aightway forgot it.

On the moment from my right somewhere Don pealed out his bugle blast,
and immediately after Sounder and Jude joining him, sent up the thrice
welcome news of a treed lion.

"There 're two! There 're two!" I yelled to Jones, now working down to
my right.

"He's treed down here. I've got him spotted!" replied Jones. "You stay
there and watch your lion. Yell for Emett."

Signal after signal for Emett earned no response, though Jim far below
to the left sent me an answer.

The next few minutes, or more likely half an hour, passed with Jones
and me separated from each other by a wall of broken stone, waiting
impatiently for Jim and Emett, while the hounds bayed one lion and I
watched the other.

Calmness was impossible under such circumstances. No man could have
gazed into that marvel of color and distance, with wild life about
him, with wild sounds ringing in his ears, without yielding to the
throb and race of his wild blood.

Emett did not come. Jim had not answered a yell for minutes. No doubt
he needed his breath. He came into sight just to the left of our
position, and he ran down one side of the ravine to toil up the other.
I hailed him, Jones hailed him and the hounds hailed him.

"Steer to your left Jim!" I called.. "There's a lion on that crag
above you. He might jump. Round the cliff to the left--Jones is
there!"

The most painful task it was for me to sit there and listen to the
sound rising from below without being able to see what happened. My
lion had peeped up once, and, seeing me, had crouched closer to his
crag, evidently believing he was unseen, which obviously made it
imperative for me to keep my seat and hold him there as long as
possible.

But to hear the various exclamations thrilled me enough.

"Hyar Moze--get out of that. Catch him--hold him! Damn these rotten
limbs. Hand me a pole--Jones, back down--back down! he's comin'--Hi!
Hi! Whoop! Boo--o! There--now you've got him! No, no; it slipped! Now!
Look out, Jim, from under--he's going to jump!"

A smashing and rattling of loose stones and a fiery burst of yelps
with trumpet-like yells followed close upon Jones' last words. Then
two yellow streaks leaped down the ravine. The first was the lion, the
second was Don. The rest of the pack came tumbling helter-skelter in
their wake. Following them raced Jim in long kangaroo leaps, with
Jones in the rear, running for all he was worth. The animated
and musical procession p