the Young Lion Hunter (1998)

by Grey, Zane

"Shore we don't know. They're chasin' some-thin' shore's you're born," said Jim.

  "Who fetched an axe?" asked Hiram.

  I was never caught out without my small hand-axe, and with this we set about cutting cedar branches and brush to make shelters. A big black cloud swooped down on us, bringing a flurry of snow. At that juncture Ken and Hal stalked into camp, each carrying a struggling, snapping little fox. Both boys were bleeding from bites or cuts which they minded not at all.

  "Been ropin' foxes, eh?" asked Hiram. "Wal, let 'em go an' pitch in hyar an' help. We've got the mustangs rounded up, an' with good weather we'll hey more fun an' hard work than you youngsters hey seen yet."

  It was noticeable that Ken released his capture, while Hal tied his to a cedar with a cord. Both lads lent their aid, and it was not long before we had a big lean-to on the windward side. It was not finished any too soon, for the snow began to fall. A snowstorm like this one was as bad as rain, and as good as rain, too, for it was heavy, thick, and wet. When the storm passed six inches of snow lay upon everything. The sun still hid behind clouds, but the air was warm and the snow melted fast.

  "Fellars, it's gittin' late, anyhow," said Hiram. "An' we couldn't do much in this snow. We'll wait till to-morrer. I'll fence up thet narrer trail so the mustangs can't give us the slip."

  We lounged around our camp, made a meal on biscuits and snowballs, and rolled in our blankets to sleep soundly. Hiram awakened us early. We ate what little we had left, and, as the sun rose red and warm, we were eager to begin the day's adventure.

  "Let's all take a look at the mustangs," suggested Hiram.

  There were patches of snow left in shady places, and the ground was soft and soggy. We followed Hiram out of the cedars, thorough brush and round huge boulders, and finally crawled to a point on the edge of the bluff.

  "Look at thet! Jest look!" whispered Hiram, hoarsely.

  The bare promontory glistened in the morning sunlight, and right in the middle of it was the band of wild mustangs. There were whites and blacks and bays.

  "There's Wings!" burst out Hal.

  "S-s-sh. Not so loud thar," said Hiram. "What are they doing?" asked Ken, in eager interest.

  "The snow's melted, an' they're drinkin' out of the little pockets in the rock."

  "Well!--it's great!" replied Ken.

  I shared his delight. To my mind there could not have been a more beautiful sight than the mustangs drinking on that promontory. The mustangs looked wild. They were shaggy. Long manes waved in the breeze. The leader of the band, a fine, keen-looking white, stood on guard. His attitude showed pride as well as suspicion. He held his head up and he was looking our way. Beyond the promontory yawned the blue shadow of an abyss, and beyond that lifted a bold red bluff, and farther on loomed a great dome. And all around to left and right were the ragged ridges of rock and the dark clefts between the cliffs. It was a wild background for these wild rangers of the wilderness.

  "Thet white feller's winded us, I do believe," said Hiram. "Wal, I reckon it doesn't make no difference to us. He can't git out."

  "Hiram, may I take a picture of that bunch?" asked Ken.

  "Shore. But you must go down through the crack in the rocks thar, an' then crawl as close as you can."

  Ken slipped away, and soon returned to us, enthusiastic over his picture and more than enthusiastic over the beauty of some of the mustangs.

  "Why, Hal, my mustang is nowhere for looks. And Wings--he's like a dub compared to some of the ponies in that band."

  "Wal, it ain't goin' to be an all-fired job to ketch a couple of mustangs," said Hiram. "But what'll we do with them?"

  "Shore, let's wait till we ketch some," replied Jim, wisely.

  "Hiram, we can turn them over to the Indian," I suggested.

  "Thet's so. He'll drag them up on the plateau, an' break them for us."

  "How are we going to catch them?" I asked.

  "Dick, we've got a place made to order. You all can hide behind an' above thet crack whar the trail comes up. I'll go down an' drive the mustangs up, an' you fellers can rope 'em as they come out."

  "Shore it'll be lively round here," chuckled Jim.

  "Youngsters, you'd better both lay for Wings an' rope him," said Hiram. "Jim an' Dick can each rope a mustang. Thet'll be enough, won't it?"

  "I want to rope one for myself," replied Hal. "I don't care whether we get Wings or not."

  "I'd like to pick one out, too," added Ken.

