The Last of the Plainsmen
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Zane Grey >> The Last of the Plainsmen
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The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on the warm,
fragrant pine-needle beds, or mending a rent in a coat, or
working on some camp task impossible of commission on exciting
days.
About four o'clock, I took my little rifle and walked off through
the woods in the direction of the carcass where I had seen the
gray wolf. Thinking it best to make a wide detour, so as to face
the wind, I circled till I felt the breeze was favorable to my
enterprise, and then cautiously approached the hollow were the
dead horse lay. Indian fashion, I slipped from tree to tree, a
mode of forest travel not without its fascination and
effectiveness, till I reached the height of a knoll beyond which
I made sure was my objective point. On peeping out from behind
the last pine, I found I had calculated pretty well, for there
was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round, starfish-shaped
roots exposed to the bright sun, and near that, the carcass. Sure
enough, pulling hard at it, was the gray-white wolf I recognized
as my "lofer."
But he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. Backing down the
ridge, I ran a little way to come up behind another tree, from
which I soon shifted to a fallen pine. Over this I peeped, to get
a splendid view of the wolf. He had stopped tugging at the horse,
and stood with his nose in the air. Surely he could not have
scented me, for the wind was strong from him to me; neither could
he have heard my soft footfalls on the pine needles;
nevertheless, he was suspicious. Loth to spoil the picture he
made, I risked a chance, and waited. Besides, though I prided
myself on being able to take a fair aim, I had no great hope that
I could hit him at such a distance. Presently he returned to his
feeding, but not for long. Soon he raised his long, fine-pointed
head, and trotted away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, then
went back to his gruesome work.
At this juncture, I noiselessly projected my rifle barrel over
the log. I had not, however, gotten the sights in line with him,
when he trotted away reluctantly, and ascended the knoll on his
side of the hollow. I lost him, and had just begun sourly to call
myself a mollycoddle hunter, when he reappeared. He halted in an
open glade, on the very crest of the knoll, and stood still as a
statue wolf, a white, inspiriting target, against a dark green
background. I could not stifle a rush of feeling, for I was a
lover of the beautiful first, and a hunter secondly; but I
steadied down as the front sight moved into the notch through
which I saw the black and white of his shoulder.
Spang! How the little Remington sang! I watched closely, ready to
send five more missiles after the gray beast. He jumped
spasmodically, in a half-curve, high in the air, with loosely
hanging head, then dropped in a heap. I yelled like a boy, ran
down the hill, up the other side of the hollow, to find him
stretched out dead, a small hole in his shoulder where the bullet
had entered, a great one where it had come out.
The job I made of skinning him lacked some hundred degrees the
perfection of my shot, but I accomplished it, and returned to
camp in triumph.
"Shore I knowed you'd plunk him," said Jim very much pleased. "I
shot one the other day same way, when he was feedin' off a dead
horse. Now thet's a fine skin. Shore you cut through once or
twice. But he's only half lofer, the other half in plain coyote.
Thet accounts fer his feedin' on dead meat."
My naturalist host and my scientific friend both remarked
somewhat grumpily that I seemed to get the best of all the good
things. I might have retaliated that I certainly had gotten the
worst of all the bad jokes; but, being generously happy over my
prize, merely remarked: "If you want fame or wealth or wolves, go
out and hunt for them."
Five o'clock supper left a good margin of day, in which my
thoughts reverted to the canyon. I watched the purple shadows
stealing out of their caverns and rolling up about the base of
the mesas. Jones came over to where I stood, and I persuaded him
to walk with me along the rim wall. Twilight had stealthily
advanced when we reached the Singing Cliffs, and we did not go
out upon my promontory, but chose a more comfortable one nearer
the wall.
The night breeze had not sprung up yet, so the music of the
cliffs was hushed.
"You cannot accept the theory of erosion to account for this
chasm?" I asked my companion, referring to a former conversation.
"I can for this part of it. But what stumps me is the mountain
range three thousand feet high, crossing the desert and the
canyon just above where we crossed the river. How did the river
cut through that without the help of a split or earthquake?"
