of claws raked the lad from shoulder to waist, though without
more than breaking the skin.

That blow settled Stacy.

"I'm dead---ripped to pieces!" he yelled.

Without waiting to jump from the tree, Stacy simply fell. Over and
over on the ground he rolled until he was a dozen yards away from the
tree.

"If you're dead," Tad grinned, "get up and come over here, and tell me
about it."

Stacy slowly rose to his feet. He was badly shaken, covered with dirt
and with some blood showing through the rents in his clothes.

"Nothing but my presence of mind and my speed saved me, anyway,"
Chunky grumbled ruefully.

All in a twinkling that whirling yellow ball shot out of the tree,
striking the ground before Tad Butler could draw the rope taut.
However, the rope still hung over a limb. How the dirt flew! Tad
realized that swift action must come ere the beast should make a leap
at them.

Stacy started away, but Butler's sharp tone halted him.

"Chunky!" Tad panted.

"What?"

"Get hold of this rope with me. Shake yourself. What ails you? Have
you got a streak of yellow in you?"

"I can thrash the fellow who says I have?" roared the fat boy, springing
to his feet.

"That's the way to talk. Come, hurry---get hold here! He's too much
for me and he's going to get away from me if you don't lend a hand."

"Wh-what do you want me to do?"

"Grab hold of this rope, I tell you."

Chunky did so, but keeping a wary eye on the rolling, tumbling, spitting
yellow ball, which was a full grown mountain lion, and an ugly brute.
The king of the canyons, however, was in a most humiliating position
for a king of any sort. He had been roped by his left hind foot, the
other end of the rope being in the hands of the intrepid Pony Rider boy,
Thaddeus Butler. Tad knew well that he had a good thing and he proposed
to hang on as long as there was an ounce of strength left in his body.
By this time Stacy had gotten a grip on the rope.

"Now pull steadily until I tell you to stop."

Slowly, digging his claws into the dirt, biting at the rope that held
him fast, the cat was drawn toward the pinyon tree despite all his
struggles. Tad's object was to pull the beast off its feet, in which
position it would be unable to do very much damage.

Perhaps the cat realized something of this, for all of a sudden it
sprang to the base of the tree and with a roar landed up among the
lower limbs.

Ere the beast even felt the touch of the