the Young Lion Hunter (1998) Page 8

  Ken was eighteen feet below the cougar, on the opposite side of the tree. He broke off a snag and thrashed and pounded; then throwing it he hit the beast square in the side. There was an explosion of spits and snarls and hisses.

  "Thet's the way," yelled Hiram. "Make him think you're goin' to kill him. Go on up now, hurry! Don't hesitate. He'll back out on thet thick branch."

  It surely must have tried Ken's nerve to obey the hunter. I thought that Ken could have been excused if he had not obeyed. But he climbed on and slowly the cougar backed out on the limb.

  "Shore, Ken, you're more at home in thet tree than the critter himself," cried Jim.

  And so it really appeared, for Ken's movements were rapid and certain, his lithe, powerful form seemed to glide up between the branches without effort, and the lion was awkward and slow, plainly showing he feared he might fall.

  "Thar, Ken, thet'll do," shouted Hiram, as Ken reached a point a little above the cougar. "Now you're right. Make a noose, not too big, an' sort of pitch it...Try again, youngster, an' be deliberate. You're nervous. You're perfectly safe, 'cause if he gits a notion to start fer you jest climb up farther. He'll never foller you up...Thar!...You ketched him thet time. Whoop!"

  We all whooped, and I thought Jim Williams would stand on his head. He had come to exhibit the most extraordinary delight in the achievements of the lads.

  "Draw the noose tight...Jest pull easy-like, fer he's bitin' at the rope, an' if you jerk too hard you'll--Thar! I could hey done no better myself. Come down now...No, don't climb down. Slide down on the rope."

  Ken had not spoken a word since he had gone up the pine, and now he turned his tense white face down to us, and looked as if he had not heard aright.

  "Slide down the rope," yelled Hiram. "It'll hold."

  With that Ken gave the lasso a strong pull and the lion braced himself. Then Ken stepped off the limb and slid down the lasso, hand over hand, while the lion held his weight with apparent ease. Ken was breathing hard and he had the expression of a man whom strong, thrilling excitement had carried through a deed the reality of which he scarcely appreciated.

  "Make your noose ready," yelled Hiram to Jim.

  I had dropped my rope to help them pull the animal from his perch. The branches broke in a shower; then the lion, hissing, snarling, whirling, plunged down. He nearly jerked the rope out of our hands, but we lowered him and then Hiram noosed his hind paws in a flash.

  "Make fast your rope," shouted he. "Thar, thet's good! Now let him down--easy."

  As soon as the lion touched ground we let go the lasso, which whipped up and over the branch. He became a round, yellow, rapidly moving ball. Jim was the first to catch the loose lasso and he checked the rolling cougar. Hiram leaped to assist him and the two of them straightened out the struggling animal, while I swung another noose. On the second throw I caught a front paw.

  "Pull hard! Stretch her out!" yelled Hiram. He grasped up a stout piece of wood and pushed it at the lion. He caught it in his mouth, making the splinters fly. Hiram shoved the head of the beast back on the ground and pressed his brawny knee on the bar of wood.

  "The collar! The collar! Quick!" he called.

  I threw the chain and collar to him, which in a moment he had buckled on.

  "Thar, we've got him!" he said. "It's only a short way over to camp, so we'll drag him without muzzlin'."

  As he rose the lion lurched, and, reaching for him, fastened its fangs in his leg. Hiram roared. Jim and I yelled. And Ken, though frightened, was so obsessed with the idea of getting a picture that he began to fumble with the shutter of his camera.

  "Grab the chain! Pull him off!" bawled Hiram.

  I ran in and took up the chain with both hands, and tugged with all my might. Jim, too, had all his weight on a lasso. Between the two of us we choked the hold of the lion loose, but he tore Hiram's leather legging. Then I dropped the chain and jumped.

  "Hyar! Hyar!" exploded Hiram to Ken. "Do you think more of a picture than savin' my life?" Having expressed this not unreasonable protest, he untied the lasso that Jim had made fast to a small sapling.

  Then we three men, forming points of a triangle around an animated center, began a march through the forest that for variety of action and uproar beat any show I ever saw.

  So rare was it that the Navajo came out of hiding and, straightway forgetting his reverence and fear, began to execute a ghost dance, or war dance, or at any rate some kind of an Indian dance, along the side lines.