"I'll admit that is a poser to me as well as to you. But I
suppose Wallace could explain it as erosion. He claims this whole
western country was once under water, except the tips of the
Sierra Nevada mountains. There came an uplift of the earth's
crust, and the great inland sea began to run out, presumably by
way of the Colorado. In so doing it cut out the upper canyon,
this gorge eighteen miles wide. Then came a second uplift, giving
the river a much greater impetus toward the sea, which cut out
the second, or marble canyon. Now as to the mountain range
crossing the canyon at right angles. It must have come with the
second uplift. If so, did it dam the river back into another
inland sea, and then wear down into that red perpendicular gorge
we remember so well? Or was there a great break in the fold of
granite, which let the river continue on its way? Or was there,
at that particular point, a softer stone, like this limestone
here, which erodes easily?"
"You must ask somebody wiser than I."
"Well, let's not perplex our minds with its origin. It is, and
that's enough for any mind. Ah! listen! Now you will hear my
Singing Cliffs."
From out of the darkening shadows murmurs rose on the softly
rising wind. This strange music had a depressing influence; but
it did not fill the heart with sorrow, only touched it lightly.
And when, with the dying breeze, the song died away, it left the
lonely crags lonelier for its death.
The last rosy gleam faded from the tip of Point Sublime; and as
if that were a signal, in all the clefts and canyons below,
purple, shadowy clouds marshaled their forces and began to sweep
upon the battlements, to swing colossal wings into amphitheaters
where gods might have warred, slowly to enclose the magical
sentinels. Night intervened, and a moving, changing, silent chaos
pulsated under the bright stars.
"How infinite all this is! How impossible to understand!" I
exclaimed.
"To me it is very simple," replied my comrade. "The world is
strange. But this canyon--why, we can see it all! I can't make
out why people fuss so over it. I only feel peace. It's only bold
and beautiful, serene and silent."
With the words of this quiet old plainsman, my sentimental
passion shrank to the true appreciation of the scene. Self passed
out to the recurring, soft strains of cliff song. I had been
reveling in a species of indulgence, imagining I was a great
lover of nature, building poetical illusions over storm-beaten
peaks. The truth, told by one who had lived fifty years in the
solitudes, among the rugged mountains, under the dark trees, and
by the sides of the lonely streams, was the simple interpretation
of a spirit in harmony with the bold, the beautiful, the serene,
the silent.
He meant the Grand Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold
promise, a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted
away in its dust, yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing, so
let him be humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this playground
of a river was not inscrutable; it was only inevitable--as
inevitable as nature herself. Millions of years in the bygone
ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would bask silent
under a rayless sun, in the onward edge of time.
It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the
strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the glory and the
tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words
were grand: "My spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of
God. Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be
gone. Peace! Peace!"
CHAPTER 14. ALL HEROES BUT ONE
As we rode up the slope of Buckskin, the sunrise glinted red-gold
through the aisles of frosted pines, giving us a hunter's glad
greeting.
With all due respect to, and appreciation of, the breaks of the
Siwash, we unanimously decided that if cougars inhabited any
other section of canyon country, we preferred it, and were going
to find it. We had often speculated on the appearance of the rim
wall directly across the neck of the canyon upon which we were
located. It showed a long stretch of breaks, fissures, caves,
yellow crags, crumbled ruins and clefts green with pinyon pine.
As a crow flies, it was only a mile or two straight across from
camp, but to reach it, we had to ascend the mountain and head the
canyon which deeply indented the slope.
A thousand feet or more above the level bench, the character of
the forest changed; the pines grew thicker, and interspersed
among them were silver spruces and balsams. Here in the clumps of
small trees and underbrush, we began to jump deer, and in a few
moments a greater number than I had ever seen in all my hunting
experiences loped within range of my eye. I could not look out
into the forest where an aisle or lane or glade stretched to any
distance, without seeing a big gray deer cross it. Jones said the
herds had recently come up from the breaks, where they had
wintered. These deer were twice the size of the Eastern species,
and as fat as well-fed cattle. They were almost as tame, too. A
big herd ran out of one glade, leaving behind several curious
does, which watched us intently for a moment, then bounded off
with the stiff, springy bounce that so amused me.
Sounder crossed fresh trails one after another; Jude, Tige and
Ranger followed him, but hesitated often, barked and whined; Don
started off once, to come sneaking back at Jones's stern call.
