Chapter VI
Ruler Takes a Hand
When the first realization burst upon Sid that he was a prisoner in Lost Canyon, his first reaction was a rebellious No! The thing was preposterous—there must be a way out! The cougar's route, for one thing. With that idea in mind, Sid decided on a return to his cave lair on the pueblo ledge. He had a shivery repugnance for the haunted cliff dwelling, now, since he knew that he would very likely have to spend the night in the same valley with this abode of departed spirits. But Sid tossed aside such thoughts, for the present, and worked his way resolutely up to the cliff dwellers' village again. The cougar's trail leading out of his cave was well marked—as far as the edge of the ledge. From there his immense strength and activity, and his sharp, hooked claws made possible for him any number of different routes along the cliff wall. There were claw marks, here and there, plainly to be seen, places that the boy couldn't think of reaching. No creature without hooked claws could remain there for a minute!
Sid marked a number of these spots and worked out a more or less nebulous route by them along the cliff walls. Going below, he could pick these up, he thought, and follow them up the canyon so as to locate the spot where the cougar came down the cliff. With this idea he descended again and stumbled hurriedly down the rock valley, searching the ledges above with his eyes. He could just discern the faint spoor marks, where certain small shrubs had been bent over, or certain patches of loose, rocky soil dislodged. They all trended north, toward the head of the canyon.
And there lay his fate! That vast, smooth slope, of utterly bare rock slanted up from the upper ledges to the top, here. It was smooth, of weathered gray granite, and it was so steep that no man without a rope to hang on to could attempt to climb it. A thin fissure, with tufts of weeds growing invitingly out of it, crossed it diagonally. A man might ascend, with that precarious foothold,—but it was utterly inaccessible from below.
The great cat had negotiated it with ease, however, his steel-hook claws gripping the granite without probably giving it so much as a thought. Over it, up and down, he had come, carrying his prey in his teeth, as patches of hair and dried blood on the granite showed. The route was as easy to him as to a cat going up a tree; to a man it was quite as impossible.
It was growing late when Sid finally came to the conclusion that impossible was the answer, so far as he was concerned. He spent an hour more in walking up and down the ravine, studying the cliff rim for some possible crevice or chimney up which he could climb by the aid of a manufactured rope. This, too, was hopeless, without at least a hundred feet of lariat—things were done on too huge a scale, here, to be at all complaisant with puny man and his inventions! To return to the high cleft in the wall that blocked Lost Canyon suggested itself. Sid could see nothing in that to allure! At the best he could only reach the ledge at the bottom of "Fat Man's Misery," there to sit and look below. His own people were not due in the Canyon until to-morrow; even then it would be a mere chance that could decide them to come up this side canyon which he had explored. He recollected some talk about their striking the canyon from its upper end,—seven miles away from him! With his small .32-20 revolver there was hardly a chance that they would hear him, even if he sat on the ledge all next day and fired signals.
Sid decided that his present duty was to make himself comfortable for the night. Usually this was a most delectable occupation. Never in his life had Sid known fear of the forest. One thing which had always brought a disrespectful grin to his face on being urged to read the great poets had been their very evident distaste for a forest—at night. Even in the daytime they peopled it with fairies, dryads, monsters, witches—at the very least with wild beasts and all the terrors of the unknown and unseen. Not one of them, Sid felt, could have been left out all night in the forest without a feeling of uneasiness, without at least a stoppage of the Muse and an ardent desire for a return to the comforts and security of civilization! But to Sid the trees, the rocks, the birds, the forest animals all formed one vast brotherhood with him; it was always with a feeling of utter peace and security that he allowed himself to sink into the unconsciousness of sleep, confident of a joyous reawakening when dawn should steal through the forest aisles again and all its wild brotherhood burst into life and song.
But this evening, with the grisly proximity of the deserted pueblo and its unburied dead, with the certainty that his valley was shared by a night-prowling wild beast, he found that his usual serenity had left him and instead there was a nervousness and a disinclination for sleep—a tendency, even, to stop in the midst of some trivial action and watch and listen. And, that evening, Sid discovered also the presence of an Elder Brother within him,—that cowardly, brutish, superstitious and terror-ridden cave man that psychologists tell us occupies the left lobe of the brain. This part of ourselves is only held in subjection by the superior soul of man,—the result of ages of intellectual training and advancement,—that controls the right lobe of his brain and dominates the whole man. But this pre-Adamite self, this abject creature,—whose mildest manifestation is that peculiar fit of shyness known as "stage fright"—lurks always within each one of us, ready to drive into blind, unreasoning terror, the mad fury of murder, or the brutish outbursts of passion, the best of men, once he gains the ascendancy. He whispered now to Sid, counseling he knew not what madness, ghost-terrors, fetishes, superstitious fear of the dead.
