Biographical fiction; Jones, Charles Jesse, 1844-1919 -- Fiction; Pioneers -- Fiction; Western stories
"I've been here two hours," he said, "and I knew things were happening
below; but to climb up that slide would kill me. I am not young any
more, and a steep climb like this takes a young heart. As it was I had
enough work. Look!" He called my attention to his trousers. They had
been cut to shreds, and the right trouser leg was missing from the knee
down. His shin was bloody. "Moze took a lion along the rim, and I went
after him with all my horse could do. I yelled for the boys, but they
didn't come. Right here it is easy to go down, but below, where Moze
started this lion, it was impossible to get over the rim. The lion lit
straight out of the pinyons. I lost ground because of the thick brush
and numerous trees. Then Moze doesn't bark often enough. He treed the
lion twice. I could tell by the way he opened up and bayed. The rascal
coon-dog climbed the trees and chased the lion out. That's what Moze
did! I got to an open space and saw him, and was coming up fine when he
went down over a hollow which ran into the cañon. My horse tripped and
fell, turning clear over with me before he threw me into the brush. I
tore my clothes, and got this bruise, but wasn't much hurt. My horse is
pretty lame."
I began a recital of my experience, modestly omitting the incident
where I bravely faced an old lioness. Upon consulting my watch, I found
I had been almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, Frank poked
a red face over the rim. He was in shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and
wore a frown I had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise, and at
first could hardly speak.
"Where were—you—all?" he panted. "Say! but mebbe this hasn't been a
chase! Jim and Wallace an' me went tumblin' down after the dogs, each
one lookin' out for his perticilar dog, an' darn me if I don't believe
his lion, too. Don took one oozin' down the cañon, with me hot-footin'
it after him. An' somewhere he treed thet lion, right below me, in a
box cañon, sort of an offshoot of the second rim, an' I couldn't
locate him. I blamed near killed myself more'n once. Look at my
knuckles! Barked em slidin' about a mile down a smooth wall. I thought
once the lion had jumped Don, but soon I heard him barkin' again. All
thet time I heard Sounder, an' once I heard the pup. Jim yelled, an'
somebody was shootin'. But I couldn't find nobody, or make nobody hear
me. Thet cañon is a mighty deceivin' place. You'd never think so till
you go down. I wouldn't climb up it again for all the lions in
Buckskin. Hello, there comes Jim oozin' up."
Jim appeared just over the rim, and when he got up to us, dusty, torn
and fagged out, with Don, Tige and Ranger showing signs of collapse, we
all blurted out questions. But Jim took his time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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