On To The Siwash

: The Last Of The Plainsmen

"Who all was doin' the talkin' last night?" asked Frank next morning,

when we were having a late breakfast. "Cause I've a joke on somebody.

Jim he talks in his sleep often, an' last night after you did finally

get settled down, Jim he up in his sleep an' says: 'Shore he's windy as

hell! Shore he's windy as hell'!"



At this cruel exposure of his subjective wanderings, Jim showed extreme

humiliation; but Fra
k's eyes fairly snapped with the fun he got out of

telling it. The genial foreman loved a joke. The week's stay at Oak, in

which we all became thoroughly acquainted, had presented Jim as always

the same quiet character, easy, slow, silent, lovable. In his brother

cowboy, however, we had discovered in addition to his fine, frank,

friendly spirit, an overwhelming fondness for playing tricks. This

boyish mischievousness, distinctly Arizonian, reached its acme whenever

it tended in the direction of our serious leader.



Lawson had been dispatched on some mysterious errand about which my

curiosity was all in vain. The order of the day was leisurely to get in

readiness, and pack for our journey to the Siwash on the morrow. I

watered my horse, played with the hounds, knocked about the cliffs,

returned to the cabin, and lay down on my bed. Jim's hands were white

with flour. He was kneading dough, and had several low, flat pans on

the table. Wallace and Jones strolled in, and later Frank, and they all

took various positions before the fire. I saw Frank, with the quickness

of a sleight-of-hand performer, slip one of the pans of dough on the

chair Jones had placed by the table. Jim did not see the action;

Jones's and Wallace's backs were turned to Frank, and he did not know I

was in the cabin. The conversation continued on the subject of Jones's

big bay horse, which, hobbles and all, had gotten ten miles from camp

the night before.



"Better count his ribs than his tracks," said Frank, and went on

talking as easily and naturally as if he had not been expecting a very

entertaining situation.



But no one could ever foretell Colonel Jones's actions. He showed every

intention of seating himself in the chair, then walked over to his pack

to begin searching for something or other. Wallace, however, promptly

took the seat; and what began to be funnier than strange, he did not

get up. Not unlikely this circumstance was owing to the fact that

several of the rude chairs had soft layers of old blanket tacked on

them. Whatever were Frank's internal emotions, he presented a

remarkably placid and commonplace exterior; but when Jim began to

search for the missing pan of dough, the joker slowly sagged in his

chair.



"Shore that beats hell!" said Jim. "I had three pans of dough. Could

the pup have taken one?"



Wallace rose to his feet, and the bread pan clattered to the floor,

with a clang and a clank, evidently protesting against the indignity it

had suffered. But the dough stayed with Wallace, a great white

conspicuous splotch on his corduroys. Jim, Frank and Jones all saw it

at once.



"Why--Mr. Wal--lace--you set--in the dough!" exclaimed Frank, in a

queer, strangled voice. Then he exploded, while Jim fell over the table.



It seemed that those two Arizona rangers, matured men though they were,

would die of convulsions. I laughed with them, and so did Wallace,

while he brought his one-handled bowie knife into novel use. Buffalo

Jones never cracked a smile, though he did remark about the waste of

good flour.



Frank's face was a study for a psychologist when Jim actually

apologized to Wallace for being so careless with his pans. I did not

betray Frank, but I resolved to keep a still closer watch on him. It

was partially because of this uneasy sense of his trickiness in the

fringe of my mind that I made a discovery. My sleeping-bag rested on a

raised platform in one corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the

bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed a string turning out

through a chink between the logs. I found it came from a thick layer of

straw under my bed, and had been tied to the end of a flatly coiled

lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I went outside and carelessly

chased the hounds round the cabin. The string stretched along the logs

to another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a point near

where Frank slept. No great power of deduction was necessary to

acquaint me with full details of the plot to spoil my slumbers. So I

patiently awaited developments.



