by Zane Grey
“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.
Down the Shinumo Trail of The North River
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.
CHAPTER 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.
Buckskin Forest
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 m
e.”
“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.