by Zane Grey
A long time I had to wait for the hound. It proved that the atmosphere was as deceiving in regard to sound as to sight. Finally Sounder came running along the wall. I got off to intercept him. The crazy fellow—he had never responded to my overtures of friendship—uttered short, sharp yelps of delight, and actually leaped into my arms. But I could not hold him. He darted upon the trail again and paid no heed to my angry shouts. With a resolve to overhaul him, I jumped on Satan and whirled after the hound.
The black stretched out with such a stride that I was at pains to keep my seat. I dodged the jutting rocks and projecting snags; felt stinging branches in my face and the rush of sweet, dry wind. Under the crumbling walls, over slopes of weathered stone and droppings of shelving rock, round protruding noses of cliff, over and under pinyons Satan thundered. He came out on the top of the ridge, at the narrow back I had called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpse of Sounder far below, going down into the ravine from which I had ascended some time before. I called to him, but I might as well have called to the wind.
Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward camp. I lay forward on his neck and let him have his will. Far down the ravine I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized the cracking of iron-shod hoofs against stone; then voices. Turning an abrupt bend in the sandy wash, I ran into Jones and Wallace.
“Fall in! Line up in the sad procession!” said Jones. “Tige and the pup are faithful. The rest of the dogs are somewhere between the Grand Canyon and the Utah desert.”
I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze and Sounder as much as conscience would permit.
“Hard luck!” commented Jones. “Just as the hounds jumped the cougar—Oh! they bounced him out of the rocks all right—don’t you remember, just under that cliff wall where you and Wallace came up to me? Well, just as they jumped him, they ran right into fresh deer tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that’s too much for any hounds, except those trained for lions. I shot at Moze twice, but couldn’t turn him. He has to be hurt, they’ve all got to be hurt to make them understand.”
Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones’s wake, and of sundry knocks and bruises he had sustained, of pieces of corduroy he had left decorating the cedars and of a most humiliating event, where a gaunt and bare pinyon snag had penetrated under his belt and lifted him, mad and kicking, off his horse.
“These Western nags will hang you on a line every chance they get,” declared Jones, “and don’t you overlook that. Well, there’s the cabin. We’d better stay here a few days or a week and break in the dogs and horses, for this day’s work was apple pie to what we’ll get in the Siwash.”
I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad to see Wallace fall off his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin. When I got my saddle off Satan, had given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the cabin and dropped like a log. I felt as if every bone in my body was broken and my flesh was raw. I got gleeful gratification from Wallace’s complaints, and Jones’s remark that he had a stitch in his back. So ended the first chase after cougars.
CHAPTER 5
OAK SPRING
Moze and Don and Sounder straggled into camp next morning, hungry, footsore and scarred; and as they limped in, Jones met them with characteristic speech: “Well, you decided to come in when you got hungry and tired? Never thought of how you fooled me, did you? Now, the first thing you get is a good licking.”
He tied them in a little log pen near the cabin and whipped them soundly. And the next few days, while Wallace and I rested, he took them out separately and deliberately ran them over coyote and deer trails. Sometimes we heard his stentorian yell as a forerunner to the blast from his old shotgun. Then again we heard the shots unheralded by the yell. Wallace and I waxed warm under the collar over this peculiar method of training dogs, and each of us made dire threats. But in justice to their implacable trainer, the dogs never appeared to be hurt; never a spot of blood flecked their glossy coats, nor did they ever come home limping. Sounder grew wise, and Don gave up, but Moze appeared not to change.
“All hands ready to rustle,” sang out Frank one morning. “Old Baldy’s got to be shod.”
This brought us all, except Jones, out of the cabin, to see the object of Frank’s anxiety tied to a nearby oak. At first I failed to recognize Old Baldy. Vanished was the slow, sleepy, apathetic manner that had characterized him; his ears lay back on his head; fire flashed from his eyes. When Frank threw down a kit-bag, which emitted a metallic clanking, Old Baldy sat back on his haunches, planted his forefeet deep in the ground and plainly as a horse could speak, said “No!”
“Sometimes he’s bad, and sometimes worse,” growled Frank.
“Shore he’s plumb bad this mornin’,” replied Jim.