  "Wal, I'm sure I don't keer if you rope half a dozen. Every man for hisself, then. Only, youngsters, I'd advise you to put on your gloves, an' tighten your belts, an' git ready for a warm time. It'll be easy to drop a noose over a mustang's head, but holdin' him mebbe'll be another story. Git your lassoes ready, now."

  Jim and the brothers took up a position on the side of the gully where we expected the mustangs to come up, and Navvy and I took ours on the opposite side. Hiram rattled down over the stones of the trail, with a last word to the boys to make ready for some real sport.

  As I had asked for the loan of Wings from my friend in Kanab, it fell to me as a duty to catch the mustang if I could. We waited for quite a while, and excitement began to verge on strain when we heard Hiram's stentorian yell. Following that was a sound like low thunder, then a sharp clattering, and then the clear ringing of hard hoofs on stone.

  "Shore they're comin'," called Jim.

  I had expected to see the mustangs run out of that crack in single file. But they burst out, it seemed, three or four abreast, in a cloud of dust and a thundering din. I saw Jim's noose whip over a mustang's head. Then the dusty air appeared full of flying lassoes. The mustangs ran their heads right into the loops. I watched for Wings, but did not see him. In a twinkling the band had cleared the crack and were half across the cedar bench. I heard a confusion of yells and pounding hoofs and crashings in the brush. But I could not see for dust, and had to run to one side out of the thick cloud.

  Jim had a white mustang down, and Navvy had a bay well under control. Then I saw Ken. In an instant he was actually dodging the plunges of a vicious pinto. Ken had roped one of the band, but now he did not know what to do, except hold on. That he was doing valiantly at the risk of his life. The pinto reared and, like a furious deer, struck with his fore hoofs. Ken dodged and ran to the extent of his rope and hauled away with all his strength. His quarry began to leap and pull and drag Ken through the brush.

  "Hold hard thar, youngster," yelled Hiram. He came running out of the crack in the rocks and quickly laid his powerful grasp on Ken's rope.

  "Where's Hal?" I yelled. No one heard me. All were too busy. I turned this way and that. Finally, way off on the bench, at least a hundred yards, I saw a mustang jumping and shaking his head. Then I saw a tight lasso round his neck. I did not wait to see Hal, but started to run with all my might. The mustang, a beautiful slate color with white tail and mane, kept plunging through the brush, and I knew he was dragging Hal. Then I saw the boy. He was down, but trying to get up, and holding to the lasso as if he would die before he let go.

  "Hang on, Hal," I cried. "He's a beauty. You've got a prize. Hang on!"

  Hal regained his feet. The mustang renewed his fight for freedom. And then began a race. He dragged Hal so fast for a little while I scarcely gained at all. But Hal tripped and fell, and as he would not give up, of course, his weight held the mustang back. I gained ground, reached Hal, and grasped the tight lasso. One jerk sent that savage mustang to his knees and took away some of his breath and fire. He thrashed about and wrestled a few more moments, and then squared away, fore hoofs braced, and, refusing to budge, watched me with wild eyes. Promptly I tied the lasso to a stout bush. Again he began to rear and jump, and as the rope did not give an inch he choked himself pretty thoroughly, and at length fell flat. I hurried up and loosened the noose and tied a knot that would not slip.

  "He's ours--Hal; where are you?" I yelled.

  It was a sorry-looking lad I found half sitting up in the brush. Dust-covere
d, scratched and bloody, with his clothes in tatters, Hal Ward was a sight.

  "I'm all right except my wrists. They're all skinned from the rope," he said. "Gee! What a pony! Say, Dick, is he hurt? He breathes so hard."

  "He's just winded and scared. We'll leave him here till we find out what to do with him. Let's go back."

  We returned to camp, where Hal was greeted with solicitude, and then, when it became known that he had not been hurt, there was uproarious mirth at his appearance.

  "I don't care. I got the blue-ribbon winner of that bunch," retorted Hal.

  So indeed it turned out. Hal's mustang was a beauty, one and all agreeing that he was about the wildest and raciest and most beautiful little horse we had ever seen.

  "Wal, I 'ain't noticed thet any of you ketched Wings," said Hiram.

  For that matter not one of us had even seen the mustang. Hiram said that it was rather strange, and he went back down to the promontory. Upon his return he told us that Wings was down there and could be readily caught.

