The Last of the Plainsmen
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Zane Grey >> The Last of the Plainsmen
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"Wal," drawled a slow, soft voice, "shore I reckon you're
hollerin' too soon. Frank's measly trick puttin' him on Spot
showed me. He rode out on Spot, an' he rode in on Spot. Shore
he'll stay."
It was not all the warmth of the blankets that glowed over me
then. The voices died away dreamily, and my eyelids dropped
sleepily tight. Late in the night I sat up suddenly, roused by
some unusual disturbance. The fire was dead; the wind swept with
a rush through the pinyons. From the black darkness came the
staccato chorus of coyotes. Don barked his displeasure; Sounder
made the welkin ring, and old Moze growled low and deep,
grumbling like muttered thunder. Then all was quiet, and I slept.
Dawn, rosy red, confronted me when I opened my eyes. Breakfast
was ready; Frank was packing Old Baldy; Jones talked to his horse
as he saddled him; Wallace came stooping his giant figure under
the pinyons; the dogs, eager and soft-eyed, sat around Jim and
begged. The sun peeped over the Pink Cliffs; the desert still lay
asleep, tranced in a purple and golden-streaked mist.
"Come, come!" said Jones, in his big voice. "We're slow; here's
the sun."
"Easy, easy," replied Frank, "we've all the time there is."
When Frank threw the saddle over Satan I interrupted him and said
I would care for my horse henceforward. Soon we were under way,
the horses fresh, the dogs scenting the keen, cold air.
The trail rolled over the ridges of pinyon and scrubby pine.
Occasionally we could see the black, ragged crest of Buckskin
above us. From one of these ridges I took my last long look back
at the desert, and engraved on my mind a picture of the red wall,
and the many-hued ocean of sand. The trail, narrow and
indistinct, mounted the last slow-rising slope; the pinyons
failed, and the scrubby pines became abundant. At length we
reached the top, and entered the great arched aisles of Buckskin
Forest. The ground was flat as a table. Magnificent pine trees,
far apart, with branches high and spreading, gave the eye glad
welcome. Some of these monarchs were eight feet thick at the base
and two hundred feet high. Here and there one lay, gaunt and
prostrate, a victim of the wind. The smell of pitch pine was
sweetly overpowering.
"When I went through here two weeks ago, the snow was a foot
deep, an' I bogged in places," said Frank. "The sun has been
oozin' round here some. I'm afraid Jones won't find any snow on
this end of Buckskin."
Thirty miles of winding trail, brown and springy from its thick
mat of pine needles, shaded always by the massive, seamy-barked
trees, took us over the extremity of Buckskin. Then we faced down
into the head of a ravine that ever grew deeper, stonier and
rougher. I shifted from side to side, from leg to leg in my
saddle, dismounted and hobbled before Satan, mounted again, and
rode on. Jones called the dogs and complained to them of the lack
of snow. Wallace sat his horse comfortably, taking long pulls at
his pipe and long gazes at the shaggy sides of the ravine. Frank,
energetic and tireless, kept the pack-horses in the trail. Jim
jogged on silently. And so we rode down to Oak Spring.
The spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of oaks and
Pinyons, under the shadow of three cliffs. Three ravines opened
here into an oval valley. A rude cabin of rough-hewn logs stood
near the spring.
"Get down, get down," sang out Frank. "We'll hang up here. Beyond
Oak is No-Man's-Land. We take our chances on water after we leave
here."
When we had unsaddled, unpacked, and got a fire roaring on the
wide stone hearth of the cabin, it was once again night.
"Boys," said Jones after supper, "we're now on the edge of the
lion country. Frank saw lion sign in here only two weeks ago; and
though the snow is gone, we stand a show of finding tracks in the
sand and dust. To-morrow morning, before the sun gets a chance at
the bottom of these ravines, we'll be up and doing. We'll each
take a dog and search in different directions. Keep the dog in
leash, and when he opens up, examine the ground carefully for
tracks. If a dog opens on any track that you are sure isn't
lion's, punish him. And when a lion-track is found, hold the dog
in, wait and signal. We'll use a signal I have tried and found
far-reaching and easy to yell. Waa-hoo! That's it. Once yelled it
means come. Twice means comes quickly. Three times means
come--danger!"
In one corner of the cabin was a platform of poles, covered with
straw. I threw the sleeping-bag on this, and was soon stretched
out. Misgivings as to my strength worried me before I closed my
eyes. Once on my back, I felt I could not rise; my chest was
sore; my cough deep and rasping. It seemed I had scarcely closed
my eyes when Jones's impatient voice recalled me from sweet
oblivion.
