Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 153
“Youngster, I hey been watchin’ you fer the last hour or so,” remarked Hiram. “An’ I want to give you a piece of advice. Thar’s sech a thing as bein’ foolhardy brave. You don’t seem to reckon that them critters are cougars, wild cougars, an’ not pets.”
“But I’m not afraid,” replied Hal, boldly.
“Wal, I noticed thet. Mebbe you don’t know what danger is. Let me tell you a story I read. Thar was a time onct in the old country when officers of the great French army was reviewin’ the troops as they marched out to battle. Presently a big corporal strutted by, bold an’ important, swaggerin’ himself, an’ lookin’ fight all over.
“‘Thet’s a brave soldier,’ said one of the officers to Napoleon. The Emperor shook his head, an’ said: ‘No!’ Arter a while a little drummer boy marched by. He was drummin’ away fer dear life, as if by drummin’ hard he could keep up his courage. But he was white as a sheet, an’ his eyes stuck out, an’ he was sweatin’, an’ every step he took seemed to be with leaden feet.
“‘Thar’s a brave soldier,’ said Napoleon. ‘He knows the danger.’”
Hiram’s story did not appear to have any great effect on Hal. For a while the lad left the lions alone, but presently he was back tormenting them. He was not at all mean or vicious in his teasing; it was simply that they fascinated him and he could not let them alone. Finally, when Hal slipped, in one of his escapes, just eluding Spitfire by the narrowest margin. Hiram ordered him to keep away from them altogether. Whereupon Hal strode off in anger.
“I never seen sich a youngster,” explained Hiram.
“Shore he needs a lesson, an’ he’s goin’ to git it,” said Jim. “If the boy only hes the temper cooled in him, an’ not broke outright, he’ll be fine.”
Ken gave one of his short laughs.
“That kid is powder, brimstone, dynamite, and chain-lightning all mixed with a compound, concentrated solution of deviltry. Why, he has positively been good so far on this trip.”
Hiram groaned.
“Ken, a few years ago you were almost exactly the same kid that Hal is now,” I said, with a smile.
“I was not,” declared Ken, hotly.
“Youngster, ‘pears to me you did some tall scrappin’ fer this same bad kid brother,” remarked Hiram.
“That’s different. I can fight for Hal and still condemn his trickiness, can’t I?”
The afternoon passed, then sunset, and the shades spread darkly under the pines; suppertime went by, darkness came on, the camp-fire blazed — and still Hal Ward did not come back. We were not especially worried on this score, but when bedtime rolled around and no Hal, then both Ken and Hiram showed anxiety.
Morning dawned without his return. We had a late breakfast purposely, as we expected him to be in by the time Navvy drove up the horses. But there was no sign of Hal.
“Something has happened to him, sure,” Ken said.
Both Jim and I took a different view, agreeing that the lad had slept out for fun, perhaps to cause us concern, and that he would not come in until he was hungry.
Hiram had no comment to make, but it was plain that he did not like the possibilities. Ken showed no desire for lion-hunting, so we did not go out that day. When night came again and Hal had not returned we were at our wits’ end. But knowing his singular propensity for tricks, and believing that he would do almost anything in the way of mischief, we still remained in camp, hoping that he would get as tired of the joke as we were, and return.
Next morning Hiram routed us out early.
“Fellars, I think we’ve been good an’ wrong fer hangin’ around here waitin’ fer the youngster, tricks or no tricks. It’s been growin’ on me thet somethin’ onusual hes come off. We could hey follered his tracks yesterday a tarnal sight better than to-day. Leslie, you an’ Ken rim the plateau-wall. Look fer tracks, an’ keep signalin’. Jim an’ me’ll search the pine, an’ the cedar thickets, an’ the hollers.”
“What are you going to search the thickets and hollows for?” demanded Ken, with wide eyes of misgiving.
When Hiram had no answer for him Ken grew greatly perturbed.
“Hiram, you don’t think — it possible — a cougar could have jumped the boy?”
“Possible? Sartinly it’s possible. It’s not likely, though. But I’ve knowed more than one feller to be attacked by a hungry cougar. I’ve hed one foller me, more than onct...Now, youngster, don’t look sick thet way. Thet boy hed to hey somethin’ happen to him somethin’ serious. It was jest plain as the nose on his face. I hope, an’ believe, of course, thet we’ll find him safe. But you’d better prepare yourself fer a jar.”
