by Zane Grey
“Hyar’s Prince, the best lion-hound I ever trained, bar none. He has a nose thet’s perfect; he’s fast an’ savage, an’ if ever a dog had brains it’s Prince.”
The great hound looked the truth of Hiram’s claim. He was powerful in build, lean of loin, and long of limb, tawny-colored, and he had a noble head with great, somber eyes.
“Hyar’s Curley, who’s a slow trailer, an’ he always bays, both fine qualities in a hound. Prince goes too swift an’ saves his breath, but then it’s not his fault if I don’t keep close to him in a chase.”
“An’ hyar’s Mux-Mux, who’s no good.”
The ugly black-and-white hound so designated wagged a stumpy tail and pawed his master, and appeared to want to make it plain that he was not so bad as all that.
“Wal, Mux, I’ll take a leetle of thet back. You’re good at eatin’, an’ then I never seen the cougar you was afraid of. An’ thet’s bad, fer you’ll be killed some day.”
“Hyar’s Queen, the mother of the pups, an’ she’s reliable, though slow because of her lame leg. Hyar’s Tan, a good hound, an’ this big black feller, he’s Ringer. He’ll be as good as Prince some day, if I can only save him.”
Hiram chained each hound to near-by saplings; then lighting his pipe at the camp-fire he found a comfortable seat.
“Wal, youngsters, it’s dog-gone good to see you sittin’ by my camp-fire. Tomorrow we’ll go up on the plateau an’ make a permanent camp. Thar’s grass an’ snow in the hollers, an’ deer, an’ wild hosses an’ mustangs.”
“Any mountain-lions, cougars?” asked Ken, intensely.
“I was comin’ to them. Wal, I never in my born days seen such a network of cougars’ tracks as is on thet plateau. An’ at thet I’ve only been on one end. I’m reckonin’ we’ll round up the biggest den of cougars in the West. You see, no one ever hunted thet plateau but Navajos, an’ they wouldn’t kill a cougar. Why, a cougar is one of their gods. Wal, as I was sayin’, mebbe we’ll strike a whole cat tribe up thar. An’, youngsters, what do you say to ketchin’ ’em alive?”
“Great!” exclaimed Ken.
Hiram switched his look of inquiry to Hal. The lad’s large eyes, startlingly bright, dilated and burned.
“How?” he asked, and his voice rang like a bell.
“Lasso ’em, tie ’em up,” replied Hiram. Deceit could not have lived in his kindly, clear glance.
“Then Ken didn’t lie—after all?” blurted out Hal.
“My brother never believed I helped you lasso a bear and that we intended to do the same with cougars out here,” exclaimed Ken.
“It’s straight goods, youngster,” added Hiram. “Now, whar do you stand? Most youngsters like to shoot things. Mebbe you’d find it fun to chase cougars up trees an’ then shoot ’em, but thar’s a leetle more chance fer excitement when you pull ’em out with a rope. It keeps a feller movin’ around tolerable lively. Which would you like best, then—shootin’ or ketchin’?”
“I’d like best—to catch them alive,” replied Hal, his voice very low.
“Wal, now, I’m glad. You see it’s not the excitement I’m lookin’ fer, though I ain’t sayin’ I don’t like to rope things, but the fact is I get ten dollars for cougar skins, an’ three hundred dollars for live cougars. So, you youngsters will have the fun an’ I’ll be makin’ money, an’ at the same time we’ll be riddin’ Coconina Preserve of bad critters. Let’s roll in now, fer you’re tired, an’ we must be stirrin’ early.”
CHAPTER V
THE PLATEAU
Hiram routed us all in the morning while the shadows were still gray. There was a bustling about camp. When we were packed and mounted ready for the ascent of the plateau the pines and slopes were still shrouded in the gray gloom. Hiram led us along a trail overgrown by brush. Presently we began climbing such a steep slope that we had to hang to the pommels.
The Saddle was a narrow ridge sloping up to the plateau, and the trail zigzagged its crest. To the right a sweep of thicketed hollow led out into wide space where peaks and mesas began to show. To the left was the great abyss, filled with creamy mist. It was not possible to see a rod down toward the depths, still I had a sure sense of the presence of the Canyon. The climb was a hard task for the horses, the trail being one made by deer, but in less than an hour we were up on the rim. At that moment the sun burst out showing through rifts in rolling clouds of mist. Then we saw behind and above us the long, bold, black line of Buckskin.