"Frank, Frank, it's daylight. Jim--boys!" he called.
I tumbled out in a gray, wan twilight. It was cold enough to make
the fire acceptable, but nothing like the morning before on
Buckskin.
"Come to the festal board," drawled Jim, almost before I had my
boots laced.
"Jones," said Frank, "Jim an' I'll ooze round here to-day.
There's lots to do, an' we want to have things hitched right
before we strike for the Siwash. We've got to shoe Old Baldy, an'
if we can't get him locoed, it'll take all of us to do it."
The light was still gray when Jones led off with Don, Wallace
with Sounder and I with Moze. Jones directed us to separate,
follow the dry stream beds in the ravines, and remember his
instructions given the night before.
The ravine to the right, which I entered, was choked with huge
stones fallen from the cliff above, and pinyons growing thick;
and I wondered apprehensively how a man could evade a wild animal
in such a place, much less chase it. Old Moze pulled on his chain
and sniffed at coyote and deer tracks. And every time he evinced
interest in such, I cut him with a switch, which, to tell the
truth, he did not notice. I thought I heard a shout, and holding
Moze tight, I waited and listened.
"Waa-hoo--waa-hoo!" floated on the air, rather deadened as if it
had come from round the triangular cliff that faced into the
valley. Urging and dragging Moze, I ran down the ravine as fast
as I could, and soon encountered Wallace coming from the middle
ravine. "Jones," he said excitedly, "this way--there's the
signal again." We dashed in haste for the mouth of the third
ravine, and came suddenly upon Jones, kneeling under a pinyon
tree. "Boys, look!" he exclaimed, as he pointed to the ground.
There, clearly defined in the dust, was a cat track as big as my
spread hand, and the mere sight of it sent a chill up my spine.
"There's a lion track for you; made by a female, a two-year-old;
but can't say if she passed here last night. Don won't take the
trail. Try Moze."
I led Moze to the big, round imprint, and put his nose down into
it. The old hound sniffed and sniffed, then lost interest.
"Cold!" ejaculated Jones. "No go. Try Sounder. Come, old boy,
you've the nose for it."
He urged the relucant hound forward. Sounder needed not to be
shown the trail; he stuck his nose in it, and stood very quiet
for a long moment; then he quivered slightly, raised his nose and
sought the next track. Step by step he went slowly, doubtfully.
All at once his tail wagged stiffly.
"Look at that!" cried Jones in delight. "He's caught a scent when
the others couldn't. Hyah, Moze, get back. Keep Moze and Don
back; give him room."
Slowly Sounder paced up the ravine, as carefully as if he were
traveling on thin ice. He passed the dusty, open trail to a scaly
ground with little bits of grass, and he kept on.
We were electrified to hear him give vent to a deep bugle-blast
note of eagerness.
"By George, he's got it, boys!" exclaimed Jones, as he lifted the
stubborn, struggling hound off the trail. "I know that bay. It
means a lion passed here this morning. And we'll get him up as
sure as you're alive. Come, Sounder. Now for the horses."
As we ran pell-mell into the little glade, where Jim sat mending
some saddle trapping, Frank rode up the trail with the horses.
"Well, I heard Sounder," he said with his genial smile.
"Somethin's comin' off, eh? You'll have to ooze round some to
keep up with that hound."
I saddled Satan with fingers that trembled in excitement, and
pushed my little Remington automatic into the rifle holster.
"Boys, listen," said our leader. "We're off now in the beginning
of a hunt new to you. Remember no shooting, no blood-letting,
except in self-defense. Keep as close to me as you can. Listen
for the dogs, and when you fall behind or separate, yell out the
signal cry. Don't forget this. We're bound to lose each other.
Look out for the spikes and branches on the trees. If the dogs
split, whoever follows the one that trees the lion must wait
there till the rest come up. Off now! Come, Sounder; Moze, you
rascal, hyah! Come, Don, come, Puppy, and take your medicine."
Except Moze, the hounds were all trembling and running eagerly to
and fro. When Sounder was loosed, he led them in a bee-line to
the trail, with us cantering after. Sounder worked exactly as
before, only he followed the lion tracks a little farther up the
ravine before he bayed. He kept going faster and faster,
occasionally letting out one deep, short yelp. The other hounds
did not give tongue, but eager, excited, baffled, kept at his
heels. The ravine was long, and the wash at the bottom, up which
the lion had proceeded, turned and twisted round boulders large
as houses, and led through dense growths of some short, rough
shrub. Now and then the lion tracks showed plainly in the sand.
