the Young Lion Hunter (1998) (3 page)

We watched Wings going faster and faster, gradually settling into an even gait, till he was on a dead run.

"Thet pinto has wings, all right," remarked Jim. "Purcell named him some ways near right. An' between us the kid's no slouch in the saddle. He won't have thet little fire-eatin' hoss broke all in a minnit, but he'll be able to ride him. An' thet'll let us hit the trail."

Chapter
III - OFF FOR COCONINA

The Navajo Indian whom I had engaged through Purcell did not show up till we were packing next morning. He was a copper-skinned, raven-haired, beady-eyed desert savage. When Ken and Hal had finished breakfast I called them out of the cottage to meet him.

"Here, boys, shake hands with Navvy. Here, Navvy, shake with heap big brother--heap little brother."

"Me savvy," said the Indian, extending his hand to Ken. "How."

Then he turned to Hal. "How."

Hal, following Ken, gingerly shook hands with Navvy. From the look of the lad he was all at sea, and plainly disappointed. No doubt in his mind dwelt images and fancies of picturesque plumed Indians, such as he had evolved from Western tales. Indeed Navvy would have been a disappointment to a most unromantic boy, let alone one as imaginative and full of wild ideas as Hal was. Navvy's slouch hat and torn shirt and blue jeans, some white man's cast-off apparel, were the things that disillusioned Hal. And I saw that he turned once more to his pinto. A new saddle and bridle, spurs, chaps, lasso, canteen, quirt, a rifle and a scabbard, and a slicker--these with spirited Wings were all-satisfying and gave him back his enchantment.

"Where'll the Indian ride?" asked Purcell.

"Why, he can climb on the stallion," I replied.

Purcell's stallion Marc was a magnificent bay, very heavy and big-boned. We had strapped a blanket on him and roped some sacks of oats over that. The other pack-horses were loaded with all they could carry.

"He can climb on, I reckon, but he'll darn soon git off," remarked Purcell, dryly.

"Then he'll have to walk," I rejoined.

"That'll be best," said Purcell, much relieved. "Leslie, have a care of Marc. You'll strike some all-fired bad trails in the Ca+-on, where many a hoss has slipped an' gone over. Don't drive Marc or pull him. Just coax him a little."

"All right, Purcell. We'll be careful...Now, boys. We're late starting, and it's thirty miles to the first water."

I led the train, driving our pack horses before me. Navvy came next, leading Marc. Ken was third, and Jim, with a watchful eye on Hal and the pinto, brought up the rear.

The few miles of good road between Kanab and Fredonia, another little hamlet, we made at a jog trot, doing the distance in something over an hour. Outside of Fredonia we hit the trail, and went down and down into the red washes, and, over the sage speckled flats. It grew dusty and hot. About noon we reached the first slow roll of rising ridge, and from there on it was climb. More than once I looked back, and more than once I saw Hal having trouble with his pinto. Once Wings, as if he really had wings, flew off across a flat, and spilled Hal into the sage. Navvy got tired walking and climbed up on the grain-sacks on Marc, but he did not stay there very long. Then my pack horse made trouble for me by shying at a rattlesnake and getting off the trail. The time passed swiftly, as it always passed when we were on the move, and we reached the first cedars about three o'clock. Here I saw that our train was stretched out over a mile in length. Navvy was having a little ride on Marc, but Ken limped along before his mustang, and Hal changed from side to side, from leg to leg, in his saddle. The boys were beginning to show soreness from riding.

The sun had set when we made the head of Nail Gulch. Here a spring and a cabin awaited us, also a little browse for the horses.

"I've got a lame knee, all right," remarked Ken. "Thought I was in good shape."

"No matter how hard you are it'll take three days or more to break you in," I said.

Hal came straggling along behind Jim. He fell off his pinto and just flopped over against a cedar.

"Gee! but ain't it great! Ken, look at those cliffs!"

"Wait a couple of days, Hal. Then I'll show you some cliffs," I said.

