The Last of the Plainsmen

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Last of the Plainsmen

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

The mustang to which Clarke called our attention was a sleek
cream and white pinto. Upon his side and back were long regular
scars, some an inch wide, and bare of hair.

"How on earth did he get rid of the cougar?" asked Jones.

"I don't know. Perhaps he got scared of the dogs. It took thet
pinto a year to git well. Old Tom is a real lion. He'll kill a
full-grown hoss when he wants, but a yearlin' colt is his
especial likin'. You're sure to run acrost his trail, an' you'll
never miss it. Wal, if I find any cougar sign down in the canyon,
I'll build two fires so as to let you know. Though no hunter, I'm
tolerably acquainted with the varmints. The deer an' hosses are
rangin' the forest slopes now, an' I think the cougars come up
over the rim rock at night an' go back in the mornin'. Anyway, if
your dogs can follow the trails, you've got sport, an' more'n
sport comin' to you. But take it from me--don't try to rope Old
Tom."

After all our disappointments in the beginning of the expedition,
our hardship on the desert, our trials with the dogs and horses,
it was real pleasure to make permanent camp with wood, water and
feed at hand, a soul-stirring, ever-changing picture before us,
and the certainty that we were in the wild lairs of the
lions--among the Lords of the Crags!

While we were unpacking, every now and then I would straighten up
and gaze out beyond. I knew the outlook was magnificent and
sublime beyond words, but as yet I had not begun to understand
it. The great pine trees, growing to the very edge of the rim,
received their full quota of appreciation from me, as did the
smooth, flower-decked aisles leading back into the forest.

The location we selected for camp was a large glade, fifty paces
or more from the precipice far enough, the cowboys averred, to
keep our traps from being sucked down by some of the whirlpool
winds, native to the spot. In the center of this glade stood a
huge gnarled and blasted old pine, that certainly by virtue of
hoary locks and bent shoulders had earned the right to stand
aloof from his younger companions. Under this tree we placed all
our belongings, and then, as Frank so felicitously expressed it,
we were free to "ooze round an' see things."

I believe I had a sort of subconscious, selfish idea that some
one would steal the canyon away from me if I did not hurry to
make it mine forever; so I sneaked off, and sat under a pine
growing on the very rim. At first glance, I saw below me,
seemingly miles away, a wild chaos of red and buff mesas rising
out of dark purple clefts. Beyond these reared a long, irregular
tableland, running south almost to the extent of my vision, which
I remembered Clarke had called Powell's Plateau. I remembered,
also, that he had said it was twenty miles distant, was almost
that many miles long, was connected to the mainland of Buckskin
Mountain by a very narrow wooded dip of land called the Saddle,
and that it practically shut us out of a view of the Grand Canyon
proper. If that was true, what, then, could be the name of the
canyon at my feet? Suddenly, as my gaze wandered from point to
point, it was attested by a dark, conical mountain, white-tipped,
which rose in the notch of the Saddle. What could it mean? Were
there such things as canyon mirages? Then the dim purple of its
color told of its great distance from me; and then its familiar
shape told I had come into my own again--I had found my old
friend once more. For in all that plateau there was only one
snow-capped mountain--the San Francisco Peak; and there, a
hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred miles away, far beyond the
Grand Canyon, it smiled brightly at me, as it had for days and
days across the desert.

Hearing Jones yelling for somebody or everybody, I jumped up to
find a procession heading for a point farther down the rim wall,
where our leader stood waving his arms. The excitement proved to
have been caused by cougar signs at the head of the trail where
Clarke had started down.

"They're here, boys, they're here," Jones kept repeating, as he
showed us different tracks. "This sign is not so old. Boys,
to-morrow we'll get up a lion, sure as you're born. And if we do,
and Sounder sees him, then we've got a lion-dog! I'm afraid of
Don. He has a fine nose; he can run and fight, but he's been
trained to deer, and maybe I can't break him. Moze is still
uncertain. If old Jude only hadn't been lamed! She would be the
best of the lot. But Sounder is our hope. I'm almost ready to
swear by him."

All this was too much for me, so I slipped off again to be alone,
and this time headed for the forest. Warm patches of sunlight,
like gold, brightened the ground; dark patches of sky, like ocean
blue, gleamed between the treetops. Hardly a rustle of wind in
the fine-toothed green branches disturbed the quiet. When I got
fully out of sight of camp, I started to run as if I were a wild
Indian. My running had no aim; just sheer mad joy of the grand
old forest, the smell of pine, the wild silence and beauty loosed
the spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran with it till the
physical being failed.