Lawson rode in near sundown with the carcasses of two beasts of some

species hanging over his saddle. It turned out that Jones had planned a

surprise for Wallace and me, and it could hardly have been a more

enjoyable one, considering the time and place. We knew he had a flock

of Persian sheep on the south slope of Buckskin, but had no idea it was

within striking distance of Oak. Lawson had that day hunted up the

shepherd and his sheep, to return to us with two sixty-pound Persian

lambs. We feasted at suppertime on meat which was sweet, juicy, very

tender and of as rare a flavor as that of the Rocky Mountain sheep.



My state after supper was one of huge enjoyment and with intense

interest I awaited Frank's first spar for an opening. It came

presently, in a lull of the conversation.



"Saw a big rattler run under the cabin to-day," he said, as if he were

speaking of one of Old Baldy's shoes. "I tried to get a whack at him,

but he oozed away too quick."



"Shore I seen him often," put in Jim. Good, old, honest Jim, led away

by his trickster comrade! It was very plain. So I was to be frightened

by snakes.



"These old canyon beds are ideal dens for rattle snakes," chimed in my

scientific California friend. "I have found several dens, but did not

molest them as this is a particularly dangerous time of the year to

meddle with the reptiles. Quite likely there's a den under the cabin."



While he made this remarkable statement, he had the grace to hide his

face in a huge puff of smoke. He, too, was in the plot. I waited for

Jones to come out with some ridiculous theory or fact concerning the

particular species of snake, but as he did not speak, I concluded they

had wisely left him out of the secret. After mentally debating a

moment, I decided, as it was a very harmless joke, to help Frank into

the fulfillment of his enjoyment.



"Rattlesnakes!" I exclaimed. "Heavens! I'd die if I heard one, let

alone seeing it. A big rattler jumped at me one day, and I've never

recovered from the shock."



Plainly, Frank was delighted to hear of my antipathy and my unfortunate

experience, and he proceeded to expatiate on the viciousness of

rattlesnakes, particularly those of Arizona. If I had believed the

succeeding stories, emanating from the fertile brains of those three

fellows, I should have made certain that Arizona canyons were Brazilian

jungles. Frank's parting shot, sent in a mellow, kind voice, was the

best point in the whole trick. "Now, I'd be nervous if I had a sleepin'

bag like yours, because it's just the place for a rattler to ooze into."



In the confusion and dim light of bedtime I contrived to throw the end

of my lasso over the horn of a saddle hanging on the wall, with the

intention of augmenting the noise I soon expected to create; and I

placed my automatic rifle and .38 S. and W. Special within easy reach

of my hand. Then I crawled into my bag and composed myself to listen.

Frank soon began to snore, so brazenly, so fictitiously, that I

wondered at the man's absorbed intensity in his joke; and I was at

great pains to smother in my breast a violent burst of riotous

merriment. Jones's snores, however, were real enough, and this made me

enjoy the situation all the more; because if he did not show a mild

surprise when the catastrophe fell, I would greatly miss my guess. I

knew the three wily conspirators were wide-awake. Suddenly I felt a

movement in the straw under me and a faint rustling. It was so soft, so

sinuous, that if I had not known it was the lasso, I would assuredly

have been frightened. I gave a little jump, such as one will make

quickly in bed. Then the coil ran out from under the straw. How subtly

suggestive of a snake! I made a slight outcry, a big jump, paused a

moment for effectiveness in which time Frank forgot to snore--then let

out a tremendous yell, grabbed my guns, sent twelve thundering shots

through the roof and pulled my lasso.



Crash! the saddle came down, to be followed by sounds not on Frank's

programme and certainly not calculated upon by me. But they were all

the more effective. I gathered that Lawson, who was not in the secret,

and who was a nightmare sort of sleeper anyway, had knocked over Jim's

table, with its array of pots and pans and then, unfortunately for

Jones had kicked that innocent person in the stomach.



As I lay there in my bag, the very happiest fellow in the wide world,

the sound of my mirth was as the buzz of the wings of a fly to the

mighty storm. Roar on roar filled the cabin.



When the three hypocrites recovered sufficiently from the startling

climax to calm Lawson, who swore the cabin had been attacked by

Indians; when Jones stopped roaring long enough to hear it was only a

harmless snake that had caused the trouble, we hushed to repose once

more--not, however, without hearing some trenchant remarks from the

boiling Colonel anent fun and fools, and the indubitable fact that

there was not a rattlesnake on Buckskin Mountain.