For five miles or more Sounder led us up the ravine, which began
to contract and grow steep. The dry stream bed got to be full of
thickets of branchless saplings, about the poplar--tall,
straight, size of a man's arm, and growing so close we had to
press them aside to let our horses through.
Presently Sounder slowed up and appeared at fault. We found him
puzzling over an open, grassy patch, and after nosing it for a
little while, he began skirting the edge.
"Cute dog!" declared Jones. "That Sounder will make a lion
chaser. Our game has gone up here somewhere."
Sure enough, Sounder directly gave tongue from the side of the
ravine. It was climb for us now. Broken shale, rocks of all
dimensions, pinyons down and pinyons up made ascending no easy
problem. We had to dismount and lead the horses, thus losing
ground. Jones forged ahead and reached the top of the ravine
first. When Wallace and I got up, breathing heavily, Jones and
the hounds were out of sight. But Sounder kept voicing his clear
call, giving us our direction. Off we flew, over ground that was
still rough, but enjoyable going compared to the ravine slopes.
The ridge was sparsely covered with cedar and pinyon, through
which, far ahead, we pretty soon spied Jones. Wallace signaled,
and our leader answered twice. We caught up with him on the brink
of another ravine deeper and craggier than the first, full of
dead, gnarled pinyon and splintered rocks.
"This gulch is the largest of the three that head in at Oak
Spring," said Jones. "Boys, don't forget your direction. Always
keep a feeling where camp is, always sense it every time you
turn. The dogs have gone down. That lion is in here somewhere.
Maybe he lives down in the high cliffs near the spring and came
up here last night for a kill he's buried somewhere. Lions never
travel far. Hark! Hark! There's Sounder and the rest of them!
They've got the scent; they've all got it! Down, boys, down, and
ride!"
With that he crashed into the cedar in a way that showed me how
impervious he was to slashing branches, sharp as thorns, and
steep descent and peril.
Wallace's big sorrel plunged after him and the rolling stones
cracked. Suffering as I was by this time, with cramp in my legs,
and torturing pain, I had to choose between holding my horse in
or falling off; so I chose the former and accordingly got behind.
Dead cedar and pinyon trees lay everywhere, with their contorted
limbs reaching out like the arms of a devil-fish. Stones blocked
every opening. Making the bottom of the ravine after what seemed
an interminable time, I found the tracks of Jones and Wallace. A
long "Waa-hoo!" drew me on; then the mellow bay of a hound
floated up the ravine. Satan made up time in the sandy stream
bed, but kept me busily dodging overhanging branches. I became
aware, after a succession of efforts to keep from being strung on
pinyons, that the sand before me was clean and trackless. Hauling
Satan up sharply, I waited irresolutely and listened. Then from
high up the ravine side wafted down a medley of yelps and barks.
"Waa-hoo, waa-hoo!" ringing down the slope, pealed against the
cliff behind me, and sent the wild echoes flying. Satan, of his
own accord, headed up the incline. Surprised at this, I gave him
free rein. How he did climb! Not long did it take me to discover
that he picked out easier going than I had. Once I saw Jones
crossing a ledge far above me, and I yelled our signal cry. The
answer returned clear and sharp; then its echo cracked under the
hollow cliff, and crossing and recrossing the ravine, it died at
last far away, like the muffled peal of a bell-buoy. Again I
heard the blended yelping of the hounds, and closer at hand. I
saw a long, low cliff above, and decided that the hounds were
running at the base of it. Another chorus of yelps, quicker,
wilder than the others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I knew
the dogs had jumped game of some kind. Satan knew it as well as
I, for he quickened his pace and sent the stones clattering
behind him.
I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no tracks in the
dust of ages that had crumbled in its shadow, nor did I hear the
dogs. Considering how close they had seemed, this was strange. I
halted and listened. Silence reigned supreme. The ragged cracks
in the cliff walls could have harbored many a watching lion, and
I cast an apprehensive glance into their dark confines. Then I
turned my horse to get round the cliff and over the ridge. When I
again stopped, all I could hear was the thumping of my heart and
the labored panting of Satan. I came to a break in the cliff, a
steep place of weathered rock, and I put Satan to it. He went up
with a will. From the narrow saddle of the ridge-crest I tried to
take my bearings. Below me slanted the green of pinyon, with the
bleached treetops standing like spears, and uprising yellow
stones. Fancying I heard a gunshot, I leaned a straining ear
against the soft breeze. The proof came presently in the
unmistakable report of Jones's blunderbuss. It was repeated
almost instantly, giving reality to the direction, which was down
the slope of what I concluded must be the third ravine. Wondering
what was the meaning of the shots, and chagrined because I was
out of the race, but calmer in mind, I let Satan stand.
Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark tingled in my ears.
It belonged to old Moze. Soon I distinguished a rattling of
stones and the sharp, metallic clicks of hoofs striking rocks.
Then into a space below me loped a beautiful deer, so large that
at first I took it for an elk. Another sharp bark, nearer this
time, told the tale of Moze's dereliction. In a few moments he
came in sight, running with his tongue out and his head high.
"Hyah, you old gladiator! hyah! hyah!" I yelled and yelled again.
Moze passed over the saddle on the trail of the deer, and his
short bark floated back to remind me how far he was from a lion
dog.
Then I divined the meaning of the shotgun reports. The hounds had
crossed a fresher trail than that of the lion, and our leader had
discovered it. Despite a keen appreciation of Jones's task, I
gave way to amusement, and repeated Wallace's paradoxical
formula: "Pet the lions and shoot the hounds."
So I headed down the ravine, looking for a blunt, bold crag,
which I had descried from camp. I found it before long, and
profiting by past failures to judge of distance, gave my first
impression a great stretch, and then decided that I was more than
two miles from Oak.
Long after two miles had been covered, and I had begun to
associate Jim's biscuits with a certain soft seat near a ruddy
fire, I was apparently still the same distance from my landmark
crag. Suddenly a slight noise brought me to a halt. I listened
intently. Only an indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed
the impressive stillness. It might have been the weathering that
goes on constantly, and it might have been an animal. I inclined
to the former idea till I saw Satan's ears go up. Jones had told
me to watch the ears of my horse, and short as had been my
acquaintance with Satan, I had learned that he always discovered
things more quickly than I. So I waited patiently.
From time to time a rattling roll of pebbles, almost musical,
caught my ear. It came from the base of the wall of yellow cliff
that barred the summit of all those ridges. Satan threw up his
head and nosed the breeze. The delicate, almost stealthy sounds,
the action of my horse, the waiting drove my heart to extra work.
The breeze quickened and fanned my cheek, and borne upon it came
the faint and far-away bay of a hound. It came again and again,
each time nearer. Then on a stronger puff of wind rang the clear,
deep, mellow call that had given Sounder his beautiful name.
Never it seemed had I heard music so blood-stirring. Sounder was
on the trail of something, and he had it headed my way. Satan
heard, shot up his long ears, and tried to go ahead; but I
restrained and soothed him into quiet.
Long moments I sat there, with the poignant consciousness of the
wildness of the scene, of the significant rattling of the stones
and of the bell-tongued hound baying incessantly, sending warm
joy through my veins, the absorption in sensations new, yielding
only to the hunting instinct when Satan snorted and quivered.
Again the deep-toned bay rang into the silence with its stirring
thrill of life. And a sharp , rattling of stones just above
brought another snort from Satan.
Across an open space in the pinyons a gray form flashed. I leaped
off Satan and knelt to get a better view under the trees. I soon
made out another deer passing along the base of the cliff.
Mounting again, I rode up to the cliff to wait for Sounder.
A long time I had to wait for the hound. It proved that the
atmosphere was as deceiving in regard to sound as to sight.
Finally Sounder came running along the wall. I got off to
intercept him. The crazy fellow--he had never responded to my
overtures of friendship--uttered short, sharp yelps of delight,
and actually leaped into my arms. But I could not hold him. He
darted upon the trail again and paid no heed to my angry shouts.
With a resolve to overhaul him, I jumped on Satan and whirled
after the hound.
The black stretched out with such a stride that I was at pains to
keep my seat. I dodged the jutting rocks and projecting snags;
felt stinging branches in my face and the rush of sweet, dry
wind. Under the crumbling walls, over slopes of weathered stone
and droppings of shelving rock, round protruding noses of cliff,
over and under pinyons Satan thundered. He came out on the top of
the ridge, at the narrow back I had called a saddle. Here I
caught a glimpse of Sounder far below, going down into the ravine
from which I had ascended some time before. I called to him, but
I might as well have called to the wind.
Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward
camp. I lay forward on his neck and let him have his will. Far
down the ravine I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized
the cracking of iron-shod hoofs against stone; then voices.
Turning an abrupt bend in the sandy wash, I ran into Jones and
Wallace.
"Fall in! Line up in the sad procession!" said Jones. "Tige and
the pup are faithful. The rest of the dogs are somewhere between
the Grand Canyon and the Utah desert."
I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze and Sounder as
much as conscience would permit.
