Chapter XII
The Last Stand of the Black Panther
It was dark and the Navaho had all gone when Major Hinchman appeared again in camp.
"Went off fine, boys! The Black Panther's not coming any more—that'll be up to us, right pronto, for if he visits the Navaho sheep corrals a single time again we lose all we have gained. Niltci—I told them I was Niltci, now a Ganhi from the spirit world—Niltci will come back to earth again, soon, in that very cave on White Mesa, and I'll make a great medicine man out of him without his knowing any too much about it himself! The dye business is already fixed up; Niltci can help me drive that home, too, after I've had a talk with him, or the Colonel can make a good missionary out of him, as you say he has a lot of influence over the boy, Sid. The thing for us to do now is to ride for Canyon Cheyo and camp somewhere on the brook to-night, and then run the panther with the dogs early tomorrow morning. I can only hope and pray that he don't go sheep stealing to-night!"
Around the camp fire that night they went over their plans. Sid and Scotty were to start for Lost Canyon at dawn, while Big John and the Major would ride with the dogs out to the eastern desert and pick up the Black Panther's trail somewhere back in the timber west of the Navaho settlement If they treed him, they would shoot and bury him' then and there; if he made for his lair in Lost Canyon it would be up to the boys.
"An' believe me, I'll be right behint his tail, Major!" declared Big John. "Them pesky boys is aimin' to kill me of worry, an' they'll git me yet, with their wild an' woolly doin's! I'm fixin' to be right thar when that ole comatabody goes a-sky-hootin' all over the roof of that pueblo, as he's bound to do as soon as they begins lettin' lead inter him.''
It was in the dark before dawn that Sid roused out, to awake Scotty and saddle Pinto. "To-day's the day, old-timer!" he grinned delightedly, as his knuckles bored into Scotty's ribs. "Up an' at 'em, fellah!"
Silently they oiled and cleaned the rifles of desert sand, gulped down some coffee, and saddled their ponies. A rasp of chains where Ruler had arisen from his bed of pinyon straw told that he was awake and eager to be off. Sid went over to him. "Go git 'em, old snoozer!" he whispered affectionately, fondling the big hound's long silky ears. "We're sure depending on you!" Then with a pat for Pepper and Bourbon, he walked over to Pinto to grip the bony ridge of his neck, jammed a foot into his stirrup, and was off, with Scotty galloping hard after him.
By sunup they had reached the little dent in the side chasm that marked the great natural wall which blocked Lost Canyon. High above them, hanging down from the ledge at the foot of the cleft, still dangled the lariat. Picketing the ponies, they strapped on their rifles and climbed the fir tree where, arriving near its top branches, Sid took off his rifle and handed it to Scotty.
"I'll go up first, and then you tie on the rifles and I'll haul them up the ledge. After that you swarm up, and we'll make Fat Man's Misery to-gether."
Scotty sat in the swaying top of the fir tree, trying to get used to the height as Sid climbed up swiftly above him. To him it seemed a hideous business, even with a rope, and he wondered how Sid had ever had the courage to go up there without it the first time. Scotty's was the kind of courage that needs lashing from a higher source, from the inner soul that rules over the whole man. He argued that his was the highest kind of courage, the kind that forces the cringing body to go ahead, although it is crying out with fear; but, nevertheless, he wished he had some of Sid's kind, whatever it was,—that had no fear at all, that regarded this climb with the same matter-of-fact directness that he would have had it been near the ground and the element of danger eliminated.
"Aw,—what's the use of being afraid!" his mind belabored his craven body as he booted it into action when the time came for him to go up. But he was afraid! Horribly so,—as afraid as the tyro aloft in a man-o'-war's rigging for the first time, and his climb up the narrow cleft did not improve it either. By the time they had reached the trail up to the pueblo, Scotty was thoroughly exhausted by his wrestles with his courage and far below the key of his usual manliness. A fearsome idea had obsessed him after that climb and he now gave it words as they reached the roof of the cliff dwellings.
"Sid,—suppose this is a real Asiatic black leopard?" he asked. "Did that ever occur to you, as a possible solution of his coloration?"
"Aw!" grinned Sid, "where'd you get that notion, Les? It's a color phase of our own ordinary cougar, that's all."