  There were moments when the lion had Jim and me on the ground and Hiram wobbling; others when he ran on his bound legs and chased the two in front and dragged the one behind; others when he came within an ace of getting his teeth into somebody.

  We had caught a tartar. We dared not let him go, and though Hiram evidently ordered it, no one made his rope fast to a tree. There was no chance. The lion was in the air three parts of the time and the fourth he was invisible in dust. The lassos were each thirty feet long, but even with that we could just barely keep out of reach.

  Then came the climax, as it always comes in a lion hunt, unexpectedly and with lightning swiftness. We were nearing the bottom of the second hollow, well spread out, lassos taut, facing one another. I stumbled and the lion leaped. The weight of both brought Jim over, sliding and slipping, with his rope slackening. The leap of the lion carried him within reach of Hiram; and as he raised himself the cougar reached a big paw for him just as Jim threw all his strength and bulk on his lasso.

  The seat of Hiram's trousers came away with the claws of the lion. Then he fell backward, overcome by Jim's desperate lunge. Hiram sprang up with the velocity of an Arab tumbler, and his scarlet face, working spasmodically, and his moving lips, showed how utterly unable he was to give expression to his rage. I had a stitch in my side that nearly killed me, but laugh I would if I died for it.

  But it was no laughing matter for Hiram. He volleyed and thundered at us.

  All the while, however, we had been running from the lion, which brought us, before we realized it, right into camp. Our captive lions cut up fearfully at the hubbub, and the horses stampeded in terror.

  "Whoa!" yelled Hiram, whether to us or the struggling cougar no one knew. But Navvy thought Hiram addressed the cougar.

  "Whoa!" repeated Navvy. "No savvy whoa! No savvy whoa!" which proved conclusively that the Navajo had understanding as well as wit.

  Soon we had another captive safely chained and growling away in tune with the others. I went back to untie the hounds, to find them sulky and out of sorts from being so unceremoniously treated. They noisily trailed the lion into camp, where, finding him chained, they gave up in disgust.

  Hiram soon recovered from his anger and laughed loud and long at what he considered the most disgraceful trick he had ever had played on him by a cougar.

  Then as we sat in the shade resting, well content with ourselves, Hiram and Jim and Ken began to fire questions at Hal. The lad was, as usual, not inclined to talk. But the old hunter's admiration and Jim Williams' persuasive questions at length proved too much for Hal. His story of getting the lion to the tent of the rangers tallied precisely with the manner in which Hiram had explained it.

  "Wal, I reckoned on thet," said Hiram. "But, youngster, how did you ever git the lion inside the rangers' tent? Thet stumps me."

  Hal appeared surprised.

  "Why, I didn't put the lion in the tent. And the lion didn't go in the tent. When I tied the lasso to the tent-stake Tom began to wake up and buck. He lunged back near the door of the tent and began to roar and spit. Just then I guess Sells woke up and began to bawl. I crawled away and got behind a tree. Then I watched. It looked to me as if the rangers just got up and ran here and there with the tent over them. Gee! but didn't they howl. But I know positively that the lion was not in the tent at all."

  "How on earth did that ranger get all scratched up?" I asked.

  "'Peared to me them scratches were sorter unlike cougar scratches," remarked Hiram. "Thet
fellar scratched himself wrastlin' round."

  "Shore, then, thet story of Sells was a big yarn. Why, the way he talked you'd thought the tent was full of cougars," said Jim.

  "I reckon Sells lied, but he believed what he said. Probably he waked up an' seein' the cougar between the flaps of the tent he was so scared thet he imagined all the rest. An' of course his yellin' thet way was enough to scare the other rangers into fits. Why, I was scared myself."

  We had a good laugh at the expense of Sells and his companions, and our conviction was that they had paid dearly for their spying visit.

  "Wal, then what did you do?" went on Hiram.

  "I untied one of the hounds, the first I got my hands on," replied Hal. "I wanted to go off in the woods, because I thought the rangers would find out I put up the job on them. And I wanted company, so I took the dog. I sat up awhile and then fell asleep. When I awoke the woods were getting gray. It was near daylight. The pup had left me, and presently I heard him barking way off in the woods. I went after him and when I found him he had the lion treed. That's all."