Frank got the three of us to hold Baldy’s head and pull him up, then he ventured to lift a hind foot over his line. Old Baldy straightened out his leg and sent Frank sprawling into the dirt. Twice again Frank patiently tried to hold a hind leg, with the same result; and then he lifted a forefoot. Baldy uttered a very intelligible snort, bit through Wallace’s glove, yanked Jim off his feet, and scared me so that I let go his forelock. Then he broke the rope which held him to the tree. There was a plunge, a scattering of men, though Jim still valiantly held on to Baldy’s head, and a thrashing of scrub pinyon, where Baldy reached out vigorously with his hind feet. But for Jim, he would have escaped.
“What’s all the row?” called Jones from the cabin. Then from the door, taking in the situation, he yelled: “Hold on, Jim! Pull down on the ornery old cayuse!”
He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, one whirling round his head. The slender rope straightened with a whiz and whipped round Baldy’s legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled it tight, then fastened it with nimble fingers to the tree.
“Let go! let go! Jim!” he yelled, whirling the other lasso. The loop flashed and fell over Baldy’s head and tightened round his neck. Jones threw all the weight of his burly form on the lariat, and Baldy crashed to the ground, rolled, tussled, screamed, and then lay on his back, kicking the air with three free legs. “Hold this,” ordered Jones, giving the tight rope to Frank. Whereupon he grabbed my lasso from the saddle, roped Baldy’s two forefeet, and pulled him down on his side. This lasso he fastened to a scrub cedar.
“He’s chokin’!” said Frank.
“Likely he is,” replied Jones shortly. “It’ll do him good.” But with his big hands he drew the coil loose and slipped it down over Baldy’s nose, where he tightened it again.
“Now, go ahead,” he said, taking the rope from Frank.
It had all been done in a twinkling. Baldy lay there groaning and helpless, and when Frank once again took hold of the wicked leg, he was almost passive. When the shoeing operation had been neatly and quickly attended to and Baldy released from his uncomfortable position he struggled to his feet with heavy breaths, shook himself, and looked at his master.
“How’d you like being hog-tied?” queried his conqueror, rubbing Baldy’s nose. “Now, after this you’ll have some manners.”
Old Baldy seemed to understand, for he looked sheepish, and lapsed once more into his listless, lazy unconcern.
“Where’s Jim’s old cayuse, the pack-horse?” asked our leader.
“Lost. Couldn’t find him this morning, an’ had a deuce of a time findin’ the rest of the bunch. Old Baldy was cute. He hid in a bunch of pinyons an’ stood quiet so his bell wouldn’t ring. I had to trail him.”
“Do the horses stray far when they are hobbled?” inquired Wallace.
“If they keep jumpin’ all night they can cover some territory. We’re now on the edge of the wild horse country, and our nags know this as well as we. They smell the mustangs, an’ would break their necks to get away. Satan and the sorrel were ten miles from camp when I found them this mornin’. An’ Jim’s cayuse went farther, an’ we never will get him. He’ll wear his hobbles out, then away with the wild horses. Once with them, he’l
l never be caught again.”
On the sixth day of our stay at Oak we had visitors, whom Frank introduced as the Stewart brothers and Lawson, wild-horse wranglers. They were still, dark men, whose facial expression seldom varied; tall and lithe and wiry as the mustangs they rode. The Stewarts were on their way to Kanab, Utah, to arrange for the sale of a drove of horses they had captured and corraled in a narrow canyon back in the Siwash. Lawson said he was at our service, and was promptly hired to look after our horses.
“Any cougar signs back in the breaks?” asked Jones.
“Wal, there’s a cougar on every deer trail,” replied the elder Stewart, “An’ two for every pinto in the breaks. Old Tom himself downed fifteen colts fer us this spring.”
“Fifteen colts! That’s wholesale murder. Why don’t you kill the butcher?”
“We’ve tried more’n onct. It’s a turrible busted up country, them brakes. No man knows it, an’ the cougars do. Old Tom ranges all the ridges and brakes, even up on the slopes of Buckskin; but he lives down there in them holes, an’ Lord knows, no dog I ever seen could follow him. We tracked him in the snow, an’ had dogs after him, but none could stay with him, except two as never cum back. But we’ve nothin’ agin Old Tom like Jeff Clarke, a hoss rustler, who has a string of pintos corraled north of us. Clarke swears he ain’t raised a colt in two years.”
