 Chapter 4 The Last Plainsman by Zane Gray Right. What do we do about horses?" asked Jones. Jim will want to bay, and of course you'll want to ride spot. The rest of our nags will only do to pack the outfit. I've been thinking," replied the foreman. You sure will need good mounts. Now it happens that a friend of mine is just at this time at House Rock Valley, an outlying post of one of the big Utah ranches. He's getting in, though, horses off the range, and he has some crackin' good ones. Let's ooze over there. It's only thirty miles, and get some horses from him. We were all eager to act upon Frank's suggestion, so plans were made for the three of us to ride over and select our mounts. Frank and Jim would follow with the pack-train, and if all went well, on the following evening we would camp under the shadow of buckskin. Early next morning we were on our way. I tried to find a soft place on Old Baldi, one of Frank's pack horses. He was a horse that would not have raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under the sun, Frank said, bothered Old Baldi but the operation of shewing. We made the distance to the outpost by noon, and found Frank's friend a genial and oblige cowboy, who said we could have all the horses we wanted. While Jones and Wallace strutted around the big corral, which was full of vicious, dusty, shaggy horses and mustangs, I sat high on the fence. I heard them talking about points and girth and stride, and a lot of terms that I could not understand. Wallace selected a heavy sorrel and Jones a big bay, very like gems. I had observed, way over in the corner of a corral, a bunch of coyoses and among them a clean-limb black horse. Edging round on the fence I got a closer view, and then cried out that I had found my horse. I jumped down and caught him, much to my surprise, for the other horses were wild and had kicked viciously. The black was beautifully built, wide-chested and powerful, but not heavy. His coat glistened, like sheenie-black satin, and he had a white face and white feet and a long mane. I don't know about giving you Satan, that's his name, said the cowboy. The foreman rides him often, he's the fastest, the best climber, and the best dispositioned horse on the range. But I guess I can let you have him. He continued when he saw my disappointed face. By George, exclaimed Jones, you've got it on us this time. Would you like to trade, ask Wallace, as his sorrel tried to bite him? That black looks sort of fierce. I led my prize out of the corral, up to the little cabin nearby, where I tied him and proceeded to get acquainted after a fashion of my own. The not-versed-in-horse lore I knew that half the battle was to win his competence. This moved his silky coat and padded him, and then surreptitiously slipped a lump of sugar from my pocket. The sugar which I had perloined within Flagstaff and carried all the way across the desert was somewhat disreputably soiled and Satan sniffed at it disdainfully. Evidently he had never smelled or tasted sugar. I pressed it into his mouth, he munched it, and then looked me over with some interest. I handed him another lump. He took it and rubbed his nose against me. It was mine. Frank and Jim came along early in the afternoon. What with packing, changing saddles, and shooing the horses? We were all busy. Old Baldi would not be shot, so we led him off till a more opportune time. By four o'clock we were riding toward the slopes of Buckskin, now only a few miles away, standing up higher and darker. What's that for? Inquired Wallace, pointing to a long, rusty wire-wrapped double-barrel blunderbuss of a shotgun, stuck in the holster of Jones's saddle. The Colonel, who had been having a fine time with the impatient and curious hounds, did not vouchsafe any information on that score. But very shortly we were destined to learn the use of this incongruous firearm. I was riding in advance of Wallace and a little behind Jones. The dogs, excepting Jude, who had been kicked and leamed, were ranging along before their master. Suddenly right before me I saw an immense jackrabbit. And just then, Moe's and Don caught sight of it. In fact, Moe's bumped his blunt nose into the rabbit. When it leaped into scared action, Moe's yelped, and Don followed suit. Then they were after it, and while clamorous pursuit, Jones let out this centurion blast, now becoming familiar, and spurred after them. He reached over, pulled the shotgun out of the holster, and fired both barrels at the jumping dogs. I expressed my amazement in strong language, and Wallace whistled. Don came sneaking back with his tail between his legs, and Moe's, who had cowered, as if stung, circled around ahead of us. Jones finally succeeded in getting him back. Come on, ya, measly rabbit dogs. What do you mean, chasin' off that way? We're after Lyons. Lyons, understand? Don looked thorough and convinced of his error, but Moe's, being more thick-headed, appeared mystified rather than hurt or frightened. Say, shot, do you use, I ask? Number ten. They don't hurt much at seventy-five yards, replied our leader. I use them as sort of a long arm. You see, the dogs must be made to know what we're after. Ordinary means would never do in a case like this. My idea is to break them off coyotes, wolves, and deer. And when we cross a lion trail, we'll let them go. I'll teach them sooner than you'd think. Only we must get where we can see what they were trailing. Then I can tell whether to call them back or not. The sun was gliding the rim of the desert ramparts, when we began the ascent of the foothills of Buckskin. A steep trail wound zigzag up the mountain. We let our horses, as it was a long, hard climb. From time to time I stopped to catch my breath. I gazed away across the growing void to the gorgeous pink cliffs, far above and beyond the red wall, which had seemed so high, and then out toward the desert. The regular ragged crack in the plain apparently only a thread of broken ground was the Grand Canyon. How unutterably remote, wild grand was that world of red and brown, of purple-pall, of vague outline. Two thousand feet, probably, we mounted to what Frank called Little Buckskin. In the west a copper glow ridged with lead-colored clouds. Marked where the sun had set. The air was very thin and icy cold. The diverse clump of pinion pines we made dry camp. When I sat down it was as if I had been anchored. Frank solicitly remarked that I looked sort of beat. Some built a roaring fire, and began getting supper. A snow squall came on the rushing wind, the air grew colder, and though I hugged the fire I could not get warm. When I had satisfied my hunger I rolled out my sleeping bag and crept into it. I stretched my aching limbs and did not move again. Once I awoke drowsily, feeling the warmth of the fire, and I heard Frank say, He's asleep, dead to the world. He's all in, said Jones, writing what did it. You know how a horse tears a man to pieces. Will it be able to stand it, ask Frank, with as much solicitude as if he were my brother? When you get out after anything, well, you're hell. And think of country we're going into. I know you've never seen the breaks of this sea-wash, but I have, and it's the worst and roughest country I ever saw. Braked after breaks like the ridges on a washboard, heading on the south slope of Bucking and running down side by side, miles and miles deeper and deeper, till they run into that awful hole. It will be a kill-and-trip on men, horses, and dogs. Now, Mr. Wallace, he's been camping and roughing with the Navajos for months. He's in some kind of shape, but uh... Frank concluded his remark with a dumpful pause. I'm some worried, too, replied Jones. But he would come. He stood the desert well enough, even the Mormons said that. In the ensuing silence the fire sputtered, the glare fitfully merged into dark shadows under the weird pinions, and the wind moaned through the short branches. Well, drawn to slow, soft voice, sure I reckon you're hollering too soon. Frank's measly trick, putting him on spot, showed me. He rode out on spot, and he rode in on spot. Sure he'll stay. It was not all the warmth of the blankets that glowed over me then. The voices died away dreamily, and my eyelids dropped sleepily tight. Late in the night I set up suddenly roused by some unusual disturbance. The fire was dead, the wind swept with a rush through the pinions. From the black darkness came the staccato chorus of coyotes. Don barked his displeasure, sounder made the welkin ring, and old moans growled low and deep, grumbling, like muttered thunder. Then all was quiet and a slap. Don rosy red confronted me when I opened my eyes. Breakfast was ready. Frank was packing old baldy. Jones talked to his horse as he saddled him. All of us came stooping his giant figure under the pinions. The dog's eager and soft-eyed sat around gym and begged. The sun peeped over the pink cliffs. The desert still lay asleep, tranced in a purple and golden streaked mist. "'Come, come,' said Jones in his big voice. "'Were slow, here's the sun.' "'Easy, easy,' replied Frank. "'We've got all the time there is.' When Frank threw the saddle over Satan I interrupted him and said, I would care for my horse, henceforward. Soon we were underweigh the horse's fresh, the dog setting the king-cold air.' The trail rolled over the ridges of pinion and scrubby pine. Occasionally we could see the black ragged crest of buckskin above us. From one of these ridges I took my last long look back at the desert, and engraved on my mind a picture of the red wall, and the many-hued ocean of sand. The trail, narrow and indistinct, mounted the last slow-rising slope. The pinions failed and the scrubby pines became abundant. At length we reached the top and entered the great arched aisles of buckskin forest. The ground was flat as a table. Magnificent pine trees, with branches high in spreading, gave the eye glad welcome. Some of these monarchs were eight feet thick at the base and two hundred feet high. There and there one leg gaunt and prostrate, a victim of the wind. The smell of pitch pine was sweetly overpowering. When I went through here two weeks ago the snow was a foot deep, and a bogged-in place, said Frank. The sun has been oozing round here some. I'm afraid Jones won't find any snow on this end of buckskin. Thirty miles of winding trail, brown and springy from its thick mat of pine needles, shaded always by the massive semi-bark trees, took us over the extremity of buckskin. Then we faced down into the head of a ravine that ever grew deeper, stonier and rougher. I shifted from side to side, from leg to leg, and my saddle dismounted and hobbled before Satan. Mounted again and rode on. Jones called the dogs and complained to them of the lack of snow. Wallace sat his horse comfortably, taking long pulls at his pipe and long gazes at the shaggy sides of the ravine. Frank, energetic and tireless, kept the pack horses in the trail. Jim jogged on silently, and so we rode down to Oak's spring. The spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of oaks and pinions under the shadow of three cliffs, three ravines open here into an oval valley, a rude cabin of rough hewn-mogs stood near the spring. Good-own, good-own! sang out Frank. We'll hang up here. Beyond