_ CHAPTER XIII. GAME
They got their buck--a big six-point--just before the sun dipped below the flaming sky-line. In order to pack the meat in, one or the other would have to walk. Pete volunteered, but Bailey generously offered to toss up for the privilege of riding. He flipped a coin and won. "Suits me," said Pete, grinning. "It's worth walkin' from here to the ranch jest to see you rope that deer on my hoss. I reckon you'll sweat."
It took about all of the foreman's skill and strength, assisted by Pete, to rope the deer on the pony, who had never packed game and who never intended to if he could help it. And it was a nervous horse that Pete led down the long woodland trail as the shadows grew distorted and grim in the swiftly fading light Long before they reached the mesa level it was dark. The trail was carpeted with needles of the pine and their going was silent save for the creak of the saddles and the occasional click of a hoof against an uncovered rock. Pete's horse seemed even more nervous as they made the last descent before striking the mesa. "Somethin' besides deer is bother'n' him," said Pete as they worked cautiously down a steep switchback. The horse had stopped and was trembling. Bailey glanced back. "Up there!" he whispered, gesturing to the trail above them. Pete had also been looking round, and before Bailey could speak again, a sliver of flame split the darkness and the roar of Pete's six-gun shattered the eerie silence of the hillside. Bailey's horse plunged off the trail and rocketed straight down the mountain. Pete's horse, rearing from the hurtling shape that lunged from the trail above, tore the rope from his hand and crashed down the hillside, snorting. Something was threshing about the trail and coughing horribly. Pete would have run if he had known which way to run. He had seen two lambent green dots glowing above him and had fired with that quick instinct of placing his shot--the result of long practice. The flopping and coughing ceased. Pete, with cocked gun poked ahead of him, struck a match. In its pale flare he saw the long gray shape of a mountain lien stretched across the trail. Evidently the lion had smelled the blood of the deer, or the odor of the sweating horses--a mountain lion likes horse-flesh better than anything else--and had padded down the trail in the darkness, following as close as he dared. The match flamed and spluttered out. Pete wisely backed away a few paces and listened. A little wind whispered in the pines and a branch creaked, but there came no sound of movement from the lion. "I reckon I plugged him right!" muttered Pete. "Wonder what made Jim light out in sech a hurry?" And, "Hey, Jim!" he called.
From far below came a faint
Whoo!
Halloo! Then the words separate and distinct: "I--got--your--horse."
"I--got--a--lion," called Pete shrilly.
"Who--is lyin'--?" came from the depths below.
Pete grinned despite his agitation. "Come--on--back!" shouted Pete. He thought he heard Bailey say something like "damn," but it may have been, "I am." Pete struck another match and stepped nearer the lion this time. The great, lithe beast was dead. The blunt-nose forty-five at close range had torn away a part of its skull. "I done spiled the head," complained Pete. In the succeeding darkness he heard the faint tinkle of shod feet on the trail.
Presently he could distinctly hear the heavy breathing of the horse and the gentle creak of the saddle. Within speaking distance he told the foreman that he had shot a whopper of a lion and it looked as though they would need another pack-horse. Bailey said nothing until he had arrived at the angle of the switchback, when he lighted a match and gazed at the great gray cat of the rocks.
"You get twenty dollars bounty," he told Pete. "And you sure stampeded me into the worst piece of down timber I've rode for a long time. Gosh! but you're quick with that smoke-wagon of yours! Lost my hat and liked to broke my leg ag'in' a tree, but I run plumb onto your horse draggin' a rope. I tied him down there on the flat. I figure you've saved a dozen calves by killin' that kitty-cat. Did you know it was a lion when you shot?"
"Nope, or I'd 'a' sure beat the hosses down the grade. I jest cut loose at them two green eyes a-burnin' in the brush and
whump! down comes Mr. Kitty-cat almost plumb atop me. Mebby I wasn't scared! I was wonderin' why you set off in sech a hurry. You sure burned the ground down the mountain."
"Just stayin' with my saddle," laughed Bailey. "Old Frisco here ain't lost any lions recent."
"Will he pack?"
"I dunno. Wish it was daylight."
"Wish we had another rope," said Pete. "My rope is on my hoss and yours is cinchin' the deer on him. And that there lion sure won't lead.
He's dead."
"'Way high up in the Mokiones,'" chanted Bailey.
"'A-trippin' down the slope'!" laughed Pete. "And we ain't got no rope. But say, Jim, can't we kind of hang him acrost your saddle and steady him down to the flats?"
"I'll see what I can do with the tie-strings. I'll hold Frisco. You go ahead and heave him up."
Pete approached the lion and tried to lift it, but it weaved and slipped from his arms. "Limper 'n wet rawhide!" asserted Pete.
"Are you that scared? Shucks, now, I'd 'a' thought--"
"The doggone lion, I mean. Every time I heave at him he jest folds up and lays ag'in' me like he was powerful glad to see me. You try him."
The horse snorted and shied as the foreman slung the huge carcass across the saddle and tied the lion's fore feet and hind feet with the saddle-strings. They made slow progress to the flats below, where they had another lively session with Pete's horse, who had smelled the lion. Finally with their game roped securely they set out on foot for the ranch.
The hunting, and especially Pete's kill, had drawn them close together. They laughed and talked, making light of high-heeled boots that pinched and blistered as they plodded across the starlit mesa.
"Let's put one over on the boys!" suggested Pete. "We'll drift in quiet, hang the buck in the slaughter-house, and then pack the kitty-cat into the bunk-house and leave him layin' like he was asleep, by Bill Haskins's bunk. Ole Bill allus gits his feet on the floor afore he gits his eyes open. Mebby he won't step high and lively when he sees what he's got his feet on!"
Bailey, plodding ahead and leading Frisco, chuckled. "I'll go you, Pete, but I want you to promise me somethin'."
"Shoot!"
Bailey waited for Pete to come alongside. "It's this way, Pete--and this here is plain outdoor talk, which you sabe. Mrs. Bailey and me ain't exactly hatin' you, as you know. But we would hate to see you get into trouble on account of Gary or any of the T-Bar-T boys. And because you can shoot is a mighty good reason for you to go slow with that gun. 'T ain't that I give two whoops and a holler what happens to Gary. It's what might happen to you. I was raised right here in this country and I know jest how those things go. You're workin' for the Concho. What you do, the Concho's got to back up. I couldn't hold the boys if Gary got you, or if you got Gary. They'd be hell a-poppin' all over the range. Speakin' personal, I'm with you to the finish, for I know how you feel about Pop Annersley. But you ain't growed up yet. You got plenty time to think. If you are a-hankerin' for Gary's scalp, when you git to be twenty-one, why, go to it. But you're a kid yet, and a whole lot can happen in five or six years. Mebby somebody'll git Gary afore then. I sure hope they do. But while you're worldly for me--jest forget Gary. I ain't tellin' you you
got to. I'm talkin' as your friend."
"I'll go you," said Pete slowly. "But if Steve Gary comes at me--"
"That's different. Let him talk--and you keep still. Keepin' still at the right time has saved many a man's hide. Most folks talk too much." _