Hiram took a course straight back from the rim through a magnificent forest of pines. Perhaps a couple of miles back the old hunter circled and appeared to be searching for a particular place. Presently he halted in a beautiful glade above a hollow where lay a heavy bank of snow. On the slopes the grass was yet thin, but in the glade it was thick. Here, with the snow and the grass, our problem was solved as to water and feed for the horses.
“Hyar we are,” called out Hiram, cheerily. “We’ll throw our camp in this glade jest out of reach of them pines on the northwest side. Sometimes a heavy wind blows one over.”
We had all gotten busy at our tasks of unpacking when suddenly we were attracted by a heavy pounding on the turf.
“Hold the hosses!” yelled Hiram. “Everybody grab a hoss!”
We all made a dive among our snorting and plunging steeds.
“Youngsters, look sharp! Don’t miss nothin’! Thar’s a sight!” called Hiram.
The sound of pounding hoofs appeared to be coming right into camp. I saw a string of wild horses thundering by. A black stallion led them, and as he ran with splendid stride he curved his fine head backward to look at us, and whistled a wild challenge. Soon he and his band were lost in the blackness of the forest.
“The finest sight I ever saw in my life!” ejaculated Ken. “Hal, wasn’t that simply grand?”
“No matter what comes off now, I’m paid for the trouble of getting here,” replied Hal.
It was only a few minutes afterward that the Indian manifested excitement and pointed up the hollow. A herd of large, white-tailed deer trooped down toward us, and stopped within a hundred yards. Then they stood motionless with long ears erect.
“Shoot! Shoot!” exclaimed Navvy.
“Nary a shoot, Navvy,” replied Hiram.
The Indian looked dumbfounded, and gazed from the rifles to us and then to the deer.
“Oh!” cried Hal. “They’re tame deer! What beautiful, large creatures! I couldn’t shoot them.”
“No, youngster, they’re not tame deer. They’re so wild thet they aren’t afraid. They’ve never been shot at, thet bunch. An’, youngster, these deer here are mule deer an’ must hey some elk in them. Thet accounts fer their big size. Now ain’t they jest pretty?”
The hounds saw the herd and burst into wild clamor. That frightened the deer and they bounded off with the long, springy leaps characteristic of them.
“Look like they jump on rubber stilts,” commented Hal.
“All hands now to throw camp. Fust thing, we’ll pitch my tent. I tell you, youngsters, thet tent may come in right useful, if we hey a storm. An’ at this altitude—we’re up over seven thousand feet—we may git a snow-squall any day.”
It was not long before we had a comfortable and attractive camp. At the far side of the glade stood a clump of small sapling pines in regard to which Ken said he would have to practice a little forestry. The saplings were meager and had foliage only at the top. Ken declared he would thin out that clump.
“Wal, thet’s a fine idee,” remarked Hiram. “Thin ’em out an’ leave about a dozen saplin’s each ten feet apart. They’ll be jest what I want to chain our cougars to.”
At that speech the faces of both boys were studies in expression. Hal, especially, looked as if he were dreaming a most wild and real adventure.
When work was finished the boys threw themselves down upon the brown pine-needle mats and indulged in rest. Hiram did not allow them much indulgence.
“Saddle up, youngsters,” he called out, “On-l
ess you’re too tired to go with us.”
Thereupon the boys became as animated as their aching bones and sore muscles would permit.
“Leslie, leave the Injun in camp to look after things an’ we’ll git the lay of the land.”
“He’ll eat us outen house an’ home,” growled Jim Williams. “I shore don’t see why we fetched him, anyhow.”
All the afternoon we were riding the plateau. We were completely bewildered with its impressiveness and surprised at the abundance of wild horses and mustangs, deer, coyotes, foxes, grouse and birds, and overjoyed to find innumerable lion trails. When we returned to camp I drew a rough map, which Hiram laid flat on the ground and called us around him.
“Now, youngsters, let’s get our heads together.”
