Tales of lonely trails Part 22

I had backed up the slope. Emett faced the lion, noose ready, waiting for a favorable chance to rope a front paw. The lion crouched low and tense, only his long tail las.h.i.+ng back and forth across my la.s.so.

Emett threw the loop in front of the spread paws, now half sunk into the dust.

"Ease up; ease up," said he. "I'll tease him to jump into the noose."

I let my rope sag. Emett poked a stick into the lion's face. All at once I saw the slack in the la.s.so which was tied to the lion's chain.

Before I could yell to warn my comrade the beast leaped. My rope burned as it tore through my hands. The lion sailed into the air, his paws wide-spread like wings, and one of them struck Emett on the head and rolled him on the slope. I jerked back on my rope only to find it had slipped its hold.

"He slugged me one," remarked Emett, calmly rising and picking up his hat. "Did he break the skin?"

"No, but he tore your hat band off," I replied. "Let's keep at him."

For a few moments or an hour--no one will ever know how long--we ran round him, raising the dust, scattering the stones, breaking the branches, dodging his onslaughts. He leaped at us to the full length of his tether, sailing right into our faces, a fierce, uncowed, tigerish beast. If it had not been for the collar and swivel he would have choked himself a hundred times. Quick as a cat, supple, powerful, tireless, he kept on the go, whirling, bounding, leaping, rolling, till it seemed we would never catch him.

"If anything breaks, he'll get one of us," cried Emett. "I felt his breath that time."

"Lord! How I wish we had some of those fellows here who say lions are rank cowards!" I exclaimed.

In one of his sweeping side swings the lion struck the rock and hung there on its flat surface with his tail hanging over.

"Attract his attention," shouted Emett, "but don't get too close.

Don't make him jump."

While I slowly manoeuvered in front of the lion, Emett slipped behind the rock, lunged for the long tail and got a good hold of it. Then with a whoop he ran around the rock, carrying the kicking, squalling lion clear of the ground.

"Now's your chance," he yelled. "Rope a hind foot! I can hold him."

In a second I had a noose fast on both hind paws, and then pa.s.sed my rope to Emett. While he held the lion I again climbed the tree, untied the knot that had caused so much trouble, and very shortly we had our obstinate captive stretched out between two trees. After that we took a much needed breathing spell.

"Not very scientific," growled Emett, by way of apologizing for our crude work, "but we had to get him some way."

"Emett, do you know I believe Jones put up a job on us?" I said.

"Well, maybe he did. We had the job all right. But we'll make short work of him now."

He certainly went at it in a way that alarmed me and would have electrified Jones. While I held the chain Emett muzzled the lion with a stick and a strand of la.s.so. His big blacksmith's hands held, twisted and tied with remorseless strength.

"Now for the hardest part of it," said he, "packing him up."

We toiled and drudged upward, resting every few yards, wet with sweat, boiling with heat, parching for water. We slipped and fell, got up to slip and fall again. The dust choked us. We senselessly risked our lives on the brinks of precipices. We had no thought save to get the lion up. One hour of unremitting labor saw our task finished, so far.

Then we wearily went down for the other.

"This one is the heaviest," gloomily said Emett.

We had to climb partly sidewise with the pole in the hollow of our elbows. The lion dragged head downward, catching in the brush and on the stones. Our rests became more frequent. Emett, who had the downward end of the pole, and therefore thrice the weight, whistled when he drew breath. Half the time I saw red mist before my eyes. How I hated the sliding stones!

"Wait," panted Emett once. "You're--younger--than me--wait!"

For that Mormon giant--used all his days to strenuous toil, peril and privation--to ask me to wait for him, was a compliment which I valued more than any I had ever received.

At last we dropped our burden in the shade of a cedar where the other lions lay, and we stretched ourselves. A long, sweet rest came abruptly to end with Emett's next words.

"The lions are choking! They're dying of thirst! We must have water!"

One glance at the poor, gasping, frothing beasts, proved to me the nature of our extremity.

"Water in this desert! Where will we find it? Oh! why, did I forget my canteen!"

After all our hopes, our efforts, our tragedies, and finally our wonderful good fortune, to lose these beautiful lions for lack of a little water was sickening, maddening.

"Think quick!" cried Emett. "I'm no good; I'm all in. But you must find water. It snowed yesterday. There's water somewhere."

