ngst the American lions there are a few which possess all
the courage of their jungle brothers. Actuated by overweening curiosity,
or else by a thirst for blood, the big cat returned again and again to
the edge of the hole. After his first throw Wade was unable to hit the
beast with a stone, although his efforts had the temporary effect of
frightening it. Gradually, however, it grew bolder, and was restrained
from springing upon him only, as it seemed, by some sixth sense which
warned it of the impossibility of getting out of the fissure after once
getting in. Baffled and furious, the lion sniffed and prowled about the
rim of the hole until the ranchman began to think it would surely leap
upon him.

He picked up his broken pocket-knife and waited for this to happen. The
shattered blade would be of little use, but it might prove better than
his bare hands if he had to defend himself against the brute's teeth and
claws.

CHAPTER XVII

A WAR OF WITS

"Kidnaped? Gordon Wade?"

At Dorothy's announcement, Mrs. Purnell sank, with a gasp, into her
rocking-chair, astonished beyond expression. She listened, with anxiety
scarce less than her daughter's, to the girl's account of the event as
she had it from Trowbridge. Her mouth opened and shut aimlessly as she
picked at her gingham apron. If Wade had been her own son, she could
hardly have loved him more. He had been as tender to her as a son, and
the news of his disappearance and probable injury was a frightful shock.

Weakly she attempted to relieve her own anxiety by disputing the fact of
his danger.

"Oh, I guess nothing's happened to him--nothing like that, anyway. He
may have had a fall from his horse. Or maybe it broke away from him and
ran off."

"Bill Santry found their trail," Dorothy said, with a gesture so tragic
that it wrung her mother's heart strings. "He followed it as far as he
could, then lost it." In any other case she would have tried to keep the
bad news from her mother, because of her nerves, but just now the girl
was too distraught to think of any one but the man she loved. "Oh, if I
could only do something myself," she burst out. "It's staying here,
helpless, that is killing me. I wish I'd gone with Lem up into the
mountains. I would have if he hadn't said I might better stay in town.
But how can I help? There's nothing to do here."

"The idea!" Mrs. Purnell exclaimed. "They'll be out all night. How could
you have gone with them? I don't