Biographical fiction; Jones, Charles Jesse, 1844-1919 -- Fiction; Pioneers -- Fiction; Western stories
"That reminds me," said Frank. "They tell a story over at Kanab on a
Dutchman named Schmitt. He was very fond of huntin', an' I guess had
pretty good success after deer an' small game. One winter he was out in
the Pink Cliffs with a Mormon named Shoonover, an' they run into a
lammin' big grizzly track, fresh an' wet. They trailed him to a clump
of chaparral, an' on goin' clear round it, found no tracks leadin' out.
Shoonover said Schmitt commenced to sweat. They went back to the place
where the trail led in, an' there they were, great big silver tip
tracks, bigger'n hoss-tracks, so fresh thet water was oozin' out of
'em. Schmitt said: 'Zake, you go in und ged him. I hef took sick right
now.'"
Happy as we were over the chase of Old Tom, and our prospects—for
Sounder, Jude and Moze had seen a lion in a tree—we sought our blankets
early. I lay watching the bright stars, and listening to the roar of
the wind in the pines. At intervals it lulled to a whisper, and then
swelled to a roar, and then died away. Far off in the forest a coyote
barked once. Time and time again, as I was gradually sinking into
slumber, the sudden roar of the wind startled me. I imagined it was the
crash of rolling, weathered stone, and I saw again that huge outspread
flying lion above me.
I awoke sometime later to find Moze had sought the warmth of my side,
and he lay so near my arm that I reached out and covered him with an
end of the blanket I used to break the wind. It was very cold and the
time must have been very late, for the wind had died down, and I heard
not a tinkle from the hobbled horses. The absence of the cowbell music
gave me a sense of loneliness, for without it the silence of the great
forest was a thing to be felt.
This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a far-distant cry, unlike
any sound I had ever heard. Not sure of myself, I freed my ears from
the blanketed hood and listened. It came again, a wild cry, that made
me think first of a lost child, and then of the mourning wolf of the
north. It must have been a long distance off in the forest. An interval
of some moments passed, then it pealed out again, nearer this time, and
so human that it startled me. Moze raised his head and growled low in
his throat and sniffed the keen air.
"Jones, Jones," I called, reaching over to touch the old hunter.
He awoke at once, with the clear-headedness of the light sleeper.
"I heard the cry of some beast," I said, "And it was so weird, so
strange. I want to know what it was."
Such a long silence ensued that I began to despair of hearing the cry
again, when, with a suddenness which straightened the hair on my head,
a wailing shriek, exactly like a despairing woman might give in death
agony, split the night silence. It seemed right on us.
"Cougar! Cougar! Cougar!" exclaimed Jones.
"What's up?" queried Frank, awakened by the dogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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