Long after this explosion had died away, I heard, or rather felt, a

mysterious shudder or tremor of the cabin, and I knew that Frank and

Jim were shaking with silent laughter. On my own score, I determined to

find if Jones, in his strange make-up, had any sense of humor, or

interest in life, or feeling, or love that did not center and hinge on

four-footed beasts. In view of the rude awakening from what, no doubt,

were pleasant dreams of wonderful white and green animals, combining

the intelligence of man and strength of brutes--a new species

creditable to his genius--I was perhaps unjust in my conviction as to

his lack of humor. And as to the other question, whether or not he had

any real human feeling for the creatures built in his own image, that

was decided very soon and unexpectedly.



The following morning, as soon as Lawson got in with the horses, we

packed and started. Rather sorry was I to bid good-by to Oak Spring.

Taking the back trail of the Stewarts, we walked the horses all day up

a slowly narrowing, ascending canyon. The hounds crossed coyote and

deer trails continually, but made no break. Sounder looked up as if to

say he associated painful reminiscences with certain kinds of tracks.

At the head of the canyon we reached timber at about the time dusk

gathered, and we located for the night. Being once again nearly nine

thousand feet high, we found the air bitterly cold, making a blazing

fire most acceptable.



In the haste to get supper we all took a hand, and some one threw upon

our tarpaulin tablecloth a tin cup of butter mixed with carbolic

acid--a concoction Jones had used to bathe the sore feet of the dogs.

Of course I got hold of this, spread a generous portion on my hot

biscuit, placed some red-hot beans on that, and began to eat like a

hungry hunter. At first I thought I was only burned. Then I recognized

the taste and burn of the acid and knew something was wrong. Picking up

the tin, I examined it, smelled the pungent odor and felt a queer numb

sense of fear. This lasted only for a moment, as I well knew the use

and power of the acid, and had not swallowed enough to hurt me. I was

about to make known my mistake in a matter-of-fact way, when it flashed

over me the accident could be made to serve a turn.



"Jones!" I cried hoarsely. "What's in this butter?"



"Lord! you haven't eaten any of that. Why, I put carbolic acid in it."



"Oh--oh--oh--I'm poisoned! I ate nearly all of it! Oh--I'm burning up!

I'm dying!" With that I began to moan and rock to and fro and hold my

stomach.



Consternation preceded shock. But in the excitement of the moment,

Wallace--who, though badly scared, retained his wits made for me with a

can of condensed milk. He threw me back with no gentle hand, and was

squeezing the life out of me to make me open my mouth, when I gave him

a jab in his side. I imagined his surprise, as this peculiar reception

of his first-aid-to-the-injured made him hold off to take a look at me,

and in this interval I contrived to whisper to him: "Joke! Joke! you

idiot! I'm only shamming. I want to see if I can scare Jones and get

even with Frank. Help me out! Cry! Get tragic!"



From that moment I shall always believe that the stage lost a great

tragedian in Wallace. With a magnificent gesture he threw the can of

condensed milk at Jones, who was so stunned he did not try to dodge.

"Thoughtless man! Murderer! it's too late!" cried Wallace, laying me

back across his knees. "It's too late. His teeth are locked. He's far

gone. Poor boy! poor boy! Who's to tell his mother?"



I could see from under my hat-brim that the solemn, hollow voice had

penetrated the cold exterior of the plainsman. He could not speak; he

clasped and unclasped his big hands in helpless fashion. Frank was as

white as a sheet. This was simply delightful to me. But the expression

of miserable, impotent distress on old Jim's sun-browned face was more

than I could stand, and I could no longer keep up the deception. Just

as Wallace cried out to Jones to pray--I wished then I had not weakened

so soon--I got up and walked to the fire.



"Jim, I'll have another biscuit, please."



His under jaw dropped, then he nervously shoveled biscuits at me. Jones

grabbed my hand and cried out with a voice that was new to me: "You can

eat? You're better? You'll get over it?"