  "He turned back, I reckon," went on Hiram. "An' now, fellers, let's figure things. We've had a right smart bit of luck. But we can't take all these wild mustangs up on the plateau with us. Let's put them down on thet bench, an' close up this crack so they'll be corralled. Then we can git them on our way back to Kanab."

  That appeared to be a wise solution to our problem for the present. Wild mustangs are apt to be white elephants on hunters' hands. So, while Hiram and Jim went down to catch Wings, the Navajo half led and half dragged our captured mustangs down through the crack to the promontory.

  "I reckoned," said Hiram, upon his return with Wings, "thet it'd be best to leave the lassoes trailin' on the mustangs. We don't run much risk of one chokin'. An' we can ketch them easy when we come back. Now to build thet corral gate. Everybody rustle for big branches of cedar."

  An hour of hard work saw the task completed, and it gave us much satisfaction. Then we mounted and took our own backtrail toward the Saddle and the plateau camp.

  Chapter XVI - SPLIT TRAILS

  When we trooped out of the pines next morning, the sun, rising gloriously bright, had already taken off the keen edge of the frosty air. The ridges glistened in their white dress, and the bunches of sage and the cedars, tipped with snow, were like trees laden with blossoms.

  We rode swiftly to the mouth of Left Ca+-on, into which Jim had trailed three lions. On the way the snow, as we had expected, began to thin out, and it failed altogether under the cedars, though there was enough on the branches to give us a drenching.

  Jim reined in on the verge of a narrow gorge, and told us that a lion's cave was below. Hiram looked the ground over and said Jim had better take the hounds down while the rest of us waited above, ready for whatever might happen.

  Jim went down on foot, calling the hounds and holding them close. We listened eagerly for his call or the outbreak of the pack, but there was no sound. In less than half an hour he came climbing out, with the information that the lions had left the cave, probably the evening after he had chased them there.

  "Well, then," said Hiram, "let's split the pack an' hunt round the rims of these ca+-ons. We can signal to each other if necessary."

  So we arranged for Jim and Hal to take Ranger and the pup across Left Ca+-on, Hiram to try Middle Ca+-on with Tan and Mux, and Ken and I were to perform a like office in Right Ca+-on with Prince and Queen. Hiram rode back with us, leaving us where we crossed Middle Ca+-on.

  Ken and I skirted a mile of our ca+-on and worked out almost to the west end of the Bay, without finding so much as a single track. Then we started back. The sun was now hot; the snow all gone; the ground dry as if it had never been damp; and we complained that our morning was a failure.

  We reached the ragged mouth of Right Ca+-on where it opened into the deep, wide Bay, and rode close to the rim because we hoped to hear our companions across the ca+-on. The hounds began to bark on a cliff, but as we could find no tracks in the dust we called them off. Queen obeyed reluctantly, but Prince wanted to get down over the wall.

  "They scent a lion," I declared. "Let's put them over the wall."

  Once permitted to go the hounds needed no assistance. They ran up and down the rim till they found a crack which would admit them. Hardly had they vanished when we heard them yelping. We rushed to the rim and looked over. The first step was short, a crumbled section of wall, and from it led down a long slope, dotted here and there with cedars. Both hounds were baying furiously.

  I looked the ca+-on over carefully and decided that it was a bad place to venture into.

  "Ken, it's hard to tell which way the hounds run in these ca+-ons. I think Queen is heading up. Anyway, I'll go that way, and you go down here. We'll get separated, but don't forget the signal yell."

  With that I proceeded along the rim to the left, making sure I heard a hound in that direction. It was rough, hard going, and in the excitement of it I forgot how much ground I was covering. I came to a place, presently, where I determined to go down, and leaving spurs, chaps, gun, coat and hat on the rim, I started down, carrying only my lasso. The slope was steep, a long incline of scaly, rotting rock, growing rougher toward the bottom. I heard the baying of a hound, to my right and turned in that direction. Soon I was among huge rocks and windfalls of cedar. Through this it was impossible to keep a straight line. I turned and twisted. But as I continued to hear the baying of the hound I thought I could not be going wrong. In this way time passed, yet still I did not seem to get any closer to the dog, and though I yelled for Ken I got no response. Working more to the left of the dense jumble of weathered rock and thicket of dead cedars I made better progress. All the time, though I appeared to be in the bottom of a ca+-on, I was descending rapidly. Then the louder baying of the hound and yells from Ken spurred me forward. Another shout guided me to the right, and running through a clump of cedars I came out upon the edge of a deep, narrow cleft.

