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I called and called, but they passed on down the canyon bottom in the direction Jones had taken. Presently a chorus of bays, emphasized by Jones' yell, told me his lion had treed again. "Waa-hoo!" rolled down from above. I saw Emett farther to the left from the point where he had just appeared. "Where can I get down?" I surveyed the walls of the Bay.
I yelled to Jones. "Hi! Hi! Hi!" he joined his robust yell to mine, and for a moment we made the canyon bellow. When we stopped for breath the echoes bayed at us from the opposite walls. "Waa-hoo!" Emett's signal, faint, far away, soaring but unmistakable, floated down to us.
Emett's trail, plain in the yellow ground showed me the way. On entering the cedars again I pulled Foxie in and stopped twice to yell "waa-hoo!" I heard the baying of the hounds, but no answer to my signal. Then I attended to the stern business of catching up. For what seemed a long time, I threaded the maze of cedar, galloped the open sage flats, always on Emett's track.
The tawny body, with its grim, snarling face, blurred in my sight. I heard a roar of sliding stones at my feet. I felt a rush of wind. I caught a confused glimpse of a whirling wheel of fur, rolling down the slide. Then Jones and Frank were pounding me, and yelling I know not what. From far above came floating down a long "Waa-hoo!" I saw Wallace silhouetted against the blue sky.
The tall Californian reached us presently with Sounder beside him. He reported that the hound had chased a lion into an impassable break. We then joined Frank on a jutting crag of the canyon wall. "Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones. There was no answer except the echo, and it rolled up out of the chasm with strange, hollow mockery. "Don took a cougar down this slide," said Frank.
"Waa-hoo!" pealed down the slope. "That's Emett," cried Jones, answering the signal. "If you have another shot put this doe out of agony." But I had not a shot left, nor did either of us have a clasp knife. We stood there while the doe gasped and quivered. The peculiar sound, probably made by the intake of air through the laceration of the throat, on the spur of the moment seemed pitifully human.
I became aware, after a succession of efforts to keep from being strung on pinyons, that the sand before me was clean and trackless. Hauling Satan up sharply, I waited irresolutely and listened. Then from high up the ravine side wafted down a medley of yelps and barks. "Waa-hoo, waa-hoo!" ringing down the slope, pealed against the cliff behind me, and sent the wild echoes flying.
"Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones with all the power of his wide, leather lungs. Thousands of devilish voices rushed at us, seemingly on puffs of wind. Mocking, deep echoes bellowed from the ebon shades at the back of the cave, and the walls, taking them up, hurled them on again in fiendish concatenation.
Hoping to save time, we took a short cut, and were soon crossing deep ravines. The sunrise coloring the purple curtain of cloud over the canyon was too much for me, and I lagged on a high ridge to watch it, thus falling behind my more practical companions. A far-off "Waa-hoo!" brought me to a realization of the day's stern duty and I hurried Satan forward on the trail.
Making the bottom of the ravine after what seemed an interminable time, I found the tracks of Jones and Wallace. A long "Waa-hoo!" drew me on; then the mellow bay of a hound floated up the ravine. Satan made up time in the sandy stream bed, but kept me busily dodging overhanging branches.
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