I rode on under the cedars, through a dark, gloomy forest, silent, almost spectral, which brought irresistibly to my mind the words "I found me in a gloomy wood astray." I was lost though I knew the direction of the camp. This section of cedar forest was all but impenetrable. Dead cedars were massed in gray tangles, live cedars, branches touching the ground, grew close together. In this labyrinth I lost my bearings. I turned and turned, crossed my own back trail, which in desperation I followed, coming out of the cedars at the deep and narrow canyon.
Here I fired my revolver. The echo boomed out like the report of heavy artillery, but no answering shot rewarded me. There was no alternative save to wander along the canyon and through the cedars until I found my companions. This I began to do, disgusted with my awkwardness in losing them. Turning Foxie westward I had scarcely gotten under way when Don came trotting toward me.
"Hello, old boy!" I called. Don appeared as happy to see me as I was to see him. He flopped down on the ground; his dripping tongue rolled as he panted; covered with dust and flecked with light froth he surely looked to be a tired hound.
"All in, eh Don!" I said dismounting. "Well, we'll rest awhile." Then I discovered blood on his nose, which I found to have come from a deep scratch. "A—ah! been pushing a lion too hard this morning? Got your nose scratched, didn't you? You great, crazy hound, don't you know some day you'll chase your last lion?"
Don wagged his tail as if to say he knew it all very well. I wet my handkerchief from my canteen and started to wash the blood and dust from his nose, when he whined and licked my fingers.
"Thirsty?" I asked, sitting down beside him. Denting the top of my hat I poured in as much water as it would hold and gave him to drink. Four times he emptied my improvised cup before he was satisfied. Then with a sigh of relief he lay down again.
The three of us rested there for perhaps half an hour, Don and I sitting quietly on the wall of the canyon, while Foxie browsed on occasional tufts of grass. During that time the hound never raised his sleek, dark head, which showed conclusively the nature of the silence. And now that I had company—as good company as any hunter ever had—I was once more contented.
Don got up, at length of his own volition and with a wag of his tail set off westward along the rim. Remounting my mustang I kept as close to Don's heels as the rough going permitted. The hound, however, showed no disposition to hurry, and I let him have his way without a word.
We came out in the notch of the great amphitheater or curve we had named the Bay, and I saw again the downward slope, the bold steps, the color and depth below.
I was just about to yell a signal cry when I saw Don, with hair rising stiff, run forward. He took a dozen jumps, then yelping broke down the steep, yellow and green gorge. He disappeared before I knew what had happened.