While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, endeavoring to
regain control over a truant mind, trying to subdue the
encroaching of the natural man on the civilized man, I saw gray
objects moving under the trees. I lost them, then saw them, and
presently so plainly that, with delight on delight, I counted
seventeen deer pass through an open arch of dark green. Rising to
my feet, I ran to get round a low mound. They saw me and bounded
away with prodigiously long leaps. Bringing their forefeet
together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, like rubber
balls, yet they were graceful.

The forest was so open that I could watch them for a long way;
and as I circled with my gaze, a glimpse of something white
arrested my attention. A light, grayish animal appeared to be
tearing at an old stump. Upon nearer view, I recognized a wolf,
and he scented or sighted me at the same moment, and loped off
into the shadows of the trees. Approaching the spot where I had
marked him I found he had been feeding from the carcass of a
horse. The remains had been only partly eaten, and were of an
animal of the mustang build that had evidently been recently
killed. Frightful lacerations under the throat showed where a
lion had taken fatal hold. Deep furrows in the ground proved how
the mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken himself. I
traced roughly defined tracks fifty paces to the lee of a little
bank, from which I concluded the lion had sprung.

I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the forest dark,
silent, peopled by none but its savage denizens, The lion crept
like a shadow, crouched noiselessly down, then leaped on his
sleeping or browsing prey. The lonely night stillness split to a
frantic snort and scream of terror, and the stricken mustang with
his mortal enemy upon his back, dashed off with fierce, wild love
of life. As he went he felt his foe crawl toward his neck on
claws of fire; he saw the tawny body and the gleaming eyes; then
the cruel teeth snapped with the sudden bite, and the woodland
tragedy ended.

On the spot I conceived an antipathy toward lions. It was born of
the frightful spectacle of what had once been a glossy, prancing
mustang, of the mute, sickening proof of the survival of the
fittest, of the law that levels life.

Upon telling my camp-fellows about my discovery, Jones and
Wallace walked out to see it, while Jim told me the wolf I had
seen was a "lofer," one of the giant buffalo wolves of Buckskin;
and if I would watch the carcass in the mornings and evenings, I
would "shore as hell get a plunk at him."

White pine burned in a beautiful, clear blue flame, with no
smoke; and in the center of the campfire left a golden heart. But
Jones would not have any sitting up, and hustled us off to bed,
saying we would be "blamed" glad of it in about fifteen hours. I
crawled into my sleeping-bag, made a hood of my Navajo blanket,
and peeping from under it, watched the fire and the flickering
shadows. The blaze burned down rapidly. Then the stars blinked.
Arizona stars would be moons in any other State! How serene,
peaceful, august, infinite and wonderfully bright! No breeze
stirred the pines. The clear tinkle of the cowbells on the
hobbled horses rang from near and distant parts of the forest.
The prosaic bell of the meadow and the pasture brook, here, in
this environment, jingled out different notes, as clear, sweet,
musical as silver bells.

CHAPTER 12. OLD TOM

At daybreak our leader routed us out. The frost mantled the
ground so heavily that it looked like snow, and the rare
atmosphere bit like the breath of winter. The forest stood solemn
and gray; the canyon lay wrapped in vapory slumber.

Hot biscuits and coffee, with a chop or two of the delicious
Persian lamb meat, put a less Spartan tinge on the morning, and
gave Wallace and me more strength--we needed not incentive to
leave the fire, hustle our saddles on the horses and get in line
with our impatient leader. The hounds scampered over the frost,
shoving their noses at the tufts of grass and bluebells. Lawson
and Jim remained in camp; the rest of us trooped southwest.

A mile or so in that direction, the forest of pine ended
abruptly, and a wide belt of low, scrubby old trees, breast high
to a horse, fringed the rim of the canyon and appeared to broaden
out and grow wavy southward. The edge of the forest was as dark
and regular as if a band of woodchoppers had trimmed it. We
threaded our way through this thicket, all peering into the
bisecting deer trails for cougar tracks in the dust.

"Bring the dogs! Hurry!" suddenly called Jones from a thicket.

We lost no time complying, and found him standing in a trail,
with his eyes on the sand. "Take a look, boys. A good-sized male
cougar passed here last night. Hyar, Sounder, Don, Moze, come
on!"

It was a nervous, excited pack of hounds. Old Jude got to Jones
first, and she sang out; then Sounder opened with his ringing
bay, and before Jones could mount, a string of yelping dogs
sailed straight for the forest.