"But it's possible, though," persisted Scotty. "Seems I remember reading once about a big circus that got strewn all over seven counties by a cyclone down here in Arizona. Now, if they had a black leopard in their menagerie —"
"Even then—y'aren't scared, are you?" interrupted Sid, scornfully, turning to gaze at Scotty with wondering eyes—Scotty who had met the Ring-Necked Grizzly alone up in Montana!
"No, but I'm facing the facts," retorted Scotty, stoutly. "If he is a black leopard, then he'll stalk us—that's the leopard's game, every time. He's not afraid of men."
"Well, what of it?" exclaimed Sid, intolerantly. "C'mon, we'll try his den first."
Scotty shrugged his shoulders, as Sid led on with his rifle poised for instant action. In Sid's present mood there was no use urging ordinary plain caution. Scotty, however, scanned the cliffs and trees about them warily. He wanted to make sure that no panther lurked up on some limb, to spring on them unawares as is the habit of the leopard in the East. Sid halted at the edge of the inner wall.
"Woof!" he called, shying a stone into the dark recesses of the cave. "Hi!—Come out and let's look at you!" he taunted.
But there was not a sound or a movement from those impenetrable depths.
"Good business!" ejaculated Sid. "Nobody home. That means he's out after his daily sheep, and the dogs'll get a fresh track."
Scotty was not so sure. He looked around cautiously, unmindful of Sid's amused sniffs. The tall boy led him over to show him the pueblo of the Old People, but even then, before its mouth Scotty hesitated, with rifle cocked, before venturing to peer down. He could bear the reproach in Sid's eyes unblushingly, for to him Sid seemed casehardened, foolhardy almost. His own cave man within him was no such subdued creature as Sid's, but was alert and tense as a deer, for a subtle sixth sense persisted in warning him that something lurked around that pueblo that was a deadly menace. It might be imagination; it might be a finer instinct for danger; or possibly some indistinguishable taint in the air that would have been plain as day to the nostrils of our ancestors.
Disregarding Sid's taunting protests, Scotty kept his rifle cocked and his body on hair trigger, ready to turn or spring aside or leap into instant action at the first hint of warning. Sid turned away from him in amused disdain and sat down ruggedly on the outer wall, his ear cocked for the first distant bay of the hounds. It was broad daylight, now, with the sun perhaps two hours high, and the chase was due to arrive any minute.
"Gorry! It's funny we don't hear them!" exclaimed Sid, impatiently, after perhaps fifteen minutes of waiting, his eyes scanning the opposite rim impatiently.
Scotty nerved himself to speak out what was in his mind. It was the brave thing to do—morally brave and he did it. "Suppose, Sid, the Black Panther heard us coming, and just sneaked out of his lair,—and is prowling about here now ——"
An impatient shrug of Sid's shoulders stopped him. "Scotty, you're nervous," he said, solicitously.
"Never let yourself get that way, or you won't be able to shoot—— By George!—There's Ruler, now!"
He had interrupted himself to gaze across the canyon. The great brown hound stood on the opposite rim. Silently he had come out of the forest; silent and perplexed, he sniffed the air, testing its scents. As they watched, his body suddenly stiffened and his tail went straight as a poker. His ears laid back and his teeth bared, and then a volleying bark rang out across the canyon. Ruler pawed the ground in his excitement—then he suddenly ceased and ran along the rim, a houndy growl, whimpering with eagerness, coming from him.
"That settles it!" said Scotty, rising energetically. "He saw the Black Panther, Sid! His eyes are sharper than ours. That brute's around here, somewhere, behind us or above us—did you note where Ruler seemed to be looking?"
Both boys were now alert and warned. They stepped slowly along the roof, toward the ladder end of it, rifles poised, eyes scanning every possible lurking place.
"By—Gosh!—There he is!" yelled Scotty in a sudden scream of fright. "Mark!—Cliff!"
He had jumped back as Sid looked up, bewildered. Thirty feet over their heads, on the sheer face of the cliff where grew out the stubby roots of a spruce from a crack, crouched the great cat. His eyes smoldered green fire as he peered down at them over the root, and his pink mouth opened in a hideous, silent snarl. Then his ears flattened back.