"Sure. Why, carbolic acid never phases me. I've often used it for

rattlesnake bites. I did not tell you, but that rattler at the cabin

last night actually bit me, and I used carbolic to cure the poison."



Frank mumbled something about horses, and faded into the gloom. As for

Jones, he looked at me rather incredulously, and the absolute, almost

childish gladness he manifested because I had been snatched from the

grave, made me regret my deceit, and satisfied me forever on one score.



On awakening in the morning I found frost half an inch thick covered my

sleeping-bag, whitened the ground, and made the beautiful silver spruce

trees silver in hue as well as in name.



We were getting ready for an early start, when two riders, with

pack-horses jogging after them, came down the trail from the direction

of Oak Spring. They proved to be Jeff Clarke, the wild-horse wrangler

mentioned by the Stewarts, and his helper. They were on the way into

the breaks for a string of pintos. Clarke was a short, heavily bearded

man, of jovial aspect. He said he had met the Stewarts going into

Fredonia, and being advised of our destination, had hurried to come up

with us. As we did not know, except in a general way, where we were

making for, the meeting was a fortunate event.



Our camping site had been close to the divide made by one of the long,

wooded ridges sent off by Buckskin Mountain, and soon we were

descending again. We rode half a mile down a timbered slope, and then

out into a beautiful, flat forest of gigantic pines. Clarke informed us

it was a level bench some ten miles long, running out from the slopes

of Buckskin to face the Grand Canyon on the south, and the 'breaks of

the Siwash on the west. For two hours we rode between the stately lines

of trees, and the hoofs of the horses gave forth no sound. A long,

silvery grass, sprinkled with smiling bluebells, covered the ground,

except close under the pines, where soft red mats invited lounging and

rest. We saw numerous deer, great gray mule deer, almost as large as

elk. Jones said they had been crossed with elk once, which accounted

for their size. I did not see a stump, or a burned tree, or a windfall

during the ride.



Clarke led us to the rim of the canyon. Without any preparation--for

the giant trees hid the open sky--we rode right out to the edge of the

tremendous chasm. At first I did not seem to think; my faculties were

benumbed; only the pure sensorial instinct of the savage who sees, but

does not feel, made me take note of the abyss. Not one of our party had

ever seen the canyon from this side, and not one of us said a word. But

Clarke kept talking.



"Wild place this is hyar," he said. "Seldom any one but horse wranglers

gits over this far. I've hed a bunch of wild pintos down in a canyon

below fer two years. I reckon you can't find no better place fer camp

than right hyar. Listen. Do you hear thet rumble? Thet's Thunder Falls.

You can only see it from one place, an' thet far off, but thar's brooks

you can git at to water the hosses. Fer thet matter, you can ride up

the slopes an' git snow. If you can git snow close, it'd be better, fer

thet's an all-fired bad trail down fer water."



"Is this the cougar country the Stewarts talked about?" asked Jones.



"Reckon it is. Cougars is as thick in hyar as rabbits in a spring-hole

canyon. I'm on the way now to bring up my pintos. The cougars hev cost

me hundreds I might say thousands of dollars. I lose hosses all the

time; an' damn me, gentlemen, I've never raised a colt. This is the

greatest cougar country in the West. Look at those yellow crags! Thar's

where the cougars stay. No one ever hunted 'em. It seems to me they

can't be hunted. Deer and wild hosses by the thousand browse hyar on

the mountain in summer, an' down in the breaks in winter. The cougars

live fat. You'll find deer and wild-hoss carcasses all over this

country. You'll find lions' dens full of bones. You'll find warm deer

left for the coyotes. But whether you'll find the cougars, I can't say.

I fetched dogs in hyar, an' tried to ketch Old Tom. I've put them on

his trail an' never saw hide nor hair of them again. Jones, it's no

easy huntin' hyar."



"Well, I can see that," replied our leader. "I never hunted lions in

such a country, and never knew any one who had. We'll have to learn

how. We've the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us."



"I hope you fellars git some cougars, an' I believe you will. Whatever

you do, kill Old Tom."