Oak is no man's land. We take our chances on water after we leave here. When we had unsettled, unpacked, and got our fire roaring on the wide stone hearth of the cabin, it was once again night. Boys, said Jones after supper, were now on the edge of the lion-country. Frank saw a lion sign in here only two weeks ago. And though the snow is gone, we stand to show of finding tracks in the sand and dust. Tomorrow morning, before the sun gets a chance at the bottom of these ravines, we'll be up and doing. We'll each take a dog and search in different directions. Keep the dog in leash, and when he opens up, examine the ground carefully for tracks. If a dog opens on any track that you are sure isn't a lion's punish him. And when a lion track is found, hold the dog in, wait, and signal. We'll use a signal I have tried and found far-reaching and easy to yell. Wahoo! That's it. Once yelled, it means come. Twice means come quickly. Three times means come danger. In one corner of the cabin was a platform of poles covered with straw. I threw the sleeping bag on this and was soon stretched out. This giving as to my strength worried me before I closed my eyes. Once on my back I felt I could not rise. My chest was sore. My cough deep and rasping it seemed I had scarcely closed my eyes when Joan's impatient voice recalled me from sweet oblivion. Prank, prank, stay like Jim, boys, he called. I tumbled out in a gray-won twilight. It was cold enough to make the fire acceptable, but nothing like the morning before on buckskin. Come to the festival board, drew all Jim, almost before I had my boots laced. Jones, said Frank, Jim and I'll ooze round here to-day. There's lots to do and we want to have things hitched right before we strike for the sea-wage. We've got to shoe old Baldi, and if we can't get him localed, it'll take all of us to do it. The light was still gray when Joan's led off with dawn, Paulus was sounder and I with Moe's. Jones directed us to separate, follow the dry-stream beds in the ravines, and remember his instructions given the night before. The ravine to the right, which I entered, was choked with huge stones falling from the cliff above, and pinions growing thick, and I wondered apprehensively how a man could evade a wild animal in such a place, much less chase it. Old Moe's pulled on his chain and sniffed at coyote and deer-tracks, and every time he venced such interest in such, I cut him with a switch, which to tell the truth he did not notice. I thought I heard a shout, and holding Moe's tight waited and listened. Wahoo! Wahoo! Floated on the air, rather deadened as if it had come from round the triangular cliff that faced into the valley. Urging and dragging Moe's, I ran down the ravine as fast as I could, and soon encountered Wallace coming from the middle ravine. Jones, he said excitedly, this way. There is the signal again. We dashed in haste for the mouth of the third ravine, and came suddenly upon Jones, kneeling under a pinion tree. Boy, look! He exclaimed as he pointed to the ground. There, clearly defined in the dust, was a cat-track, as big as my spread hand, and the mere sight of it set a chill of my spine. Now there's a lion-track for you, made by a female, two-year-old, but can't say if she passed here last night. Don won't take the trail, try Moe's. I led Moe's to the big round imprint, and put his nose down into it. The old hound sniffed and sniffed, then lost interest. Cold, ejaculated Jones. No go, try Sounder. Come on, boy, you've got no sport. Here's the reluctant hound forward. Heard needed not to be shown the trail. He stuck his nose in it, and stood very quiet for a long moment. Then he quivered slightly, raised his nose, and sought the next track. Step by step, he went slowly, doubtfully, all at once his tail wag stiffly. Look at that! Crying Jones in delight, he's caught a scent when the others couldn't. Hey, Moe's, get back. Keep Moe's and Don back. Give him room. Slowly Sounder paced up the ravine as carefully as if he were traveling on thin ice. He passed the dusty open trail to a scaly ground with little bits of grass, and he kept on. We were electrified to hear him give vent to a deep, bugle-blast note of eagerness. By George, he's got it, boys, exclaimed Jones, as he lifted the stubborn, struggling hound off the trail. I know that bay. It means a lion passed here this morning, and we'll get him up as sure as you're alive, come, Sounder. Now for the horses. As we ran pel-mel into the little glade, where Jim sat mending some saddle-trapping, Frank strode up the trail with the horses. Well, I heard Sounder, he said with his genial smile. Something's coming off, eh? You'll have to ooze round some to keep up with that hound. I saddled Satan with fingers that trembled in excitement and pushed my little Remington automatic into the rifle holster. Boys, listen, said our leader. We're off now in the beginning of a hunt new to you. Remember, no shooting, no blood-dutting, except in self-defense. Keep as close to me as you can, listen for the dogs, and when you fall behind or separate, yell out the signal cry. Don't forget this. We're bound to lose each other. Look out for the spikes and branches on the trees. If the dog split, whoever follows the one that trees they line, must wait there till the rest come up. Off now. Come, Sounder, mose. You rascal, Ia. Come, Don, come, buppy, and take your medicine. Except, mose, the hounds were all trembling and running eagerly to and fro. When Sounder was loosed, he let them in a beeline to the trail, with us cantering after. Sounder worked exactly as before. Only he followed the line and tracked a little further up the ravine before he bade. He kept going faster and faster, occasionally letting out one deep, short yell. The other hounds did not give tongue, but eager, excited, baffled, kept at his heels. The ravine was long, and the wash at the bottom, of which the lion had proceeded, turned and twisted round boulders large as houses, and lived through dense growths of some short, rough shrub. Now and then the lion-track showed plainly in the sand, for five miles or more, Sounder led us up the ravine, which began to contract and grow steep. The dry stream-bed got to be full of thickets of popular, tall, straight branchless saplings about the size of a man's arm, and growing so close, we had to press them aside to let our horses through. Presently Sounder slowed up and appeared at fault. We found him puzzling over an open grassy patch, and after nosing it for a little while, he began skirting the edge. Cute dog, declared Jones. That Sounder will make a lion chaser. Our game has gone up here somewhere. Sure enough, Sounder directly gave tongue from the side of the ravine. It was climb for us now. Broken shale, rocks of all dimensions, pinions down and pinions up, made ascending no easy problem. We had to dismount and lead our horses. Thus losing ground, Jones forwarded ahead, and reached the top of the ravine first. When Wallace and I got up, breathing heavily, Jones and the hounds were out of sight, but Sounder kept voicing his clear call, giving us our direction. Off we flew, over ground that was still rough, but enjoyable going compared to the ravine slopes. The ridge was sparsely covered with cedar and pinion, through which, far ahead, we pretty soon spied Jones. Wallace signaled and our leader answered twice. We caught up with him on the brink of another ravine deeper and cragger than the first, full of dead, gnarled pinion and splintered rocks. The Scalch is the largest of the three that head in at Oak Spring, said Jones. Boys, don't forget your direction. Always keep a feeling where camp is. Always sense it every time you turn. The dogs have gone down. That lion is in here somewhere. Maybe he lives down in the high cliffs near the spring and came up here last night. For a kill he's buried somewhere. Lions never travel far. Hark, hark! There's Sounder and the rest of them. They've got descent. They've all got it. Down boys, down and ride. With that he crashed into the cedar with a way that showed me how impervious he was to his slashing branches, sharp as thorns, and steep descent and peril. Wallace's big sorrow plunged after him and the rolling stones cracked, suffering as I was by this time, with cramp in my legs and torturing pain. I had to choose between holding my horse in or falling off. So I chose the former and accordingly got behind. Dead cedar and pinion trees lay everywhere, with their contorted limbs reaching out like the arms of the devil fish. Stones blocked every opening. Making the bottom of the ravine after what seemed an interminable time, I found the tracks of Jones and Wallace. Along, wahoo! drew me on. Then the mellow bay of a hound floated up the ravine. Satan made up time in the sandy stream-bed, but kept me busy dodging overhanging branches. I became aware, after a succession of efforts to keep from being strung on pinions, that the sand before me was clean and trackless. Hauling Satan up sharply, I waited irresistibly and listened. Then from high up in the ravine side waved down a medley of yelps and barks. Wahoo! Wahoo! Ringing down the slope, peeled against the cliff behind me and set the wild echoes flying. That nubby's own accord, headed up the incline, surprised at this, I gave him free reign. How he did climb! Not long did it take me to discover that he picked out easier going than I had. Once I saw Jones crossing a ledge far above me, and I yelled our signal cry. The answer returned clear and sharp. Then it's echo crackled under the hollow cliff, and crossing and recrossing the ravine, it died at last, far away, like the muffled peel of a bellboy. Again, I heard the blended yelping of the hounds in closer hand. I saw a long, low cliff above and decided that the hounds were running at the base of it. Another chorus of yelps quicker, wilder than the others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I knew the dogs had jumped game of some kind. Satan knew it as well as I, for he quickened his base and sent the stones clattering behind him. I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no tracks in the dust of ages that had crumbled in its shadow, nor did I hear the dogs. Considering how closely it seemed, this was strange. I halted and listened. Silence reigned supreme. The rugged cracks in the cliff walls could have harbored many a watching lion, and I cast an apprehensive glance into their dark confines. Then I turned my horse to get round the cliff, and over the ridge, when I again stopped, all I could hear was the thumping of my heart and the laboring panting of Satan. I came to a break in the cliff, a steep place of weathered rock, and I put Satan to it. He went up with a will. From the narrow saddle of the ridge-crest, I tried to take my bearings. Below me slanted the green of pinion, with bleached treetops standing like spears and uprising yellow stones. Pensaying I heard a gunshot, I leaned a straining ear against the soft breeze. The proof came presently in the unmistakable report of Jones's blunderbuss. It was repeated almost instantly, giving reality to the direction. Which was down the slope of what I concluded must be the third ravine. Wondering what was the meaning of the shots in Chagrin, because I was out of the race, but calmer in mind, I let Satan stand. Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark tangled in my ears. It belonged to old moes. Soon I distinguished a rattling of stones and the sharp metallic cliques of hooves striking rocks, then into a space below me loped a beautiful deer. So large that at first I took it for an elk. Another sharp bark, nearer this time, told the tale of Moe's dereliction. In a few moments he came in sight, running with his tongue out and his head held high. Ha-ya, you old glad-eater, ha-ya, ha-ya. I yelled and yelled again. Moe's passed over the saddle on the trail of the deer, and his short bark floated back to remind me how far he was from a lion-dog. Then I defined the meaning of the shotgun reports. The hounds had crossed the fresher trail than that of the lion, and our leader had discovered it. Despite a keen appreciation of Jones's task, I gave way to amusement, and repeated Wallace's paradoxical formula. Pet the lions and shoot the hounds. So I headed down in ravine, looking for a blunt, bold crag, which I had described in camp. I found it before long, and profiting by past failures to judge of distance, gave my first impression a great stretch, then decided that I was more than two miles from oak. Long after two miles had been covered, and I had begun to associate Jim's biscuits with a certain soft seat near a ruddy fire, I was apparently still the same distance from my landmark crag. Suddenly a slight noise brought me to a halt, I listened intently. Only an indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed the impressive stillness. It might have been the weathering that goes on constantly, and it might have been an animal. I inclined to the former idea till I saw Satan's ears go up. Jones had told me to watch the ears of my horse. And short as had been my acquaintance with Satan, I had learned that he always discovered things more quickly than I, so I waited patiently. From time to time a rattling roll of pebbles, almost musical caught my ears. It came from the base of the wall of yellow cliff, and barred the summit of all those ridges. I threw up his head and nose the breeze. The delicate, almost stealthy sounds, the action of my horse. The waiting drove my heart to extra work. The breeze quickened and fanned my cheek, and born upon it came the faint and far away bay of a hound. It came again and again, each time nearer. Then on a stronger puff of wind rang the clear deep mellow call that had given Sounder his beautiful name. Never it seemed had I heard music so blood-stirring. There was on the trail of something. And he had it headed my way. Satan heard, shot up his long ears, and tried to go ahead. But I restrained and soothed him into quiet. Long moments I sat there with the poignant consciousness of the wildness of the scene, of the significant rattling of the stones and of the bell-tongued hound, baying incessantly, sending warm joy through my veins, the absorption in sensations now, yielding only to the hunting instinct when Satan snorted and quivered. Again the deep-tongued bay rang into the silence with the stirring thrill of life, and a sharp rattling of stones just above brought another snort from Satan. Across an open space and opinions a gray form flashed. I leapt off Satan and knelt to get a better view under the trees. I soon made out another deer passing along the base of the cliff. Notting again I rode up to the cliff to wait for Sounder. One time I had to wait for the hound. It proved that the atmosphere was as deceiving in regard to Sound as to sight. Finally Sounder came running along the wall. I got off to intercept him, the crazy fellow. He had never responded to my overtures of friendship, uttered short, sharp yelps of delight and actually leapt in my arms. But I could not hold him. He darted upon the trail again and paid no heed to my angry shouts. With resolve to overhaul him I jumped on Satan and whirled after the hound. The black stretched out was such a stride that I was at pains to keep my seat. I dodged the jutting rocks and projecting snags, felt stinging branches in my face and the rush of sweet dry wind. Under the crumbling walls overslopes of weathered stone and droppings of shelving rock. Round protruding noses of cliff. Over an underpinion Satan thundered. He came out on top of the ridge at the narrow back I called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpse of sounder far below, going down into the ravine from which I had ascended some time before. I called him, but I might as well call to the wind. Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward camp. I lay forward on his neck and let him have his will. Far down the ravine I awoke to strange sound and soon recognized the cracking of iron-shot hoofs against stone, then voices, turning an abrupt bend in the sandy wash I ran into the Jones and Wallace. All in. Line up, then the sad procession, said Jones. Tage and the pup were faithful. The rest of the dogs are somewhere between the Grand Canyon and the Utah Desert. I related my adventures and tried to spare mose and sounder as much as conscious would permit. Hard luck, commented Jones. Just as the hounds jumped the cougar. Oh, they bounced him out of their rocks all right. Don't you remember just under the cliff wall where you and Wallace came up to me? Well, just as they jumped him they ran right into fresh deer tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that's too much for any hounds except those trained for lions. Shot at mose twice, but couldn't turn him. He has to be hurt. They've all got to be hurt to make them understand. Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones's wake, and of sundry knocks and bruises he had sustained, of pieces of corduroy he had left decorating the cedars, and of a most humiliating event, where a gaunt and bare-painting snag had penetrated under his belt and lifted him, mad and kicking off his horse. These western nags will hang you on a limb every chance they get, declared Jones. And don't you overlook that? Well, there's the cabin. We'd better stay here for a few days or a week and break in the dogs and horses for this day's work was apple pie to what we'll get in a seawash. I groaned inwardly and was remorsely glad to see Wallace fall off his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin. When I got my saddle off Satan had given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the cabin and dropped like a log. I felt as if every bone in my body was broken and my flesh was raw. I got gleeful gratification from Wallace's complaints, and Jones remarked that he had a stitch in his back. So ended the first chase after Cougars. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5. The Last Plainsman by Zane Gray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti. The Last of the Plainsmen by Zane Gray. Chapter 5. Oakspring. Mos and Don and Sounder, straggled into camp next morning, hungry, foot sore, and scared. And as they limped in, Jones met them with characteristic speech. Well, he decided to come in when you got hungry and tired. Never thought of how you fooled me, did you? Now the first thing you get is a good licking. He tied them in a little log-pin near the cabin and whipped them soundly, and the next few days while Wallace and I rested, he took them out separately and deliberately ran them over coyote and deer trails. Sometimes we heard his Stendorian yell as a forerunner to the blast from his old shotgun. Then again we heard the shots unheralded by the yell. Wallace and I waxed warm under the collar over this peculiar method of training dogs, and each of us made dire threats. But, injustice to their implacable trainer, the dogs never appeared to be hurt, never a splotted blood fleckered on their glossy coats, nor did they ever come home limping. Sounder grew wise and Don gave up, but Mos appeared not to change. All hands ready to rustle? Sang out Frank one morning? Old Baldi's got to be shod. This brought us all except Jones, out of the cabin, to see the object of Frank's anxiety tied to a nearby oak. At first I failed to recognize Old Baldi. Van East was his slow, sleepy, apathetic manner that had characterized him. His ears lay back on his head, fire flashed from his eyes, when Frank threw down the kit-bag which emitted a metallic clanking. Old Baldi sat back on his haunches, planted his four feet deep in the ground, and plainly, as a horse could speak, said, No. Sometimes he's bad, and sometimes he's worse. growled Frank. Sure, he'd plumb bad this morning, replied Jim. Frank got the three of us to hold Baldi's head and pull him up. Then he ventured to lift a hind foot over his knee. Old Baldi straightened out his leg and sent Frank's brawling into the dirt. Twice again Frank patiently tried to hold a hind leg, with the same result, and then he lifted a four foot. Baldi uttered a very intelligible snort, bit through Wallace's glove, yanked Jim off his feet, and scared me so that I'd let go of his forelock. Then he broke the rope which held him to the tree. There was a plunge, a scattering of men, though Jim still valiantly held on to Baldi's head and a thrashing of scrub pinion, where Baldi reached out vigorously with his hind feet. But for Jim he would have escaped. Well, it's all a row, called Jones from the cabin. Then from the door, taking in the situation he yelled, hold on, Jim, pull down on the honorary gold kiosk. He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, one whirling around his head, the slender rope straightened with a whiz and whipped around Baldi's legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled it tight, then fastened it with nibble fingers toward the tree. Let go, let go, Jim. He yelled whirling the other lasso. The rope flashed and fell over Baldi's head and tightened around his neck. Jones threw all the weight of his burly form on the lariat, and Baldi crashed to the ground. Rolled, tussles screamed, and then lay on his back, kicking the air with three free legs. Hold this, ordered Jones giving the tight rope to Frank. Whereupon he grabbed my lasso from the saddle, rope Baldi's two four feet, and pulled him down on his side. This lasso he fastened to a scrub cedar. He's joking, said Frank. Likely he is, replied Jones shortly. It'll do him good. But with his big hands he drew the coil loose and slipped it down over Baldi's nose, where he tightened it again. Now go ahead, he said, taking the rope from Frank. It had all been done in a twinkling. Baldi lay there groaning and helpless, and when Frank once again took hold of the wicked leg, he was almost passive. When the shoeing operation had been neatly and quickly attended to and Baldi released from his uncomfortable position, he struggled to his feet with heavy breath, shook himself, and looked at his master. How'd you like being hog-tied? queried his conqueror, rubbing Baldi's nose. Now after this you'll have some manners. Old Baldi seemed to understand, for he looked sheepish, and lapsed once more into his listless, lazy, unconcern. Where's Jim's old coyose? The pack horse, asked our leader. Lost, couldn't find him this morning, and had a deuce of a time finding the rest of the bunch. Old Baldi was