Tales of lonely trails. Zane Grey

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      The hounds were tearing through the sage, working harder and harder, calling and answering one another, all the time getting down into the hollow.

      Don suddenly let out a string of yelps. I saw him, running head up, pass into the cedars like a yellow dart. Sounder howled his deep, full bay, and led the rest of the pack up the slope in angry clamor.

      "They're off!" yelled Jim, and so were we.

      In less than a minute we had lost one another. Crashings among the dry cedars, thud of hoofs and yells kept me going in one direction. The fiery burst of the hounds had surprised me. I remembered that Jim had said Emett and his charger might keep the pack in sight, but that none of the rest of us could.

      It did not take me long to realize what my mustang was made of. His name was Foxie, which suited him well. He carried me at a fast pace on the trail of some one; and he seemed to know that by keeping in this trail part of the work of breaking through the brush was already done for him. Nevertheless, the sharp dead branches, more numerous in a cedar forest than elsewhere, struck and stung us as we passed. We climbed a ridge, and found the cedars thinning out into open patches. Then we faced a bare slope of sage and I saw Emett below on his big horse.

      Foxie bolted down this slope, hurdling the bunches of sage, and showing the speed of which Emett had boasted. The open ground, with its brush, rock and gullies, was easy going for the little mustang. I heard nothing save the wind singing in my ears. Emett's trail, plain in the yellow ground showed me the way. On entering the cedars again I pulled Foxie in and stopped twice to yell "waa-hoo!" I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal. Then I attended to the stern business of catching up. For what seemed a long time, I threaded the maze of cedar, galloped the open sage flats, always on Emett's track.

      A signal cry, sharp to the right, turned me. I answered, and with the exchange of signal cries found my way into an open glade where Jones and Jim awaited me.

      "Here's one," said Jim. "Emett must be with the hounds. Listen."

      With the labored breathing of the horses filling our ears we could hear no other sound. Dismounting, I went aside and turned my ear to the breeze.

      "I hear Don," I cried instantly.

      "Which way?" both men asked.

      "West."

      "Strange," said Jones. "The hound wouldn't split, would he, Jim?"

      "Don leave that hot trail? Shore he wouldn't," replied Jim. "But his runnin' do seem queer this morning."

      "The breeze is freshening," I said. "There! Now listen! Don, and Sounder, too."

      The baying came closer and closer. Our horses threw up long ears. It was hard to sit still and wait. At a quick cry from Jim we saw Don cross the lower end of the flat.

      No need to spur our mounts! The lifting of bridles served, and away we raced. Foxie passed the others in short order. Don had long disappeared, but with blended bays, Jude, Moze, and Sounder broke out of the cedars hot on the trail. They, too, were out of sight in a moment.

      The crash of breaking brush and thunder of hoofs from where the hounds had come out of the forest, attracted and even frightened me. I saw the green of a low cedar tree shake, and split, to let out a huge, gaunt horse with a big man doubled over his saddle. The onslaught of Emett and his desert charger stirred a fear in me that checked admiration.

      "Hounds running wild," he yelled, and the dark shadows of the cedars claimed him again.

      A hundred yards within the forest we came again upon Emett, dismounted, searching the ground. Moze and Sounder were with him, apparently at fault. Suddenly Moze left the little glade and venting his sullen, quick bark, disappeared under the trees. Sounder sat on his haunches and yelped.

      "Now what the hell is wrong?" growled Jones tumbling off his saddle.

      "Shore something is," said Jim, also dismounting.

      "Here's a lion track," interposed Emett.

      "Ha! and here's another," cried Jones, in great satisfaction. "That's the trail we were on, and here's another crossing it at right angles. Both are fresh: one isn't fifteen minutes old. Don and Jude have split one way and Moze another. By George! that's great of Sounder to hang fire!"

      "Put him on the fresh trail," said Jim, vaulting into his saddle.

      Jones complied, with the result that we saw Sounder start off on the trail Moze had taken. All of us got in some pretty hard riding, and managed to stay within earshot of Sounder. We crossed a canyon, and presently reached another which, from its depth, must have been Middle Canyon. Sounder did not climb the opposite slope, so we followed the rim. From a bare ridge we distinguished the line of pines above us, and decided that our location was in about the center of the plateau.

      Very little time elapsed before we heard Moze. Sounder had caught up with him. We came to a halt where the canyon widened and was not so deep, with cliffs and cedars opposite us, and an easy slope leading down. Sounder bayed incessantly; Moze emitted harsh, eager howls, and both hounds, in plain sight, began working in circles.

      "The lion has gone up somewhere," cried Jim. "Look sharp!"

      Repeatedly Moze worked to the edge of a low wall of stone and looked over; then he barked and ran back to the slope, only to return. When I saw him slide down a steep place, make for the bottom of the stone wall, and jump into the low branches of a cedar I knew where to look. Then I descried the lion a round yellow ball, cunningly curled up in a mass of dark branches. He had leaped into the tree from the wall.

      "There he is! Treed! Treed!" I yelled. "Moze has found him."

      "Down boys, down into the canyon," shouted Jones, in sharp voice. "Make a racket, we don't want him to jump."

      How he and Jim and Emett rolled and cracked the stone! For a moment I could not get off my horse; I was chained to my saddle by a strange vacillation that could have been no other thing than fear.

      "Are you afraid?" called Jones from below.

      "Yes, but I am coming," I replied, and dismounted to plunge down the hill. It may have been shame or anger that dominated me then; whatever it was I made directly for the cedar, and did not halt until I was under the snarling lion.

      "Not too close!" warned Jones. "He might jump. It's a Tom, a two-year-old, and full of fight."

      It did not matter to me then whether he jumped or not. I knew I had to be cured of my dread, and the sooner it was done the better.

      Old Moze had already climbed a third of the distance up to the lion.

      "Hyar Moze! Out of there, you rascal coon chaser!" Jones yelled as he threw stones and sticks at the hound. Moze, however, replied with his snarly bark and climbed on steadily.

      "I've got to pull him out. Watch close boys and tell me if the lion starts down."

      When Jones climbed the first few branches of the tree, Tom let out an ominous growl.

      "Make ready to jump. Shore he's comin'," called Jim.

      The lion, snarling viciously, started to descend. It was СКАЧАТЬ