by Zane Grey
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 canyon 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 canyons, 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, unquenchable 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 Hir
am. “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.
“Shore you’re doin’ fine,” yelled Jim. But I fancied that Jim did not mean Ken was really doing well. Hiram’s concern changed to mirth and he roared. It was as funny to see Hal as it was to see Ken. The younger lad was beside himself with excitement and glee. He ran around Marc and his shrill yells pealed out.
“Stay with him, Ken.… Stick on.… Hug him tight.… Get a new hold.… Look out!”
Then Marc became a demon. He plowed the ground. Apparently he bucked five feet straight up. Before Ken had bounced. Now he began to shoot up into the air. But the lad was powerful and his hold did not break easily. Higher and higher he rose, and then the last time his heels went over his head. He went up to the full extent of his arms, and when he came down heavily his hold broke. He spun around on the broad back of the stallion and went hurtling to the ground. The soft pine-needle mat saved him from injury and he sat up. “Jiminy!” he exclaimed, “no wonder Navvy didn’t ride him.”
When we recovered from our mirth Jim drawled out:
“Ken, thet was the best buckin’ I ever seen a hoss do. Shore Marc could buck off a cinched saddle.”
“Ken, I reckon you’ll hey to knuckle to Marc,” said Hiram, “an’ you better ride your own hoss.”
“Don’t worry,” replied Ken. “I know when I have got enough.” He mounted his mustang and drove Marc and the other horses down into the hollow. When he returned we all saw Navvy sneaking into camp behind him. The Indian stopped at a near-by pine, but seeing that we appeared not to be concerned about him, he presently approached.
We all busied ourselves with camp-fire tasks, and I helped Ken feed the hounds. To feed ordinary dogs is a matter of throwing them a few bones; our dogs, however, were not ordinary. It took time to feed them and a prodigious amount of meat. We had packed a quantity of wild-horse meat which had been cut into small pieces and strung on the branches of a scrub-oak.
Prince had to be fed by hand. I heard Hiram say the hound would have starved if the meat had been thrown indiscriminately to the pack. Curley asserted his rights and preferred large portions at a time. Queen begged with solemn eyes, but for all her gentleness she could eat more than her share. Tan needed watching, and Ringer, because of imperfectly developed teeth, had to have his portion cut into small pieces. As for Mux-Mux—well, great dogs have their faults—he never got enough meat. He would fight poor crippled Queen, and steal even from the pups, and when he had gotten all that Ken would give him and all he could snatch, he would waddle away with bulging sides, looking like an old Dutch man-of-war.
“Will our lions eat?” asked Hal.
“Not for days,” replied Hiram. “Mebbe we can tempt them to eat fresh rabbits in a week or so. But they’ll drink tonight.”
We made a hearty meal, and afterward Hiram and Ken and I walked through the woods toward the rim. A yellow promontory, huge and glistening, invited us westward, and after a detour of half a mile we reached it. The points of the rim, stretching out into the immense void, always drew me irresistibly. We found the view from this rock one of startling splendor. The corrugated rim-wall of the middle wing extended to the west, and at this moment apparently reached into the setting sun. The golden light, flashing from the millions of facets of chiseled stone, created color and brilliance too glorious and intense for the gaze of men. And looking downward was like looking into the placid, blue, bottomless depths of the Pacific.
“Here, help me push off this stone,” I said. We heaved on a huge round stone, and were encouraged to feel it move. Fortunately we had a little slope; the boulder groaned, rocked and began to slide. Just as it toppled over I glanced at the second-hand of my watch. Then with eyes over the rim we waited. The silence was the silence of the canyon, dead and vast, intensified by our breathless ear-strain. Ten long, palpitating seconds and no sound! I gave up. The distance was too great for sound to reach us. Fifteen seconds—seventeen—eighteen—
With that a puff of air seemed to rise, bringing a deafening peal of thunder. It rolled up and widened, deadened, to burst out and roll louder, then slowly, like mountains on wheels, rumbled under the rim-walls, passing on and on, to roar back in echo from the cliffs of the mesas. Roar and rumble—roar and rumble! For two long moments the dull and hollow echoes rolled at us, slowly to die away at the last in the far-distant canyons.
“Thet’s a mighty deep hole,” commented Hiram.
Twilight stole upon us idling there, silent, content to watch the red glow pass away from the buttes and peaks, the color deepening downward to meet the ebon shades of night creeping up like a dark tide.