In shape the plateau resembled the ace of clubs. The center and side wings were high and well wooded with heavy pine; the middle wing was longest, sloped west, had no pine, but a dense growth of cedar. Numerous ridges and canyons cut up this central wing. Middle Canyon, the longest and deepest, bisected the plateau, headed near camp, and ran parallel with two smaller ones, which we named Right and Left Canyons. These three were lion runways, and hundreds of deer carcasses lined the thickets. North Hollow was the only depression, as well as runway, on the northwest rim. West Point formed the extreme western cape of the plateau. To the left of West Point was a deep cut-in of the rim-wall, called the Bay. The three important canyons opened into it. From the Bay the south rim was regular and impassable all the way round to the narrow Saddle, which connected it to the mainland.
“Wal,” said Hiram, “see the advantage we can git on the tarnal critters. The plateau is tolerable nigh ten miles long an’ six wide at the widest. We can’t git lost for very long. Thet’s a big thing in our favor. We know whar cougars go over the rim an’ we’ll head ’em off, make short-cut chases thet I calkilate is a new one in cougar-chasin’. ’Cept whar we climbed up the Saddle cougars can’t git over the second wall of rock. The first rim, I oughter told you, is mebbe a thousand feet down, with breaks in places. Then comes a long cedar an’ piñon slope, weatherin’ slides, broken cliffs an’ crags, an’ then the second wall. Now regardin’ cougar sign—wal, I hardly believe the evidence of my own eyes. The plateau is virgin ground. We’ve stumbled on the breedin’-ground of the hundreds of cougars thet infest the north rim.”
Hiram struck his huge fist into the palm of his hand. He looked at Jim and me and then at the boys. It did not take a very observing person to see that the old bear hunter was actually excited. Jim ran his hand into his hair and scratched his head, a familiar action with him when his mind was working unusually.
“We hey corraled them, shore as you’re born!”
The flash in Hiram’s clear eyes changed to an anxious glance, that ranged from Ken and Hal to our horses.
“I reckon some common sense an’ care will make it safe for the youngsters,” he said, “but some of the hosses an’ some of the dogs are goin’ to git hurt, mebbe killed.”
More than anything else that remark, from such a man, thrilled me with its subtle suggestion. He loved horses and hounds. He saw danger ahead for them.
“Youngsters, listen,” he went on, soberly. “We’re in fer some chases. I want you to think first of the risk to yourselves, an’ then to the hosses you ride. Don’t fly often the handle. Be cool. Let your hosses pick the goin’. Keep sharp eyes peeled fer the snags on the trees, an’ fer bad rocks an’ places. Ken, you keep close behind Leslie as you can, an’ Hal, you stick close to Jim. Course we’ll lose each other an’ the hounds, an’ hey trouble findin’ each other again. But the idee is, keep cool and go slow, when you see it ain’t safe to go fast.”
During supper we talked a good deal, and afterward around the camp-fire. Hal was the only one who kept silent, and he was too absorbed in what he heard to find his own voice.
But during a lull in the conversation he asked suddenly:
“I want to know why our horses carried on so this morning when that stallion ran through the woods with his band?”
“Simple enough, Hal,” I replied. “They wanted to break loose and run off with the wild horses. They’ll do it, too, before we leave here. We rangers have trouble keeping our horses. The mountain is overrun with mustangs and such wild bands as you saw today. And if we lose a horse it’s almost impossible to catch him again.”
Twilight descended with the shadows sweeping under the pines; the night wind rose and began its moan.
“Shore there’s a scent on the wind,” said Jim, lighting his pipe with a red ember. “See how uneasy Prince is.”
The hound raised his dark head, pointing his nose into the cool breeze, and he walked to and fro as if on guard for his pack. Mux-Mux ground his teeth on a bone and growled at one of the pups. Curley was asleep. Ringer watched Prince with suspicious eyes. The other hounds lay stretched before the fire.
“Wal, Prince, we ain’t lookin’ fer trails tonight,” said Hiram. “Ken, it’ll be part of your duty around camp to help me with the pack. Chain ’em up now, an’ we’ll go to bed.”
