Tales Of Lonely Trails (1996)

by Grey, Zane

"Waa-hoo!" I called again.

  Away on the dry rarified air pealed the cry, piercing the cedar forest, splitting sharp in the vaulted canyons, rolling loud and long, to lose power, to die away in muffling echo. But the silence returned no answer.

  I rode on under the cedars, through a dark, gloomy forest, silent, almost spectral, which brought irresistibly to my mind the words "I found me in a gloomy wood astray." I was lost though I knew the direction of the camp. This section of cedar forest was all but impenetrable. Dead cedars were massed in gray tangles, live cedars, branches touching the ground, grew close together. In this labyrinth I lost my bearings. I turned and turned, crossed my own back trail, which in desperation I followed, coming out of the cedars at the deep and narrow canyon.

  Here I fired my revolver. The echo boomed out like the report of heavy artillery, but no answering shot rewarded me. There was no alternative save to wander along the canyon and through the cedars until I found my companions. This I began to do, disgusted with my awkwardness in losing them. Turning Foxie westward I had scarcely gotten under way when Don came trotting toward me.

  "Hello, old boy!" I called. Don appeared as happy to see me as I was to see him. He flopped down on the ground; his dripping tongue rolled as he panted; covered with dust and flecked with light froth he surely looked to be a tired hound.

  "All in, eh Don!" I said dismounting. "Well, we'll rest awhile." Then I discovered blood on his nose, which I found to have come from a deep scratch. "A--ah! been pushing a lion too hard this morning? Got your nose scratched, didn't you? You great, crazy hound, don't you know some day you'll chase your last lion?"

  Don wagged his tail as if to say he knew it all very well. I wet my handkerchief from my canteen and started to wash the blood and dust from his nose, when he whined and licked my fingers.

  "Thirsty?" I asked, sitting down beside him. Denting the top of my hat I poured in as much water as it would hold and gave him to drink. Four times he emptied my improvised cup before he was satisfied. Then with a sigh of relief he lay down again.

  The three of us rested there for perhaps half an hour, Don and I sitting quietly on the wall of the canyon, while Foxie browsed on occasional tufts of grass. During that time the hound never raised his sleek, dark head, which showed conclusively the nature of the silence.

  And now that I had company--as good company as any hunter ever had--I was once more contented.

  Don got up, at length of his own volition and with a wag of his tail set off westward along the rim. Remounting my mustang I kept as close to Don's heels as the rough going permitted. The hound, however, showed no disposition to hurry, and I let him have his way without a word.

  We came out in the notch of the great amphitheater or curve we had named the Bay, and I saw again the downward slope, the bold steps, the color and depth below.

  I was just about to yell a signal cry when I saw Don, with hair rising stiff, run forward. He took a dozen jumps, then yelping broke down the steep, yellow and green gorge. He disappeared before I knew what had happened.

  Shortly I found a lion track, freshly made, leading down. I believed I could follow wherever Don led, so I decided to go after him. I tied Foxie securely, removed my coat, kicked off spurs and chaps, and remembering past unnecessary toil, fastened a red bandana to the top of a dead snag to show me where to come up on my way out. Then I carefully strapped my canteen and camera on my back, made doubly secure my revolver, put on my heavy gloves, and started down. And I realized at once that only so lightly encumbered should I have ever ventured down the slope.

  Little benches of rock, grassy on top, with here and there cedar trees, led steeply down for perhaps five hundred feet. A precipice stopped me. From it I heard Don baying below, and almost instantly saw the yellow gleam of a lion in a tree-top.

  "Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" I yelled in wild encouragement.

  I felt it would be wise to look before I leaped. The Bay lay under me, a mile wide where it opened into the great slumbering smoky canyon.

  All below was chaos of splintered stone and slope, green jumble of cedar, ruined, detached, sliding, standing cliff walls, leaning yellow crags--an awful hole. But I could get down, and that was all I cared for. I ran along to the left, jumping cracks, bounding over the uneven stones with sure, swift feet, and came to where the cliff ended in weathered slope and scaly bench.