But surly old Moze either would not or could not obey, and away
he dashed. Bang! Jones sent a charge of fine shot after him. He
yelped, doubled up as if stung, and returned as quickly as he had
gone.
"Hyar, you white and black coon dog," said Jones, "get in behind,
and stay there."
We turned to the right after a while and got among shallow
ravines. Gigantic pines grew on the ridges and in the hollows,
and everywhere bluebells shone blue from the white frost. Why the
frost did not kill these beautiful flowers was a mystery to me.
The horses could not step without crushing them.
Before long, the ravines became so deep that we had to zigzag up
and down their sides, and to force our horses through the aspen
thickets in the hollows. Once from a ridge I saw a troop of deer,
and stopped to watch them. Twenty-seven I counted outright, but
there must have been three times that number. I saw the herd
break across a glade, and watched them until they were lost in
the forest. My companions having disappeared, I pushed on, and
while working out of a wide, deep hollow, I noticed the sunny
patches fade from the bright slopes, and the golden streaks
vanish among the pines. The sky had become overcast, and the
forest was darkening. The "Waa-hoo," I cried out returned in echo
only. The wind blew hard in my face, and the pines began to bend
and roar. An immense black cloud enveloped Buckskin.
Satan had carried me no farther than the next ridge, when the
forest frowned dark as twilight, and on the wind whirled flakes
of snow. Over the next hollow, a white pall roared through the
trees toward me. Hardly had I time to get the direction of the
trail, and its relation to the trees nearby, when the storm
enfolded me. Of his own accord Satan stopped in the lee of a
bushy spruce. The roar in the pines equaled that of the cave
under Niagara, and the bewildering, whirling mass of snow was as
difficult to see through as the tumbling, seething waterfall.
I was confronted by the possibility of passing the night there,
and calming my fears as best I could, hastily felt for my matches
and knife. The prospect of being lost the next day in a white
forest was also appalling, but I soon reassured myself that the
storm was only a snow squall, and would not last long. Then I
gave myself up to the pleasure and beauty of it. I could only
faintly discern the dim trees; the limbs of the spruce, which
partially protected me, sagged down to my head with their burden;
I had but to reach out my hand for a snowball. Both the wind and
snow seemed warm. The great flakes were like swan feathers on a
summer breeze. There was something joyous in the whirl of snow
and roar of wind. While I bent over to shake my holster, the
storm passed as suddenly as it had come. When I looked up, there
were the pines, like pillars of Parian marble, and a white
shadow, a vanishing cloud fled, with receding roar, on the wings
of the wind. Fast on this retreat burst the warm, bright sun.
I faced my course, and was delighted to see, through an opening
where the ravine cut out of the forest, the red-tipped peaks of
the canyon, and the vaulted dome I had named St. Marks. As I
started, a new and unexpected after-feature of the storm began to
manifest itself. The sun being warm, even to melt the snow, and
under the trees a heavy rain fell, and in the glades and hollows
a fine mist blew. Exquisite rainbows hung from white-tipped
branches and curved over the hollows. Glistening patches of snow
fell from the pines, and broke the showers.
In a quarter of an hour, I rode out of the forest to the rim wall
on dry ground. Against the green pinyons Frank's white horse
stood out conspicuously, and near him browsed the mounts of Jim
and Wallace. The boys were not in evidence. Concluding they had
gone down over the rim, I dismounted and kicked off my chaps, and
taking my rifle and camera, hurried to look the place over.
To my surprise and interest, I found a long section of rim wall
in ruins. It lay in a great curve between the two giant capes;
and many short, sharp, projecting promontories, like the teeth of
a saw, overhung the canyon. The slopes between these points of
cliff were covered with a deep growth of pinyon, and in these
places descent would be easy. Everywhere in the corrugated wall
were rents and rifts; cliffs stood detached like islands near a
shore; yellow crags rose out of green clefts; jumble of rocks,
and slides of rim wall, broken into blocks, massed under the
promontories.
The singular raggedness and wildness of the scene took hold of
me, and was not dispelled until the baying of Sounder and Don
roused action in me. Apparently the hounds were widely separated.