It took Jim and me only a little time to unpack, build a fire in the cabin, bake biscuits, and get a good supper. Navvy led the horses to water, hobbled them and turned them loose. Then we had our meal. Ken and Hal were supremely happy, but too tired to be jolly. Darkness found them both asleep, and Hal threshed about as if he were having wild dreams.

At daybreak Navvy awakened me coming in with the horses. It began to appear that the Indian would be a welcome addition to our party. Finding the horses in the morning was work for me, and sometimes long and arduous work. And Jim, rolling out of his blanket and blinking his eyes, drawled: "Wal, pretty fair for an Injun, pretty fair!"

The boys heard us, and roused themselves, bright and eager, though so stiff they could scarcely stand erect. In an hour we had breakfasted, packed, and were in the saddle. This morning Wings did not seem to be so frisky.

"Boys, to-day will be a drill and no mistake," I told them. "Ride as long as you can stand it, then walk a bit...Here! Look over the far side of the gulch. See that long black-fringed line with the patches of snow? That's Buckskin Mountain. To-night we'll camp under the pines. And Ken, there're pine-trees on Buckskin that dwarf those in Penetier."

We struck out into the trail, and then began a long, tedious, uninteresting ride. Nail Gulch was narrow, and shut in the view. Low bare stone walls and cedar slopes extended for miles and miles. It was a gradual ascent all the way, but this did not grow perceptible until about noon. I laughed to see Ken and Hal fall off their saddles, hobble along for a while, then wearily mount again, presently to repeat the performance. The air grew cooler, making gloves comfortable. About three o'clock the gulch began to lose its walls, and we reached the first pines. They were not large, and straggled over the widening gulch, but as we climbed the trail they grew more numerous. The early shades of night enveloped us as we rode out of the gulch into the level forest.

Here and there patches of snow gleamed through the gloom. This solved the question of water, and we made camp at once. A blazing fire soon warmed us. We had a hearty supper of bacon, hot biscuits, coffee, and canned vegetables. Ken and Hal were so tired and sore that they could scarcely move, but that did not affect their appetites. Then we sat around the campfire.

By this time the forest was black and the wind roared through the pines. It was not new to Ken, but Hal showed what it meant to him. I fancied him even more sensitive to impressions than Ken, but he was not so apt to express his feelings. In fact Hal seemed a silent lad, or else he had not yet found his tongue. Wonderful thoughts, I knew, were teeming in his mind. His big eyes glowed. He watched the camp-fire, and looked out into the dark gloom of the forest, and then back at Jim, then at the impassive Navajo. He listened to the wind and to the bells on the horses.

"Where's our tent?" he asked, suddenly. "We don't use no tents," replied Jim. "We spread a tarp--"

"What's that?"

"Why, a tarpaulin, you know, a big piece of canvas. Wal, we spread one of them on the ground, roll in our blankets, an' pull the other end of the tarp up over."

Then a little while afterward Hal broke silence again.

"I hear something; what is it?" he asked, breathlessly, starting up.

We all listened while the fire sputtered. A lull came in the roar of the wind through the pines, and then from far off in the forest a wild, high-pitched yelp.

"Kid, that's a coyote," replied Ken, slapping Hal on the knee. "Don't you remember I told you about coyotes?...Listen!"

Hal said no more that evening, yet when I was sleepy and ready to turn in he still sat up, alert, watchful, intent on the strangeness and wildness of the forest. It was a treat to see him when Navvy rolled in a blanket with feet to the fire.

"Sleepie--me," said the Indian.

That was his good-night to us.

Ken shared my blankets and tarpaulin that night and slept without turning once. When the gray dawn came I was up lighting a fire. Jim yawned out of his bed, and both boys slept on. The morning was cold. A white frost silvered the scant grass. Presently I heard bells far off; they grew louder and quickened. Soon the horses appeared with the Navajo riding one, and they trooped into camp with thudding hoofs and jangling bells. That woke the boys.

"Rustle, now, Kid," said Jim to Hal. "You'll miss somethin' if you ain't lively."

"Oh, I'm all stove up!" exclaimed Ken. "Whew! but that's cold air! How about you, Hal?"

"I feel great," rejoined his brother. We all saw that Hal could hardly get out of bed, that when he did get out it was a desperate task for him to draw on his boots.