For a time Sid held him in check, occupied with the practical business of making a bivouac,—a sort of bear's den of spruce browse slanting over a horizontal pole beside his fire. After that came the preparation of a meal of bacon, coffee and pinole. But as night fell and it grew pitch black within the canyon, the whimpers of the terrified cave man within him grew louder and more insistent, urging him to fly, he knew not where,—to yell aloud for succor,—to build a huge fire for its imaginary protection—all the promptings of the arrant coward. Sid fought him off, partly amused over the childish suggestions that swirled through his brain, partly sympathetic over the lives of real terror that the actual cave man must have lived, and whose indelible recollections they have transmitted down to us, deep buried in the very core of our beings.
But still there were things that helped the cave man. A wind was stirring, and it mourned and moaned through the empty windows in the deserted pueblo above him, shrieked and gibbered through the faggots on its rafters. It was disquieting to listen to—so low as to be almost inaudible, yet always there! Then there was an owl, not your lusty great barred owl, with his rousing Hoo-hoo!—Wahoo-hoo!—Hoo-hoo-wah!—Sid had always loved that bird—but another one, a ghost of an owl, whose call, floating through the forest like the wail of a lost soul, can only be approximated by the ghastly voice-tones of a lunatic. This cry was hair-raising to listen to, as Sid squatted beside his flickering camp fire. He got to jumping every time that grisly bird uttered his call,—and, as for the cave man within him, he was more than ready to take Sid shrieking out with him into the night!
Sid withstood this combination of insane promptings within and weird noises without until the higher man in him at length rose up determined to have it out with this cave fellow, once for all. Perhaps all this was part of the vigil of the Indian boy, during his three-days' fast, he reasoned. If so, it would be good to down him and have done with him forever, as doubtless the Indian youths had had to do!
"You darned, ignorant, cowardly fool!" his higher self belabored the quaking ass within him. "Just to show you what I think of all these perfectly explainable night noises, I'm going to turn in and dig out a good night's sleep! Gorry,—I even wish that cougar'd show up, so I could start something real in all this!" he snorted, contemptuously. Ruggedly indifferent, he forthwith dismissed the night and its noises from his mind, poked up his fire, explored out into the ravine for some dead night wood that would keep burning, and then lay down beside the blaze under his lean-to, pulling the browse under him and backing up a pile of it against that spot between his shoulder blades which is always the first to feel the cold. The browse was warm from the fire heat. Sid had routed his troubles with one mighty effort. Now, with the utmost indifference, he felt a comfortable drowsiness stealing over him. Victory!
He awoke with the impression that dawn had come. A gray light filled the canyon; he could see distinctly. The fire had gone out, and his first move was to stumble out among the trees and collect some more dead wood. Somehow, he still felt sleepy and had not that fresh, invigorated feeling with which he usually greeted the dawn. Stupidly he fumbled over his emergency kit, wondering in a vague way how long the remnants of it would last him. The cold of night was biting in through his back, and he was right glad to lie down beside the flickering flames again and feel the warmth of the pile of browse against his shoulder blades.
As he lay, with his head resting on one hand, the early light mystery solved itself. A narrow red rim appeared over the brink of the canyon,—an enormous curved line, threaded through the tree trunks. It rose and shortened as he watched, gradually taking round form. Then the moon rose, splendid and silvery, through the tree tops. It was still early night; he had not slept over two hours!
Sid gave a grimace of dismay as he watched the moon sailing steadily upward high over the canyon rim. It meant hours more of this waking and dozing before he could wear the night through. Tomorrow his father and their party would come into the main canyon; then or never would be the time to get in contact with them. He was puzzling over practical ways to do this—when out of the dead silence of the night a sudden scream, like a woman in agony, rent the stillness. Sid fumbled hastily in the browse for his revolver and then leaped to his feet.