"Shoot! He's going to jump!" barked Sid, his rifle springing to shoulder and crashing out as the bead swung up over a confused mass of black. Down through the smoke that long, lithe shape plunged like a plummet, a brawny forepaw stretched out, with the five talons outspread like steel hooks. Both boys leaped back rapidly across the roof, for when he landed he would rebound like some deadly infernal spring-machine at one of them. It was a diabolical black head,—the nose a snarling mass of wrinkles, the eyes spitting savage ferocity, that turned on Scotty with the quickness of a lightning flash when the Black Panther hit the roof. His attack was bewildering, a series of short springs, each a smash of the muscular forepaw, each a wicked snarl of formidable fangs and a hoarse, hissing catspit that nearly paralyzed Scotty with fright. The youth jumped back, the cat following, sparring at him as he pranced on three legs. It was impossible to get the gun muzzle up, as the sweep of that paw would have knocked it spinning out of his hands. Yet during the short five seconds of that rush Scotty was aware of the constant baying of a hound and the shouts of Sid to jump clear to one side so he could fire. Then a frightful blow, that ripped his sombrero brim and tore it from his head, sent his rifle up instinctively to ward off, and the next instant it was struck from his hands, bellowing like a cannon as the trigger jarred loose.
For an instant the Black Panther recoiled at the noise, and in that instant Sid's .30 whipped out its sharp report. High in the air leaped the great cat. All that had gone before was nothing to the feats of strength and agility he displayed now. He was hit,—he was enraged,—he was frantic with fury! In one terrific leap he cleared half the distance between himself and Sid; in the next he was pawing and striking around Sid's gun muzzle, stuck into his face as the boy retreated, prodding at him and trying to reload. Scotty had picked up his .405 and was frantically yanking on its lever. Then past him leaped a brown shape, bellowing attack. Ruler it was—in the nick of time to save Sid! He had done the incredible thing, the impossible thing, of climbing along the cougar's cliff route through the spruces! At the hound's raging bark, the Black Panther whirled about from Sid and his back and tail went up until he seemed ten feet tall. Ruler was a third his size, but the instinct to hump up at the sight of a dog seems ineradicable in all the cat tribe.
The next instant he had leaped up on the cliff wall above its hollowed-out arch, so as to get a high place from which to spring. "Shoot, Scotty!— Shoot quick!" yelled Sid, for his own rifle had jammed, with one cartridge in the chamber and another in the carrier, in the excitement of trying to reload with the panther pawing at him. The heavy .405 roared out, filling the whole arch with smoke. Down through it fell the Black Panther, paralyzed for the moment. He struck on his back, and the rafters of the ancient cliff-dwelling roof crackled under him. Toward Sid he floundered, his claws scratching the 'dobe. Blood spurted in a stream from his side and he was dying, but there was murder in his eyes, hate, fury, the yearning desire to kill in the last second of life left to him. Rapid]y he crawled toward Sid, purposeful, determined not to die without his jaws clenched in at least one adversary. Ruler bit and worried and dragged back on him from behind, but the Black Panther ignored him completely. He had Sid cornered, in the angle between the side and end wall of the pueblo, and he knew it.
Scotty hesitated, with wabbling rifle, for a tense moment. If he fired he would certainly hit Sid, for the two were in line with him and the heavy bullet would crash clean through the Black Panther from behind. If he moved to another position he would be too late.
And, during that instant of hesitation, shot after shot rang out up in the canyon. Bullets came in a leaden hail—from somewhere—as the cougar flinched and his head was struck from side to side as if lashed with an invisible whip. It seemed impossible that a man could shoot so fast and so true as those bullets came that were crashing into the Black Panther's skull. Then Scotty's .405 went off, close at hand, with a stunning report, and everything was obliterated in a cloud of smoke. The cougar shuddered, in a last terrible convulsion which shook the pueblo walls, and then, with a crack of breaking poles, the roof gave way beneath him and the Black Panther sank from sight.
A thin haze of smoke drifted out from the spruces on the cliff wall, between the pueblo and Fat Man's Misery, as the boys looked around to see where those finishing shots had come from. Then Big John's voice rang out from the green depths.
