The Black Panther of the Navaho

by Warren H. Miller

But it gave him one advantage, for lying on the ledge he could look over and see the whole floor of the canyon below. The first thing his eyes fixed on was the top of his picket peg. The glint of iron came up from its ring,—but there was nothing attached to it, save a short piece of frayed lariat. Pinto was gone!

Sid stared for some time, disbelieving his eyes and craning his neck so that he nearly lost his balance trying to spy out the horse somewhere up or down the canyon. But all was silent and serene, down there; not a sound but the eternal swish of the wind through the trees and the occasional chirrup of small birds.

“Gee-roo!” he cried at length. “The darned pinhead! I suppose he got frightened and broke his halter, once he realized he was alone in the canyon. I’ve seen a horse drag an iron disk plow clear across a field in the unreasoning terror of being alone.—Gorry—but this is developing into a regular adventure!”

Plenty of the dangerous part of it was all around him, now, he realized, as he turned to climb up to the cleft again. More than once he cursed his temerity for exposing himself to fresh risks, just to have a closer look down into the canyon where lay his longed-for freedom,—and more than once he had to beat back the whimpering cave man in him who persisted in trying to break out with slobberings and tears! But he negotiated the cleft again, and was soon back in the walled confines of Lost Canyon.

“Now for the spruce!” he ejaculated to himself, cheerily. “It’s up to this hombre to make good all by his lonesome—just as he started this, all by his lonesome!”

But his heart sank as he began clearing away the underbrush around it and gathered the wood for a fire. That spruce was all of two feet thick! It towered a hundred feet up into the canyon, yet its topmost spire was not half the distance to the upper rim. Sighting it from across the canyon, Sid judged that it would fall with its top some distance below the beginnings of that huge granite slab over which was the Black Panther’s route, but still, it could be reached from ledges up there and he was ready to dare anything to get out. But then that frightful climb up that crack in its surface would begin!

He lit the fire. It had to be a small one, to prevent the tree itself from taking fire, when the whole valley would go up in cinders—with him in it! At the end of an hour the trunk was merely blackened, and a thin skin of charred bark covered its face toward the fire. Sid added logs and fought off discouragement, but it would not down! The whole thing seemed so hopeless—a labor of weeks, years, centuries! It would take the patience of an Indian to get that tree down. He gulped a mouthful of pinole and ranged up and down the valley—seeking fresh game with his revolver, for a meat hunger raged within him. He had plenty of time—all the time in the world! A log, now and then, was all the fire needed; any more would be dangerous. He could hunt, loaf, do anything he pleased—but get out. The little valley, however, was absolutely gameless. Nothing came down here; nothing could get down here, except an occasional bird and the ubiquitous pack rat, one of which had come snuffing into his lean-to the night before.

Sid was more than weary of the whole thing—but he was learning, from life itself, the meanings of the words patience and fortitude. To take things as they came; never to give up, never to be discouraged; always look for the bright outcome somehow, somewhere—it took a strong soul to do that! His own soul was growing, under the exercise of the Indian’s virtues—courage, honor, fortitude, faith. He knew it; he felt it within him, as his soul rose struggling out of its sea of troubles.

And then, as if Mother Nature had teased him long enough, down to Sid’s ears floated the sweetest music he had ever heard—the baying of a hound! Sid pranced with joy, hand cupped to ear, listening, locating, his heart bubbling within him.

Ow-ow-ow! it sang, the distant chiming bellow of a hound on a hot scent. Surely that was Ruler’s voice! Then a squeaking, ripping bray, seemingly farther off, whispered through the forest—Pepper, by all the red gods!—Sid was sure of them, now!