  "Oh, that's all, eh?" inquired Ken, with a queer look at his brother. "Well, I hope it holds you for a while."

  "Youngster, I can't find the heart to scold you now," said Hiram, soberly. "But you was careless of yourself an' the feelin's of others."

  "Shore, kid, you was plumb bad," added Jim. "As it turned out thet lion stunt tickled me most to death. It shore did. But mebbe the luck of it was accident. Don't pull off no more tricks like thet."

  I added my advice to that of the others, but I observed that Hal, though he appeared contrite and subdued, did not make any rash promise as to future behavior.

  Chapter XII - NAVVY'S WATERLOO

  That night we were sitting around the campfire, and Hiram was puffing at his pipe in a way that seemed rather favorable for the telling of a story he had long promised the boys.

  It was an unusually cool night, so cool that we all hugged the fire except Hal. He hung back in the shadow. This action I would scarcely have noted particularly had he not made elaborate efforts to attract attention to some real or pretended task. I had come to regard Hal with considerable doubt, and felt safer to watch him from a distance.

  Navvy sat right upon the fire, stolid as usual, with his bright black eyes fixed upon the red embers. From time to time he puffed at a cigarette. Ken had a seat back of the Indian, just out of the severest heat, and he left it occasionally to stir and rake some coals over a potato he was baking.

  "It's shore fine round the camp-fire," remarked Jim, spreading his hands to the blaze.

  "Thar's snow in the wind," said Hiram. "It reminds me--"

  Just then Ken poked the embers again. Startling as a flash of lightning the camp-fire blew up in a blinding flare. It burst into a huge light, and exploded with a boom into millions of sparks. Pieces of burning wood flew every way. Red embers and hot ashes and showers of sparks covered us. I heard the Indian yell, and Ken yelled still louder. Then came black darkness.

  We were all threshing about, scared out of our wits, and trying to beat the fire from our burning clothes. That was a pretty lively moment. When the excitement quieted down a little I heard Jim's wrathful voice. Hiram was so astounded he could not be angry.

  "Dog-gone me!" he ejaculated. "What in the tarnal dickens was thet? Youngster, was thet a potato you was bakin' or a dinnamite bomb?"

  "By George!" declared Ken, breathing hard. "You've got one on me! I've no idea what happened. Make a light. I'm burned alive."

  It developed presently, when Hiram got a fire blazing some yards distant from the dangerous camp-fire site, that Ken had been pretty severely burned. His face was black with charcoal. It took several moments for us to put out the burning holes in his shirt and trousers. Ken's hands trembled, and when he washed the black from his face we saw that he was pale. He had been badly frightened, but fortunately had escaped serious injury.

  For a little while we all talked at once so that I could hardly grasp anything we said. The Indian came warily out of the darkness, and this was the first we had seen of him since the explosion. We had forgotten all about him. He had been sitting near the fire, but, though apparently more frightened than Ken, he had not been so badly burned.

  "Hey! Hal, where are you?" called Ken. "Here," came a response from the woodpile.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Sure. Never touched me," replied Hal. "Scared you though, I'll bet."

  "It'd take more than a busting log of fire-wood to scare me."

  Ken was silent. We were all silent, revolving Hal's cool explanation of the explosion.

  "Oh-h--it would!" finally exclaimed Ken, and there was a world of meaning in his peculiar tone of voice.

  Hiram growled low and deep. Jim was shaking in silent mirth. And the Navajo was staring from one to the other of us, as if he did not know what to make of such company. He kept feeling his shirt, and this action led me to the discovery that his shirt was wet. Not only was it wet, but hot.

  "Hiram, the Indian's shirt is all wet, and mighty hot, too," I said. "Did you have a pot of water on the fire? It might have tipped and caused the blow-up."

  It was plain from the fact that Hiram did not trust his memory, and went to look over his outfit of pans and pots, that he was much disturbed in mind.

  "Mebbe--mebbe," he said, as he fumbled among them. "Dog-gone it!--no! Hyar they all are, an' nary one wet."

  "Jim, can you smell powder?" I asked.

  "No. Thet shore must have been a bustin' log," replied Jim.

  "That was a steam explosion, my man," I replied. "Somebody put a sealed fruit-can in the fire, or buried a jar of water in the ashes."