“We’ll put that old cougar up a tree,” exclaimed Jones.
“If you kill him we’ll make you all a present of a mustang, an’ Clarke, he’ll give you two each,” replied Stewart. “We’d be gettin’ rid of him cheap.”
“How many wild horses on the mountain now?”
“Hard to tell. Two or three thousand, mebbe. There’s almost no ketchin’ them, an’ they regrowin’ all the time We ain’t had no luck this spring. The bunch in corral we got last year.”
“Seen anythin’ of the White Mustang?” inquired Frank. “Ever get a rope near him?”
“No nearer’n we hev fer six years back. He can’t be ketched. We seen him an’ his band of blacks a few days ago, headin’ fer a water-hole down where Nail Canyon runs into Kanab Canyon. He’s so cunnin’ he’ll never water at any of our trap corrals. An’ we believe he can go without water fer two weeks, unless mebbe he hes a secret hole we’ve never trailed him to.”
“Would we have any chance to see this White Mustang and his band?” questioned Jones.
“See him? Why, thet’d be easy. Go down Snake Gulch, camp at Singin’ Cliffs, go over into Nail Canyon, an’ wait. Then send someone slippin’ down to the water-hole at Kanab Canyon, an’ when the band cums in to drink—which I reckon will be in a few days now—hev them drive the mustangs up. Only be sure to hev them get ahead of the White Mustang, so he’ll hev only one way to cum, fer he sure is knowin’. He never makes a mistake. Mebbe you’ll get to see him cum by like a white streak. Why, I’ve heerd thet mustang’s hoofs ring like bells on the rocks a mile away. His hoofs are harder’n any iron shoe as was ever made. But even if you don’t get to see him, Snake Gulch is worth seein’.”
I learned later from Stewart that the White Mustang was a beautiful stallion of the wildest strain of mustang blue blood. He had roamed the long reaches between the Grand Canyon and Buckskin toward its southern slope for years; he had been the most sought-for horse by all the wranglers, and had become so shy and experienced that nothing but a glimpse was ever obtained of him. A singular fact was that he never attached any of his own species to his band, unless they were coal black. He had been known to fight and kill other stallions, but he kept out of the well-wooded and watered country frequented by other bands, and ranged the brakes of the Siwash as far as he could range. The usual method, indeed the only successful way to capture wild horses, was to build corrals round the waterholes. The wranglers lay out night after night watching. When the mustangs came to drink—which was always after dark—the gates would be closed on them. But the trick had never even been tried on the White Mustang, for the simple reason that he never approached one of these traps.
“Boys,” said Jones, “seeing we need breaking in, we’ll give the White Mustang a little run.”
This was most pleasurable news, for the wild horses fascinated me. Besides, I saw from the expression on our leader’s face that an uncapturable mustang was an object of interest for him.
Wallace and I had employed the last few warm sunny afternoons in riding up and down the valley, below Oak, where there was a fine, level stretch. Here I wore out my soreness of muscle, and gradually overcame my awkwardness in the saddle. Frank’s remedy of maple sugar and red pepper had rid me of my cold, and with the return of strength, and the coming of confidence, full, joyous appreciation of wild environment and life made me unspeakably happy. And I noticed that my companions were in like condition of mind, though self-contained where I was exuberant. Wallace galloped his sorrel and watched the crags; Jones talked more kindly to the dogs; Jim baked biscuits indefatigably, and smoked in contented silence; Frank said always: “We’ll ooze along easy like, for we’ve all the time there is.” Which sentiment, whether from reiterated suggestion, or increasing confidence in the practical cowboy, or charm of its free import, gradually won us all.