cute. He hid in a bunch of pinions and stood quiet so his bell wouldn't ring. I'd trail him. Did the horses stay far away when they were hobbled and queried Wallace? They keep jumping all night. They can cover some territory. We're now on the edge of the wild horse country and our nags know this as well as we. They smell the mustangs and would brick their necks to get away. Satan and the Sorrow were ten miles from camp when I found them this morning and Jim's coyose went farther and we never will get him. He'll wear his hobbles out then away with the wild horses. Once with them, he'll never be caught again. On the sixth day of our stay at Oak we had visitors whom Frank introduced as the Stuart brothers and Lawson, wild horse wranglers. They were still dark men whose facial expressions seldom varied tall and lithe and wiring as the mustangs they rode. The Stuart's were on their way back to Kanab, Utah to arrange for the sale of a drope of horses they had captured and corraled in a narrow canyon back in the sea-wash. Lawson said he was at our service and was promptly hired to look after our horses. Any cougar signs back in the bricks? Ask Jones. Well, there's a cougar on every deer trail, replied the elder Stuart and two for every pinto in the bricks. Old Tom himself down fifteen colts for us this spring. Fifteen Colts. That's wholesale murder. Why don't you kill the butcherer? We've tried more than once. It's a terrible busted-up country, then, bricks. No man knows it and the cougars do. Old Tom ranges all the ridges and bricks, even up on the slopes of Buckskin. But he lives down there in them holes and Lord knows no dog I ever seen could follow him. We tracked him into snow and had dogs after him, but none could stay with him except two has never come back. But we've nothing again, Old Tom, like Jeff Clark, a horse-rustler, who has a stirring of pentals corralled north of us. Clark swears he ain't raised a colt in two years. We'll put that old cougar up a tree, exclaimed Jones. If you kill him, we'll make you all a present of a Mustang and, Clark, he'll give you two each, replied Stuart. We'd be getting rid of him cheap. How many wild horses are on the mountain now? How many wild horses are on the mountain now? Hard to tell. Two or three thousand, maybe. There's almost no catching them. They're growing all the time. We ain't had no luck this spring. Bunch of corral we got last year. Is any of the things a white Mustang? Quiet Frank. Ever get a rope near him? Nah, near we have for six years back. He can't be catched. We've seen him and his band of horses We've seen him and his band of blacks a few days ago, heading for a water-hole down where a nail canyon runs into a canab canyon. He's so cunning, he'll never water at any of our trap corrals. And we believe he can go without water for two weeks unless maybe he's had a secret hole we never trailed him to. Would we have any chance to see this white Mustang in his band, questioned Jones? Same. When he's found a snake-gulch camp at Singin' Cliffs, go over to Nail Canyon and wait. Then send someone slipping down to the water-hole at Canab Canyon and when the band comes to drink, which are reckonably in a few days now. Have them drive the Mustangs up. Only be sure to have them get ahead of the white Mustang so he'll have only one way to come. For he sure is no one. He never makes a mistake. Maybe you'll get to see him come and hear that Mustang's hooves ring like bells on rocks a mile away. His hooves are harder than any iron shoe as they ever made. But even if you don't get to see him, snake-gulch is worth seeing. I learned later from Stuart that the white Mustang was a beautiful stallion of the wildest strain of Mustang blue blood. He had roamed the long reaches between the Grand Canyon and Buckskin toward its southern slope for years. He had been the most sought-for horse by all the Wranglers and had become so shy and experienced at nothing but a glimpse was ever obtained of him. A singular fact was he never attached any of his own species to his band, unless they were coal-black. He had been known to fight and kill other stallions, but he kept out of the well-wooded and watered country frequented by other bands and ranged the brakes of the sewage as far as he could range. The usual method, indeed, the only successful way to capture wild horses was to build corrals around the waterholes. The Wranglers lay out night after night watching. When the Mustangs came to drink, which was always after dark, the gates would be closed on them. But the trick had never been tried on the white Mustang for the simple reason that he never approached one of the traps. Boys, said Jones, I think we need breaking in. We'll give the white Mustang a little run. This was most pleasurable news for the wild horses fascinated me. Besides, I saw from the expression on our leader's face that an uncapturable Mustang was an object of interest to him. Wals and I had employed the last few warm sunny afternoons and riding up and down the valley below where there was a fine level stretch. Here I wore out my soreness of muscle and gradually overcame awkwardness in the saddle. Frank's remedy of maple sugar and red pepper had rid me of my cold and with the return of strength and the coming of confidence full, joyous appreciation of wild environment and life made me unspeakably happy and I noticed that my companions were in like condition of mind, though self-contained where I was exuberant. While I scalped to sorrel and watched the crags, Jones talked more kindly to the dogs, Jim baked biscuits indefangibly and smoked incontented silence. Frank said always, We lose the long easy-like for we've all the time there is. Which sentiment, whether from reiterated suggestion or increasing confidence in the practical cowboy or charm of its free import, gradually won us all. Boys, said Jones as we sat around the campfire, I see you're getting in shape. Well, I've worn off the wire edge myself and have the hounds coming fine. They mind me now, but to mystify it, for the life of them they can't understand what I mean. I don't blame them. Wait till by good luck we get a cougar in a tree. When sounder and dawn see that, we've lyin' dogs, boys. We've lyin' dogs. But Moe's is a stubborn brute in all my years of animal experience. I've never discovered any other way to make animals obey than by instilling fear and respect into their hearts. I've been fond of buffalo horses and dogs, but sentiment never ruled me. When animals must obey they must, that's all, and no mockishness. But I never trusted a buffalo in my life. If I had, I wouldn't be here tonight. Y'all know how many keepers of tame wild animals get killed? I could tell you dozens of tragedies. And I've often thought since I got back from New York of that woman I saw with her troop of African lions. I'd dream about those lions and see them leaping over her head. What a grand sight that was. But the public is fooled. I read somewhere that she trained those lions by love. I don't believe it. I saw her use a whip and steel spear. Moreover, I saw many things that escaped most observers. How she entered the cage. How she maneuvered among them. How she kept a compelling gaze on them. It was an admirable, a great piece of work. Maybe she loves those huge yellow brutes, but her life was in danger every moment while she was in that cage and she knew it. Someday one of her pets, likely the king of beasts, she pets the most, will rise up and kill her. That is as certain as death. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 of The Last Plainsman The White Mustang For thirty miles down Nail Canyon we marked an every dusty trail and sandy wash, the small oval sharply defined tracks of the white Mustang and his band. The canyon had been well named. It was long, straight, and square-sided. Its bare walls glared steel gray in the sun's smooth, glistening surfaces that had been polished by wind and water. No weathered heaps of shale, no crumbled piles of stone obstructed its level floor. And softly toning its drab austerity, here grew the white sage waving in the breeze, the Indian paintbrush with vivid vermillion flower and patches of fresh green grass. The white king, as we Arizona wild-horse wranglers call this Mustang, never took it or about his feed, and he ranged along here last night, easy like browsing on the white sage, said Stewart, infected by our intense interest in the famous Mustang and ruffled slightly by Jones's manifest surprise and contempt that no one had captured him. Stewart had volunteered to guide us. Never knowed him to run in this way for water. Fact is, never knowed Nail Canyon at a fork. It splits down here, but you'd think it was only a crack in a wall. And that cunning Mustang he's been fooling us for years about this water-hole. The fork of Nail Canyon, which Stewart had decided we were in, had been accidentally discovered by Frank, who, in search of our horses one morning, had crossed a ridge to come suddenly upon the blind, box-like head of the canyon. Stewart knew the lay of the ridges and run of the canyons as well in Noah country, where seemingly every rod was ridged and bisected. And he was of the opinion that we had stumbled upon one of the white Mustang's secret passages by which he had so often eluded his pursuers. Hard riding had been the order of the day, but still we covered ten more miles by sundown. The canyon apparently closed in on us so camp was made for the night. The horses were staked out and when darkness settled thick-overs we lay under our blankets. Morning disclosed the white Mustang's secret passage. It was a narrow cliff, splitting the canyon wall, rough, uneven, torturous, and choked with fallen rocks, no more than a wonderful crack in the solid stone opening into another canyon. Above us this guy seemed a winding, flowering steam of pack, would have been blocked and a rider had to pull his legs up over the saddle. On the far side the passage fell very suddenly for several hundred feet to the floor of the other canyon. No hunter could have seen it or suspected it from that side. This is Grand Canyon country and nobody knows what he's going to find, was Frank's comment. Now we're in Neo-Canyon a while below and cut across Ganob Canyon and slip up into Nail Canyon again, ahead of the Mustangs and drive them up. I can't miss them, for a Canab Canyon is impassable down little ways. The Mustang will have to run this way, so all you need to do is go below the break where I climb out and wait. You're sure going to get a look at the white Mustang, but wait, don't expect him any time till he comes. Maybe it'll be a couple days, so keep a good watch. Then taking our man Lawson with blankets and a knapsack of food, Stewart rode off down the canyon. We were early on the march. As we proceeded the canyon lost its regularity and smoothness, it became crooked as a rail fence narrower, higher, rugged, and broken. Pinnacle cliffs through and wall had tumbled into fragments. It seems that Jones, after much survey of different corners, angles and points in the canyon floor, chose his position with much greater care than appeared necessary for the ultimate success of her venture, which was simply to see the white Mustang, and if good