  No more was said on the moment, but later, when Hal and Jim were tying up the dogs, Ken broke out emphatically:

  "Another job of the kid's! Whatever it was it certainly got me. I was never so scared in my life. Hiram, isn't there any way we can scare Hal? It's got to be done."

  "Wal, youngster, I'll think on it."

  "Let's play a trick on Hal, give him a dose of his own medicine. Hiram, it's a wonder to me he hasn't done something to you and Dick. He will yet."

  "Wal, youngster, I reckon you'll find Leslie an' me accomplices in any reasonable trick on thet thar lad."

  "It'll be great...But what he'll do to us, if he ever finds it out, will be a-plenty."

  By this time Ken seemed obsessed with his idea, yet all the while he showed a strange half-reluctance, as if he bore in mind Hal's remarkable powers of retaliation.

  "But how?" he asked. "Can we coax Jim into the scheme?"

  "Leave that to me, Ken," I said. "Jim would fall victim to any fun. Now, we'll get Jim to fire Hal out of his bed, and we'll all refuse to take him in ours on some pretext or other. Then the Navajo will naturally gravitate to Hal, and we'll find some way to scare him."

  Next morning I found a favorable opportunity, wherein I approached Jim with my proposition and won him over easily. He had weakness of that sort.

  We hunted that day, and at supper Jim groaned and took as much trouble in sitting down as if his leg was in splints.

  "What's wrong with you?" inquired Hiram, with extraordinary sympathy.

  "It's my leg."

  "Wal?"

  "You know I told you. It's thet place where Hal has been kickin' me every night in his sleep."

  "Wha--at?" stammered Hal. His eyes opened wide.

  "Lad, I'm sorry to hey to hurt your feelin's," replied Jim, gently. "But I've shore stood it as long as I could. You're one of them nightmare sleepers, an' when you git after anythin', or anythin' gits after you, then you kick. I never seen a broncho thet could hold a candle to you. No matter how you lay, on your side or back or belly, you can kick, an' allus in the same place. I was throwed From a horse once an' hurt this leg, an' right there's where you've been kickin' me."

  Hal looked as if he wanted to cry. He seemed unmistakably, genuinely ashamed of himself.

  "Oh, Jim, I know I have crazy dreams
and thrash about in my sleep. Why--why didn't you kick back--kick me out of bed?"

  "Shore, lad, you needn't feel bad about it. I ain't blamin' you. I realize we're havin' some pretty warm times after these cougars, enough to make any feller hey nightmares."

  "I won't trouble you again that way," said Hal, earnestly. "I'll sleep somewhere else...Hiram, can I come in your tent--way over on one side, far from you?"

  "Youngster, I wish you hedn't asked me," replied Hiram, in apparent distress. "Fer I've got to refuse. I'm gittin' old, Hal, an' I must hey my rest. You'd keep me awake."

  Pride and mortification held Hal back from further appeal. He finished his supper without another word. Then he took the axe and cutting down some small pines began to make a shack. Navvy got so interested that he offered to help, and to our great delight, when the shack was completed Hal pointed to it and asked the Indian to share it with him.

  The next day we had some strenuous chases; the hounds split on fresh trails, and we were separated from one another. One by one we got back to camp, and it was a mooted question which were the most worn out, hunters or hounds. It was about dark when Jim came riding in.

  "Fellers, you shore missed the wind-up," he said, throwing the skin of a cougar on the ground.

  "Wal, dog-gone it, you hed to kill one!" exclaimed Hiram.

  "Shore. Curley and Tan treed thet one, an' I yelled fer you till I lost my voice. He started down, finally, an' as I was afraid he'd kill a dog I hed to kill him. When I got the skin I started to work up to the place I left my hoss. It's bad climbin'. I got on a side of a cliff an' saw where I could work out, if I could climb a smooth place. So I tried. There was little cracks an' ridges for my hands an' feet. All to once, just above I heard a low growl. Lookin' up I saw a big lion, bigger'n any we've chased, an' he was pokin' his head out of a hole, an' shore tellin' me to come no farther. I couldn't let go with either hand to reach my gun, because I'd have fallen; so I yelled at him with all my might. He spit at me an' then walked out of the hole, over the bench, as proud as a lord, an' jumped down where I couldn't see him no more. I climbed out all right, but he'd gone. An' I tell you for a minute he shore made me sweat."