And, during that instant of hesitation, shot after shot rang out up in the canyon. Bullets came in a leaden hail--from somewhere--as the cougar flinched and his head was struck from side to side as if lashed with an invisible whip. It seemed impossible that a man could shoot so fast and so true as those bullets came that were crashing into the Black Panther’s skull. Then Scotty’s .405 went off, close at hand, with a stunning report, and everything was obliterated in a cloud of smoke. The cougar shuddered, in a last terrible convulsion which shook the pueblo walls, and then, with a crack of breaking poles, the roof gave way beneath him and the Black Panther sank from sight. A thin haze of smoke drifted out from the spruces on the cliff wall, between the pueblo and Fat Man’s Misery, as the boys looked around to see where those finishing shots had come from. Then Big John’s voice rang out from the green depths. “Say,--that was the devil’s own climb, boys! I ain’t so leetle but what I got a number ten foot and a number two haid, an’ that lariat looked like a pack cord to me! How d’ye git down out’n hyar?--she’s all slide rock!” _Whoopee!_--Big John! The boys howled at each other happily at the sound of his familiar tones. Then Sid shouted him directions, and after a time he himself appeared over the ladder head on the pueblo wall. “Wa’n’t invited to the party but I _got_ hyar, allee-samee pronto!” grinned Big John, as he mounted to the roof. “You boys’ll break this ole hoss-wrangler’s neck yit! Right sociable time ye was havin’ with the trick cougar, eh,--Siddy boy!” he chuckled, winking at Scotty. “_I_ seen him, flewin’ round, soon’s I clumb through the cliff, so I wraps myself around a tree, up thar, an’ draws cyards to set in the game, too.” “Came in mighty handy, John--my next would have been a jump over that wall into kingdom come, if you hadn’t opened up!” laughed Sid, still fussing with the jammed army cartridge. “Darn a rimless shell, anyhow, I’ll say!” Ruler was having a wonderful time, all by himself, worrying at the carcass below, so they all dropped down to examine the great, glossy prize. “Gee, what a trophy!” exclaimed Sid, admiringly. “Cougar or leopard, he’s a scientific curiosity! But we’ve got to bury him, boys. It’s our duty. We couldn’t ship that skin out of Arizona without the warden examining it, and word of it would sure get back to the Indians. We owe it to Major Hinchman, fellows. Look for a kiva in this floor.” “Dern them Injuns, anyhow!” grunted Big John. “I hate to part with this ole boy, somehow; we shore hev had a fine time with him!” They scratched around in the dust and after a time unearthed the round stone cover of the kiva, or underground cave, that is built in every pueblo for the mystic rites of the rain priests. Into its dark cavern the body of the Black Panther disappeared, forever, as they replaced the stone and tamped back the earth.