Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 151
“Well, then,” said Hiram, “let’s split the pack an’ hunt round the rims of these cañons. We can signal to each other if necessary.”
So we arranged for Jim and Hal to take Ranger and the pup across Left Cañon, Hiram to try Middle Cañon with Tan and Mux, and Ken and I were to perform a like office in Right Cañon with Prince and Queen. Hiram rode back with us, leaving us where we crossed Middle Cañon.
Ken and I skirted a mile of our cañon 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 Cañon where it opened into the deep, wide Bay, and rode close to the rim because we hoped to hear our companions across the cañon. 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 cañon 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 cañons. 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 cañon, 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 cañon, and both yells blended in a roar that banged back and forth in echo from the cliffs.
I ran up the cañon 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 cañon,” 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 piñon. 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 cañon 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 cañons, 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 cañon till I neared the piñon tree. Ken clambered over the rocks on his side. We kept yelling for Hiram. Presently Ken was under the piñon, 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.
Ken began to bark like a dog at the lions.
About this moment I heard hounds, but could not tell their direction. I called and called. Presently a faint chorus of bays and a yell from Hiram told that his lion had surely treed.
“Waa-hoo!” rolled down from above.
Far up behind me, on the yellow cracked rim, stood Jim Williams.
“Where — can — I — git — down?”
I surveyed the walls. Cliff on cliff, slide on slide, jumble, crag, and ruin baffled my gaze. But finally I picked out a place.
“To the left — to the left,” I yelled. He passed on with one of the hounds at his heels. “There! let the dog down on a rope and then yourself.”
I watched him swing the hound, which I recognized as Ringer, down a wall and pull the slip noose free.
“This doesn’t seem so bad,” called Ken, who evidently was recovering his nerve. Then he saw Jim above. “Hi, Jim! Where’s H-a-l?”
Jim put both hands around his mouth and formed a trumpet. “Hal’s lost — somewhere — he an’ the pup — split trails.”
“Ken, it’s going to be a great day — for all of us,” I shouted. “Don’t worry and stay with your lions.”
Then I watched Ringer slide to the edge of a slope, trot to the right and left of crags and turn down in the direction of the baying hounds. He passed along the verge of precipices that made me tremble for him, but, surefooted as a goat, he went on safely, to disappear far to my right.
I saw Jim with his leg wrapped in his lasso sliding down the first step of the rim. The rope, doubled to reach round a cedar above, was too short to extend to the landing below. Jim dropped, raising a cloud of dust and starting the stones. Pulling his lasso after him, he gathered it in a coil on his arm, and faced forward on the trail of the hound. In the clear light, against that wild red-and-yellow background, with the stones and gravel roaring down, streaming over the walls like waterfalls, he seemed another giant, striding on in seven-league boots. I would have called him to come down to help Ken, but it was impossible for him to get to us. From time to time he sent up a yell of encouragement that wound down the cañon, to be answered by Hiram and the baying hounds, and then the strange, clapping echoes. At last he passed out of sight, and still I heard him going down; down till the sounds were only faint and hollow.
Ken was now practically alone with his two treed lions, and I knew that no hunter was ever so delighted. He had entirely recovered from his first panicky feeling. I sat there in the sun watching him. He stood on the slope, just under the edge of the piñon branches, and he had a long club in his hand. The situation was so singular that I could have laughed, but for the peril. The idea of Ken keeping those big cougars treed with a club was almost too ridiculous to consider, yet all the same it was true. For a long time the cougars were quiet, listening. However, as the baying of the hounds diminished in volume and occurrence, and then ceased altogether, Ken’s quarry became restless. It was then that he began to bark like a dog, whereupon the lions grew quiet once more.
“That’s the way, Ken. You’re the best hound in the pack. You’ve got a fine bark there. Keep it up,” I shouted.
As long as Ken barked or bayed or yelped the cougars remained comparatively quiet. Ken, however, began to weaken in voice and finally lost it.
“Dick, you’ll have to bark some,” he said, and I could scarcely hear him.
At that I willingly began to imitate Prince and Ringer and Mux-Mux. It was easy at first, but soon it became a task. I bayed for an hour. My voice grew hoarser and hoarser, and finally failed in my throat. In order to get out a few bays I had to rest for a moment. Soon I was compelled to stop. The cougars immediately grew restless and then active.
“Ken, you’ve got to do something,” I called, in strained, weak tones.
The lower lion hissed and spat and growled at Ken, and made many attempts to start down. Ken frustrated these by hitting the cougar with stones. Every time Ken threw he struck his mark. Even this punishment, however, did not long intimidate the beast, and he grew bolder and bolder. At length he made a more determined effort, and stepped from branch to branch.
Ken dashed down the incline with a stone in one hand and a long club in the other. I tried to shout advice, but I doubt if Ken heard. He aimed deliberately at the lion, threw the stone and hit him squarely in the ribs. That brought a roar which raised my hair. Then directly under him Ken wielded his club, pounding on the tree, thrashing at the branches.
“Go back! go back!” yelled Ken. “Don’t you dare come down! I’ll crack your old head.”
The cougar came almost within reach of Ken’s club. I wondered at the way the boy held his post. Many as were the daring achievements Ken Ward had executed before my eyes, this one eclipsed them all. I was chilled with fear. I was in distress because I could not raise my hand to help him.