  "I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I observed, with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the cottage and cultivating the garden.

  But all too soon my progress was barred; once under the cliff I found only a gradual slope and many obstacles to go round or surmount. Luck favored me, for I ran across a runway and keeping to it made better time. I heard Don long before I tried to see him, and yelled at intervals to let him know I was coming. A white bank of weathered stones led down to a clump of cedars from where Don's bay came spurring me to greater efforts. I flew down this bank, and through an opening saw the hound standing with fore feet against a cedar. The branches over him swayed, and I saw an indistinct, tawny form move downward in the air. Then succeeded the crash and rattle of stones.

  Don left the tree and disappeared.

  I dashed down, dodged under the cedars, threaded a maze of rocks, to find myself in a ravine with a bare, water-worn floor. In patches of sand showed the fresh tracks of Don and the lion. Running down this dry, clean bed was the easiest going I ever found in the canyon. Every rod the course jumped in a fall from four to ten feet, often more, and these I slid down. How I ever kept Don in hearing was a marvel, but still I did.

  The lion evidently had no further intention of taking to a tree. From the size of his track I concluded he was old and I feared every moment to hear the sounds of a fight. Jones had said that nearly always in the case of one hound chasing an old lion, the lion would lie in wait for him and kill him. And I was afraid for Don.

  Down, down, down, we went, till the yellow rim above seemed a thin band of gold. I saw that we were almost to the canyon proper, and I wondered what would happen when we reached it. The dark shaded watercourse suddenly shot out into bright light and ended in a deep cove, with perpendicular walls fifty feet high. I could see where a few rods farther on this cove opened into a huge, airy, colored canyon.

  I called the hound, wondering if he had gone to the right or left of the cove. His bay answered me coming from the cedars far to the right.

  I turned with all the speed left in me, for I felt the chase nearing an end. Tracks of hound and lion once more showed in the dust. The slope was steep and stones I sent rolling cracked down below. Soon I had a cliff above me and had to go slow and cautiously. A misstep or slide would have precipitated me into the cove.

  Almost before I knew what I was about, I stood gasping on the gigantic second wall of the canyon, with nothing but thin air under me, except, far below, faint and indistinct purple clefts, red ridges, dotted slopes, running down to merge in a dark, winding strip of water, that was the Rio Colorado. A sullen murmur soared out of the abyss.

  [Illustration: TWO LIONS IN ONE TREE]

  [Illustration: JONES, EMETT, AND THE NAVAJO WITH THE LIONS]

  The coloring of my mood changed. Never had the canyon struck me so terribly with its illimitable space, its dread depth, its unscalable cliffs, and particularly with the desolate, forbidding quality of its silence.

  I heard Don bark. Turning the corner of the cliff wall I saw him on a narrow shelf. He was coming toward me and when he reached me he faced again to the wall and barked fiercely. The hair on his neck bristled.

  I knew he did not fancy that narrow strip of rock, nor did I. But a sudden, grim, cold something had taken possession of me, and I stepped forward.

  "Come on, Don, old fellow, we've got him corralled."


  That was the first instance I ever knew of Don's hesitation in the chase of a lion. I had to coax him to me. But once started he took the lead and I closely followed.

  The shelf was twenty feet wide and upon it close to the wall, in the dust, were the deep imprints of the lion. A jutting corner of cliff wall hid my view. I peeped around it. The shelf narrowed on the other side to a yard in width, and climbed gradually by broken steps. Don passed the corner, looked back to see if I was coming and went on. He did this four times, once even stopping to wait for me.

  "I'm with you Don!" I grimly muttered. "We'll see this trail out to a finish."

  I had now no eyes for the wonders of the place, though I could not but see as I bent a piercing gaze ahead the ponderous overhanging wall above, and sense the bottomless depth below. I felt rather than saw the canyon swallows, sweeping by in darting flight, with soft rustle of wings, and I heard the shrill chirp of some strange cliff inhabitant.