"Say,—that was the devil's own climb, boys! I ain't so leetle but what I got a number ten foot and a number two haid, an' that lariat looked like a pack cord to me! How d'ye git down out'n hyar?—she's all slide rock!"
Whoopee!—Big John!—The boys howled at each other happily at the sound of his familiar tones. Then Sid shouted him directions, and after a time he himself appeared over the ladder head on the pueblo wall.
"Wa'n't invited to the party but I got hyar, allee-samee pronto!" grinned Big John, as he mounted to the roof. "You boys'll break this ole hoss-wrangler's neck yit! Right sociable time ye was havin, with the trick cougar, eh,—Siddy boy!" he chuckled, winking at Scotty. "I seen him, flewin' round, soon's I clumb through the cliff, so I wraps myself around a tree, up thar, an' draws cyards to set in the game, too."
"Came in mighty handy, John—my next would have been a jump over that wall into kingdom come, if you hadn't opened up !" laughed Sid, still fussing with the jammed army cartridge. "Darn a rimless shell, anyhow, I'll say!"
Ruler was having a wonderful time, all by himself, worrying at the carcass below, so they all dropped down to examine the great, glossy prize.
"Gee, what a trophy!" exclaimed Sid, admiringly. "Cougar or leopard, he's a scientific curiosity! But we've got to bury him, boys. It's our duty. We couldn't ship that skin out of Arizona without the warden examining it, and word of it would sure get back to the Indians. We owe it to Major Hinchman, fellows. Look for a kiva in this floor."
"Dern them Injuns, anyhow!" grunted Big John. "I hate to part with this ole boy, somehow; we shore hev had a fine time with him!"
They scratched around in the dust and after a time unearthed the round stone cover of the kiva, or underground cave, that is built in every pueblo for the mystic rites of the rain priests. Into its dark cavern the body of the Black Panther disappeared, forever, as they replaced the stone and tamped back the earth.
"Shore it's a derned shame!" snorted Big John.
"Good-by, kitty! You were a good kitty, an' you give us a nice party while you lasted—only you didn't onderstand that sheep ain't public property! C'mon, boys, we'll have a fat job gittin' Ruler down them ledges! The Major's thar, waitin' fer us with the other two dawgs. We shoved fer your canyon as soon as Ruler didn't give tongue, fer I knew the Black Panther was hyar and there'd be doin's."
"Sure was!" grinned Scotty. "But now that he is properly abolished, the Major ought to be able to smooth the Indians down all right. He can keep his word about the Black Panther coming no more, now."
Sid was the last to leave the little cliff dwelling. It was with a feeling of sadness that he turned away. The place had become tragic, the tomb of a noble beast that had been a notable character, in his way. Like the Indian, Sid inwardly begged his pardon for their having had to kill him. This cliff dwelling would be his fitting monument. He belonged here, in the silence and mystery of an ancient and changeless land. For countless ages the cougar, the bear, the wolf, and the deer had lived with the red men of this country, generation after generation, century after century. They were part of it all, together with the desert sun and the clouds and winds. Life, as it was lived here, had become a settled, stabilized thing long, long ago. The White Man was an intruder; he could take it or leave it as he chose; but he could not alter it, by one jot or tittle.
Sid did not wish to alter it. The desert, the canyon, and all their inhabitants suited him.
"This is my country!—These are my people!" he whispered to himself. "Ethnology for mine! Practical ethnology. I'll begin with Major Hinchman for a guide. Some day, when all this blows over, I'll come back up here and get those pottery treasures from the Old People's pueblo."
Sid turned for a last look as they reached the point near the cleft from which Big John had fired. Silent, mysterious, inscrutable as eternity, the walls of the cliff dwelling nestled under its great overarching cave. Old as the centuries, typical of this country and of the spirit that broods over its changeless canyon and desert, it had acquired a new dignity, it locked a new secret in its walls, for it was now the tomb of the Black Panther of the Navaho, and over it hung the sable majesty of Death.
He turned to the cleft, where all was sweating activity.
"Easy with Ruler, thar, Scotty!" Big John was bellowing from a precarious footing on the lower ledge. "The Colonel will skin me alive ef we drap him. We starts across for the Big Crack, to-night, boys. Let me git that white hoss atween my knees jest onct more—an' ye don't git me up no cliffs ag'in, nohow!"