"Where's some water to wash in?" he asked. "Tackle the snow-drift there."

I meant for Hal to get a pan of snow and melt it at the fire, but he misunderstood me. He tackled the snow barehanded. It had a frozen crust which he could not break through, so he kicked a hole in it, and then digging out a double handful he proceeded to wash. That operation was one which required fortitude. Hal never murmured, but he hurried to the fire in a way to make Jim wink slyly at me.

When the sun rose we were on the trail. We passed the zone of silver spruces, rode through a long aspen hollow, and then out among the brown aisles of great pines of Buckskin Forest.

"Oh! Ken, I never saw a woods before!" was Hal's tribute.

"Boys, keep your eyes peeled for deer and coyotes," I said.

It was my intention to lead Ken and Hal to the rim of the Grand Ca+-on without warning. I wanted the great spectacle to burst upon them unexpectedly as it had upon me. So I said nothing about it. Ken was in a dream, perhaps living over again his adventures in Penetier. Hal was suffering from his raw legs and sore joints, but he was in an ecstasy over the huge gnarled pines and the wild glades. Both boys had forgotten the Ca+-on. So I rode on, pleased at the thought of what it all was to them. The sun thawed the frost, letting the bluebells peep out of the grass.

"There's a black squirrel with a white tail," shouted Hal.

"Kid, don't ever yell in the forest unless it's a yelling matter," said Ken.

We flushed blue grouse in some of the hollows, but saw no sign of deer. It was easy going and we made fast time. About noon I called into requisition a little ruse I had planned to attract the attention of the boys from the trail ahead. I told them to look sharp for deer on both sides. In this way, leaving the trail and keeping behind the thicker clumps of pines, I approached the Ca+-on without their suspecting its nearness. Then, rounding a thicket of juniper, within twenty yards of the rim I called out:

"Boys! Look!"

Chapter
IV - THROUGH BUCKSKIN FOREST

Strong men, when suddenly confronted with the spectacle of the Grand Ca+-on, have been known to cry out in joy or fear, to weep, to fall upon their knees, or to be petrified into silence. Serious-minded men have been known to laugh immoderately. Sight of the Ca+-on affects no two persons alike, but there are none whom it does not affect powerfully. I paid my own moment's tribute of solemn awe, and then I glanced at the boys.

Ken looked stunned and white, his throat swelling with emotion. Hal's face shone with a radiant glow of wild joy, and for a moment he stuttered, then as Ken burst into an exclamation, he lapsed into stony silence.

"Wonderful! Beautiful! It's--it's--" That was all Ken could say.

"It shore is," replied Jim.

Then I told the boys that the Grand Ca+-on of Arizona was over two hundred miles long, twelve to twenty wide, and a mile and a half deep. It was a Titanic gorge in which mountains, table-lands, chasms and cliffs lay buried in purple haze, a thing of wonder and mystery, beyond any other a place to grip the heart of a man. It had the strange power to make him at once meek and then to unleash his daring spirit.

"The world's split!" exclaimed Hal. "What made this--this awful hole?"

"We'll talk of that and study it after you have seen something of its heights and depths," I replied.

At our feet yawned a blue gulf with faint tracings of cedared slope and shining cliff visible through the noonday haze. Farther out a dark-purple ca+-on wended its irregular ragged way to vanish in space. Still farther out rose bare peaks and domes and mesas all asleep in the sunshine. Beyond these towered a gigantic plateau, rugged and bold in outline, its granite walls gold in the sun, its forest covering a strip of fringed black. It stood aloof from the towers and escarpments, detached from the world of rock, haunting in its isolation and wild promise.

"Boys, there's the plateau, where the cougars are," I said. "You see way down to the left under the wall where a dip of ground connects the plateau to the mainland? That's the Saddle. Hiram Bent is there with his hounds waiting for us."

"How on earth will we ever get there?" queried Ken.

"There are two trails. One leads down over the rim here, the other round through the forest. We'll take the forest trail, for the lower one is not safe for you boys till you get broken in. Come now, we can make the Saddle before dark if we plug along."