The expression of Ken’s face made me almost sick, too; and what little hope I had oozed out.
“Leslie, you’d better see if any hosses hey come up or gone down the trail at the Saddle,” called Hiram, as Ken and I rode off.
“I tell you, Dick, I’m afraid Hiram takes a bad meaning from Hal’s absence,” said Ken. “He meant by what he said to you that those rangers, Belden and Sells, might have got hold of Hal.”
“I hope they have, because then we’d get only a scare, and Hal wouldn’t be hurt much...Well, go slow now, Ken, and keep up hope.”
We separated at the rim and took different directions. It was high noon when we met again on the other side of the plateau. Neither of us had found a trace of Hal. We turned for camp, hoping against hope that Hiram and Jim would have a different story.
They were both in camp when we arrived, and they ran out under the pines to meet us. It was plain that they hoped to receive the news from us which we had hoped to hear from them.
It was a gloomy meeting.
“I failed to foller Hal’s tracks, an’ Jim, he failed, too, an’ Jim ain’t no slouch on follerin’ tracks. It would take an Injun—”
The same thought came to us and we all shouted: “Put Navvy on Hal’s trail.”
Hiram called the Navajo and began to try to tell him, by signs and speech, that Hal was lost and that we wanted his trail followed.
“Me savvy,” said the Indian.
He threw the bridle of Ken’s mustang over his arm, and then, bending over the faint imprints of Hal’s boots, he slowly walked into the forest leading the mustang.
“Don’t foller him. Let him alone,” said Hiram, as Ken and I pressed forward.
The Navajo’s snail-like progress was intolerable to watch, yet it was hopeful, too, for it meant that he was able to pick out Hal’s trail. A long hour passed before Navvy disappeared in the forest. Another passed, still longer. And a third went by that seemed interminable.
“Wal, them desert Navajos hev the sharpest eyes in the world fer a trail...Youngster, he’ll find your brother.”
Suddenly I saw a black streak darting in the forest.
“Look!”
It shot across an open space, disappeared, came in sight again. It was a horse.
“Wild hoss, I’m afeard,” said Hiram.
“No, it’s the mustang,” said Jim. “I guess mebbe I hevn’t often seen a redskin pushin’ a mustang to his limit.”
“Oh! it’s Navvy,” exclaimed Ken. “Look at him come!”
“Youngster, now you’re seein’ some real ridin’,” said Hiram.
The beautiful black mustang swept toward camp at the speed of the wind. He ran on a straight line, sailing over logs, splitting through the bunch of juniper with flying mane and tail. The dark Indian crouched low and rode as if he were part of the mustang. There was something wild in that fleet approach, something thrilling and full of hope. The Navajo gained the camp circle, pulled up the mustang until he slid on his haunches, and leaped from the saddle.
We crowded toward him. He said a few words in Navajo, which none of us could translate. There was no telling anything from his dark, impassive face. Then he made motions with his hands and his meaning became at once clear. Hal had fallen over the rim.
“Oh! Oh!” cried Ken Ward, covering his face with his hands.
It was a black moment for all of us. I Hiram and Jim glanced compassionately at Ken, but I could not bear to look at him. As I turned away I saw the Indian pick up two lassoes and a canteen.
“Tohodena! Tohodena!” (“Hurry — hurry!”), said the Navajo.
That put new life into us.
“Look, Ken, the Indian’s grabbed up canteen and ropes. That means Hal is alive.”
Ken’s face seemed transfigured. He darted for Hal’s mustang, which was with our other horses, threw on a saddle and buckled it with nervous haste. We were mounted as soon as Ken. Navvy swung his quirt and the race was on. It was a race and a mad one to keep the Indian in sight. Our lion chases were tame beside this wild ride. The pines blurred all about me; the brown sward seemed to shoot backwards under me; the wind howled in my ears. I kept close at the heels of Hiram’s thundering roan. The Indian with marvelous skill held to a straight line. Logs and thickets and hollows, even deep gulches did not make him swerve. Once I got a good look ahead, and there was Ken riding Wings almost a rod ahead of Jim, who had a lead over Hiram. I thought at the moment how proud Hal would have been of Wings. But fast as Ken was driving him the pinto could not catch the mustang.
