t. I dodged the jutting rocks and projecting snags; felt stinging
branches in my face and the rush of sweet, dry wind. Under the
crumbling walls, over slopes of weathered stone and droppings of
shelving rock, round protruding noses of cliff, over and under pinyons
Satan thundered. He came out on the top of the ridge, at the narrow
back I had called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpse of Sounder far
below, going down into the ravine from which I had ascended some time
before. I called to him, but I might as well have called to the wind.

Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward camp.
I lay forward on his neck and let him have his will. Far down the
ravine I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized the cracking of
iron-shod hoofs against stone; then voices. Turning an abrupt bend in
the sandy wash, I ran into Jones and Wallace.

"Fall in! Line up in the sad procession!" said Jones. "Tige and the pup
are faithful. The rest of the dogs are somewhere between the Grand
Canyon and the Utah desert."

I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze and Sounder as much as
conscience would permit.

"Hard luck!" commented Jones. "Just as the hounds jumped the
cougar--Oh! they bounced him out of the rocks all right--don't you
remember, just under that cliff wall where you and Wallace came up to
me? Well, just as they jumped him, they ran right into fresh deer
tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that's too much for any hounds,
except those trained for lions. I shot at Moze twice, but couldn't turn
him. He has to be hurt, they've all got to be hurt to make them
understand."

Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones's wake, and of sundry
knocks and bruises he had sustained, of pieces of corduroy he had left
decorating the cedars and of a most humiliating event, where a gaunt
and bare pinyon snag had penetrated under his belt and lifted him, mad
and kicking, off his horse.

"These Western nags will hang you on a line every chance they get,"
declared Jones, "and don't you overlook that. Well, there's the cabin.
We'd better stay here a few days or a week and break in the dogs and
horses, for this day's work was apple pie to what we'll get in the
Siwash."

I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad to see Wallace fall off
his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin. When I got my saddle off
Satan, had given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the cabin
and dropped like a log. I felt as if