Our ponies were heartily scandalised at being resaddled so soon; but they were powerless to enforce their views, and away we went, Indian file, with souls bent to slay the lion.
“Which I shorely undertakes the view that we'll get him,” observed Bob as we rode along.
“Did you ever hear the Eastern proverb which says, 'The man who sold the lion's hide while yet upon the beast was killed in hunting him'?” I asked banteringly.
“Who says so?” demanded Bob, defiantly.
“It is an Eastern proverb.”
“Well, it may do for the East,” responded Bob, “but you can gamble it ain't had no run west of the Mississippi. Why! I wouldn't be afraid to bet that one of these panthers never killed a human in the world. They do it in stories, but never in the hills. Why, shore! if you went right up an' got one by his two y'ears an' wrastled him, he'd have to fight. You could get a row out of a house cat, an' play that system. But you can write alongside of the Eastern proverb, that 'Bob Ellis says that the lion them parties complain of as killin' their friend, must have been plumb locoed, an' it oughtn't to count.'”
At the edge of the trees we left the ponies standing. They pointed their ears forward as if wondering what all this mysterious night's work meant. It was entirely beside their experience. We left them to unravel the puzzle and passed as quietly among the trees as needles into cloth.
Both Bob and I had served our apprenticeship at being noiseless, and brought the noble trade of silence to a science. It wasn't distant now to the field of the deer's death. Soon Bob pointed out the yellow pine. Bob was a better woodsman than I. Even in the daylight I would have owned trouble in picking out the tree at that distance among such a piney throng.
What little wind we had was breathing in our faces. Bob hadn't made the black-tail's blunder of giving the lion the better of the breeze. Bob took the lead after he pointed out the yellow pine. Perhaps it was 150 yards away when he identified it. We didn't cover five yards in a minute. Bob was resolutely deliberate. Still, I had no thought of complaint. I would have managed the case the same way had I been in the lead.
Every ten feet Bob would pause and listen. There was now and then the sound of a clot of snow falling in the tops of the pines, as some bough surrendered its burden to the influence of the slight breeze. That was all my ears could detect of voices in the woods.