Then I heard Jim's yell. But it ceased when the wind lulled, and
I heard it no more. Running back from the point, I began to go
down. The way was steep, almost perpendicular; but because of the
great stones and the absence of slides, was easy. I took long
strides and jumps, and slid over rocks, and swung on pinyon
branches, and covered distance like a rolling stone. At the foot
of the rim wall, or at a line where it would have reached had it
extended regularly, the slope became less pronounced. I could
stand up without holding on to a support. The largest pinyons I
had seen made a forest that almost stood on end. These trees grew
up, down, and out, and twisted in curves, and many were two feet
in thickness. During my descent, I halted at intervals to listen,
and always heard one of the hounds, sometimes several. But as I
descended for a long time, and did not get anywhere or approach
the dogs, I began to grow impatient.
A large pinyon, with a dead top, suggested a good outlook, so I
climbed it, and saw I could sweep a large section of the slope.
It was a strange thing to look down hill, over the tips of green
trees. Below, perhaps four hundred yards, was a slide open for a
long way; all the rest was green incline, with many dead branches
sticking up like spars, and an occasional crag. From this perch I
heard the hounds; then followed a yell I thought was Jim's, and
after it the bellowing of Wallace's rifle. Then all was silent.
The shots had effectually checked the yelping of the hounds. I
let out a yell. Another cougar that Jones would not lasso! All at
once I heard a familiar sliding of small rocks below me, and I
watched the open slope with greedy eyes.
Not a bit surprised was I to see a cougar break out of the green,
and go tearing down the slide. In less than six seconds, I had
sent six steel-jacketed bullets after him. Puffs of dust rose
closer and closer to him as each bullet went nearer the mark and
the last showered him with gravel and turned him straight down
the canyon slope.
I slid down the dead pinyon and jumped nearly twenty feet to the
soft sand below, and after putting a loaded clip in my rifle,
began kangaroo leaps down the slope. When I reached the point
where the cougar had entered the slide, I called the hounds, but
they did not come nor answer me. Notwithstanding my excitement, I
appreciated the distance to the bottom of the slope before I
reached it. In my haste, I ran upon the verge of a precipice
twice as deep as the first rim wall, but one glance down sent me
shatteringly backward.
With all the breath I had left I yelled: "Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo!" From
the echoes flung at me, I imagined at first that my friends were
right on my ears. But no real answer came. The cougar had
probably passed along this second rim wall to a break, and had
gone down. His trail could easily be taken by any of the hounds.
Vexed and anxious, I signaled again and again. Once, long after
the echo had gone to sleep in some hollow canyon, I caught a
faint "Wa-a-ho-o-o!" But it might have come from the clouds. I
did not hear a hound barking above me on the slope; but suddenly,
to my amazement, Sounder's deep bay rose from the abyss below. I
ran along the rim, called till I was hoarse, leaned over so far
that the blood rushed to my head, and then sat down. I concluded
this canyon hunting could bear some sustained attention and
thought, as well as frenzied action.
Examination of my position showed how impossible it was to arrive
at any clear idea of the depth or size, or condition of the
canyon slopes from the main rim wall above. The second wall--a
stupendous, yellow-faced cliff two thousand feet high--curved to
my left round to a point in front of me. The intervening canyon
might have been a half mile wide, and it might have been ten
miles. I had become disgusted with judging distance. The slope
above this second wall facing me ran up far above my head; it
fairly towered, and this routed all my former judgments, because
I remembered distinctly that from the rim this yellow and green
mountain had appeared an insignificant little ridge. But it was
when I turned to gaze up behind me that I fully grasped the
immensity of the place. This wall and slope were the first two
steps down the long stairway of the Grand Canyon, and they
towered over me, straight up a half-mile in dizzy height. To
think of climbing it took my breath away.
Then again Sounder's bay floated distinctly to me, but it seemed
to come from a different point. I turned my ear to the wind, and
in the succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay
sounded from below and next from far to the right; another from
the left. I could not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic
properties of the amphitheater beneath me were too wonderful for
my comprehension.
As the bay grew sharper, and correspondingly more significant, I
became distracted, and focused a strained vision on the canyon
deeps. I looked along the slope to the notch where the wall
curved and followed the base line of the yellow cliff. Quite
suddenly I saw a very small black object moving with snail-like
slowness. Although it seemed impossible for Sounder to be so
small, I knew it was he. Having something now to judge distance
from, I conceived it to be a mile, without the drop. If I could
hear Sounder, he could hear me, so I yelled encouragement. The
echoes clapped back at me like so many slaps in the face. I
watched the hound until he disappeared among broken heaps of
stone, and long after that his bay floated to me.
