much hurt. My horse is
pretty lame."

I began a recital of my experience, modestly omitting the incident
where I bravely faced an old lioness. Upon consulting my watch, I found
I had been almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, Frank poked
a red face over the rim. He was in shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and
wore a frown I had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise, and at
first could hardly speak.

"Where were--you--all?" he panted. "Say! but mebbe this hasn't been a
chase! Jim and Wallace an' me went tumblin' down after the dogs, each
one lookin' out for his perticilar dog, an' darn me if I don't believe
his lion, too. Don took one oozin' down the canyon, with me hot-footin'
it after him. An' somewhere he treed thet lion, right below me, in a
box canyon, sort of an offshoot of the second rim, an' I couldn't
locate him. I blamed near killed myself more'n once. Look at my
knuckles! Barked em slidin' about a mile down a smooth wall. I thought
once the lion had jumped Don, but soon I heard him barkin' again. All
thet time I heard Sounder, an' once I heard the pup. Jim yelled, an'
somebody was shootin'. But I couldn't find nobody, or make nobody hear
me. Thet canyon is a mighty deceivin' place. You'd never think so till
you go down. I wouldn't climb up it again for all the lions in
Buckskin. Hello, there comes Jim oozin' up."

Jim appeared just over the rim, and when he got up to us, dusty, torn
and fagged out, with Don, Tige and Ranger showing signs of collapse, we
all blurted out questions. But Jim took his time.

"Shore thet canyon is one hell of a place," he began finally. "Where
was everybody? Tige and the pup went down with me an' treed a cougar.
Yes, they did, an' I set under a pinyon holdin' the pup, while Tige
kept the cougar treed. I yelled an' yelled. After about an hour or two,
Wallace came poundin' down like a giant. It was a sure thing we'd get
the cougar; an' Wallace was takin' his picture when the blamed cat
jumped. It was embarrassin', because he wasn't polite about how he
jumped. We scattered some, an' when Wallace got his gun, the cougar was
humpin' down the slope, an' he was goin' so fast an' the pinyons was so
thick thet Wallace couldn't get a fair shot, an' missed. Tige an' the
pup was so scared by the shots they wouldn't take the trail again. I
heard some one shoot about a million times, an' shore thought the
cougar was done for. Wallace went plungin' down the slope an' I
followe