CONCLUSION

Kitty was not the only cougar brought into camp alive.  The ensuing days were fruitful of cougars and adventure.  There were more wild rides to the music of the baying hounds, and more heart-breaking canyon slopes to conquer, and more swinging, tufted tails and snarling savage faces in the pinyons.  Once again, I am sorry to relate, I had to glance down the sights of the little Remington, and I saw blood on the stones.  Those eventful days sped by all too soon.

When the time for parting came it took no little discussion to decide on the quickest way of getting me to a railroad.  I never fully appreciated the inaccessibility of the Siwash until the question arose of finding a way out.  To return on our back trail would require two weeks, and to go out by the trail north to Utah meant half as much time over the same kind of desert.  Lawson came to our help, however, with the information that an occasional prospector or horse hunter crossed the canyon from the Saddle, where a trail led down to the river.

“I’ve heard the trail is a bad one,” said Lawson, “an’ though I never seen it, I reckon it could be found.  After we get to the Saddle we’ll build two fires on one of the high points an’ keep them burnin’ well after dark.  If Mr. Bass, who lives on the other side, sees the fires he’ll come down his trail next mornin’ an’ meet us at the river.  He keeps a boat there.  This is takin’ a chance, but I reckon it’s worth while.”

So it was decided that Lawson and Frank would try to get me out by way of the canyon; Wallace intended to go by the Utah route, and Jones was to return at once to his range and his buffalo.

That night round the campfire we talked over the many incidents of the hunt.  Jones stated he had never in his life come so near getting his “everlasting” as when the big bay horse tripped on a canyon slope and rolled over him.  Notwithstanding the respect with which we regarded his statement we held different opinions.  Then, with the unfailing optimism of hunters, we planned another hunt for the next year.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Jones.  “Up in Utah there’s a wild region called Pink Cliffs.  A few poor sheep-herders try to raise sheep in the valleys.  They wouldn’t be so poor if it was not for the grizzly and black bears that live on the sheep.  We’ll go up there, find a place where grass and water can be had, and camp.  We’ll notify the sheep-herders we are there for business.  They’ll be only too glad to hustle in with news of a bear, and we can get the hounds on the trail by sun-up.  I’ll have a dozen hounds then, maybe twenty, and all trained.  We’ll put every black bear we chase up a tree, and we’ll rope and tie him.  As to grizzlies ­well, I’m not saying so much.  They can’t climb trees, and they are not afraid of a pack of hounds.  If we rounded up a grizzly, got him cornered, and threw a rope on him ­there’d be some fun, eh, Jim?”

“Shore there would,” Jim replied.

On the strength of this I stored up food for future thought and thus reconciled myself to bidding farewell to the purple canyons and shaggy slopes of Buckskin Mountain.

At five o’clock next morning we were all stirring.  Jones yelled at the hounds and untangled Kitty’s chain.  Jim was already busy with the biscuit dough.  Frank shook the frost off the saddles.  Wallace was packing.  The merry jangle of bells came from the forest, and presently Lawson appeared driving in the horses.  I caught my black and saddled him, then realizing we were soon to part I could not resist giving him a hug.

An hour later we all stood at the head of the trail leading down into the chasm.  The east gleamed rosy red.  Powell’s Plateau loomed up in the distance, and under it showed the dark-fringed dip in the rim called the Saddle.  Blue mist floated round the mesas and domes.

Lawson led the way down the trail.  Frank started Old Baldy with the pack.

“Come,” he called, “be oozin’ along.”

I spoke the last good-by and turned Satan into the narrow trail.  When I looked back Jones stood on the rim with the fresh glow of dawn shining on his face.  The trail was steep, and claimed my attention and care, but time and time again I gazed back.  Jones waved his hand till a huge jutting cliff walled him from view.  Then I cast my eyes on the rough descent and the wonderful void beneath me.  In my mind lingered a pleasing consciousness of my last sight of the old plainsman.  He fitted the scene; he belonged there among the silent pines and the yellow crags.