"Ooze along, boys!" yelled Frank, wheeling Spot.

With the cowboy leading, we strung into the pines, and I found
myself behind. Presently even Wallace disappeared. I almost threw
the reins at Satan, and yelled for him to go. The result
enlightened me. Like an arrow from a bow, the black shot forward.
Frank had told me of his speed, that when he found his stride it
was like riding a flying feather to be on him. Jones, fearing he
would kill me, had cautioned me always to hold him in, which I
had done. Satan stretched out with long graceful motions; he did
not turn aside for logs, but cleared them with easy and powerful
spring, and he swerved only slightly to the trees. This latter, I
saw at once, made the danger for me. It became a matter of saving
my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of this came to
me with convincing force. I dodged a branch on one tree, only to
be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If
the snag had not broken, Satan would have gone on riderless, and
I would have been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition
to the risks of the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then
falling flat over the pommel to avoid a limb that would have
brushed me off, and hugging the flanks of my horse with my knees.
Soon I was at Wallace's heels, and had Jones in sight. Now and
then glimpses of Frank's white horse gleamed through the trees.

We began to circle toward the south, to go up and down shallow
hollows, to find the pines thinning out; then we shot out of the
forest into the scrubby oak. Riding through this brush was the
cruelest kind of work, but Satan kept on close to the sorrel. The
hollows began to get deeper, and the ridges between them
narrower. No longer could we keep a straight course.

On the crest of one of the ridges we found Jones awaiting us.
Jude, Tige and Don lay panting at his feet. Plainly the Colonel
appeared vexed.

"Listen," he said, when we reined in.

We complied, but did not hear a sound.

"Frank's beyond there some place," continued Jones, "but I can't
see him, nor hear the hounds anymore. Don and Tige split again on
deer trails. Old Jude hung on the lion track, but I stopped her
here. There's something I can't figure. Moze held a beeline
southwest, and he yelled seldom. Sounder gradually stopped
baying. Maybe Frank can tell us something."

Jones's long drawn-out signal was answered from the direction he
expected, and after a little time, Frank's white horse shone out
of the gray-green of a ledge a mile away.

This drew my attention to our position. We were on a high ridge
out in the open, and I could see fifty miles of the shaggy slopes
of Buckskin. Southward the gray, ragged line seemed to stop
suddenly, and beyond it purple haze hung over a void I knew to be
the canyon. And facing west, I came, at last, to understand
perfectly the meaning of the breaks in the Siwash. They were
nothing more than ravines that headed up on the slopes and ran
down, getting steeper and steeper, though scarcely wider, to
break into the canyon. Knife-crested ridges rolled westward, wave
on wave, like the billows of a sea. I appreciated that these
breaks were, at their sources, little washes easy to jump across,
and at their mouths a mile deep and impassable. Huge pine trees
shaded these gullies, to give way to the gray growth of stunted
oak, which in turn merged into the dark green of pinyon. A
wonderful country for deer and lions, it seemed to me, but
impassable, all but impossible for a hunter.

Frank soon appeared, brushing through the bending oaks, and
Sounder trotted along behind him.

"Where's Moze?" inquired Jones.

"The last I heard of Moze he was out of the brush, goin' across
the pinyon flat, right for the canyon. He had a hot trail."

"Well, we're certain of one thing; if it was a deer, he won't
come back soon, and if it was a lion, he'll tree it, lose the
scent, and come back. We've got to show the hounds a lion in a
tree. They'd run a hot trail, bump into a tree, and then be at
fault. What was wrong with Sounder?"

"I don't know. He came back to me."

"We can't trust him, or any of them yet. Still, maybe they're
doing better than we know."

The outcome of the chase, so favorably started was a
disappointment, which we all felt keenly. After some discussion,
we turned south, intending to ride down to the rim wall and
follow it back to camp. I happened to turn once, perhaps to look
again at the far-distant pink cliffs of Utah, or the wave-like
dome of Trumbull Mountain, when I saw Moze trailing close behind
me. My yell halted the Colonel.

"Well, I'll be darned!" ejaculated he, as Moze hove in sight.
"Come hyar, you rascal!"

He was a tired dog, but had no sheepish air about him, such as he
had worn when lagging in from deer chases. He wagged his tail,
and flopped down to pant and pant, as if to say: "What's wrong
with you guys?"

