The Last of the Plainsmen by Zane Grey (free e novels txt) 📕

much solicitude as if he were my brother. “When you get out after anythin’—well, you’re hell. An’ think of the country we’re goin’ into. I know you’ve never seen the breaks of the Siwash, but I have, an’ it’s the worst an’ roughest country I ever saw. Breaks after breaks, like the ridges on a washboard, headin’ on the south slope of Buckskin, an’ runnin’ down, side by side, miles an’ miles, deeper an’ deeper, till they run into that awful hole. It will be a killin’ trip on men, horses an’ dogs. Now, Mr. Wallace, he’s been campin’ an’ roughin’ with the Navajos for months; he’s in some kind of shape, but—”

Frank concluded his remark with a doubtful pause.

“I’m some worried, too,” replied Jones. “But he would come. He stood the desert well enough; even the Mormons said that.”

In the ensuing silence the fire sputtered, the glare fitfully merged into dark shadows under the weird pinyons, and the wind moaned through the short branches.

“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 beeline 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