On turning toward camp we tried a short cut, which brought us to a deep hollow with stony walls. It seemed better to go around it. The hollow, however, was quite long, and we decided presently to cross it. We had descended a little way when suddenly the old hunter held me back with his big arm.
“Listen,” he whispered.
It was quiet in the woods; only a faint breeze stirred the pine-needles; and the weird, gray darkness seemed approaching under the trees.
I heard the patter of light, hard hoofs on the scaly sides of the hollow.
“Deer?” I asked, in a low voice.
“Yes; see,” he replied, pointing ahead, “jest under thet broken wall of rock; right thar on this side; they’re goin’ down.”
I descried gray, objects, the color of the rock, moving down like shadows.
“Have they scented us?”
“Hardly; the breeze is against us. Mebbe they heerd us break a twig. They’ve stopped, but are not lookin’ our way. Wal, I wonder—”
Suddenly there was a rattle of stones, followed by an indistinct thud as from the impact of soft, heavy bodies, and then the sound of a struggle in the hollow.
“Lion jumped a deer,” yelled Hiram. “Right under our eyes. Come on! Ken, pull your gun on the critter. Thar he goes! Hi! Hi! Hi!”
Hiram ran down the incline, yelling all the way, and I kept close to him. Toward the bottom, the thicket barred our progress, so that we had to smash through. But Ken distanced us. His yell pealed out and then Crack! Crack! went his six-shooter. I saw a gray, swiftly bounding object too long and too low for a deer. Hurriedly drawing my revolver I worked the trigger as fast as I could. Ken also was shooting, and the reports blended in a roar that echoed from the cliff. But for all our shots the cougar got away.
“Come here—this way—hurry,” called Ken.
Hiram and I crashed out of the brush, and in another moment were bending over a gray mass huddled at Ken’s feet. It was a deer, gasping and choking.
“A yearlin’ doe,” said Hiram. “Look hyar, low down on her neck, whar the tarnal cat bit in. Hear thet wheeze? Thet’s blood in her throat. Ken, if you hey another shot put her out of pain.”
But neither Ken nor I had an extra cartridge about us, nor did Hiram have his clasp knife, and we had to stand there silent until the doe quivered and died.
Then a signal cry rang down the slope. “Thet’s Jim,” said Hiram. “It didn’t take him long to git to us.”
There was a crashing of brush, quick thud of flying feet, and Jim loomed up through the gathering darkness. He carried a rifle in each hand, and he moved so assuredly and looked so formidable in the dusk that I thought of what such a reinf
orcement would mean at a time of real peril.
“Jim, I’ve lived to see many strange happenin’s,” saw Hiram, “but this was the first time I ever seen a cougar jump a deer.”
“Shore you did enough shootin’ to make me think somethin’ had come off,” replied Jim.
We soon returned to camp the richer by a quantity of fresh venison.
Hal was sitting close to the fire and looked rather white. I observed that he had his rifle. He did not speak a word till Ken told of our little adventure.
“Just before all the yells and shots I happened to be watching Prince,” said Hal. “He was uneasy; he wouldn’t lie down; he sniffed the wind and growled. I thought there must be a lion about.”
“Wal, I shore wish Ken had plugged him,” said Jim.
I believed Jim’s wish found an echo in all our hearts. At any rate, to hear him and Hiram express regret over the death of the doe justified in some degree my own feelings. The tragedy we had all but interrupted occurred every night, perhaps often in the day, and likely at different points at the same time. Hiram told how he had found fourteen piles of bleached bones and dried hair in the thickets of less than a mile of the hollow on which we were encamped.
“We’ll rope the danged cats, boys, or by George! we’ll kill them! Wal, it’s blowin’ cold. Hey, Navvy, coco! coco!”
The Indian, carefully laying aside his cigarette, kicked up the fire and threw on more wood. “Discass” (cold), he said to Ken; “coco weyno” (fire good).
Ken replied, “Me savvy—yes.”
“Sleep-ie?” he asked.
“Moocha,” returned Ken.
While we carried on a sort of novel conversation, full of Navajo, English, Spanish, and gestures, absolute darkness settled down upon us. I saw the stars disappear. The wind, changing to the north, grew colder, and carried a breath of snow. I liked a north wind best—from under the warm blankets—because of the roar and lull and lull and roar in the pines. Crawling into bed presently I lay there and listened to the rising storm-wind for a long time. Sometimes it swelled and crashed like the sound of a breaker on the beach, but mostly, from a low, incessant moan, it rose and filled to a mighty rush, then suddenly lulled; and this lull was conducive to sleep.