, you won’t want that. Put it back. You might shoot somebody in the excitement. Come on. Keep your wits. You can climb or dodge as well as I.”
Then I dragged him into the gloomy clump of cedars whence came the uproar. First I saw Ken in a tree, climbing fast; then Mux in another, and under him the other hounds with noses skyward; and last, up in the dead topmost branches, a big tawny lion.
“Whoop!” the yell leaped past my lips. Quiet Jim was yelling; Ken was splitting the air, and Hiram let out from his cavernous chest a booming roar that almost crowned ours.
I lifted and shoved Hal into a cedar, and then turned to the grim business of the moment. Hiram’s first move was to pull Mux out of the tree.
“Hyar, Leslie, grab him; he’s stronger’n a hoss.”
If Mux had been only a little stronger he would have broken away from me. Jim ran a rope under the collar of all the hounds; there both of us pulled them from under the lion.
“It’s got to be a slip-knot,” said Jim, as we fumbled with the rope. “Shore if the cougar jumps we want to be able to free the hounds quick.”
Then while Hiram climbed Jim and I waited. I saw Ken in the top of a cedar on a level with the lion. Hal hugged a branch and strained his gaze, and, judging from the look of him, his heart was in his throat. Hiram’s gray hat went pushing up between the dead snags, then his burly shoulders. The quivering muscles of the lion grew tense, and his lithe body crouched low. He was about to jump. His dripping jaws, his wild eyes roving for some means of escape, his tufted tail swinging against the twigs and breaking them, manifested his terror and extremity. The hunter climbed on with a rope between his teeth and a long stick in his hand.
“Git ropes ready down thar!” yelled Hiram.
My rope was new and bothersome to handle. When I got it right with a noose ready I heard a cracking of branches. Looking up, I saw the lion biting hard at a rope which circled his neck. Jim ran directly under the tree with a spread noose in his hands. Then Hiram pulled and pulled, but the lion held firmly. Whereupon Hiram threw his end of the rope down to me.
“Thar, Leslie, lend a hand.”
We both pulled with might and main; still the lion was too strong. Suddenly the branch broke, letting the lion fall, kicking frantically with all four paws. Jim grasped one of the lower paws and dexterously left the noose fast on it. But only by a hair’s breadth did he dodge the other whipping paw.
“Let go, Leslie,” yelled Hiram.
I complied, and the rope Hiram and I had held flew up over the branches as the lion fell, and then it dropped to the ground. Hiram, plunging out of the tree, made a flying snatch for the rope, got it and held fast.
“Stretch him out, Jim,” roared Hiram. “An’ Leslie, stand ready to put another rope on.”
The action had been fast, but it was slow to what then began. It appeared impossible for two strong men, one of them a giant, to straighten out that wrestling lion. The dust flew, the sticks snapped, the gravel pattered against the cedars. Jim went to his knees, and Hiram’s huge bulk bowed under the strain. Then Jim plowed the grou
nd flat on his stomach. I ran to his assistance and took the rope which he now held by only one hand. He got up and together we lent our efforts, getting in a strong haul on the lion. Short as that moment was it enabled Hiram to make his lasso fast to a cedar. The three of us then stretched the beast from tree to tree, after which Hiram put a third lasso on the front paws.
“A whoppin’ female,” said Hiram, as our captive lay helpless with swelling sides and blazing eyes. “She’s nearly eight feet from tip to tip, but not extra heavy. Females never git fat. Hand me another rope.”
With four lassoes in position to suit Hiram the lioness could not move. Then he proceeded to tie her paws, clip her claws, muzzle and chain her.
“I reckon you squirrels can come down now,” remarked Hiram, dryly, to the brothers. “See hyar, one of these days when we git split, thar’ll be mebbe no one to help me but one of you youngsters. What then?”
To Hal and Ken, who had dropped out of their perches, the old hunter’s speech evidently suggested something at once frightful and enthralling.
“Shore as you’re born thet’s goin’ to happen,’ added Jim, as he wiped the sweat and dust from his face.