“Boys,” said Jones, as we sat round the campfire, “I see you’re getting in shape. Well, I’ve worn off the wire edge myself. And I have the hounds coming fine. They mind me now, but they’re mystified. For the life of them they can’t understand what I mean. I don’t blame them. Wait till, by good luck, we get a cougar in a tree. When Sounder and Don see that, we’ve lion dogs, boys! we’ve lion dogs! But Moze is a stubborn brute. In all my years of animal experience, I’ve never discovered any other way to make animals obey than by instilling fear and respect into their hearts. I’ve been fond of buffalo, horses and dogs, but sentiment never ruled me. When animals must obey, they must—that’s all, and no mawkishness! But I never trusted a buffalo in my life. If I had I wouldn’t be here tonight. You all know how many keepers of tame wild animals get killed. I could tell you dozens of tragedies. And I’ve often thought, since I got back from New York, of that woman I saw with her troop of African lions. I dream about those lions, and see them leaping over her head. What a grand sight that was! But the public is fooled. I read somewhere that she trained those lions by love. I don’t believe it. I saw her use a whip and a steel spear. Moreover, I saw many things that escaped most observers—how she entered the cage, how she maneuvered among them, how she kept a compelling gaze on them! It was an admirable, a great piece of work. Maybe she loves those huge yellow brutes, but her life was in danger every moment while she was in that cage, and she knew it. Some day, one of her pets likely the King of Beasts she pets the most will rise up and kill her. That is as certain as death.”
CHAPTER 6
THE WHITE MUSTANG
For thirty miles down Nail Canyon we marked, in every dusty trail and sandy wash, the small, oval, sharply defined tracks of the White Mustang and his band.
The canyon had been well named. It was long, straight and square sided; its bare walls glared steel-gray in the sun, smooth, glistening surfaces that had been polished by wind and water. No weathered heaps of shale, no crumbled piles of stone obstructed its level floor. And, softly toning its drab austerity, here grew the white sage, waving in the breeze, the Indian Paint Brush, with vivid vermilion flower, and patches of fresh, green grass.
“The White King, as we Arizona wild-hoss wranglers calls this mustang, is mighty pertickler about his feed, an’ he ranged along here last night, easy like, browsin’ on this white sage,” said Stewart. Inflected by our intense interest in the famous mustang, and ruffled slightly by Jones’s manifest surprise and contempt that no one had captured him, Stewart had volunteered to guide us. “Never knowed him to run in this way fer water; fact is, never knowed Nail Canyon had a fork. It splits down here, but you’d think it was only a crack in the wall. An’ thet cunnin’ mustang hes been foolin’ us fer years about this water-hole.”
The fork of
Nail Canyon, which Stewart had decided we were in, had been accidentally discovered by Frank, who, in search of our horses one morning had crossed a ridge, to come suddenly upon the blind, box-like head of the canyon. Stewart knew the lay of the ridges and run of the canyons as well as any man could know a country where, seemingly, every rod was ridged and bisected, and he was of the opinion that we had stumbled upon one of the White Mustang’s secret passages, by which he had so often eluded his pursuers.
Hard riding had been the order of the day, but still we covered ten more miles by sundown. The canyon apparently closed in on us, so camp was made for the night. The horses were staked out, and supper made ready while the shadows were dropping; and when darkness settled thick over us, we lay under our blankets.
Morning disclosed the White Mustang’s secret passage. It was a narrow cleft, splitting the canyon wall, rough, uneven, tortuous and choked with fallen rocks—no more than a wonderful crack in solid stone, opening into another canyon. Above us the sky seemed a winding, flowing stream of blue. The walls were so close in places that a horse with pack would have been blocked, and a rider had to pull his legs up over the saddle. On the far side, the passage fell very suddenly for several hundred feet to the floor of the other canyon. No hunter could have seen it, or suspected it from that side.
“This is Grand Canyon country, an’ nobody knows what he’s goin’ to find,” was Frank’s comment.
“Now we’re in Nail Canyon proper,” said Stewart; “An’ I know my bearin’s. I can climb out a mile below an’ cut across to Kanab Canyon, an’ slip up into Nail Canyon agin, ahead of the mustangs, an’ drive ’em up. I can’t miss ’em, fer Kanab Canyon is impassable down a little ways. The mustangs will hev to run this way. So all you need do is go below the break, where I climb out, an’ wait. You’re sure goin’ to get a look at the White Mustang. But wait. Don’t expect him before noon, an’ after thet, any time till he comes. Mebbe it’ll be a couple of days, so keep a good watch.”