him, and hit him square in the ribs.
He exploded in a spit-roar that raised my hair. Directly under him I
wielded my club, pounded on the tree, thrashed at the branches and,
like the crazy fool that I was, yelled at him:

"Go back! Go back! Don't you dare come down! I'd break your old head
for you!"

Foolish or not, this means effectually stopped the descent. He climbed
to his first perch. It was then, realizing what I had done, that I
would certainly have made tracks from under the pinon, if I had not
heard the faint yelp of a hound.

I listened. It came again, faint but clearer. I looked up at my lions.
They too heard, for they were very still. I saw how strained they held
their heads. I backed a little way up the slope. Then the faint yelp
floated up again in the silence. Such dead, strange silence, that
seemed never to have been broken! I saw the lions quiver, and if I
ever heard anything in my life I heard their hearts thump. The yelp
wafted up again, closer this time. I recognized it; it belonged to
Don. The great hound on the back trail of the other lion was coming to
my rescue.

"It's Don! It's Don! It's Don!" I cried, shaking my club at the lions.
"It's all up with you now!" What feelings stirred me then! Pity for
those lions dominated me. Big, tawny, cruel fellows as they were, they
shivered with fright. Their sides trembled. But pity did not hold me
long; Don's yelp, now getting clear and sharp, brought back the rush
of savage, grim sensations.

A full-toned bay attracted my attention from the lions to the downward
slope. I saw a yellow form moving under the trees and climbing fast.
It was Don.

"Hi! Hi! old boy!" I yelled.

Then it seemed he moved up like a shot and stood all his long length,
forepaws against the pinon, his deep bay ringing defiance to the
lions.

It was a great relief, not to say a probable necessity, for me to sit
down just then.

"Now come down," I said to my lions; "you can't catch that hound, and
you can't get away from him."

Moments passed. I was just on the point of deciding to go down to
hurry up my comrades, when I heard the other hounds coming. Yelp on
yelp, bay on bay, made welcome music to my ears. Then a black and
yellow, swiftly flying string of hounds bore into sight down the
slope, streaked up and circled the pinon.

Jones, who at last showed his tall stooping form on the steep ascent,
seemed as long in coming as the hounds had been swift.

"Did you get th