"Boys, for two cents I'd go back and put Jude on that trail. It's
just possible that Moze treed a lion. But--well, I expect there's
more likelihood of his chasing the lion over the rim; so we may
as well keep on. The strange thing is that Sounder wasn't with
Moze. There may have been two lions. You see we are up a tree
ourselves. I have known lions to run in pairs, and also a mother
keep four two-year-olds with her. But such cases are rare. Here,
in this country, though, maybe they run round and have parties."

As we left the breaks behind we got out upon a level pinyon flat.
A few cedars grew with the pinyons. Deer runways and trails were
thick.

"Boys, look at that," said Jones. "This is great lion country,
the best I ever saw."

He pointed to the sunken, red, shapeless remain of two horses,
and near them a ghastly scattering of bleached bones. "A
lion-lair right here on the flat. Those two horses were killed
early this spring, and I see no signs of their carcasses having
been covered with brush and dirt. I've got to learn lion lore
over again, that's certain."

As we paused at the head of a depression, which appeared to be a
gap in the rim wall, filled with massed pinyons and splintered
piles of yellow stone, caught Sounder going through some
interesting moves. He stopped to smell a bush. Then he lifted his
head, and electrified me with a great, deep sounding bay.

"Hi! there, listen to that!" yelled Jones "What's Sounder got?
Give him room--don't run him down. Easy now, old dog, easy,
easy!"

Sounder suddenly broke down a trail. Moze howled, Don barked, and
Tige let out his staccato yelp. They ran through the brush here,
there, every where. Then all at once old Jude chimed in with her
mellow voice, and Jones tumbled off his horse.

"By the Lord Harry! There's something here."

"Here, Colonel, here's the bush Sounder smelt and there's a sandy
trail under it," I called.

"There go Don an' Tige down into the break' cried Frank. "They've
got a hot scent!"

Jones stooped over the place I designated, to jerk up with
reddening face, and as he flung himself into the saddle roared
out: "After Sounder! Old Tom! Old Tom! Old Tom!"

We all heard Sounder, and at the moment of Jones's discovery,
Moze got the scent and plunged ahead of us.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" yelled the Colonel. Frank sent Spot forward
like a white streak. Sounder called to us in irresistible bays,
which Moze answered, and then crippled Jude bayed in baffled
impotent distress.

The atmosphere was charged with that lion. As if by magic, the
excitation communicated itself to all, and men, horses and dogs
acted in accord. The ride through the forest had been a jaunt.
This was a steeplechase, a mad, heedless, perilous, glorious
race. And we had for a pacemaker a cowboy mounted on a tireless
mustang.

Always it seemed to me, while the wind rushed, the brush whipped,
I saw Frank far ahead, sitting his saddle as if glued there,
holding his reins loosely forward. To see him ride so was a
beautiful sight. Jones let out his Comanche yell at every dozen
jumps and Wallace sent back a thrilling "Waa-hoo-o!" In the
excitement I had again checked my horse, and when Jones
remembered, and loosed the bridle, how the noble animal
responded! The pace he settled into dazed me; I could hardly
distinguish the deer trail down which he was thundering. I lost
my comrades ahead; the pinyons blurred in my sight; I only
faintly heard the hounds. It occurred to me we were making for
the breaks, but I did not think of checking Satan. I thought only
of flying on faster and faster.

"On! On! old fellow! Stretch out! Never lose this race! We've got
to be there at the finish!" I called to Satan, and he seemed to
understand and stretched lower, farther, quicker.

The brush pounded my legs and clutched and tore my clothes; the
wind whistled; the pinyon branches cut and whipped my face. Once
I dodged to the left, as Satan swerved to the right, with the
result that I flew out of the saddle, and crashed into a pinyon
tree, which marvelously brushed me back into the saddle. The wild
yells and deep bays sounded nearer. Satan tripped and plunged
down, throwing me as gracefully as an aerial tumbler wings his
flight. I alighted in a bush, without feeling of scratch or pain.
As Satan recovered and ran past, I did not seek to make him stop,
but getting a good grip on the pommel, I vaulted up again. Once
more he raced like a wild mustang. And from nearer and nearer in
front pealed the alluring sounds of the chase.

Satan was creeping close to Wallace and Jones, with Frank looming
white through the occasional pinyons. Then all dropped out of
sight, to appear again suddenly. They had reached the first
break. Soon I was upon it. Two deer ran out of the ravine, almost
brushing my horse in the haste. Satan went down and up in a few
giant strides. Only the narrow ridge separated us from another
break. It was up and down then for Satan, a work to which he
manfully set himself. Occasionally I saw Wallace and Jones, but
heard them oftener. All the time the breaks grew deeper, till
finally Satan had to zigzag his way down and up. Discouragement
fastened on me, when from the summit of the next ridge I saw
Frank far down the break, with Jones and Wallace not a quarter of
a mile away from him. I sent out a long, exultant yell as Satan
crashed into the hard, dry wash in the bottom of the break.