"Hard luck!" commented Jones. "Just as the hounds jumped the
cougar--Oh! they bounced him out of the rocks all right--don't
you remember, just under that cliff wall where you and Wallace
came up to me? Well, just as they jumped him, they ran right into
fresh deer tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that's too much for
any hounds, except those trained for lions. I shot at Moze twice,
but couldn't turn him. He has to be hurt, they've all got to be
hurt to make them understand."
Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones's wake, and of
sundry knocks and bruises he had sustained, of pieces of corduroy
he had left decorating the cedars and of a most humiliating
event, where a gaunt and bare pinyon snag had penetrated under
his belt and lifted him, mad and kicking, off his horse.
"These Western nags will hang you on a line every chance they
get," declared Jones, "and don't you overlook that. Well, there's
the cabin. We'd better stay here a few days or a week and break
in the dogs and horses, for this day's work was apple pie to what
we'll get in the Siwash."
I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad to see Wallace
fall off his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin. When I got
my saddle off Satan, had given him a drink and hobbled him, I
crept into the cabin and dropped like a log. I felt as if every
bone in my body was broken and my flesh was raw. I got gleeful
gratification from Wallace's complaints, and Jones's remark that
he had a stitch in his back. So ended the first chase after
cougars.
CHAPTER 5. OAK SPRING
Moze and Don and Sounder straggled into camp next morning,
hungry, footsore and scarred; and as they limped in, Jones met
them with characteristic speech: "Well, you decided to come in
when you got hungry and tired? Never thought of how you fooled
me, did you? Now, the first thing you get is a good licking."
He tied them in a little log pen near the cabin and whipped them
soundly. And the next few days, while Wallace and I rested, he
took them out separately and deliberately ran them over coyote
and deer trails. Sometimes we heard his stentorian yell as a
forerunner to the blast from his old shotgun. Then again we heard
the shots unheralded by the yell. Wallace and I waxed warm under
the collar over this peculiar method of training dogs, and each
of us made dire threats. But in justice to their implacable
trainer, the dogs never appeared to be hurt; never a spot of
blood flecked their glossy coats, nor did they ever come home
limping. Sounder grew wise, and Don gave up, but Moze appeared
not to change.
"All hands ready to rustle," sang out Frank one morning. "Old
Baldy's got to be shod."
This brought us all, except Jones, out of the cabin, to see the
object of Frank's anxiety tied to a nearby oak. At first I failed
to recognize Old Baldy. Vanished was the slow, sleepy, apathetic
manner that had characterized him; his ears lay back on his head;
fire flashed from his eyes. When Frank threw down a kit-bag,
which emitted a metallic clanking, Old Baldy sat back on his
haunches, planted his forefeet deep in the ground and plainly as
a horse could speak, said "No!"
"Sometimes he's bad, and sometimes worse," growled Frank.
"Shore he's plumb bad this mornin'," replied Jim.
Frank got the three of us to hold Baldy's head and pull him up,
then he ventured to lift a hind foot over his line. Old Baldy
straightened out his leg and sent Frank sprawling into the dirt.
Twice again Frank patiently tried to hold a hind leg, with the
same result; and then he lifted a forefoot. Baldy uttered a very
intelligible snort, bit through Wallace's. glove, yanked Jim off
his feet, and scared me so that I let go his forelock. Then he
broke the rope which held him to the tree. There was a plunge, a
scattering of men, though Jim still valiantly held on to Baldy's
head, and a thrashing of scrub pinyon, where Baldy reached out
vigorously with his hind feet. But for Jim, he would have
escaped.
"What's all the row?" called Jones from the cabin. Then from the
door, taking in the situation, he yelled: "Hold on, Jim! Pull
down on the ornery old cayuse!"
He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, one whirling
round his head. The slender rope straightened with a whiz and
whipped round Baldy's legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled
it tight, then fastened it with nimble fingers to the tree.
"Let go! let go! Jim!" he yelled, whirling the other lasso. The
loop flashed and fell over Baldy's head and tightened round his
neck. Jones threw all the weight of his burly form on the lariat,
and Baldy crashed to the ground, rolled, tussled, screamed, and
then lay on his back, kicking the air with three free legs. "Hold
this," ordered Jones, giving the tight rope to Frank. Whereupon
he grabbed my lasso from the saddle, roped Baldy's two forefeet,
and pulled him down on his side. This lasso he fastened to a
scrub cedar.
"He's chokin'!" said Frank.
"Likely he is," replied Jones shortly. "It'll do him good." But
with his big hands he drew the coil loose and slipped it down
over Baldy's nose, where he tightened it again.
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