fortune attended us, to snap some photographs of this wild king of horses. It flashed over and was laying some kind of crap for the Mustang, was indeed bent on his capture. Wallace Frank and Jim were stationed at a point below the break where Stewart had evidently gone up and out. Of course, could have climbed that streaky wide slide was a mystery. Jones's instructions to the men were to wait until the Mustangs were close upon them, and then yell and shout and show us from the others, and he exercised still more care in scrutinizing the lay of the ground, a wash from ten to fifteen feet wide and as deep. Ran through the canyon in a somewhat meandering course. At the corner which consumed so much of his attention, the dry ditch ran along the cliff wall about fifty feet out. Between it and the wall was good level ground. On the other side, he made a hummocky, practically impassable for a horse. It was plain the Mustangs on their way up, would choose the inside of the wash, and here in the middle of the passage just round the jutting corner, Jones tied our horses to good strong bushes. His next act was significant. He threw out his lasso and dragging every crook out of it, carefully recoiled it, and hung it loose over the pommel of the dark. He said with a smile that came so seldom. Now I placed our horses there for two reasons. The Mustangs won't see them till they're right on them. Then you'll see a sight, and you'll have a chance for a Greek picture. They will halt, the stallion will prance, whistle and snort for a fight, and then they'll see the saddles and be off. We'll hide across the wash down a little way, and at all costs. By piling stage brush around a stone we made a hiding place. Jones was extremely cautious to arrange the bunches in natural positions. Hurricane Mountain Bighorn is the only four-footed beast, he said, that has a better eye than a wild horse. A cougar has an eye, too. He's used to lying high up on the cliffs and looking down for his quarry, so as to stalk it at night. But the sight. The hours passed slowly, the sun baked us, the stones were too hot to touch, flies buzzed behind our ears, tarantulas peeped at us from holes, the afternoon slowly waned. At dark we returned to where we had left Wallace and the cowboys. Frank had solved the problem of water supply. For he had found a little spring trickling from a cliff, which by a skillful management packed our water for camp use. You take the first watch tonight, said Jones to me after supper. The Mustangs might try to slip through our fire in the night and we must keep a watch for them. Call Wallace when your time's up. Now, fellas, roll in. When the pink of dawn was shading white, we were at our posts a long, hot day, in terminally long. The hours passed, and still no Mustangs came. We slept and watched again in the grateful cool of night. Till the third day broke. The hours passed, the cool breeze changed to hot, the sun blazed over the canyon wall, the stones scorched, the flies buzzed. I fell asleep in the scant shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist. The old plainsmen never stopped. The steely walls heard my eyes as sky was like hot copper. Though nearly wild with heat and aching bones and muscles in the long hours of wait, wait, wait, I was ashamed to complain, for there sat the old man still and silent. I rotted out a hairy tarantula from under a stone and teased him into a frenzy with my stick and tried to get up a fight . Then I aspired a green lizard on a stone. Beautiful reptile was about a foot in length, bright green dotted with red, and he had diamonds for eyes, nearby a purple flower blossomed, delicate in pale, with a bee sucking at its golden heart. I observed then that the lizard had his jeweled eyes on the bee. He slipped to the edge of the stone, flicked out a long red tongue and hear with beauty, life and death. And I had been weary for something to look at, to think about, to distract me from the weary some weight. Listen, broke in Jones's sharp voice. His neck was stretched as eyes were closed, his ear was turned to the wind. With a thrilling reawakened eagerness I strained my hearing, a kind of faint sound, then lost it. I followed his advice and detected the rhythmic beat of galloping hooves. Mustangs are coming, sure as you're born, exclaimed Jones. There, see that cloud of dust? Cried he a minute later. In the first bend of the canyon below a splintered ruin of rock now lay under a rolling cloud of dust, white flash appeared, a line of bobbing black objects and a hand of Mustangs. And well in front swung the white king. Look, look, I never saw the beat of that, never in my born days, Cried Jones. How they move, yet that white fellow isn't staff stretched out. Get your picture before they pass. You'll never see the beat of that. With long mains and tails flying the Mustangs came on peace and passed us in a trampling roar, the blast, unlike any sound I have ever heard, made the canyon fairly ring, the white stallion plunged back and his band closed in behind him. He had seen our saddle horses, then trembling winning and with arched neck and high poised head, bespeaking his medal he advanced a few paces and again whistled his shrill note of defiance. Pure creamy white he was and suddenly he wheeled. It was then, when the Mustangs were pivoting, with the white in the lead that Jones jumped upon the stone, fired his pistol and roared with all his strength, taking his cue I did likewise, the band huddled back again, uncertain and frightened, then broke up the canyon. Jones jumped the ditch with surprising agility and I followed close at his heels. When Jones at they've turned so they can't run you down or stampede you. If they had your way, skirt them back. Satan quivered and when I mounted, reared and plunged. I had to hold him in hard for he was eager to run. At the cliff wall I was at some pains to check him. He kept champing his bit and stamping his feet. From my post I could see the Mustangs flying before a cloud of dust. Jones was evidently intended to hide. Presently, successive yells and shots from our comrades blended in the roar with the narrow box canyon, augmented and echoed from wall to wall. High the white Mustang reared and above the roar whistled his snort of furious terror. His band wheeled with him and charged back through hooves ringing like hammers on iron. The crafty old buffalo hunter had hemmed and left himself free in the center. It was a wily trick born of his quick mind and experienced eye. The stallion, closely crowded by his followers, moved swiftly. I saw that he must pass near the stone, thundering, crashing. The horses came on. Away beyond him I saw Frank and Wallace. Then Jones yelled to me, open up, open up. I turned Satan into the middle of a narrow horse's thundered on. Jones saw that they would not be bogged and he spurred his big bait directly in her path. The big horse, courageous as his intrepid master, dove forward. Then followed confusion for me. The pound of hooves, the snorts, a screaming neigh that was frightful of the mad stampede of the Mustangs with a whirling cloud of dust bewildered and frightened me so that I lost sight of the dust amass of tossing mains foam-flick black horses, wild eyes and lifting hoof, rushed at me Satan, the presence of mind that shamed mine. Leap back and hug the wall. My eyes were blinded by dust. The smell of dust joked me. I felt a strong rush of wind and a Mustang graze my stirrup. Then they had passed on the wings of the dust-legged breeze. But not all. For I saw that Jones cut the white Mustang and two of his blacks out of the band. He had turned them back again and was pursuing them. The bay he rode had never before appeared to much advantage, and now, with his long, lean, powerful body in splendid action, imbued with the relentless Willoughby's writer what a picture he presented. How he did run. With all that, the white Mustang made him look dingy and wild career of that king of horses. He had been pinned in a space two hundred by five hundred yards, half of which was separated from him, by a wide ditch, a yawning chasm, that he had refused, and behind him always keeping on the inside wheeled the yelling hunter, who savagely spurred his bay and whirled a deadly lasso. He had been cut off and surrounded. The very nature of the rocks and trails of the mountain to end his freedom or his life. Certain it was he preferred to end the ladder, for he risked death from the rocks as he went over them in long leaps. Jones could have roped either of the two blacks, but he hardly noticed them. Covered with dust and splotches of foam, they took their advantage, turned in a circle toward the passageway and galloped by me out of sight. Again Wallace Frank and Chase was narrowing down, trapped. The white Mustang King had no chance. What a grand spirit he showed! Frenzied as I was with excitement the thought occurred to me that this was an unfair battle, that I ought to stand aside and let him pass. But the blood and lust of primitive instinct held me fast. Jones, keeping back, met his every turn. Yet always with the lithe and beautiful stride the stallion whirling lariat. Close in yelled Jones with his voice powerful with a note of triumph bespoke the knell of the King's freedom. The trap closed in back and forth at the upper end. The white Mustang worked, then rendered desperate. By the closing in he circled round nearer to me. Fire shone in his wild eyes. The wily Jones was not to be outwitted. He kept in the middle, always on the move, and he yelled to me a shot. Then the Mustang burst into a dash of daring despairing speed. It was his last magnificent effort. Straight for the wash at the upper end, he pointed his racy spirited head and his white leg stretched far apart, twinkled and stretched again. Jones galloped to cut him off, and the yells he admitted were demonical. It was a long, straight race for the Mustang, a short curve for the bay. That the white stallion gained was as sure as his future, and he never swerved up foot from his course. Jones might have headed him, but manifestly he wanted to ride with him as well as to meet him. So in case the lasso went through, a terrible shock might be averted. Up went Jones's arm as the space shortened and the lasso reigned his head. Out it shot, lengthened like a yellow striking snake and fell just short of the flying white tail. The white Mustang, fulfilling his purpose in his last heroic display of power, sailed into the air up and up and over the wide wash like a white streak, free. The dust rolled in a cloud from under his hooves, and he vanished. Jones's superb horse, crashing down on his haunches, just escaped, sliding into the hole. I awoke to the realization that Satan had carried me in pursuit of the thrilling chase all the way across a circle without my knowing it. Jones calmly wiped sweat from his face, calmly coiled his lasso and calmly remarked. In trying to capture wild animals a man must never be too sure. Now what I thought my strong point was my weak point, the wash. I made sure no horse could ever jump that hole. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Last Plainsman by Zane Gray. