bed; only the pure sensorial instinct of the savage who sees, but
does not feel, made me take note of the abyss. Not one of our party had
ever seen the canyon from this side, and not one of us said a word. But
Clarke kept talking.

"Wild place this is hyar," he said. "Seldom any one but horse wranglers
gits over this far. I've hed a bunch of wild pintos down in a canyon
below fer two years. I reckon you can't find no better place fer camp
than right hyar. Listen. Do you hear thet rumble? Thet's Thunder Falls.
You can only see it from one place, an' thet far off, but thar's brooks
you can git at to water the hosses. Fer thet matter, you can ride up
the slopes an' git snow. If you can git snow close, it'd be better, fer
thet's an all-fired bad trail down fer water."

"Is this the cougar country the Stewarts talked about?" asked Jones.

"Reckon it is. Cougars is as thick in hyar as rabbits in a spring-hole
canyon. I'm on the way now to bring up my pintos. The cougars hev cost
me hundreds I might say thousands of dollars. I lose hosses all the
time; an' damn me, gentlemen, I've never raised a colt. This is the
greatest cougar country in the West. Look at those yellow crags! Thar's
where the cougars stay. No one ever hunted 'em. It seems to me they
can't be hunted. Deer and wild hosses by the thousand browse hyar on
the mountain in summer, an' down in the breaks in winter. The cougars
live fat. You'll find deer and wild-hoss carcasses all over this
country. You'll find lions' dens full of bones. You'll find warm deer
left for the coyotes. But whether you'll find the cougars, I can't say.
I fetched dogs in hyar, an' tried to ketch Old Tom. I've put them on
his trail an' never saw hide nor hair of them again. Jones, it's no
easy huntin' hyar."

"Well, I can see that," replied our leader. "I never hunted lions in
such a country, and never knew any one who had. We'll have to learn
how. We've the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us."

"I hope you fellars git some cougars, an' I believe you will. Whatever
you do, kill Old Tom."

"We'll catch him alive. We're not on a hunt to kill cougars," said
Jones.

"What!" exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones to us. His rugged face
wore a half-smile.

"Jones ropes cougars, an' ties them up," replied Frank.

"I'm -- -- if he'll ever rope Old Tom," burst out Clarke, ejecting a
huge quid of tobacco. "Why, man alive! it'd be the death of you to git
near thet old villain. I