Into my mind flashed a picture of the many little pockets beaten by rains into the shelves and promontories of the canyon rim. With the thought I was on the jump. I ran; I climbed; I seemed to have wings; I reached the rim, and hurried along it with eager gaze. I swung down on a cedar branch to a projecting point of rock. Small depressions were everywhere still damp, but the water had evaporated. But I would not give up. I jumped from rock to rock, and climbed over scaly ledges, and set tons of yellow shale into motion. And I found on a ragged promontory many little, round holes, some a foot deep, all full of clear water. Using my handkerchief as a sponge I filled my cap.

Then began my journey down. I carried the cap with both hands and balanced myself like a tight-rope performer. I zigzagged the slopes; slipped over stones; leaped fissures and traversed yellow slides.

I safely descended places that in an ordinary moment would have presented insurmountable obstacles, and burst down upon Emett with an Indian yell of triumph.

"Good!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed he. If I had not known it already, the way his face changed would have told me of his love for animals. He grasped a lion by the ears and held his head up. I saturated my handkerchief and squeezed the water into his mouth. He wheezed, coughed, choked, but to our joy he swallowed. He had to swallow. One after the other we served them so, seeing with unmistakable relief the sure signs of recovery.

Their eyes cleared and brightened; the dry coughing that distressed us so ceased; the froth came no more. The savage fellow that had fought us to a standstill, and for which we had named him Spitfire, raised his head, the gold in his beautiful eyes darkened to fire and he growled his return to life and defiance.

Emett and I sank back in unutterable relief.

"Waa-hoo!" Jones' yell came, breaking the warm quiet of the slope.

Our comrade appeared riding down. The voice of the Indian, calling to Marc, mingled with the ringing of iron-shod hoofs on the stones.

Jones surveyed the small level spot in the shade of the cedars. He gazed from the lions to us, his stern face relaxed, and his dry laugh cracked.

"Doggone me, if you didn't do it!"

XIII

A strange procession soon emerged from Left Canyon and stranger to us than the lion heads bobbing out of the alf.a.goes was the sight of Navvy riding in front of the lions. I kept well in the rear, for if anything happened, which I calculated was more than likely, I wanted to see it. Before we had reached the outskirts of pines, I observed that the piece of la.s.so around Spitfire's nose had worked loose.

Just as I was about to make this known to Jones, the lion opened a corner of his mouth and fastened his teeth in the Navajo's overalls.

He did not catch the flesh, for when Navvy turned around he wore only an expression of curiosity. But when he saw Spitfire chewing him he uttered a shrill scream and fell sidewise off his horse.

Then two difficulties presented themselves to us, to catch the frightened horse and persuade the Indian he had not been bitten. We failed in the latter. Navvy gave us and the lions a wide berth, and walked to camp.

Jim was waiting for us, and said he had chased a lion south along the rim till the hounds got away from him.

Spitfire, having already been chained, was the first lion we endeavored to introduce to our family of captives. He raised such a fearful row that we had to remove him some distance from the others.

"We have two dog chains," said Jones, "but not a collar or a swivel in camp. We can't chain the lions without swivels. They'd choke themselves in two minutes."

Once more, for the hundredth time, Emett came to our rescue with his inventive and mechanical skill. He took the largest pair of hobbles we had, and with an axe, a knife and Jones' wire nippers, fas.h.i.+oned two collars with swivels that for strength and serviceableness improved somewhat on those we had bought.

Darkness was enveloping the forest when we finished supper. I fell into my bed and, despite the throbbing and burning of my wrist, soon lapsed into slumber. And I crawled out next morning late for breakfast, stiff, worn out, crippled, but happy. Six lions roaring a concert for me was quite conducive to contentment.

Emett interestingly engaged himself on a new pair of trousers, which he had contrived to produce from two of our empty meal-bags. The lower half of his overalls had gone to decorate the cedar spikes and brush, and these new bag-leg trousers, while somewhat remarkable for design, answered the purpose well enough. Jones' coat was somewhere along the canyon rim, his shoes were full of holes, his s.h.i.+rt in strips, and his trousers in rags. Jim looked like a scarecrow. My clothes, being of heavy waterproofed duck, had stood the hard usage in a manner to bring forth the unanimous admiration of my companions.