"We'll catch him alive. We're not on a hunt to kill cougars," said

Jones.



"What!" exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones to us. His rugged face

wore a half-smile.



"Jones ropes cougars, an' ties them up," replied Frank.



"I'm -- -- if he'll ever rope Old Tom," burst out Clarke, ejecting a

huge quid of tobacco. "Why, man alive! it'd be the death of you to git

near thet old villain. I never seen him, but I've seen his tracks fer

five years. They're larger than any hoss tracks you ever seen. He'll

weigh over three hundred, thet old cougar. Hyar, take a look at my

man's hoss. Look at his back. See them marks? Wal, Old Tom made them,

an' he made them right in camp last fall, when we were down in the

canyon."



The mustang to which Clarke called our attention was a sleek cream and

white pinto. Upon his side and back were long regular scars, some an

inch wide, and bare of hair.



"How on earth did he get rid of the cougar?" asked Jones.



"I don't know. Perhaps he got scared of the dogs. It took thet pinto a

year to git well. Old Tom is a real lion. He'll kill a full-grown hoss

when he wants, but a yearlin' colt is his especial likin'. You're sure

to run acrost his trail, an' you'll never miss it. Wal, if I find any

cougar sign down in the canyon, I'll build two fires so as to let you

know. Though no hunter, I'm tolerably acquainted with the varmints. The

deer an' hosses are rangin' the forest slopes now, an' I think the

cougars come up over the rim rock at night an' go back in the mornin'.

Anyway, if your dogs can follow the trails, you've got sport, an'

more'n sport comin' to you. But take it from me--don't try to rope Old

Tom."



After all our disappointments in the beginning of the expedition, our

hardship on the desert, our trials with the dogs and horses, it was

real pleasure to make permanent camp with wood, water and feed at hand,

a soul-stirring, ever-changing picture before us, and the certainty

that we were in the wild lairs of the lions--among the Lords of the

Crags!



While we were unpacking, every now and then I would straighten up and

gaze out beyond. I knew the outlook was magnificent and sublime beyond

words, but as yet I had not begun to understand it. The great pine

trees, growing to the very edge of the rim, received their full quota

of appreciation from me, as did the smooth, flower-decked aisles

leading back into the forest.



The location we selected for camp was a large glade, fifty paces or

more from the precipice far enough, the cowboys averred, to keep our

traps from being sucked down by some of the whirlpool winds, native to

the spot. In the center of this glade stood a huge gnarled and blasted

old pine, that certainly by virtue of hoary locks and bent shoulders

had earned the right to stand aloof from his younger companions. Under

this tree we placed all our belongings, and then, as Frank so

felicitously expressed it, we were free to "ooze round an' see things."



I believe I had a sort of subconscious, selfish idea that some one

would steal the canyon away from me if I did not hurry to make it mine

forever; so I sneaked off, and sat under a pine growing on the very

rim. At first glance, I saw below me, seemingly miles away, a wild

chaos of red and buff mesas rising out of dark purple clefts. Beyond

these reared a long, irregular tableland, running south almost to the

extent of my vision, which I remembered Clarke had called Powell's

Plateau. I remembered, also, that he had said it was twenty miles

distant, was almost that many miles long, was connected to the mainland

of Buckskin Mountain by a very narrow wooded dip of land called the

Saddle, and that it practically shut us out of a view of the Grand

Canyon proper. If that was true, what, then, could be the name of the

canyon at my feet? Suddenly, as my gaze wandered from point to point,

it was attested by a dark, conical mountain, white-tipped, which rose

in the notch of the Saddle. What could it mean? Were there such things

as canyon mirages? Then the dim purple of its color told of its great

distance from me; and then its familiar shape told I had come into my

own again--I had found my old friend once more. For in all that plateau

there was only one snow-capped mountain--the San Francisco Peak; and

there, a hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred miles away, far beyond

the Grand Canyon, it smiled brightly at me, as it had for days and days

across the desert.