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Venditti. The Last Plainsman by Zane Gray. Chapter 7 Snake Gulch Not far from the scene of our adventures with the white streak, as we facetiously and appreciatively named the Mustang, a deep flat cave indented the canyon wall. By reason of its sandy floor and close proximity to Frank's trickling spring, we decided to camp in it. About dark, lost and stewards straggled in on spent horses and found awaiting them a bright fire a hot supper and cheery comrades. D'fara gets seen. Was the tall rangers first question? Did we get to see him? Echoed five lusty voices as one. We did. It was after Frank and his plain blunt speech had told of our experience that the long Arizona gays fixededly at Jones. Did you actually catch the hare on that Mustang with a rope? In all his days Jones never had a greater complement. By way of reply he moved his big hand to a button of his coat and fumbling over it unwound a string of long white hairs. Then said, I'll pull these out of his tail with molasses, I missed his left hind foot about six inches. There were six of the hairs pureed, glistening white and over three feet long, steward examined them in expressive silence, then passed them along. And when they reached me they stayed. The cave, lighted up by a blazing fire, appeared to me a forbidding uncanny place. Small peculiar round holes and dark cracks, suggestive of hidden vermin, gave me a creepy feeling. And although not oversensitive on the subject of crawling creeping things, voiced my disgust. Say I don't like the idea of sleeping in this hole. I'll bet it's full of spider snakes and centipedes and other poisonous things. Whatever there was in my inoffensive declaration to rouse the usually slumbering humor of the Arizonans and the thinly veiled ridicule of Colonel Jones in a mixture of both in my once loyal California friend I'm not prepared to state. Maybe it was the dry, sweet cool air of nail canyon, maybe my suggestion won't ticklish association that worked themselves off thus. Maybe it was the first instance of my committing myself to a breach of camp etiquette. Be that what it may, my innocently expressed sentiment gave rise to bewildering, dissertations on entomology. And most remarkable and startling tales from first-hand experience. Like as not began Frank in matter of fact tone. Them's tarantor are holes all right. And scorpions, centipedes and rattlers always rustle with tarantulars. But we never mind them, not us fellers. We're used to sleeping with them. Why often wake up in the night and see a big tarantor on my chest and see him wink. Ain't that so, Jim? Sure as hell. Drawed faithful, slow Jim. Reminds me of how fatal the bite of a centipede is. Took up Colonel Jones complacently. Once I was sitting in camp with a hunter who suddenly hissed out, Jones, for God's sake, don't budge. There's a centipede on your arm. He pulled his colt and shot the blame centipede off as clean as the whistle. But the bullet hit a steer on the leg and, would you believe it, the bullet carried so much poison that in less than two hours the steer died of blood poisoning. Centipedes threw a blue trail on flesh just by crawling over it. Look there. He buried his arm and there on the brown corded flesh was a blue trail of something, and it was certain. It might have been made by a centipede. This is a likely place for them, put in walls, emitting a volume of smoke and gazing round the cave walls with the eyes of a connoisseur. My archaeological pursuits have experience with centipedes, as you may imagine considering how many old tombs, caves, and cliff dwellings I've explored. This Algonqurin rock is about the right stratum for centipedes to dig in. Dig somewhat after the manner of the fluid-filled long-tailed ecopcrustications of the Genoa Thermicoscata. The common cryfish, you know. From that, of course, you can imagine if a centipede can bite rock, what a whiter he is. He went to grow weak, and did not wonder to see Jim's long pipe fall from his lips. Frank looked queerer round the gills, so to speak, but the gaunt steward never better than I. I can't hear two years ago, he said, and the cave was alive with rock rats, mice, snakes, horn-toads, lizards, and a big giel-monster, besides bugs, scorpion, rattlers, and as for tarantlers and centipedes, they couldn't sleep for the noise they made fighting. I seen the same, concluded Lawson as nonchalant as a wild-horse wrangler well could be. And as for me, now all these lays perfectly still when the centipedes and tarantlers begin to drop down from their holes in the roof, same as them holes up there, and when they lie on me I'll never move, nor even breathe for about five minutes. When I take a notion I'm dead and crawl off. But sure, if I'd breathe, I'd be a goner. All of this was playfully intended for the extinction of an unoffending and impressionable tender foot. With an admiring glance at my tormentors, I rolled out my sleeping bag and crawled into it, vowing I would remain there even if devilfish armed with pikes invaded our cave. Late in communion in the outer floor of our cave lay bathed in white clear moonlight. A dense, gloomy black shadow veiled the opposite canyon wall. High up the pinnacles and turrets pointed toward a resplendent moon. It was a weird, wonderful scene of beauty, entrancing of breathless dreaming silence that seemed not of life. Then Hurau lamented dismally his call fitting the scene The echoes resounded from cliff to cliff, strangely mocking and hollow. At last reverberating low and mournful in the distance. How long I lay there and raptured with the beauty of light and misty of shade, thrilling at the lonesome lament of the owl I have no means to tell. But I was awakened from my trance by the touch of something crawling over me. Probably I raised my head the cave was as light as day. There, sitting sociably on my sleeping bag, was a great black tarantula as large as my hand. For one still moment, not withstanding my contempt for Lawson's advice I certainly acted upon it to the letter. If ever I was quiet, and if ever I was cold, the time was then. My companions snored in blissful ignorance of my plight. Slight rustling sounds attracted my weary gaze from the old black sentinel on my knee. I saw other black spiders running to and fro on the silver sandy floor. A giant as large as a soft shell crabbed seemed to be meditating an assault upon Joan's ear. Another grizzled and shiny with age or moon beams I cannot tell which pushed long, tentative feelers into Wallace's cap. I saw black spots darting over the floor. It was not a dream the cave was alive with tarantulas. Not improbably my strong impression that the spider on my knee deliberately winked at me was the result of memory in livening imagination but it suffice to bring to mind in one rapid, consoling flash the irrevocable law of destiny that the deeds of the wicked return unto them again. I slipped back into my sleeping bag with a keen consciousness of its nature and carefully pulled the flap in place which almost hermetically sealed me up. Hey, Joan's Wallace Frank Jim! I yelled from the depths of my safe refuge, wondering cries gave me glad assurance that they had awakened from their dreams. The cave's alive with tarantulas I cried trying to hide my unholy glee. I'll be darned if I ain't ejaculated Frank. Sure it beats how I'll add a Jim with a shake of his blanket. One on your pillow, shouted Wallace, Whack! Sharp blow proclaimed the opening of hostilities. Memory stamped indelibly every word of the incident but innate delicacy prevents the repetition of all save the old warriors concluding remarks. Police always ever in tarantulas by the millions, centipedes, scorpions, bats, rattlesnakes, too. House where, look out, Wallace, they're under your blanket. From the shuffling sounds which waved I gathered that my long friend from California must have gone through motions credible to a contortionist. An ensuing explosion from Jones proclaimed to the listening world that Wallace had thrown a tarantula upon him. Further fearful language suggested the thought that Colonel Jones had passed on the inquisitive spider to Frank. The reception accorded the unfortunate tarantula. No doubt scared out of his wits, began with a wild yell from Frank and ended in pandemonium. While the confusion kept up with wax and blows and threshing about with language such as never before had disgraced a group of old campers I choked with rapture and reveled in the sweetness of revenge. When quiet regained once more in the black and white canyon only one sleeper lay on the moon silvered sand of the cave had dawned when I opened my sleepy eyes Frank, Jim, Stuart and Lawson had departed as prearranged with the outfit leaving the horses belonging to us and rations for the day. Wallace and I wanted to climb the divide at the break and go home by way of snake gulch and the Colonel acquiesced with remark that his sixty-three years had taught him there was much to see in the world. Coming to undertake it we found the climb except for a slide of weathered rock no great task and we accomplished it in half an hour with breath to spare and no mishap to horses. But descending into snake gulch which was only a mile across the sparsely cedar ridge proved to be tedious labor. By virtue of Satan's patience and skill I forged ahead which advantage, however, meant more risk for me because of the stone set in motion above they rolled and bumped and cut into me and I sustained many brews trying to protect this annoyed slender legs of my horse the descent ended without serious mishap. Snake gulch had a character and sublimity which cast nail-canyon into the obscurity of forgetfulness. The great contrast lay in the diversity of structure. The rock was bright red with parapet of yellow that leaned heaved and bulged outward. They emblazoned cliff-walls two thousand feet high, were cracked from turret to base. They bowled out at such an angle that we were afraid to ride under them. Mountains of yellow rock hung balanced, ready to tumble down at the first angry breath of the gods. We rode among carved stones, pillars, obelisks, and sculptured ruined walls of a fallen Babylon. Slides reaching all the way across and far up the canyon walls obstructed our passage. On every stone silent green lizards sunned themselves gliding swiftly as we came near the marble homes. We came into a region of wind-blown caves of all sizes and shapes high and low on the cliffs. But strange to say, only on the north side of the canyon they appeared with dark mouths open and uninviting, one vast and deep. Though far off menaced us as might the cave of a tawny main king of beasts, yet it impelled, fascinated, and drew us on. A long, hard climb said Wallace to the Colonel as we dismounted. Boys, I'm with you, came the reply. And he was with us all the way as we clambered over the immense blocks then threaded a passage between them and pulled weary legs up, one after the other. So steep lay the jumble of cliff fragments that we lost sight of the cave long before we got near it. Suddenly we rounded a stone to halt and gasp at the thing looming before us. The dark portal of death or hell might have yawned there. A gloomy hole, large enough to admit a church, had been hollowed in the cliff by ages of nature's chiseling. Fast