Having rested, I essayed the discovery of some of my lost
companions or the hounds, and began to climb. Before I started,
however, I was wise enough to study the rim wall above, to
familiarize myself with the break so I would have a landmark.
Like horns and spurs of gold the pinnacles loomed up. Massed
closely together, they were not unlike an astounding pipe-organ.
I had a feeling of my littleness, that I was lost, and should
devote every moment and effort to the saving of my life. It did
not seem possible I could be hunting. Though I climbed
diagonally, and rested often, my heart pumped so hard I could
hear it. A yellow crag, with a round head like an old man's cane,
appealed to me as near the place where I last heard from Jim, and
toward it I labored. Every time I glanced up, the distance seemed
the same. A climb which I decided would not take more than
fifteen minutes, required an hour.
While resting at the foot of the crag, I heard more baying of
hounds, but for my life I could not tell whether the sound came
from up or down, and I commenced to feel that I did not much
care. Having signaled till I was hoarse, and receiving none but
mock answers, I decided that if my companions had not toppled
over a cliff, they were wisely withholding their breath.
Another stiff pull up the slope brought me under the rim wall,
and there I groaned, because the wall was smooth and shiny,
without a break. I plodded slowly along the base, with my rifle
ready. Cougar tracks were so numerous I got tired of looking at
them, but I did not forget that I might meet a tawny fellow or
two among those narrow passes of shattered rock, and under the
thick, dark pinyons. Going on in this way, I ran point-blank into
a pile of bleached bones before a cave. I had stumbled on the
lair of a lion and from the looks of it one like that of Old Tom.
I flinched twice before I threw a stone into the dark-mouthed
cave. What impressed me as soon as I found I was in no danger of
being pawed and clawed round the gloomy spot, was the fact of the
bones being there. How did they come on a slope where a man could
hardly walk? Only one answer seemed feasible. The lion had made
his kill one thousand feet above, had pulled his quarry to the
rim and pushed it over. In view of the theory that he might have
had to drag his victim from the forest, and that very seldom two
lions worked together, the fact of the location of the bones as
startling. Skulls of wild horses and deer, antlers and countless
bones, all crushed into shapelessness, furnished indubitable
proof that the carcasses had fallen from a great height. Most
remarkable of all was the skeleton of a cougar lying across that
of a horse. I believed--I could not help but believe that the
cougar had fallen with his last victim.
Not many rods beyond the lion den, the rim wall split into
towers, crags and pinnacles. I thought I had found my pipe organ,
and began to climb toward a narrow opening in the rim. But I lost
it. The extraordinarily cut-up condition of the wall made holding
to one direction impossible. Soon I realized I was lost in a
labyrinth. I tried to find my way down again, but the best I
could do was to reach the verge of a cliff, from which I could
see the canyon. Then I knew where I was, yet I did not know, so I
plodded wearily back. Many a blind cleft did I ascend in the maze
of crags. I could hardly crawl along, still I kept at it, for the
place was conducive to dire thoughts. A tower of Babel menaced me
with tons of loose shale. A tower that leaned more frightfully
than the Tower of Pisa threatened to build my tomb. Many a
lighthouse-shaped crag sent down little scattering rocks in
ominous notice.
After toiling in and out of passageways under the shadows of
these strangely formed cliffs, and coming again and again to the
same point, a blind pocket, I grew desperate. I named the
baffling place Deception Pass, and then ran down a slide. I knew
if I could keep my feet I could beat the avalanche. More by good
luck than management I outran the roaring stones and landed
safely. Then rounding the cliff below, I found myself on a narrow
ledge, with a wall to my left, and to the right the tips of
pinyon trees level with my feet.
Innocently and wearily I passed round a pillar-like corner of
wall, to come face to face with an old lioness and cubs. I heard
the mother snarl, and at the same time her ears went back flat,
and she crouched. The same fire of yellow eyes, the same grim
snarling expression so familiar in my mind since Old Tom had
leaped at me, faced me here.
My recent vow of extermination was entirely forgotten and one
frantic spring carried me over the ledge.
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