  1. F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.

  If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

  After an interval I arose, and as if by instinct, crawled into the room where the corpse of my beloved lay. There were women weeping around; I hung over it and joined my sad tears to theirs; all this time no distinct idea presented itself to my mind, but my thoughts rambled to various subjects, reflecting confusedly on my misfortunes and their cause. I was bewildered, in a cloud of wonder and horror. The death of William, the execution of Justine, the murder of Clerval, and lastly of my wife; even at that moment I knew not that my only remaining friends were safe from the malignity of the fiend; my father even now might be writhing under his grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his feet. This idea made me shudder and recalled me to action. I started up and resolved to return to Geneva with all possible speed.

  We suddenly rounded a point, to see the lion lying in a box-like space in the wall. The shelf ended there. I had once before been confronted with a like situation, and had expected to find it here, so was not frightened. The lion looked up from his task of licking a bloody paw, and uttered a fierce growl. His tail began to lash to and fro; it knocked the little stones off the shelf. I heard them click on the wall. Again and again he spat, showing great, white fangs. He was a Tom, heavy and large.

  It had been my purpose, of course, to photograph this lion, and now that we had cornered him I proposed to do it. What would follow had only hazily formed in my mind, but the nucleus of it was that he should go free. I got my camera, opened it, and focused from between twenty and twenty-five feet.

  Then a growl from Don and roar from the lion bade me come to my senses. I did so and my first movement after seeing the lion had risen threateningly was to whip out my revolver.

  The lion's cruel yellow eyes darkened and darkened. In an instant I saw my error. Jones had always said in case any one of us had to face a lion, never for a single instant to shift his glance. I had forgotten that, and in that short interval when I focused my camera the lion had seen I meant him no harm, or feared him, and he had risen. Even then in desperate lessening ambition for a great picture I attempted to take one, still keeping my glance on him.

  It was then that the appalling nature of my predicament made itself plain to me. The lion leaped ten feet and stood snarling horribly right in my face.

  Brave, noble Don, with infinitely more sense and courage than I possessed, faced the lion and bayed him in his teeth. I raised the revolver and aimed twice, each time lowering it because I feared to shoot in such a precarious position. To wound the lion would be the worst thing I could do, and I knew that only a shot through the brain would kill him in his tracks.

  "Hold him, Don, hold him!" I yelled, and I took a backward step. The lion put forward one big paw, his eyes now all purple blaze. I backed again and he came forward. Don gave ground slowly. Once the lion flashed a yellow paw at him. It was frightful to see the wide-spread claws.

  In the consternation of the moment I allowed the lion to back me across the front of the wind cave, where I saw, the moment it was too late, I should have taken advantage of more space to shoot him.

  Fright succeeded consternation, and I began to tremble. The lion was master of the situation. What would happen when I came to the narrow point on the shelf where it would be impossible for me to back around?

  I almost fainted. The thought of heroic Don saved me, and the weak moment passed.

  "By God, Don, you've got the nerve, and I must have it too!"

  I stopped in my tracks. The lion, appearing huge now, took slow catlike steps toward me, backing Don almost against my knees. He was so close I smelt him. His wonderful eyes, clear blue fire circled by yellow flame, fascinated me. Hugging the wall with my body I brought the revolver up, short armed, and with clinched teeth, and nerve strained to the breaking point, I aimed between the eyes and pulled the trigger.

  The left eye seemed to go out blankly, then followed the bellow of the revolver and the smell of powder. The lion uttered a sound that was a mingling of snarls, howls and roars and he rose straight up, towering high over my head, beating the wall heavily with his paws.

  In helpless terror I stood there forgetting weapon, fearing only the beast would fall over on me.

  But in death agony he bounded out from the wall to fall into space.

  I sank down on the shelf, legs powerless, body in cold sweat. As I waited, slowly my mind freed itself from a tight iron band and a sickening relief filled my soul. Tensely I waited and listened. Don whined once.