septicler of times past, give up thy dead, cried Wallace solemnly, whole, dark, stikin cave forlorn, quoted I, as feeling as my friend. Jones hauled us down from the clouds. No, I wonder what kind of pre-historic animal hold in here. Said he. Forever the one absorbing interest. If he realized the sublimity of this place, he did not show it. The floor of the cave ascended from the very threshold. Stony ridges circled from wall to wall. We climbed till we were two hundred feet from the opening. Yet we were not half way to the dome. Our horses browsing in the sage far below looked like ants. So steep did the ascent become that we'd desisted. For if one of us had slipped on the smooth incline the result would have been terrible. Our voices rang clear and hollowed from the walls. We were so high that the sky was blotted out by the overhanging square, corners like top of the door. And the light was weird, dim, shadowy opaque. It was a grey tomb. Oh! Yelled Jones with all the power of his wide, leathery lungs. Thousands of devilish voices rushed at us, seemingly on puffs of winds mocking deep echoed bellowed from the ebony shades at the back of the cave. And the walls, taking them up, hurled them on again in feintish concanctation. We did not again break the silence of that tomb where the spirits of ages lay in dusty shrouds. And we crawled down as if we had invaded a sanctuary and invoked the wrath of the gods. We all proposed names, Montezuma's Amphitheater, being the only rival of Jones's selection, Echo Cave, which we finally chose. Mounting our horses again, we made twenty miles of snake gulch by noon when we rested for lunch. All the way up we had played the boys' game of spying for sites with the honors about even. It was a question if snake gulch ever before had such a raking over. Despite its name, however, we discovered no snakes. From the sandy niche of a cliff where we launched Wallace despite a tomb, and heralded his discovery with a victorious whoop. Digging in old ruins roused in him much the same spirit that digging in old books roused in me. Before we reached him he had a big knife buried deep in the red sandy floor of the tomb. This one time sealed house of the dead had been constructed of small stones held together by a cement the nature of which Wallace explained had never become clear to civilization. It was red in color and hard as flint, harder than the rocks it glued together. The tomb was half round in shape and its floor was a projecting shelf of cliff rock. Wallace unearthed bits of pottery bone and finally braided rope all of which to our great disappointment crumbled to dust in our fingers. In the case of the rope Wallace assured us this was a sign of remarkable antiquity. In the next mile we traversed we found dozens of these old cells all demolished except for a few feet of the walls all despoiled of their one-time possessions. Wallace thought these depredations were due to Indians of our own time. Suddenly we came upon Jones standing under a cliff with his neck craned to a desperate ankle. Now what's that? demanded he pointing upward. Ion the cliff wall appeared a small round for trubence. It was of the unmistakably red color of the other tombs and Wallace more excited than he had been in the Cougar Chase said it was a sepulcher and he believed it had never been opened. From an elevated point of rock as high up as I could well climb I decided both questions with my glass. The tomb resembled nothing so much as a mud-wasp nest high on a barn wall. The fact that it had never been broken open quite carried Wallace away with enthusiasm. This is no mean discovery let me tell you that he declared. I am familiar with the Aztec, Toltec and Pueblo ruins and here I find no similarity. Besides they are out of their latitude an ancient race of people very ancient indeed lived in this canyon. How long ago it is impossible to tell. They must have been birds said the practical Jones. Now how'd that tomb get there? Look at it will you? As near as we could ascertain it was three hundred feet from the ground below five hundred from the rim wall above and could not possibly have been approached from the top. Moreover the cliff wall was as smooth as a wall of human make. There's another one called out Jones. Yes and I see another. No doubt there are many of them replied Wallace. In my mind only one thing possible accounts for their position. You observe they appear to be about level with each other. Well once the canyon floor ran along that line and in the ages gone by it is lowered washed away by the rains. This conception staggered us but it was the only one conceivable. No doubt we all thought at the same time of the little rainfall in that arid section of Arizona. How many years? quarried Jones. Years. What are years? said Wallace. Thousands of years ages have passed since the race who built these tombs lived. Some persuasion was necessary to drag our scientific friend from the spot were obviously helpless to do anything else. He stood engaged longingly at the isolated tombs. The canyon widened as we proceeded and hundreds of points that invited inspections such as overhanging shelves of rock, dark fissures, caverns and ruins had to be passed by for lack of time. Still more interesting and important discovery was to come and the pleasure and honor but fell to me. My eyes were sharp and peculiarly far-sighted. The Indian site Jones assured me and I kept them searching the walls in such places as my companions overlooked. Presently under a large bulging bluff I saw a dark spot which took the shape of a figure. This figure I recollected had been presented to my site more than once and now it stopped me. The hard climb of the slippery stones was fatiguing but I did not hesitate for I was determined to know. Once upon the ledge I let out a yell that quickly set my companions in my direction. The figure I had seen was a dark red devil, a painted image rude, unspeakably wild, crudely executed but painted by the hand of man. The whole surface of the cliff-wall bore figures. Of all shapes, men, animals, birds, and strange devices some in red paint mostly in yellow. Some showed the wear of time others were clear and sharp. Wallace puffed up to me but he had wind enough left for another whoop. Jones puffed up also and seeing the first thing a rude sketch thought and might have been a deer or buffalo he commented thus, Durnliffe, I've ever saw an animal like that. Boys, this is a fine sure as you're born. Because not even the Puyoots ever spoke of these figures I doubt if they know they're here. And the cowboys and wranglers what few ever get here in a hundred years never saw these things. Beats anything I ever saw in the Mackenzie or anywhere else. The meaning of some devices was as mystical as that of others was clear. Two blood-red figures of men, the larger dragging the smaller by the hair, while he waved aloft a blood-red hatch at her club left little to conjecture. Here was the old battle of men as old as life. Another group, two figures of which resembled the foregoing and form in action, battling over a prostate form, rudely feminine in outline, attested to an age when men were as susceptible as they are in modern times but more forceful and original. An odd yellow Indian waved aloft a red hand, which striking picture suggested the idea that he was an ancient Macbeth listening to the knocking at the gate. There was a character representing a great chief before whom many figures lay prostrate evidently slain or subjugated. Large red paintings in the shape of bats occupied prominent positions and must have represented gods or devils. Armies of marching men told of that blight of nations, old or young, war. These and birds, unnameable and beasts unclassifiable with dots and marks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that had gone into the dim past, leaving only these marks. Forever unintelligible. Yet while they stood century after century, any fazable reminders of the glory, the mystery, the sadness of life. The pain of any kind lasts so long, asked Jones shaking his head doubtfully. That is the unsolvable mystery, returned Wallace. But the records are there. I am absolutely sure the paintings are at least a thousand years old. I have never seen any tombs or paintings similar to them. Snake Gulch is a find, and I shall someday study its wonders. Sundown caught us within sight of Oak Spring. And we soon trotted into camp to the course of the hounds. Frank and the others had reached the cabin some hours before. Supper was steaming on the hot coals with a delicious fragrance. Then came the pleasantest time of the day. After long chaser jaunt to silent moments, watching the glowing embers of the fire, the speaking moments when a red-blooded story ran clear and true, the twilight moments, when the wood-smoke smelled sweet. Jones seemed unusually thoughtful. I had learned that the occupation in him meant the stirring of old associations, and I waited silently. By and by Lawson snored mildly in a corner, Jim and Frank crawled into the blankets, and all was still. Wallace smoked his Indian pipe and hunted it in firelight dreams. Boys, said our leader, finally, somehow the echoes dying away in that cave reminded me of the mourn of the big white wolves in the barren lands. Wallace puffed huge clouds of white smoke, and I waited, knowing that I was to hear, at last, the story of the Colonel's great adventure in the Northland. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Nasa It was a waiting day at Fort Chippawayan. The lonesome, far northern Hudson Bay trading post seldom saw such life. Tepees dotted the banks of the slave-river, and lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores. Near the boat landing a group of chiefs, grown to the south of the bay. I waited, and I waited. I waited, and I waited. I waited, and I waited. The boat landing a group of chiefs, grown to task in semi-barbaric semi-civilized splendor, but black-browed austere eyed stood in savage dignity with folded arms and high-held heads. Longing on the grassy bank were white men, traders, trappers, and officials of the post. All eyes were on the distant curve of the river, where, as it lost itself in a fine French bend of dark green, white glinting waves dancing a June sky laid blue in the majestic stream, ragged, speartop, dense green trees masked down to the water, beyond rose-bold, ball-nobbed hills in remote purple relief. Long Indian arms stretched south, the waiting eyes discerned a black speck on the green and watched it grow, a flat boat, where the man standing to the oars bore down swiftly. Not a red hand nor a white one offered to help the voyager in the difficult landing. The oblong, clumsy, heavy-related boat surged in with the current and passed the dock despite the boatman's efforts. He swung his craft in below upon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form erect, lifted a bronze face, which seemed setting craggy hardness, and cast from narrow eyes a keen cool glance on those above. The silvery gleam in his hair told of years. Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threw to a level grassy bench on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar, and his boat sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, boxes, and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun. Significant, too, were a couple of long chester rifles shining on a tarpaulin. A cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a tall, thin, grey personage of official bearing in a faded military coat. Are you the Muscox hunter? He asked in tones that contained no welcome. The boatman greeted this preemptory interlocutor with a cool laugh, a strange laugh, in which the muscles of his face appeared not to play. Yes, I'm him, that man, he said. The chiefs of the Chippewyan and great slave tribes have been apprised of your coming. They have held counsel and are here to speak with you. At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to the level bench and formed a half-circle before the voyager. To a man who had stood before grim-sitting bull and noble black thunder of the Sioux and faced the falcon-eyed Geronimo and glanced at the rifle at gorgeous feathered wild-free Comanches. This semi-circle of savages lords of the north was a sorry comparison. Be-dobbled and be-trinketed slouchy and slovenly, these low-statured chiefs belied in appearance their scorn-bright eyes in lofty mane. They made a sad group. One who spoke in unintelligible language rolled out a haughty Sonora's voice over the listening dude, when he had finished a half-breed interpreter in the dress of a white man spoke at a signal from the commandant. He says, listen to the great orator of the Chippewaian. He has summoned all the chiefs of the tribe south of Great Slave Lake. He has held counsel. The cunning of the paleface who comes to take the musk oxen is well known. Let the paleface hunter return to his own hunting grounds. He will return his face from the north. Never will the chiefs permit the white man to take musk oxen alive from their country. The agateer, the musk ox, is their god. He gives them food and fur. He will never come back if he is taken away and the reindeer will follow him. The chiefs and their people would starve. They command the paleface hunter to go back. They cry, Naza, Naza, Naza, save her a thousand miles. Naza returned the hunter with mingled curiosity and disgust. At Edmonton Indian runner started ahead of me and every village I struck the redskins would crowd around me. An old chief would orang at me and motion me back and point north with Naza, Naza, Naza. What does it mean? No white man knows. No Indian will tell, answered the interpreter. The traitors think it means the Great Slave, the North Star, the North Spirit, the North Wind, and Agatheer, the musk ox god. Well, say to the chiefs, to tell Agatheer I have been four moons on the way after some of his little Agatheers and I'm going to keep on after them. Hunter, you are most unwise. Broken the commandant in his officious voice. The Indians will never permit you to take a musk ox alive from the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is a wonder you have not been stopped. Who will stop me? The Indians. They will kill you if you do not turn back. Ah! To tell an American plainsman that, the hunter paused a steady moment with his eyelids narrowing over slits of blue fire. There is no law to keep me out. Nothing but Indian superstition and the greed of the Hudson Bay people. And I am an old fox, not to be fooled by petty baits. For you are the ones who have tried to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an Englishman, could not buy food of them. The policy of the company is to side with the Indians to keep the out-traders and trappers. Why? So they can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing and food by trading a few trinkets and blackets, low tobacco and rum for millions of dollars worth of furs. Have I failed? No. Have I failed to hire a man after man Indian after Indian not to know why I cannot get a helper? Have I, a plainsman, come a thousand miles alone to be scared by you or a lot of craven Indians? Have I been dreaming of musk oxen for forty years to slink south now? When I begin to feel the north, not I. Deliberately every chief with the sound of a hissing snake spat in the hunter's face. He stood immovable while they perpetrated the outrage, then calmly wiped his cheeks and in a strange, cool voice addressed the interpreter. Tell them thus they show their true qualities to insult and counsel. Tell them they are not chiefs but dogs. Tell them they are not even squaws, only poor, miserable, starved dogs. Tell them I turn my back on them. Tell them the pale faces fought real chiefs, fierce, bold, like eagles, and he turns his back on dogs. Tell them he is the one who could teach them to raise the musk ox and the reindeer and to keep out the cold and the wolf. But they are blinded. Tell them the hunter goes north. Through the council of chiefs ran a low mutter as of gathering thunder. To do his word the hunter turned his back on them as he brushed by his eye caught a gaunt's savage slipping from the boat. At the hunter's turn call the Indian leapt ashore, started to run, it stole a parcel, would have succeeded in eluding its owner but for an unforeseen obstacle, as striking as it was unexpected. A white man of colossal stature had stepped in the chief's passage and laid two great hands on him. Instantly the parcel flew from the Indian and he spun the air to fall into the river with a sounding splash. He also signaled the surprise and alarm caused by this unexpected incident. The Indian frantically swam to the shore, whereupon the champion of the stranger in a strange land lifted a bag which gave forth a musical clink of steel and throwing it with the camp articles on the grassy bench. He extended a huge friendly hand. My name is Rhea, he said in a deep cavernous sense. My name is Jones, replied the hunter, and right quickly did he grasp a prolifered hand. He saw in Rhea a giant of whom he was but a stunted shadow, six and a half feet, Rhea stood, with yard-wide shoulders a bulk of bone and brawn. His ponderous shaggy head rested on a bull neck, his broad face with its low forehead, its close shut opaque eyes, pale and cruel as those of a jaguar marked him a man of terrible brute force. Free traitor, called the commandant, better think twice before you join fortunes with the musk ox hunter. Do I hell with you in your rantin' dog-eared redskins, cried Rhea? I've run again a man of my own kind, a man of my own country, and I'm going with him. With this he thrust aside some encroaching gaping Indians so unconcernedly and un-gently that they sprawled upon the grass. Slowly the crowd mounted and once more lined the bank. Jones realized that by some late turning stroke of fortune he had fallen in with one of the few free traders in the province. These free traders from the very nature of their calling, which was to defy the fur company and to trap and trade on their own out, were a hearty and intrepid class of men. Raised worth to Jones exceeded that of a dozen ordinary men. He knew the ways of the north, the language of the tribes, the habits of the animals, the handling of dogs, and uses of food and fuel. Moreover it soon appeared that he was a carpenter in blacksmith. Learn my kit, he said, dumping the contents of his bag, it consisted of a bunch of steel traps, some tools, a broken axe, a box of miscellaneous wrappers used, and a few articles of flannel. Leaving redskins he added an explanation of his poverty. Not much of an outfit, but I'm the man for you. Besides, I had a pal once to knew you on the plains called you Buff, Jones. Old Jim Brent he was. I recollect Jim, said Jones. He went down in Custer's last charge. So you were Jim's pal. That'd be a recommendation, if you needed one. But the way you tucked that Indian overboard got me. Ray soon manifested himself as the man of few words and much action. With the planks Jones had on board he heightened the stern and bow of the boat to keep out the beating waves in the ramparts. He fashioned a steering gear and a less awkward set of ores and shifted the cargo so as to make more room in the craft. Buff were in for a storm. Set up a tarplin and make a fire. We'll pretend a camp tonight. Those Indians won't dream we'd try to run the river after dark and we'll slip by under cover. The sun glazed over, clouds moved up from the north, the cold wind swept the tips of the spruces and rain commenced a drive in gusts. By the time it was dark not an Indian showed himself. They were housed from the storm. Lights twinkled into teepees and the big log cabins of the trading company. Jones scouted round till a pitchy black night then a freezing pouring blast sent him back to the protection of the tarplin. When he got there he found that Ray had taken it down and awaited him. Off said the free trader and with no more noise than a drifting feather the boat sprung into the current and glided down till the twinkling fires no longer exactuated the darkness. By night the river in common with all swift rivers had a sullen voice and murmured it's hurry, it's restraint, it's minutes, it's meaning. The two boatmen, one at the steering gear one at the oars, faced the pelting rain and watched the dim dark line of trees. The craft slid noiselessly onward into the gloom. And into Jones's ears above the storm poured another sound a steady muffled rumble like the roll of giant chariot wheels. It had come to be a familiar roar to him and the only thing which in his long life of hazard had ever sent the cold, prickling, tight shudder over his warm skin many times on the Amethbanca that rumble had pre-staged the dangerous and dreaded rapids. Hell, men rapids, shouted Ray, bad water, but no rocks. The rumble expanded to a roar, the roar to a boom that charged the air with heaviness with a dreamy burr. The whole indistinct world appeared to be moving to the lash of wind, to the sound of rain, to the roar of the river. The boat shot down and sailed aloft, met shock on shock, breasted leaping dim white waves and in a hollow, unearthly blend of watery sounds rode on and on, buffeted tossed, pitched into a black chaos and yet gleamed with the obscure shrouds of light. Then the convulsive stream shrieked out to finance, changed its course abruptly to slow down and drown the sound of rapids in muffling distance. Once more the craft swept on smoothly to the drive of the wind and rush of the rain. By midnight the storm cleared, murky clouds split to show shiny blue-white stars in a fitful moon that silvered the crests of the cruces and sometimes hid like a gleaming black-threaded pearl behind the dark branches. Jones a plainsman, all his days wonderingly watched the moon blanched water. He saw it shade and darken under shadowy walls of granite where it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard again the far-off rumble, faint on the night wind, high cliff banks appeared, walled out the mellow light and the river suddenly narrowed, yawning holes whirlpools of a second, opened with a gurgling suck and raced with the boat. The craft flew, far ahead, along declining plain of jumping frosted waves, played dark and white with the moonbeams. The slave plunged to his freedom down his river, stone-spiked bed knowing no patient eddy, and white wreathe his dark, shiny rocks in spume and spray.