Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

"THE ANIMAL LAUNCHED ITSELF FROM ITS PERCH FULL TOWARDS JACK." —Page [131].

It was long past noon when they reached some high hills, rough and scarred with broken bad lands, on which grew a few stunted pines and cedars. They were climbing these hills, Jack a little in advance, when he saw rise from a shelf in the rocks, a long, slim, yellow animal, which began to sneak away up a ravine.

"Oh, Hugh, what's that?" the boy cried; and at the same time Powell gave a yell, which started all the dogs forward. "A mountain lion," Hugh called back: "The dogs will tree him, sure! Look out for him!" Jack hardly heard the words, for he was pressing forward close after the dogs, not thinking of the rough ground over which he was riding, but half wild with the excitement of the chase. The horses climbed the steep scarp of the hills at a run, and in a moment Jack found himself galloping over smooth, bare, yellow soil, fifty yards behind the last of the hounds, while the two blue dogs seemed but a few feet behind the lion. In a moment more the beast was safe among the branches of a cedar, the dogs clustered about its trunk, leaping into the air and showing the greatest excitement. When he was almost at the foot of the tree, Jack drew up his horse, and the moment it stopped, threw his gun to his shoulder and fired full into the chest of the lion, which stood facing him snarling and angrily twitching his tail this way and that. As the gun cracked, the animal launched itself from its perch full toward Jack; and, as he looked up at it and saw it flying toward him, with gleaming teeth and outstretched paws, his heart jumped up into his throat. It looked about forty feet long. He never knew whether he spurred Pawnee or whether the horse started of its own accord, but it made three or four jumps, and when Jack looked back, there was the lion on the ground surrounded by all the dogs, which were pulling and tugging at it viciously. The beast was still, and Jack rode back near to it, to be heartily scolded by Hugh, who had just come up.

"Son," said he, "you done a fool trick that time. If you'd been on any other horse you might have been badly scratched. If you wanted to shoot at the lion, and I make no doubt you did, you'd ought to have stopped further off. You'll never make no sort of a hunter if ye don't think. It's all right for a man to take risks if there's anything to be made by taking them, but a man who takes risks just because he don't know no better is a fool. What's more, if you act this way, you're liable to make a fool of me. I'd have looked nice, wouldn't I, if you'd gone back to the ranch all scratched up. Now, of course," he went on more mildly, "I know you ain't anything but a boy, and you can't be expected to have a man's sense, but I want you to get sense as fast as you can, and sense means experience. I'm trying to give you as fast as I can the sense that it's took me forty years to learn. Now, let's see where you hit that fellow. I expect you made a right good shot, for I didn't see the critter stir after he struck the ground."

Meantime young Powell had driven the dogs from the lion, and they had all stretched themselves out in the shade of a cedar, where they were lying, panting, with their tongues hanging far out of their mouths. One of them, Jack noticed, had a long bright red cut, extending nearly from shoulder to hip, from which the blood was dripping fast. They turned the lion over and found the bullet hole in the middle of the chest. It was a good shot, indeed, and the animal's wild spring out of the tree was his expiring effort. He was a very large animal, and quite old, as shown by the condition of his teeth.

"Well, son," said Hugh, "you certainly are in the biggest kind of luck. It's seven years since I've seen a lion about here, and they're never anyways common. Of course we wouldn't have got this fellow if it hadn't been for the dogs; and it's great luck for you who have only been out a month or two now, to have had such a chance as this. You made a mighty good shot, too, and when you take this hide back east you'll sure have something to talk about. I expect, though, your Ma wouldn't have been very happy if she'd been here and seen that lion come sailing out of that tree after you."

When they looked at the wounded hound they found that the long cut in its skin was much less serious than it seemed at first; it was hardly more than a scratch made by a last convulsive kick by the lion, and, while it had cut the skin, and would leave a scar, it did not really injure the dog. They skinned the lion, leaving the claws on the hide, and rolled up the skin, tying it behind Jack's saddle, and then started on their way.

The sun was low in the west when they came in sight of the Powell ranch. They rode up to the barn and began to unsaddle, while the dogs went straight to the house. Before they had stabled the horses they heard a clear voice calling, "Why, Charley, what's the matter with Blue Dan? He's all cut up." And when they reached the door of the house they saw Mrs. Powell and Charley's sister, Bess, a little girl of thirteen, bathing the wounded dog, which seemed proud of the attention he was receiving. Hugh and Jack were cordially welcomed by Mrs. Powell, and later by her husband, when he came in from riding; and the story of the killing of the lion had to be told twice over. Every one congratulated Jack on his good fortune, and it appeared that this was the first time the dogs had ever seen a lion. "They have killed plenty of wolves, foxes, and coyotes," said Mr. Powell, "and two or three wolverenes, and of course a few bob-cats, but I think they never chased a lion before."

After supper Charley took Jack out, and after considerable whistling, succeeded in bringing up to the house two tame coyotes, pets of which Charley was very proud. "We dug them out of a hole in the bank of a gulch a couple of miles from here," he told jack. "There were three of them, and they were so small that their eyes weren't open yet. I had to kill one, for it took to killing chickens. I sort of hated to do it, but I knew it was no use to try to keep him and hens both, and I was afraid he would teach the other two his tricks, so I shot him. These two fellows are all right. There's only one thing they do that makes me mad. Sometimes they wander away off onto the prairie, hunting for themselves; and two or three times I have gone after them with the dogs, thinking that they were wild coyotes. They will run and run as hard as they know how, and then, when the dogs are just about catching up to them, they'll flop over on their backs and lie there with their legs in the air until the dogs come up to them. Of course when the dogs get up to them and smell them, they know them, and won't touch them. Then the coyotes get up and play around and wag their tails and jump about, like they'd been doing something almighty smart. In that way they just have fun with us."

When bed-time came that night, Jack was ready for it. His thirty-mile ride and the excitement of the day had made him very weary.