He knew that cry! It was the hunting call of the cougar, during his night prowlings. Evidently the four-footed sharer of his canyon was coming, returning to his lair!
As Sid watched the rim, a movement in the dark bushes caught his eye. They parted; and out on a tall pinnacle butte stepped the form of a great cat. Great, and black as night was he, as Sid watched him, his heart pounding so that he could hear its beats through his open mouth. He was—he must be—black! That couldn't be a trick of the moonlight, for the moon was on the opposite side of the canyon, to the east, and it played full on the sleek body of the cougar.
"The Black Panther of the Navaho!—and he's come!" whispered Sid to himself, hardly breathing. "Well, what am I going to do about it—let him come down here?" he asked himself, after an indecisive period of shivering with excitement and cold.
Like some bronze Fremiet statue, the Black Panther stood silent in the moonlight, his long lithe body sloping away behind in graceful curves. Only the tip of his black tail twitched slightly. Then his superb head moved, and there was a flash of green from his eyes as the moonlight caught some gleam of the fire burning in their fuming depths. He uttered a low, hoarse mew, and his fangs bared as his nose caught some taint unfamiliar to him wafted up from the canyon below.
"Gee—I can't let him come down here!" gasped Sid. "What shall I do?—Attack's always the best defense!" He raised the revolver and caught the panther through his sights. To what a midget creature had he shrunk, high up there on the cliffs! The front sight nearly covered him; all the rest of him was included between the horns of the U on his rear bar.
"Gorry!—I can't hit him, much less hurt him—but I can at least start something!" thought Sid, as he held steady and pulled the trigger. The sharp spiteful report of the little .32-20 rang out. It was followed by as tremendous an exhibition of strength and agility as Sid had ever hoped to witness. The fright of his own cave man within was as nothing compared to the wildly ungovernable scare that his sudden shot had given the Black Panther. In one mighty leap he jumped to the top of a gaunt bare cedar that jutted out behind the pinnacle; in the next he had flashed down the tree, striking right and left with flail-like blows of his paws, jumped a chasm twenty feet across, and sprang up another tree, leaped down again and spun around in circles—simply demented with terror!
Sid laughed grimly. Not a sound did the great cat make. It was all done in less than three seconds, out under the placid beams of the moonlight, and then with a last bound the panther disappeared, and Sid could hear the underbrush up on the plateau cracking and snapping in his wild dash for safety.
Sid turned and looked down at his browse bed, mechanically. A grim sense of mastery, of himself and all things around him pervaded him as he took a few steps fearlessly up the ravine. He owned that whole canyon and everything in it, in his present mood!
"l must have hit him somewhere, to make him carry on like that," he muttered, breaking the revolver open to slip in a fresh shell. All desire for further sleep had now gone from him. He was wide-awake, now, full of a conquering desire to take hold of this situation and master it, so that he would have some plan of action ready by dawn. Spying a dead fir lying in the underbrush, he dragged it out and hauled it to the fire, where the flames soon reached up to envelop it in a cheerful blaze.
He sat down to think things out clearly. His mind was keen and active, now, untroubled by any more nervous and superstitious fears. Realities were plenty enough for him! reflected Sid, joyously. And he had faced one of them,—the worst—and had come off easily victor!
As he set his mind to work marshaling the events of the last two days, a sudden startling thought smote him—suppose his party had started a day early! It was quite possible; it was probable, even! Big John had left him about noon, two days before. He had then gone back to the ranch with the buck and told them how he, Sid, had gone off on a lone hike to the Canyon Cheyo. Suppose then, his father, knowing the immense size of the canyon, had become worried over losing him and had started after him the very next day; Even if they went by the wooded plateau route they would have arrived at the head of the canyon by yesterday afternoon at latest! That, then, was the very time he should have been signaling with all his might, raising a smoke, firing his pistol from the ledge, doing everything to attract them, instead of fooling around trying to get out of the Lost Canyon by himself.
Well,—it was too late, now! Perhaps they were still in Cheyo—of course they were,—and looking for him. The dogs would trace his pony, eventually; they would probably come up his side canyon early next morning. If so, it behooved him to get up on the ledge and be on watch with keenest of eyes and ears.