  Up on the opposite slope I saw Queen with her paws on a cedar and above her clung a lion, so close that she could nearly reach him. Prince was nowhere in sight, nor was Ken.

  "Ho! Ken!" I yelled.

  "Hi! Hi! Dick!" his reply came down the ca+-on, and both yells blended in a roar that banged back and forth in echo from the cliffs.

  I ran up the ca+-on a little way, to find my passage blocked, unless I chose to go far around. Then I hurried back, only to see that I could not get across below. In my excitement I thought of leaping across and searched for the narrowest place. But the split was quite twenty feet wide and I dared not risk it.

  "Ken, I'm on the wrong side of the ca+-on," I yelled.

  "Go back--head it," he replied. "Here's the lion--treed."

  "It's too far back that way--it would take an hour to climb round--no help for it."

  Then I climbed up a little so as to be on a level with the lion. The cedar that held him was perhaps fifty paces away. Ken came down, and there we were, a few feet apart, in easy talking distance, yet widely separated in so far as any help to each other was concerned.

  "Where's Prince? Look out for him. I hear him below. This lion won't stay treed long," shouted Ken.

  I, too, heard Prince. A cedar-tree obstructed my view, and I moved aside. A few hundred feet farther down the hound bayed under a tall pi+-on. High in the branches I saw a great mass of yellow. How I yelled! Then a second glance showed two lions close together.

  "Two more! two more! Look! look!" I screamed to Ken.

  "Hi! Hi! Hi!" he joined his yell to mine, and for a moment we made the ca+-on bellow. When we stopped for breath the echoes bayed at us from the opposite walls.

  "Waa-hoo!" Hiram's signal, faint, far away, soaring, but unmistakable, floated down to us. Across the jutting capes separating the mouths of these ca+-ons, high above them on the rim-wall of the opposite side of the Bay, stood a giant white horse bearing Hiram's dark figure silhouetted against the white sky. They made a brave picture, one most welcome to us. We yelled in chorus: "Three lions treed! Three
lions treed! Come down--hurry!"

  A crash of rolling stones made us wheel. Queen's lion had jumped. He ran straight down, drawing Prince from his guard. Queen went tearing alter them.

  "What on earth will we do now?" cried Ken.

  "Keep the other lions treed--if you can," I replied, running along the ca+-on till I neared the pi+-on tree. Ken clambered over the rocks on his side. We kept yelling for Hiram. Presently Ken was under the pi+-on, and I at a point opposite. We were now some thirty rods apart, but I was utterly useless to Ken except in the way of advice and encouragement. So for minutes we caught our breath and waited.

  "Gee! two big fellows! And they look as scared as I am," called Ken.

  "That's good. Keep them scared...I hear Hiram coming...Hi! Hi! This way, Hiram...Ken, just listen to Hiram rolling the rocks. He's coming like an avalanche."

  Bits of weathered rock clattered down the slope, and the old hunter was at their heels. "Whar are the hounds?" he yelled.

  "Gone down after the third lion," I replied. "They've treed him down there."

  "Wal, that's good. Now you fellers keep these cougars treed. It'll be easy. Bark at 'em like dogs, an' if one starts down, grab a club and run at him as if you was goin' to kill him. Bang on the tree. Beat the branches, an' yell. You can keep 'em up thar till I git back with the hounds."

  With that, Hiram, like a giant with seven-league boots, disappeared down the slope. It had all happened so quickly that I could scarcely realize it. The yelping of the hounds, the clattering of stones grew fainter, telling me that Prince and Queen, and Hiram too, were going to the bottom of the Bay.

  "Ken, have you got your gun?" I called.

  "No, I left everything but my rope," he replied.

  Then the two snarling lions brought me to a keen sense of the reality. Ken had a job on his hands: two almost full-grown lions to be kept treed without hounds, without a gun, without help from a companion.

  "Say! this is funny!" yelled Ken. "Dick, I'm scared sick, but I hate to quit...I'll stick. I'll do what Hiram told me to."

  It occurred to me then that Hiram probably had not noticed Ken was without his gun, or that I was separated from him by the narrow, deep chasm.