"I'm with you Don!" I grimly muttered. "We'll see this trail out to a
finish."
I had now no eyes for the wonders of the place, though I could not but
see as I bent a piercing gaze ahead the ponderous overhanging wall
above, and sense the bottomless depth below. I felt rather than saw
the canyon swallows, sweeping by in darting flight, with soft
rustle of wings, and I heard the shrill chirp of some strange cliff
inhabitant.
Don ceased barking. How strange that seemed to me! We were no longer
man and hound, but companions, brothers, each one relying on the
other. A protruding corner shut us from sight of what was beyond. Don
slipped around. I had to go sidewise and shuddered as my fingers bit
into the wall.
To my surprise I soon found myself on the floor of a shallow wind
cave. The lion trail led straight across it and on. Shelves of rock
stuck out above under which I hurriedly walked. I came upon a shrub
cedar growing in a niche and marveled to see it there. Don went slower
and slower.
We suddenly rounded a point, to see the lion lying in a box-like space
in the wall. The shelf ended there. I had once before been confronted
with a like situation, and had expected to find it here, so was not
frightened. The lion looked up from his task of licking a bloody paw,
and uttered a fierce growl. His tail began to lash to and fro; it
knocked the little stones off the shelf.
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