And, if they didn't come? Well, he had a half-formed plan for that, too. A big spruce grew up near the head of the canyon, in such a position that by building a fire around its roots he could throw it to fall where he could reach the lowest point of that fissure up the cougar's ledge. Taking a quantity of stout pegs up with him, he could drive them in and so build himself a way out.
An hour of such plannings and reflections had put Sid in a sleepy mood again, and, as the moon was now setting in the west, he used up the last of his light in gathering firewood and then turned in, to fall into a sound sleep. By dawn he was up and hungry. The last of his bacon and coffee seemed a mighty sparse meal. By now he loathed the taste of pinole. It would be another day before he could become accustomed to it as a steady diet. It was full daylight before he had cleaned up everything and was ready for the climb up the flanks of Lost Canyon to the high fissure in its closing wall. Coming down now seemed to Sid even worse than going up, for to his eyes he appeared literally suspended, by hand and elbow grip alone, over a yawning blue depth, misty with the vapors rising from the main chasm below.
He finally reached the narrow ledge at the foot of Fat Man's Misery, and peered cautiously over it, straight down below. The top of the green spire of the fir rose up to meet him. Nearly a hundred feet down, it looked mighty inviting, for that way led to freedom and a reunion with his party. But a very brief climb down the ledges served to show the utter futility of any descent that way, for soon he came to a ledge where in going up he had swung out into space as if clambering over a house cornice. Without eyes in his feet, no man could find a safe spot to plant them under that ledge!
But it gave him one advantage, for lying on the ledge he could look over and see the whole floor of the canyon below. The first thing his eyes fixed on was the top of his picket peg. The glint of iron came up from its ring,—but there was nothing attached to it, save a short piece of frayed lariat. Pinto was gone!
Sid stared for some time, disbelieving his eyes and craning his neck so that he nearly lost his balance trying to spy out the horse somewhere up or down the canyon. But all was silent and serene, down there; not a sound but the eternal swish of the wind through the trees and the occasional chirrup of small birds.
"Gee-roo!" he cried at length. "The darned pinhead! I suppose he got frightened and broke his halter, once he realized he was alone in the canyon. I've seen a horse drag an iron disk plow clear across a field in the unreasoning terror of being alone.—Gorry—but this is developing into a regular adventure!"
Plenty of the dangerous part of it was all around him, now, he realized, as he turned to climb up to the cleft again. More than once he cursed his temerity for exposing himself to fresh risks, just to have a closer look down into the canyon where lay his longed-for freedom,—and more than once he had to beat back the whimpering cave man in him who persisted in trying to break out with slobberings and tears! But he negotiated the cleft again, and was soon back in the walled confines of Lost Canyon.
"Now for the spruce!" he ejaculated to himself, cheerily. "It's up to this hombre to make good all by his lonesome—just as he started this, all by his lonesome!"
But his heart sank as he began clearing away the underbrush around it and gathered the wood for a fire. That spruce was all of two feet thick! It towered a hundred feet up into the canyon, yet its topmost spire was not half the distance to the upper rim. Sighting it from across the canyon, Sid judged that it would fall with its top some distance below the beginnings of that huge granite slab over which was the Black Panther's route, but still, it could be reached from ledges up there and he was ready to dare anything to get out. But then that frightful climb up that crack in its surface would begin!
He lit the fire. It had to be a small one, to prevent the tree itself from taking fire, when the whole valley would go up in cinders—with him in it! At the end of an hour the trunk was merely blackened, and a thin skin of charred bark covered its face toward the fire. Sid added logs and fought off discouragement, but it would not down! The whole thing seemed so hopeless—a labor of weeks, years, centuries! It would take the patience of an Indian to get that tree down. He gulped a mouthful of pinole and ranged up and down the valley—seeking fresh game with his revolver, for a meat hunger raged within him. He had plenty of time—all the time in the world! A log, now and then, was all the fire needed; any more would be dangerous. He could hunt, loaf, do anything he pleased—but get out. The little valley, however, was absolutely gameless. Nothing came down here; nothing could get down here, except an occasional bird and the ubiquitous pack rat, one of which had come snuffing into his lean-to the night before.
Sid was more than weary of the whole thing—but he was learning, from life itself, the meanings of the words patience and fortitude. To take things as they came; never to give up, never to be discouraged; always look for the bright outcome somehow, somewhere—it took a strong soul to do that! His own soul was growing, under the exercise of the Indian's virtues—courage, honor, fortitude, faith. He knew it; he felt it within him, as his soul rose struggling out of its sea of troubles.