“I never felt — so — before in my life,” said Hal, tremulously. “My whole insides went like a crazy clock when you break a spring...Then I froze — scared stiff!”
His naive confession strengthened any already favorable impression.
Ken laughed. “Kid, didn’t I say it was coming to you?”
Hal did not reply to this; he had shifted his attention to the hounds. Jim was loosing them from the rope. They had ceased yelping and I was curious to know how they would regard our captive.
Prince walked within three feet of the lioness, disdaining to notice her at all, and lay down. Curley wagged his tail; Queen began to lick her sore foot; Tan wearily stretched himself for a nap; only Mux, the incorrigible, retained antipathy for our bound captive, and he growled once low and deep, and rolled his bloodshot eyes at her as if to remind her it was he who had brought her to such a pass. And, on the instant, Ringer, lame and dusty from travel, trotted into the glade, and, looking at the lioness, he gave one disgusted grunt and flopped down.
CHAPTER VIII - IN CAMP
HOW SHOULD WE get our captives to camp? This was the task which we faced next. We sent Ken back for the pack-horses. He was absent a long while, and when at length he hove in sight on the sage flat it was plain that we were in for trouble. Marc, the bay stallion, was on the rampage.
“Why didn’t he fetch the Injun?” growled Hiram, who lost his temper only when things went wrong with the horses. “Spread out, boys, an’ head him off.”
We managed to surround the stallion and Hiram succeeded in getting a halter on him. Ken’s face was red, his hair damp, and he looked as if he had spent an hour or two of trying responsibility.
“I didn’t want the bay,” he explained. “But I couldn’t drive the others without him. And what do you think of this? When I told the Indian that we had two lions he ran off into the woods. Say! maybe I haven’t had some bother with that stallion. I think riding him will be the only way to get him anywhere. That’s what I’m going to do next time.”
“Wal, first thing when we get to camp I’ll scalp the redskin,” said Jim.
“Youngster, you needn’t be so flustrated,” put in Hiram. “I reckon you did well to git Marc hyar at all.”
As they talked they were standing on the open ridge at the entrance to the thick cedar forest. The two lions lay just within the shade. Hiram and Jim, using a pole, had carried our first captive, whom we had named Tom, up from the cañon to where we had tied the lioness.
Ken, as directed, had brought a pack-saddle and two long canvas sacks. When Hiram tried to lead the horse that carried these, the animal began to tremble and pull back.
“Somebody unbuckle the straps,” yelled Hiram.
It was good luck that I got the sacks and saddle off, for in three jumps the horse broke from Hiram and plunged away across the sage flat.
“Shore he’ll belong to the band of wild bosses,” commented Jim.
I led up another horse and endeavored to hold him while Jim and Hiram got the pack-saddle on. It would have taken all three of us to hold him.
“They smell the lions,” said Hiram. “I was afraid they would. Consarn the luck! Never had hut one nag thet would pack lions.”
“Try the sorrel,” I suggested. “He looks amiable.”
For the first time in a serviceable life, according to Hiram, the sorrel broke his halter and kicked like a plantation mule.
“Shore they’re scared,” said Jim. “Marc ain’t afraid. Try him.”
Hiram gazed at Jim as if he had not heard aright.
“Go ahead, Hiram, try the stallion,” I added. “I like the way he looks.”
“Pack cougars on thet hoss!” exclaimed the astounded Hiram.
“Shore,” replied Jim.
The big stallion looked a King of horses — just what he would have been if Purcell had not taken him when a colt from his wild desert brothers. He scented the lions, for he held his proud head up, his ears erect, and his lame dark eyes shone like fire.
“I’ll try to lead him in an’ let him see the cougars. We can’t fool him,” said Hiram.
Marc showed no hesitation, nor indeed anything we expected. He stood stiff-legged before the lions and looked as if he wanted to fight.
“Shore he’ll pack them,” declared Jim.