CHAPTER VI
TRAILS
When I awakened next morning the crack of Hiram’s axe rang out sharply, and the light from the camp-fire played on Ken’s face as he lay asleep. I saw old Mux get up and stretch himself. A jangle of bells from the forest told me we would not have to wait for the horses.
“The Injun’s all right,” I heard Hiram say. “All rustle for breakfast,” called Jim. “Ken!… Hal!”
Then the boys rolled out, fresh-faced and bright-eyed, but still stiff and lame.
“Gee! Ken, listen to the horses coming,” said Hal. “How’d Navvy ever find them? It’s hardly daylight.”
“That’s a secret I expect every ranger would like to know,” replied Ken.
“I like that Indian—better’n at first,” went on Hal.
We ate in the semi-darkness with the gray shadow lifting among the trees. As we saddled our horses dawn lightened. The pups ran to and fro on their chains, scenting the air. The older hounds stood quiet, waiting.
“Come, Navvy. Come chase cougie,” said Hiram.
The Indian made a remarkable gesture of dislike or fear, I could not divine which.
“Let him keep camp,” I suggested.
“He’ll shore eat all our grub,” said Jim.
“Climb up, youngsters,” ordered Hiram. “An’ remember all I said about bein’ careful.… Wal, hey I got all my trappin’s—rope, chains, collars, wire, nippers? Allright. Hyar, you lazy hounds—out of this. Take the lead that, Prince.”
We rode abreast through the forest, and I could not help seeing the pleasure in Ken’s face and the wild spirit in Hal’s eyes. The hounds followed Prince at an orderly trot. We struck out of the pines at half-past five. Floating mists hid the lower end of the plateau, but cedar-trees began to show green against the soft gray of sage. The morning had a cool touch, though there was no frost. Jogging along, we had crossed Middle Canyon and were nearing the dark line of cedar forest when Hiram, who led, held up his hand in a warning check.
“Oh, Ken! look at Prince,” whispered Hal to his brother.
The hound stood stiff, head well up, nose working, and hair on his back bristling. All the other hounds whined and kept close to him.
“Prince has a scent,” said Hiram. “Thar’s been a cougar round hyar. I never knowed Prince to be fooled. The scent’s in the wind. Hunt ’em up, Prince. Spread out thar, you dogs.”
The pack commenced to work back and forth along the ridge. We neared a hollow where Prince barked eagerly. Curley answered, and likewise Queen. Mux’s short, angry bow-wow showed that he was in line.
“Ringer’s gone,” shouted Jim. “He was farthest ahead. Shore he’s struck a trail.”
“Likely enough,” replied Hiram. “But Ringer doesn’t bay.… Thar’s Prince workin’ over. Look sharp, youngsters, an’ be ready fer some ridin’. We’re close!”
The hounds went tearing through the sage
, working harder and harder, calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the hollow. Suddenly Prince began to yelp. Like a yellow dart he shot into the cedars, running head up. Curley howled his deep, full bay and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.
“Thar off!” yelled Hiram, spurring his big horse.
“Stay with me, Kid,” shouted Jim over his shoulder to Hal. The lad’s pinto leaped into quick action. They were out of sight in the cedars in less than a moment. I heard Ken close behind me, and yelled to him to come along. Crashings among the cedars ahead, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction. The fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me. Such hunting was as new to me as to the boys, and from the tingling in my veins I began to feel that it was just as exciting. I remembered that Jim had said Hiram and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but the rest of us could not.
My horse was carrying me at a fast pace on the trail of someone, and he seemed to know that by keeping in this trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done for him. Ken’s horse thundered in my rear. The sharp cedar branches struck and stung me, and I heard them hitting Ken. We climbed a ridge, found the cedars thinning out, and then there were open patches. As we faced a slope of sage I saw Hiram on his big horse.
“Ride now, boy!” I yelled to Ken.
“I’ll hang to you. Cut loose!” he shouted in reply.
We hurdled the bunches of sage, and went over the brush, rocks, and gullies at breakneck speed. I heard nothing but the wind singing in my ears. Hiram’s trail, plain in the yellow ground, showed me the way. Upon entering the cedars again we lost it. I stopped my horse and checked Ken. Then I called. I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal.