The Last of the Plainsmen 



signal cry. The answer returned clear and sharp; 

 then its echo cracked under the hollow cliff, and 

 crossing and recrossing the ravine, it died at last far 

 away, like the muffled peal of a bell-buoy. Again I 

 heard the blended yelping of the hounds, and closer 

 at hand. I saw a long, low cliff above, and decided 

 that the hounds were running at the base of it. 

 Another chorus of yelps, quicker, wilder than the 

 others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I knew 

 the dogs had jumped game of some kind. Satan 

 knew it as well as I, for he quickened his pace and 

 sent the stones clattering behind him. 



I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no 

 tracks in the dust of ages that had crumbled in its 

 shadow, nor did I hear the dogs. Considering how 

 close they had seemed, tiiis was strange. I halted 

 and listened. Silence reigned supreme. The ragged 

 cracks in the cliff walls could have harbored many a 

 watching lion, and I cast an apprehensive glance into 

 their dark confines. Then I turned my horse to get 

 round the cliff and over the ridge. When I again 

 stopped, all I could hear was the thumping of my 

 heart and the labored panting of Satan. I came to 

 a break in the cliff, a steep place of weathered rock, 

 and I put Satan to it. He went up with a will. From 

 the narrow saddle of the ridge-crest I tried to take 

 my bearings. Below me slanted the green of pinon, 



