“Aw!” grinned Sid, “where’d you get that notion, Les? It’s a color phase of our own ordinary cougar, that’s all.”
“But it’s possible, though,” persisted Scotty. “Seems I remember reading once about a big circus that got strewn all over seven counties by a cyclone down here in Arizona. Now, if they had a black leopard in their menagerie——”
“Even then—y’aren’t scared, are you?” interrupted Sid, scornfully, turning to gaze at Scotty with wondering eyes—Scotty who had met the Ring-Necked Grizzly alone up in Montana!
“No, but I’m facing the facts,” retorted Scotty, stoutly. “If he is a black leopard, then he’ll stalk us—that’s the leopard’s game, every time. He’s not afraid of men.”
“Well, what of it?” exclaimed Sid, intolerantly. “C’mon, we’ll try his den first.”
Scotty shrugged his shoulders, as Sid led on with his rifle poised for instant action. In Sid’s present mood there was no use urging ordinary plain caution. Scotty, however, scanned the cliffs and trees about them warily. He wanted to make sure that no panther lurked up on some limb, to spring on them unawares as is the habit of the leopard in the East. Sid halted at the edge of the inner wall.
“Woof!” he called, shying a stone into the dark recesses of the cave. “Hi!—Come out and let’s look at you!” he taunted.
But there was not a sound or a movement from those impenetrable depths.
“Good business!” ejaculated Sid. “Nobody home. That means he’s out after his daily sheep, and the dogs’ll get a fresh track.”
Scotty was not so sure. He looked around cautiously, unmindful of Sid’s amused sniffs. The tall boy led him over to show him the pueblo of the Old People, but even then, before its mouth Scotty hesitated, with rifle cocked, before venturing to peer down. He could bear the reproach in Sid’s eyes unblushingly, for to him Sid seemed casehardened, foolhardy almost. His own cave man within him was no such subdued creature as Sid’s, but was alert and tense as a deer, for a subtle sixth sense persisted in warning him that something lurked around that pueblo that was a deadly menace. It might be imagination; it might be a finer instinct for danger; or possibly some indistinguishable taint in the air that would have been plain as day to the nostrils of our ancestors.