The pines thinned out and clumps of cedar appeared with patches of sage. The Navajo reined in, leaped off, and waited till we raced up. In a twinkling we were oil ready to follow. He carried the lassoes and the canteen.
We were directly above a cape of crumbling rim rock. To me the great abyss, with its purple clefts and gold domes and red walls, had never appeared so sinister and menacing. The Indian led down a short slope of sage and then went out upon a jutting section of wall. This cape appeared to be cut up into crags and castles and columns of yellow stone. One crumbling mass resembled a ruined pipe-organ of grand proportions. We wound in and out, always dangerously near the precipice, following the rim-wall of this cape. The Indian halted upon the edge of a kind of cove, a cut-in some fifty yards across at the widest, where it opened out into the chasm. I saw that the wall on the opposite side was perpendicular and almost forty feet high.
Navvy dropped to his knees and leaned over the rim. We followed suit. I found myself looking down at a straight wall, then a narrow shelf of debris, and below that a small grassy plot of ground which sloped to the main rim-wall.
Ken Ward let out a bursting yell of joy. Then I saw Hal lying on one side of the plot. There was a bloody wound on the side of his cheek and temple.
“Ah, there!” he said, faintly, and he smiled a smile that was as feeble as his voice.
I could not tell what the greeting was we shouted down to him, for the reason that we all shouted at once. Then we leaped up from the rim, ready for action. The first thing Ken Ward did was to give the Navajo such a hug that I made sure he would crush the Indian’s ribs. Navvy smiled at this rough treatment as if he knew what it meant to lose and find a brother.
“Cool down now, youngster,” said Hiram, “an’ let me engineer this bizness.”
Jim was more agitated than I had ever seen him. He kept peeping over the rim.
“Hiram, he shore ain’t moved a hand or foot since we got here,” whispered Jim.
“Mebbe he’s too weak,” replied Hiram.
The old hunter carefully tied up two lassoes, then two more, and putting these together he made a double rope more than fifty feet long.
“Ken, we’ll let you down,” he said, running a noose under Ken’s arms.
With Hiram and Jim holding the rope Ken slipped over the rim and soon reached the shelf below.
“Hal, old boy, are you hurt — very much?” asked Ken, as he knelt by his brother.
“Water! Water!” whispered Hal.
“Pitch me the canteen, quick,” called Ken. Hiram took it from Navvy and carefully poised it.
“Make sure, youngster. It might hit a rock an’ bounce down the slope.”
“Pitch it!” cried Ken in scornful distraction. “Have I played ball all these years for nothing? Pitch it!”
“Thar,” called Hiram, and he pitched the canteen. Ken caught it with steel like clutch, and then he was kneeling by Hal, holding up the boy’s head and helping him to drink. From the length of that drink Hal must have been pretty thirsty.
“Hal, tell me now — where are you hurt?” asked Ken.
The boy whispered something that only Ken heard. And we saw that Ken began to feel for broken bones and search for injuries.
“Hiram, all I can find is the bruise on his face and a bad ankle. It’s black and blue and swollen out of shape. I’m afraid it’s broken. He can move all over, so his spine can’t be hurt.”
“Good! Now, youngster, you take off your coat an’ put it round Hal, under his arms, whar the rope goes...Thar, thet’s right. Now you lift him an’ git him straight under us...Steady now...Help me lift him, Jim. An’ Leslie, you stand ready to grab him when we git him up.”
In less than two minutes we had Hal lying on the rim above. I hardly recognized his face. It was pallid except for the bloody bruise, and his eyes were deep-set with a strained expression of pain, and his lips were drawn. He had changed terribly.
“Oh, I’m all — here,” he whispered. But it was only a faint likeness of his old spirit.
“Say! throw me the rope,” yelled Ken. Hiram threw it over, and, while he and I held firmly, Ken came up hand over hand.