  Would the lion never strike? What seemed a long period of time ended in a low, distant roar of sliding rock, quickly dying into the solemn stillness of the canyon.

  XI

  I lay there for some moments slowly recovering, eyes on the far distant escarpments, now darkly red and repellent to me. When I got up my legs were still shaky and I had the strange, weak sensation of a long bed-ridden invalid. Three attempts were necessary before I could trust myself on the narrow strip of shelf. But once around it with the peril passed, I braced up and soon reached the turn in the wall.

  After that the ascent out of the Bay was only a matter of work, which I gave with a will. Don did not evince any desire for more hunting that day. We reached the rim together, and after a short rest, I mounted my horse, and we turned for camp.

  The sun had long slanted toward the western horizon when I saw the blue smoke of our camp-fire among the pines. The hounds rose up and barked as Don trotted in to the blaze, and my companions just sitting to a dinner, gave me a noisy greeting.

  "Shore, we'd began to get worried," said Jim. "We all had it comin' to us to-day, and don't you forget that."

  Dinner lasted for a long hour. Besides being half famished we all took time between bites to talk. I told my story first, expecting my friends to be overwhelmed, but they were not.

  "It's been the greatest day of lion hunting that I ever experienced," declared Jones. "We ran bang into a nest of lions and they split. We all split and the hounds split. That tells the tale. We have nothing to show for our day's toil. Six lions chased, rounded up, treed, holed, and one lion killed, and we haven't even his skin to show. I did not go down but I helped Ranger and two of the pups chase a lion all over the lower end of the plateau. We treed him twice and I yelled for you fellows till my voice was gone."

  "Well," said Emett, "I fell in with Sounder and Jude. They were hot on a trail which in a mile or two turned up this way. I came on them just at the edge of the pines where they had treed their game. I sat under that pine tree for five hours, fired all my shots to make you fellows come, yelled myself hoarse and then tried to tie up the lion alone. He jumped out and
ran over the rim, where neither I nor the dogs could follow."

  "Shore, I win, three of a kind," drawled Jim, as he got his pipe and carefully dusted the bowl. "When the stampede came, I got my hands on Moze and held him. I held Moze because just as the other hounds broke loose over to my right, I saw down into a little pocket where a fresh-killed deer lay half eaten. So I went down. I found two other carcasses layin' there, fresh killed last night, flesh all gone, hide gone, bones crushed, skull split open. An' damn me fellows, if that little pocket wasn't all torn to pieces. The sage was crushed flat.

  The ground dug up, dead snags broken, and blood and hair everywhere.

  Lion tracks like leaves, and old Sultan's was there. I let Moze loose and he humped the trail of several lions south over the rim. Major got down first an' came back with his tail between his legs. Moze went down and I kept close to him. It wasn't far down, but steep and rocky, full of holes. Moze took the trail to a dark cave. I saw the tracks of three lions goin' in. Then I collared Moze an' waited for you fellows.

  I waited there all day, an' nobody came to my call. Then I made for camp."

  "How do you account for the torn-up appearance of the place where you found the carcasses?" I asked.

  "Lion fight sure," replied Jones. "Maybe old Sultan ran across the three lions feeding, and pitched into them. Such fights were common among the lions in Yellowstone Park when I was there."

  "What chance have we to find those three lions in a cave where Jim chased them?"

  "We stand a good chance," said Jones. "Especially if it storms to-night."

  "Shore the snow storm is comin'," returned Jim.

  Darkness clapped down on us suddenly, and the wind roared in the pines like a mighty river tearing its way down a rocky pass. As we could not control the camp-fire, sparks of which blew fiercely, we extinguished it and went to bed. I had just settled myself comfortably to be sung to sleep by the concert in the pines, when Jones hailed me.

  "Say, what do you think?" he yelled, when I had answered him. "Emett is mad. He's scratching to beat the band. He's got 'em."