The pack-saddle being strapped on and the sacks hooked to the horns, Hiram and Jim, while I held the stallion, lifted Tom and shoved him down into the left sack. A madder lion than Tom never lived. It was hard enough to be lassoed and disgrace enough to be “hog-tied,” as Jim put it, but to be thrust down into a bag and packed on a horse was more than any self-respecting lion could stand. Tom frothed at the mouth and seemed like a fizzing torpedo about to explode. The lioness, being considerably larger, was with difficulty gotten into the other sack, and her head and paws hung out.
“I look to see Marc bolt over the rim,” said Hiram. “An’ I promised Purcell to hey a care of this hoss.”
Hiram’s anxiety clouded his judgment, for he was wrong. Marc packed the lions to camp in short order, and as Jim said, “without turnin’ a hair.” We saw the Navajo’s head protruding from behind a tree.
“Here, Navvy,” I called.
Hiram and Jim yelled derisively, whereupon the black head vanished and did not reappear. Then they unhooked one of the sacks and dumped out the lioness. Hiram fastened her chain to a small pine-tree, and as she lay powerless he pulled out the stick back of her canines. This let the wire muzzle fall off. She welcomed so much freedom with a roar. The last action in releasing her from the bonds Hiram performed with much dexterity. He slipped the loop fastening one paw, which loosened the rope, and in a twinkling let her work the other paws free. Up she sprang, mouth wide, ears flat, and eyes ablaze.
Before the men lowered Tom from the packsaddle I stepped closer and put my lace within six inches of his. He promptly spat at me. I wanted to see the eyes of a wild lion at close range. They were beautiful. Great half-globes of tawny amber, streaked with delicate lines of black, surrounded pupils of purple fire.
“Boys, come here,” I called to Ken and Hal. “Don’t miss this chance. Bend close to the lion and look into his eyes.”
Both boys jerked back as Tom spat and hissed, but presently they steeled their nerves and got close enough.
“There...What do you see?”
“Pictures!” exclaimed Ken.
“I want to let him go free,” replied Hal, instantly.
It pleased me that the brothers saw in the eyes of the lion much the same that I had seen.
Pictures shone there and faded in the amber light — the shaggy-tipped plateau, the dark pines and smoky cañons, the yellow cliffs and crags. Deep in these live pupils, changing, quickening with a thousand vibrations, quivered the soul of this savage beast, the wildest of all wild nature, u
nquenchable love of life and freedom and flame of defiance and hate.
Hiram disposed of Tom in the same manner he had the lioness, chaining him to an adjoining small pine, where he leaped and wrestled.
“Dick, look! There comes Jim with Navvy,” said Ken.
I saw Jim leading and dragging the Indian into camp. I la sorry for Navvy, for I believed that his fear was not so much physical as spiritual. The lion, being a Navajo god, was an object of reverence to the Indian, and it seemed no wonder that Navvy hung back from the sacrilegious treatment of his god. Forced along by Jim, the Navajo dragged his feet and held his face sidewise. Jim drew him within fifteen feet and there held him, while Hiram tried to show and tell the poor fellow that the lions would not hurt him. Navvy stared and muttered to himself. Jim seemed to have some deviltry in mind, for he edged up closer, but just then Hiram pointed to the loose horses and said to the Indian:
“Chineago” (feed).
But no sooner had Jim released Navvy than he bolted, and the yells sent after him made him run only the faster.
“He’ll come back when he gits hungry,” said Hiram. “Ken, you drive the hosses down in the holler whar thar’s good browse.”
With an agile leap Ken swung up on the broad back of the stallion.
“Hyar, youngster, pile off thar!” called Hiram. “Wal, dog-gone me!”
It appeared that our great stallion had laid aside his noble disposition and was his old self once more. Before Ken had fairly gotten astride Marc dropped his head, humped his shoulders, brought his feet together and began to buck. It looked to me as if Marc was a tougher bucking proposition than the wildest broncho that ever romped the desert. For Marc was unusually robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I hac seen him roll over in the dust three times each way and do it easily, something I had never seer equaled by another horse.
Ken began to bounce. He twisted his strong hands in the mane of the stallion and held on. It was plain that Ken’s blood was up. And all of us, seeing that it was now safer for him to keep his seat, began to give encouragement.