The Last of the Plainsmen by Zane Grey (bill gates best books .TXT) đ
- Author: Zane Grey
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âJones!â I cried hoarsely. âWhatâs in this butter?â
âLord! you havenât eaten any of that. Why, I put carbolic acid in it.â
âOhâohâohâIâm poisoned! I ate nearly all of it! OhâIâm burning up! Iâm dying!â 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, Wallaceâwho, 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: âJoke! Joke! you idiot! Iâm only shamming. I want to see if I can scare Jones and get even with Frank. Help me out! Cry! Get tragic!â
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. âThoughtless man! Murderer! itâs too late!â cried Wallace, laying me back across his knees. âItâs too late. His teeth are locked. Heâs far gone. Poor boy! poor boy! Whoâs to tell his mother?â
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 Jimâs 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 prayâI wished then I had not weakened so soonâI got up and walked to the fire.
âJim, Iâll have another biscuit, please.â
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: âYou can eat? Youâre better? Youâll get over it?â
âSure. Why, carbolic acid never phases me. Iâve 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.â
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 âbreaks 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 preparationâfor the giant trees hid the open skyâwe 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.
âWild place this is hyar,â he said. âSeldom any one but horse wranglers gits over this far. Iâve hed a bunch of wild pintos down in a canyon below fer two years. I reckon you canât find no better place fer camp than right hyar. Listen. Do you hear thet rumble? Thetâs Thunder Falls. You can only see it from one place, anâ thet far off, but tharâs brooks you can git at to water the hosses. Fer thet matter, you can ride up the slopes anâ git snow. If you can git snow close, itâd be better, fer thetâs an all-fired bad trail down fer water.â
âIs this the cougar country the Stewarts talked about?â asked Jones.
âReckon it is. Cougars is as thick in hyar as rabbits in a spring-hole canyon. Iâm 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; anâ damn me, gentlemen, Iâve never raised a colt. This is the greatest cougar country in the West. Look at those yellow crags! Tharâs where the cougars stay. No one ever hunted âem. It seems to me they canât be hunted. Deer and wild hosses by the thousand browse hyar on the mountain in summer, anâ down in the breaks in winter. The cougars live fat. Youâll find deer and wild-hoss carcasses all over this country. Youâll find lionsâ dens full of bones. Youâll find warm deer left for the coyotes. But whether youâll find the cougars, I canât say. I fetched dogs in hyar, anâ tried to ketch Old Tom. Iâve put them on his trail anâ never saw hide nor hair of them again. Jones, itâs no easy huntinâ hyar.â
âWell, I can see that,â replied our leader. âI never hunted lions in such a country, and never knew any one who had. Weâll have to learn how. Weâve the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us.â
âI hope you fellars git some cougars, anâ I believe you will. Whatever you do, kill Old Tom.â
âWeâll catch him alive. Weâre not on a hunt to kill cougars,â said Jones.
âWhat!â exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones to us. His rugged face wore a half-smile.
âJones ropes cougars, anâ ties them up,â replied Frank.
âIâm â â if heâll ever rope Old Tom,â burst out Clarke, ejecting a huge quid of tobacco. âWhy, man alive! itâd be the death of you to git near thet old villain. I never seen him, but Iâve seen his tracks fer five years. Theyâre larger than any hoss tracks you ever seen. Heâll weigh over three hundred, thet old cougar. Hyar, take a look at my manâs hoss. Look at his back. See them marks? Wal, Old Tom made them, anâ he made them right in camp last fall, when we were down in the canyon.â
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.
âHow on earth did he get rid of the cougar?â asked Jones.
âI donât know. Perhaps he got scared of the dogs. It took thet pinto a year to git well. Old Tom is a real lion. Heâll kill a full-grown hoss when he wants, but a yearlinâ colt is his especial likinâ. Youâre sure to run acrost his trail, anâ youâll never miss it. Wal, if I find any cougar sign down in the canyon, Iâll build two fires so as to let you know. Though no hunter, Iâm tolerably acquainted with the varmints. The deer anâ hosses are ranginâ the forest slopes now, anâ I think the cougars come up over the rim rock at night anâ go back in the morninâ. Anyway, if your dogs can follow the trails, youâve got sport, anâ moreân sport cominâ to you. But take it from meâdonât try to rope Old Tom.â
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 lionsâamong 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 âooze round anâ see things.â
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 Powellâs 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
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