And then, as if Mother Nature had teased him long enough, down to Sid's ears floated the sweetest music he had ever heard—the baying of a hound!
Sid pranced with joy, hand cupped to ear, listening, locating, his heart bubbling within him.
Ow-ow-ow! it sang, the distant chiming bellow of a hound on a hot scent. Surely that was Ruler's voice! Then a squeaking, ripping bray, seemingly farther off, whispered through the forest—Pepper, by all the red gods!—Sid was sure of them, now!
Sid whipped out his revolver and was about to fire their private signal, when a warning thought bade him hesitate. Those dogs were far ahead of the horses. They were undoubtedly on the trail of the Black Panther, who would head here for his lair where he could be rid of them. If he fired, the panther would turn off and seek some other of his haunts, taking the dogs off with him and Sid would never be found. Far wiser to hold his fire and let him come! Besides, there would be doings!
Sid leaped up on a bowlder where he could command the whole canyon and listened with all his ears.
Ow-ow-ow! Ow-oooow! A whole chorus of doggy music resounded through the forest up over the canyon rim. Pepper, Lee, Bourbon,—he recognized them all, and above the din rose Ruler's mighty horn of a voice, deep, ringing, menacing. They were coming nearer, much nearer! And the cat would be on ahead of them, some distance ahead, most surely. It was time to be on the lookout for him. What should he do? Sid was still undecided whether to get into this with the little pop-gun .32-20 for grouse shooting, when the Black Panther himself appeared, galloping along the rim of the canyon,—his tail erect and bushy as any household cat's as he leaped surefootedly from crag to crag. That tail was laughable! Sid whooped and jeered. Medicine panther, indeed! If the Navaho could only see him now!
The great cat did not so much as glance at him. He was making for the granite slab, hotfoot. Sid raised his revolver as the panther sprang down it. He ran like a fly over the smooth surface, and began bounding along the perpendicular face of the ledge. If he fired and hit, the cat would fall and there would be a knife-and-claw encounter—in a box canyon, with no escape for him and no adequate weapon to defend himself. That cat could strike with a blow that would tear every rib out of his body, and he would come with the quickness of lightning. Elementary caution told Sid to wait until the men came up with their rifles. They had the Black Panther at bay, now.
Meanwhile the Black Panther, with a single hissing snarl at Sid below, had reached the pueblo ledge and darted into his cave of refuge. Once inside, he sent forth a ferocious growl of defiance, warning all the world that he had reached his last stand and was going to be ugly if pursued further. Sid laughed, and watched the canyon rim.
Then,—"Ruler! Ruler!" he screamed in a frenzy of delight as the great hound appeared on the cliff face, checking himself, puzzled, as he came to the last cougar track on the very brim of the canyon. Ruler paid Sid no more attention than a flea; his mind was completely occupied in studying out this hot cat trail. He lifted his muzzle and gave forth a mighty bellow. A squealing and yelping back in the timber answered him, and presently Pepper and Bourbon joined him on the brink, their tails waving like flags as the dogs all conferred over the scent and then decided to circle.
"Hi! Ruler! Pep! Bourbon! This way!" yelled up Sid, waving his arm to them in the direction the cougar had gone. The dogs belled together in unison, then, and started weaving along the brink. Ruler ran out on another pinnacle and struck hot scent, where the Black Panther had only recently landed from his jump. He rolled off a barking-treed call and the pups squeaked and rushed over to smell it, too.
"Hi! Hi!—This way, Scotty! Hyar they are—over by the canyon! Wahoo!" resounded Big John's voice far off through the timber. Sid yelled, and then heard the shout of Scotty answering Big John and the crash of his horse breaking through the timber. Then came a thundering of hoofs, and Big John rode up to the brim on the white mustang.
"Hyar's the dawgs, Scotty!" he turned around to yell back into the forest—then he caught sight of Sid, down below!
"Well, I'll be plumb teetotally hornswoggled!" he roared. "What in my-gosh-amen are you doin' down there, Sid? Hey—Scotty!—Here's Sid! An' I'll bet my boots he's got the varmint down thar with him, too!"