Suddenly he quieted down with the words: "All over; all over!" Then he
sat still, looking into space. Jones sat mopping his brow. And I, all
my hot resentment vanished, lay on the rock, with eyes on the distant
mesas.
Presently Jones leaned over the verge with my lasso.
"There," he said, "I've roped one of his hind legs. Now we'll pull him
up a little, then we'll fasten this rope, and pull on the other."
So, foot by foot, we worked the heavy lion up over the wall. He
must have been dead, though his sides heaved. Don sniffed at him in
disdain. Moze, dusty and bloody, with a large strip of hide hanging
from his flank, came up growling low and deep, and gave the lion a
last vengeful bite.
"We've been fools," observed Jones, meditatively. "The excitement of
the game made us lose our wits. I'll never rope another lion."
I said nothing. While Moze licked his bloody leg and Don lay with his
fine head on my knees, Jones began to skin old Sultan. Once more the
strange, infinite silence enfolded the canyon. The far-off golden
walls glistened in the sun; farther down, the purple clefts smoked.
The many-hued peaks and mesas, aloof from each other, rose out of the
depths. It was a grand and gloomy scene of ruin where every glistening
descent of rock was but a page of earth's history.
It brought to my mind a faint appreciation of what time really meant;
it spoke of an age of former men; it showed me the lonesome crags
of eagles, and the cliff lairs of lions; and it taught mutely,
eloquently, a lesson of life--that men are still savage, still driven
by a spirit to roam, to hunt, and to slay.
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