Ken must have been in an unreasoning frenzy. He ran round the piñon, keeping directly under the cougar, and intercepting him at every turn. More than once the beast crouched as if to spring, and was only deterred from that by Ken’s savage attacks. Finally he had luck enough to give the cougar a ringing blow on the head. This, for the moment, stopped the descent, for the big cat climbed back to his perch beside his mate.
In the momentary lull of battle I heard the faint yelp of a hound.
“Listen, Ken!” I cried.
I listened, too. It came again, faint but clearer. I looked up at the lions. They, too, heard, for they were very still. I saw their heads raised and tense. I backed a little way up the slope. Then the faint yelp floated up again in the dead, strange silence. I saw the lions quiver, and it seemed as if I heard their hearts thump. The yelp was wafted up again, closer this time. I recognized it; it belonged to Prince. The great hound was on the backtrail of the other lion, coming to Ken’s rescue.
“It’s Prince! It’s Prince! It’s Prince!” I cried. “It’s all up now!”
What feelings stirred me then! Gladness and relief for Ken dominated me. Pity for those lions I felt also. Big, tawny, cruel fellows as they were, they shivered with fright. Their sides trembled. But pity did not hold me long; Prince’s yelp, now growing clear and sharp, brought back the savage instinct of the hunter.
A full-toned bay attracted my attention from the lions to the downward slope. I saw a yellow form moving under the trees and climbing fast. It was Prince.
“Hi! Hi! old boy!” I yelled.
Up he came like a shot and sprang against the piñon, his deep bay ringing defiance to the lions.
It was very comfortable, but I felt it necessary to sit down just then.
CHAPTER XVII - STRENUOUS WORK
“COME DOWN NOW, you cougars,” yelled Ken, defiantly shaking his broken club. “I dare you now. Old Prince is here. You can’t catch that hound, and you can’t get away from him.”
Ken had evidently contracted Hiram’s habit of talking to cougars as if they were human.
“Oh, Ken Ward, it was tough on you,” I said, “and tough on me, too. But we’re all right now.”
Moments passed. I was just on the point of deciding to go down to hurry up our comrades, when I heard the other hounds coming. Yelp on yelp, bay on bay, made welcome music to my ears. Then a black-and-yellow, swiftly flying string of hounds bore into sight down the slope, streamed up and circled the piñon.
Hiram, who at last showed his tall, stooping form on the steep of the ascent, seemed as long in coming as the hounds had been swift.
“Did you get the lion? Where’s Jim?” I asked, in eagerness.
“Lion tied — all fast,” replied the panting Hiram. “Left Jim — to guard — him.”
“What are we to do now?” asked Ken.
“Wait — till I git — my breath. We can’t git both lions — out of one tree.”
“All right,” Ken replied, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll tie Curley and Mux. You go up the tree. That first lion will jump sure; he’s almost ready now. The other hounds will tree him again pretty soon. If he runs up the cañon, well and good.”.
“Wal, thet’s a good idee,” said Hiram. “Hyar, Leslie, what’re you doin’ over thar?”
“I couldn’t get across,” I replied.
“Hey you been thar all the time, leavin’ the youngster hyar alone with these critters?”
“Hiram, it couldn’t be helped. I was unable to do a blamed thing. But Ken made a grand job of it. Wait till I can tell you.”
“Wal, dog-gone me!” exclaimed the old hunter. He pounded Ken with his big hand, then he began coiling his rope. “Ken, you go ahead and tie up Curley and Mux. You, Leslie, git ready to run up the cañon an’ keep track of this cougar thet’s goin’ to jump.”
He began the ascent of the piñon. The branches were not too close, affording him easy climbing. Before he looked for even a move on the part of the lions, the lower one began stepping down. Ken yelled a warning, but Hiram did not have time to take advantage of it. He had half turned, meaning to swing out and drop, when the lion planted both fore paws upon his back. Hiram went sprawling down, with the lion almost on him.
Prince had his teeth in the lion before he touched the ground, and when he did strike the rest of the hounds were on him. A cloud of dust rolled down the slope. The lion broke loose and with great, springy bounds ran up the cañon, Prince and his followers hot-footing it after him.
Mux and Curley broke the dead sapling to which Ken had tied them, and dragging it behind them, endeavored in frenzied action to join the chase. Ken drew them back, loosening the rope, so in case the other lion jumped he could free them quickly.
Hiram calmly gathered himself up, rearranged his lasso, took his long stick and proceeded to mount the piñon again. I waited till I saw him slip the noose over the lion’s head, then I ran up the slope. I passed perilously near the precipice and then began to climb. The baying of the hounds directed me. In the box of yellow walls the chorus seemed to come from a hundred dogs.
When I found them, close to a low cliff, baying the lion in a thick dark piñon, Ringer leaped into my arms, and next Prince stood up against me with his paws on my shoulders. These were strange actions, and though I marked it at the moment, I had ceased to wonder at our hounds. I took one look at the lion in the dark shade, and then climbed to the low cliff and sat down. I called Prince to me and held him. In case our quarry leaped upon the cliff I wanted a hound to put quickly on his trail.
Another hour passed. It must have been a dark hour for the lion — he looked as if it were — and one of impatience for the baying hounds, but for me it was an hour of enjoyment. Alone with the hounds and a lion, walled in by wild-colored cliffs, with the dry sweet smell of cedar and piñon, I asked no more, only that I wished Ken had been there.