I knew from the way he quickened under me that he intended to
overhaul somebody. Perhaps because of the clear going, or because
my frenzy had cooled to a thrilling excitement which permitted
detail, I saw clearly and distinctly the speeding horsemen down
the ravine. I picked out the smooth pieces of ground ahead, and
with the slightest touch of the rein on his neck, guided Satan
into them. How he ran! The light, quick beats of his hoofs were
regular, pounding. Seeing Jones and Wallace sail high into the
air, I knew they had jumped a ditch. Thus prepared, I managed to
stick on when it yawned before me; and Satan, never slackening,
leaped up and up, giving me a new swing.

Dust began to settle in little clouds before me; Frank, far
ahead, had turned his mustang up the side of the break; Wallace,
within hailing distance, now turned to wave me a hand. The
rushing wind fairly sang in my ears; the walls of the break were
confused blurs of yellow and green; at every stride Satan seemed
to swallow a rod of the white trail.

Jones began to scale the ravine, heading up obliquely far on the
side of where Frank had vanished, and as Wallace followed suit, I
turned Satan. I caught Wallace at the summit, and we raced
together out upon another flat of pinyon. We heard Frank and
Jones yelling in a way that caused us to spur our horses
frantically. Spot, gleaming white near a clump of green pinyons,
was our guiding star. That last quarter of a mile was a ringing
run, a ride to remember.

As our mounts crashed back with stiff forelegs and haunches,
Wallace and I leaped off and darted into the clump of pinyons,
whence issued a hair-raising medley of yells and barks. I saw
Jones, then Frank, both waving their arms, then Moze and Sounder
running wildly, airlessly about.

"Look there!" rang in my ear, and Jones smashed me on the back
with a blow, which at any ordinary time would have laid me flat.

In a low, stubby pinyon tree, scarce twenty feet from us, was a
tawny form. An enormous mountain lion, as large as an African
lioness, stood planted with huge, round legs on two branches; and
he faced us gloomily, neither frightened nor fierce. He watched
the running dogs with pale, yellow eyes, waved his massive head
and switched a long, black tufted tail.

"It's Old Tom! sure as you're born! It's Old Tom!" yelled Jones.
"There's no two lions like that in one country. Hold still now.
Jude is here, and she'll see him, she'll show him to the other
hounds. Hold still!"

We heard Jude coming at a fast pace for a lame dog, and we saw
her presently, running with her nose down for a moment, then up.
She entered the clump of trees, and bumped her nose against the
pinyon Old Tom was in, and looked up like a dog that knew her
business. The series of wild howls she broke into quickly brought
Sounder and Moze to her side. They, too, saw the big lion, not
fifteen feet over their heads.

We were all yelling and trying to talk at once, in some such
state as the dogs.

"Hyar, Moze! Come down out of that!" hoarsely shouted Jones.

Moze had begun to climb the thick, many-branched, low pinyon
tree. He paid not the slightest attention to Jones, who screamed
and raged at him.

"Cover the lion!" cried he to me. "Don't shoot unless he crouches
to jump on me."

The little beaded front-sight wavered slightly as I held my rifle
leveled at the grim, snarling face, and out of the corner of my
eye, as it were, I saw Jones dash in under the lion and grasp
Moze by the hind leg and haul him down. He broke from Jones and
leaped again to the first low branch. His master then grasped his
collar and carried him to where we stood and held him choking.

"Boys, we can't keep Tom up there. When he jumps, keep out of his
way. Maybe we can chase him up a better tree."

Old Tom suddenly left the branches, swinging violently; and
hitting the ground like a huge cat on springs, he bounded off,
tail up, in a most ludicrous manner. His running, however, did
not lack speed, for he quickly outdistanced the bursting hounds.

A stampede for horses succeeded this move. I had difficulty in
closing my camera, which I had forgotten until the last moment,
and got behind the others. Satan sent the dust flying and the
pinyon branches crashing. Hardly had I time to bewail my ill-luck
in being left, when I dashed out of a thick growth of trees to
come upon my companions, all dismounted on the rim of the Grand
Canyon.

"He's gone down! He's gone down!" raged Jones, stamping the
ground. "What luck! What miserable luck! But don't quit; spread
along the rim, boys, and look for him. Cougars can't fly. There's
a break in the rim somewhere."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16