ark confines. Then I turned my horse to get round
the cliff and over the ridge. When I again stopped, all I could hear
was the thumping of my heart and the labored panting of Satan. I came
to a break in the cliff, a steep place of weathered rock, and I put
Satan to it. He went up with a will. From the narrow saddle of the
ridge-crest I tried to take my bearings. Below me slanted the green of
pinyon, with the bleached treetops standing like spears, and uprising
yellow stones. Fancying I heard a gunshot, I leaned a straining ear
against the soft breeze. The proof came presently in the unmistakable
report of Jones's blunderbuss. It was repeated almost instantly, giving
reality to the direction, which was down the slope of what I concluded
must be the third ravine. Wondering what was the meaning of the shots,
and chagrined because I was out of the race, but calmer in mind, I let
Satan stand.

Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark tingled in my ears. It
belonged to old Moze. Soon I distinguished a rattling of stones and the
sharp, metallic clicks of hoofs striking rocks. Then into a space below
me loped a beautiful deer, so large that at first I took it for an elk.
Another sharp bark, nearer this time, told the tale of Moze's
dereliction. In a few moments he came in sight, running with his tongue
out and his head high.

"Hyah, you old gladiator! hyah! hyah!" I yelled and yelled again. Moze
passed over the saddle on the trail of the deer, and his short bark
floated back to remind me how far he was from a lion dog.

Then I divined the meaning of the shotgun reports. The hounds had
crossed a fresher trail than that of the lion, and our leader had
discovered it. Despite a keen appreciation of Jones's task, I gave way
to amusement, and repeated Wallace's paradoxical formula: "Pet the
lions and shoot the hounds."

So I headed down the ravine, looking for a blunt, bold crag, which I
had descried from camp. I found it before long, and profiting by past
failures to judge of distance, gave my first impression a great
stretch, and then decided that I was more than two miles from Oak.

Long after two miles had been covered, and I had begun to associate
Jim's biscuits with a certain soft seat near a ruddy fire, I was
apparently still the same distance from my landmark crag. Suddenly a
slight noise brought me to a halt. I listened intently. Only an
indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed the impressive stillness.
It might