And then a queer thing happened. Another tawny and grizzled body suddenly projected itself into the fray! Where he came from Scotty could not imagine, but a volleying bay of savage barks told him that it was no cougar but another dog.
Scotty stared for a moment, rifle lowered. Then—“Blaze!” he yelled in amazed delight—“Yeeoow!—Tear him, puppy!” he whooped. The giant Airedale launched himself like a gray thunderbolt surcharged with vim and power at the cougar’s throat. As Scotty watched them, not daring to fire, the cat spun around and Ruler instantly seized a hock hold. Claws flew through the air. Blaze bounded about the cat like a rubber ball, just out of reach. A whoop of triumph came from Niltci as he closed in swiftly with upraised knife. For a tense instant Scotty sat watching a chance to fire from his saddle, his heart beating so that he could hear the pulses through his own open mouth. Then the cat whirled and soared through the air in one tremendous bound that carried him twenty feet away. He hit the ground running. There is no such speed as an old Tom can put on when in a tight place! He seemed literally to fly through the air, Blaze and Ruler a jump or two behind him. Niltci gave up the chase and snatched at the bridle of his pony as that faithful creature raced up after him. Scotty put spurs to the mare and galloped off in hot pursuit.
“Hi! Blaze! Hi! Ruler!—Wahoo!” he yelled, throwing the bridle over the mare’s neck. In answer a stentorian Whoopee! came ringing back through the forest. That was a man’s voice, and almost immediately following it there was a crash in the timber and a white horse thundered through the pines at right angles to Scotty’s course, the tree trunks seeming to pass the white flash of the horse like fence pickets.
“Left!—Left!—You pisen—li’l—horned—toad!” came Big John’s iron voice, jolting to the rhythm of his gallop. Scotty whooped back greeting at him and then wheeled obediently. The cat and both dogs were in plain sight ahead of him but Big John had an uncanny foresight in the ways of big game, and he had no doubt foreseen some sort of twist or short cut on the cougar’s part. The timber cleared ahead of Scotty now, and out to the left in it he saw a giant pine, already dying of old age. For it the cougar had turned and was now racing at top speed. He ran up its huge bole like a cat climbing a tree, a shower of bark spalls raining down from his claws. At the first big dead branch he stopped and turned below his black muzzle, spitting and snarling from an open pink mouth at the dogs underneath. Ruler was prancing around on his hind legs, yelling with eagerness, while Blaze savagely scrambled up the trunk, to lose his grip and tumble down and indomitably attempted it again.
Big John reined in the white horse. “Now’s yore chance to do the pretty, Scotty, old-timer—afore he jumps down—shoot!” he yelled.
Scotty quieted the mare and raised the .405. Its enormous bellow rang out. The cat screeched and launched forth with all four claws spread in the convulsive flurry of death. He struck the pine needles with a heavy thud and instantly the dogs charged in, growling and worrying at him, while old Tom rolled over on his back and spun his claws in the instinctive defense of a cat in his last throes. Niltci clattered up on the mustang at that instant. In a flash he had leaped from his horse, bounded to the cougar’s side and jumped away, leaving a red knife-handle sticking out behind the cougar’s shoulder blades. Again there was a flash of his nimble body and the knife came out, while blood spurted six feet from the gash. The cougar groaned and stretched out on his side, quivering and sighing peacefully as if falling asleep. His eyes glazed; then the body stiffened and stretched in a last tremor.
Blaze ran up on the carcass and bared white fangs at Ruler. His attitude was crinky, cocky as a prize fighter’s, and he honestly believed that he had killed that whole cougar all by himself! He dared Ruler to come on. As the latter had convictions of his own concerning that cat, a royal dog-fight seemed imminent—but Niltci seized the hound’s collar and held him back by main force.
Big John laughed uproariously. “Hol’ him, Injun!” he roared. “Ruler’ll be gobblin’ more’n he kin chow, fust ye know! That Blazie boy’s feelin’ reel mean an’ ornery, danged ef he ain’t!”
Scotty laughed as Big John dismounted to boot the Airedale off the cougar, for Niltci had signified that he wanted to begin skinning out but wasn’t any too anxious to go near the belligerent Blaze.
“Where’s Sid, John?” asked Scotty, collecting his thoughts for the first coherent greeting that the swift action of the hunt so far had allowed.