“Leslie, you lead back an’ break a trail through the brush,” directed I Hiram, as he carefully lifted Hal in his arms. We were not long in getting to the horses. Here Hiram placed Hal astride his roan, and walked, with an arm steadying the lad, while Jim rode alongside and helped. This procession was very slow in reaching camp.
When we arrived there, Hiram made a thorough examination of the boy and to our great relief announced that there were no serious injuries.
“He’s got a knock on the side of his head, an’ a sprained ankle, an’ mebbe he’s sufferin’ from shock, but he’ll be around in a few days.”
We washed the blood from Hal’s face and bathed his ankle in hot water. His face was so painful and his lips so swollen that it was difficult for him to eat, but after he had forced down some potato soup and a few mouthfuls of coffee he appeared to gather a little strength. We were so overjoyed to have him back alive and comparatively well that all thought of his delinquencies had been forgotten. But, evidently, Hal had not forgotten, for he looked wistfully at Ken and Hiram. It appeared to me that Hal wanted to be helped out in his confession. None of us, however, asked him a question.
“Ken,” he said, finally, and his voice was strangely weak, “I ran off bull-headed mad, but I didn’t stay away for spite. I chased some kind of a young animal — a young coyote, I think and I fell over the rim.”
“Forget it,” replied Ken, cheerfully.
“I yelled and yelled,” went on Hal. “Then I knew you wouldn’t be hunting for me, because you’d all figure I was playing a trick, trying to scare you. So I stopped yelling. The pain wasn’t so bad. I could have stood that. But the thought of you not hunting for me for a long time — that hurt. It made me sick. Then after the first night and the next day I got thirsty. I had a fever, I guess, for I was flighty. Pretty soon I believed — you’d never find me. Then — then—”
He never completed that sentence, but his look was eloquent. Hal Ward had been face to face with his first real tragedy in life. The lesson that Jim had prophesied had been a terrible one.
“Ken,” he said, after a long silence, “I broke my promise to you. One thing I did promise, you know. That was to be careful.”
“It’s all right, kid,” replied Ken.
“Jim,” he went on, after another silence, “I guess you won’t let me ‘rustle’ with you — any more?”
“Shore I will — shore,” replied Jim, hurriedly, as he fumbled aimlessly with his pipe.
Then there was a third silence, this one the longest.
“Hiram,” said Hal, “do you remember — you called me a young Injun once, and then I heard you say the only good Injun was a dead one?”
“Wal, lad, what about it?” asked Hiram, kindly.
“When I lay down in that dark hole, at night, with the stars shining in my lace I never slept a wink — I thought of what you had said — of your advice — and I made up my mind if I ever got out alive I’d fool you about being a good Injun...I’m goin’ to be one.”
“Amen,” cried Ken Ward, fervently.
CHAPTER XIX - KEN AND PRINCE
NEXT MORNING HIRAM was out bright and early, yelling to Navvy to hurry with the horses, calling to the hounds and lions and routing us from warm blankets.
Navvy had come into his own: he received his full meed of praise from all of us. Even Jim, reluctantly feeling the place in his hip where he carried a pellet of Indian lead, acknowledged that Navvy had been invaluable. “Shore, he’s the only good redskin I ever seen, an’ I guess I’ll hey to change my mind about liftin’ his scalp.”
“Tohodena!” said Navvy, mimicking Hiram. Perhaps we all contrasted this jocular use of the word with the grim meaning he had given to it the day before.
As we sat down to breakfast he loped off into the forest, and before we got up the bells of the horses were jingling in the hollow.
“Shore, it’s goin’ to be cloudy,” said Jim.
“If it’s just the same to you fellows, I’ll keep camp,” remarked Hal.
“Wal, lad, I reckon so,” was Hiram’s reply.
Indeed, we carried Hal out of Hiram’s tent and propped him up with blankets. It would probably be several days before he could use his injured ankle. He was haggard, and the bruise had grown blacker. But the terrible, strained shadow of pain in his eyes had given place to something brighter and softer.
“Shore I’m goin’ to keep camp with you,” drawled Jim, presently.
“That will be fine — but Ken and Hiram and Dick will need you.”
“They can need an’ be darned. I’m tired climbin’ out of them gashes. My heart ain’t right yet, after luggin’ thet cougar eleven miles or less straight up in the air.”
