But still there were things that helped the cave man. A wind was stirring, and it mourned and moaned through the empty windows in the deserted pueblo above him, shrieked and gibbered through the faggots on its rafters. It was disquieting to listen to—so low as to be almost inaudible, yet always there! Then there was an owl, not your lusty great barred owl, with his rousing Hoo-hoo!—Wahoo-hoo!—Hoo-hoo-wah!—Sid had always loved that bird—but another one, a ghost of an owl, whose call, floating through the forest like the wail of a lost soul, can only be approximated by the ghastly voice-tones of a lunatic. This cry was hair-raising to listen to, as Sid squatted beside his flickering camp fire. He got to jumping every time that grisly bird uttered his call,—and, as for the cave man within him, he was more than ready to take Sid shrieking out with him into the night!
Sid withstood this combination of insane promptings within and weird noises without until the higher man in him at length rose up determined to have it out with this cave fellow, once for all. Perhaps all this was part of the vigil of the Indian boy, during his three-days’ fast, he reasoned. If so, it would be good to down him and have done with him forever, as doubtless the Indian youths had had to do!
“You darned, ignorant, cowardly fool!” his higher self belabored the quaking ass within him. “Just to show you what I think of all these perfectly explainable night noises, I’m going to turn in and dig out a good night’s sleep! Gorry,—I even wish that cougar’d show up, so I could start something real in all this!” he snorted, contemptuously. Ruggedly indifferent, he forthwith dismissed the night and its noises from his mind, poked up his fire, explored out into the ravine for some dead night wood that would keep burning, and then lay down beside the blaze under his lean-to, pulling the browse under him and backing up a pile of it against that spot between his shoulder blades which is always the first to feel the cold. The browse was warm from the fire heat. Sid had routed his troubles with one mighty effort. Now, with the utmost indifference, he felt a comfortable drowsiness stealing over him. Victory!
He awoke with the impression that dawn had come. A gray light filled the canyon; he could see distinctly. The fire had gone out, and his first move was to stumble out among the trees and collect some more dead wood. Somehow, he still felt sleepy and had not that fresh, invigorated feeling with which he usually greeted the dawn. Stupidly he fumbled over his emergency kit, wondering in a vague way how long the remnants of it would last him. The cold of night was biting in through his back, and he was right glad to lie down beside the flickering flames again and feel the warmth of the pile of browse against his shoulder blades.
As he lay, with his head resting on one hand, the early light mystery solved itself. A narrow red rim appeared over the brink of the canyon,—an enormous curved line, threaded through the tree trunks. It rose and shortened as he watched, gradually taking round form. Then the moon rose, splendid and silvery, through the tree tops. It was still early night; he had not slept over two hours!
Sid gave a grimace of dismay as he watched the moon sailing steadily upward high over the canyon rim. It meant hours more of this waking and dozing before he could wear the night through. To-morrow his father and their party would come into the main canyon; then or never would be the time to get in contact with them. He was puzzling over practical ways to do this—when out of the dead silence of the night a sudden scream, like a woman in agony, rent the stillness. Sid fumbled hastily in the browse for his revolver and then leaped to his feet. He knew that cry! It was the hunting call of the cougar, during his night prowlings. Evidently the four-footed sharer of his canyon was coming, returning to his lair!
As Sid watched the rim, a movement in the dark bushes caught his eye. They parted; and out on a tall pinnacle butte stepped the form of a great cat. Great, and black as night was he, as Sid watched him, his heart pounding so that he could hear its beats through his open mouth. He was—he must be—black! That couldn’t be a trick of the moonlight, for the moon was on the opposite side of the canyon, to the east, and it played full on the sleek body of the cougar.
“The Black Panther of the Navaho!—and he’s come!” whispered Sid to himself, hardly breathing. “Well, what am I going to do about it—let him come down here?” he asked himself, after an indecisive period of shivering with excitement and cold.
Like some bronze Fremiet statue, the Black Panther stood silent in the moonlight, his long lithe body sloping away behind in graceful curves. Only the tip of his black tail twitched slightly. Then his superb head moved, and there was a flash of green from his eyes as the moonlight caught some gleam of the fire burning in their fuming depths. He uttered a low, hoarse mew, and his fangs bared as his nose caught some taint unfamiliar to him wafted up from the canyon below.
“Gee—I can’t let him come down here!” gasped Sid. “What shall I do?—Attack’s always the best defense!” He raised the revolver and caught the panther through his sights. To what a midget creature had he shrunk, high up there on the cliffs! The front sight nearly covered him; all the rest of him was included between the horns of the U on his rear bar.