Sid made the climb up to the cleft in the end of the wall for the last time. Once down through it, he secured the two lariats together and let down their combined length. To his delight they reached well into the top of the fir tree. Then he tied the upper end to a stout sapling growing near the ledge and tested it for strength. Taking the rope in his hands, he raised his voice in a loud Whoopee! and began the descent.
Distant shouts answered him, and then the bellow of rifles. They were making it hot for the Black Panther, Sid hoped, as he picked his way down from ledge to ledge. With the confidence born of the lariat in his grip, it was now easy climbing. A scramble down from one huge slab to the next below, often lowering himself vertically by the rope, brought him at last to where he could grasp the swaying top of the fir tree. Then, abandoning the friendly lariat, he climbed down rapidly, and with a mighty whoop of joy stood on firm soil once more—free!
Then came the reaction—from all the strain and fatigue of the past three days. A delicious sense of ease, of victory and repose, crept over him as he retrieved his rifle and saddle and then rested indolently against the latter, waiting for Scotty and Big John to come down into the canyon. He had had his three-days’ trial, just like any Indian boy. There had been no starvation, no vision; but there had been plenty to test his nerve and courage and resourcefulness. He decided that he was more in love with the great wild outdoors than ever. His life would be here, that was sure, for to him it was happiness. Just what he would do was still somewhat indistinct, but there were lots of purposeful, worth-while activities to be carried on, wholly in the wilderness. Something practical, something with an object for those benighted children of the forest, the Indians, was as far as he could see for the present.
It was perhaps an hour later when Ruler came in sight around a jutting cliff down the canyon, with the three pups trotting along just behind him. After them appeared the tossing heads of the ponies, the flash of sunlight on Big John’s silver-mounted chaps and the white glare of Scotty’s tall sombrero. As they caught sight of him, they burst into a gallop and waved their hats.
“Well, how’s the Black Panther—did you get him?” laughed Sid indolently from his saddle as they rode up.
“Naw,” growled Big John. “I climbs round whar I can sort of carrom him, like, with the thutty-thutty, an’ for every whang we hears him spit back,—growl fer whang, even-Steven—but it don’t interest him none. Then Scotty, here, he tears loose with that old Four-O-Five pursuader, like it hed a half stick of dynamite into it, an’ that’s jest a leetle too much fer kitty! He crep’ back into a hole in his cave an’ pulls the hole in atter him, like a tyrantula; an’ so we guv him up.”
Sid glanced up the cliff wall to where the lariats hung in a long black streak down from the cleft ledge.
“I was weeping real tears over leaving these good lariats behind, boys,” he smiled, cherubically, “but now I see we’ve got a use for them. Scotty and I’ll climb up there, some day, into Lost Canyon, while you and father run the panther with the dogs. Then we’ll have a nice roof party on top of those cliff houses—eh, Les?”
“Sure thing!” agreed Scotty. “But, Sid, the thing to do now is to get back to Neyani’s hogan as fast as we can. You see, Ruler picked up your pony’s tracks in the canyon yesterday, and led us out to Neyani’s place. They’re in lots of trouble out there. This medicine panther, as they insist he is, has been taking one of Neyani’s sheep every few nights—a regular scourge. So what do they do but think that Dsilyi, their demigod, is angry with the house of Neyani and, therefore, it must be because someone has committed a crime and the panther is being sent as a punishment. The suspicion rests on young Niltci, Neyani’s son, a harmless, industrious Indian boy, so far as I can see, and a peach of a silversmith. Well, Neyani was telling us all about it, when John, I think it was, spied your pony up in Neyani’s corral!—Cracky, but thunder broke loose then, you can bet! John, here, was for wringing Neyani’s neck,” laughed Scotty, “and only your father saved it for him. Of course, they all protested their ignorance of you, and swore that the pony had come trotting to their hogan of his own accord. First habitation he saw of any human beings, I suppose. Well, anyway, Neyani turns and blames the whole thing on Niltci and accuses him of murdering you! Of course Colonel Colvin interfered, then, but I’m afraid the poor boy’s doomed, for the Navaho are holding their great fire dance to-night to see who’s guilty, and the least unfavorable omen will settle it for him. We all drew off and camped near by, to try to save Niltci if it comes to the worst. Colonel Colvin told us that the situation had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. We couldn’t kill the sacred medicine cougar without starting an Indian uprising; we couldn’t prove Niltci innocent with you unaccounted for—the whole thing was a mess! Well, early, before dawn this morning the Black Panther came again——”
“Funny, that war!” broke in Big John. “Shore tickled this hombre’s sense of the reedic’lous! Thar we was, afraid to make a move fer fear of offending them pore Injuns’ feelin’s, with their medicine panther an’ all that. But Ruler, here, he don’t know nothin’ about no sacred panther! All he smells is cat, red hot, an’—most impolite,—takes out after the heap big medicine trick panther! I pilgrims out of me blankets and heaves a saddle on wild Bill, an’ Scotty an’ I rolls our tails after thet b’ilin’ of dawgs, leavin’ the Colonel to fix up some lie that’ll pacify the Injuns. Now we shore is wanted back to home, boys! I’ll tote that saddle of yourn, Sid, somehow, an’ Scotty, you carry the extra rifle while Sid takes yore stirrup and runs with us. Let’s get movin’—we’ve got all of ten miles to lope.”