Hearing Jones yelling for somebody or everybody, I jumped up to find a

procession heading for a point farther down the rim wall, where our

leader stood waving his arms. The excitement proved to have been caused

by cougar signs at the head of the trail where Clarke had started down.



"They're here, boys, they're here," Jones kept repeating, as he showed

us different tracks. "This sign is not so old. Boys, to-morrow we'll

get up a lion, sure as you're born. And if we do, and Sounder sees him,

then we've got a lion-dog! I'm afraid of Don. He has a fine nose; he

can run and fight, but he's been trained to deer, and maybe I can't

break him. Moze is still uncertain. If old Jude only hadn't been lamed!

She would be the best of the lot. But Sounder is our hope. I'm almost

ready to swear by him."



All this was too much for me, so I slipped off again to be alone, and

this time headed for the forest. Warm patches of sunlight, like gold,

brightened the ground; dark patches of sky, like ocean blue, gleamed

between the treetops. Hardly a rustle of wind in the fine-toothed green

branches disturbed the quiet. When I got fully out of sight of camp, I

started to run as if I were a wild Indian. My running had no aim; just

sheer mad joy of the grand old forest, the smell of pine, the wild

silence and beauty loosed the spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran

with it till the physical being failed.



While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, endeavoring to regain

control over a truant mind, trying to subdue the encroaching of the

natural man on the civilized man, I saw gray objects moving under the

trees. I lost them, then saw them, and presently so plainly that, with

delight on delight, I counted seventeen deer pass through an open arch

of dark green. Rising to my feet, I ran to get round a low mound. They

saw me and bounded away with prodigiously long leaps. Bringing their

forefeet together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, like

rubber balls, yet they were graceful.



The forest was so open that I could watch them for a long way; and as I

circled with my gaze, a glimpse of something white arrested my

attention. A light, grayish animal appeared to be tearing at an old

stump. Upon nearer view, I recognized a wolf, and he scented or sighted

me at the same moment, and loped off into the shadows of the trees.

Approaching the spot where I had marked him I found he had been feeding

from the carcass of a horse. The remains had been only partly eaten,

and were of an animal of the mustang build that had evidently been

recently killed. Frightful lacerations under the throat showed where a

lion had taken fatal hold. Deep furrows in the ground proved how the

mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken himself. I traced roughly

defined tracks fifty paces to the lee of a little bank, from which I

concluded the lion had sprung.



I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the forest dark, silent,

peopled by none but its savage denizens, The lion crept like a shadow,

crouched noiselessly down, then leaped on his sleeping or browsing

prey. The lonely night stillness split to a frantic snort and scream of

terror, and the stricken mustang with his mortal enemy upon his back,

dashed off with fierce, wild love of life. As he went he felt his foe

crawl toward his neck on claws of fire; he saw the tawny body and the

gleaming eyes; then the cruel teeth snapped with the sudden bite, and

the woodland tragedy ended.



On the spot I conceived an antipathy toward lions. It was born of the

frightful spectacle of what had once been a glossy, prancing mustang,

of the mute, sickening proof of the survival of the fittest, of the law

that levels life.



Upon telling my camp-fellows about my discovery, Jones and Wallace

walked out to see it, while Jim told me the wolf I had seen was a

"lofer," one of the giant buffalo wolves of Buckskin; and if I would

watch the carcass in the mornings and evenings, I would "shore as hell

get a plunk at him."



White pine burned in a beautiful, clear blue flame, with no smoke; and

in the center of the campfire left a golden heart. But Jones would not

have any sitting up, and hustled us off to bed, saying we would be

"blamed" glad of it in about fifteen hours. I crawled into my

sleeping-bag, made a hood of my Navajo blanket, and peeping from under

it, watched the fire and the flickering shadows. The blaze burned down

rapidly. Then the stars blinked. Arizona stars would be moons in any

other State! How serene, peaceful, august, infinite and wonderfully

bright! No breeze stirred the pines. The clear tinkle of the cowbells

on the hobbled horses rang from near and distant parts of the forest.

The prosaic bell of the meadow and the pasture brook, here, in this

environment, jingled out different notes, as clear, sweet, musical as

silver bells.



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