and lowered him, kicking and barking, to the rocky floor. Jones made
the lasso fast to a cedar root, and I slid down, like a flash, burning
my hands. Jones swung himself over, wrapped his leg around the rope,
and came down, to hit the ground with a thump. Then, lassos in hands,
we began clambering over the broken fragments.

For a few moments we were lost to sights and sounds away from our
immediate vicinity. The bottom of the cove afforded hard going. Dead
pinons and cedars blocked our way; the great, jagged stones offered no
passage. We crawled, climbed, and jumped from piece to piece.

A yell from Emett halted us. We saw him above, on the extreme point of
wall. Waving his arms, he yelled unintelligible commands to us. The
fierce baying of Don and Moze added to our desperate energy.

The last jumble of splintered rock cleared, we faced a terrible and
wonderful scene.

"Look! Look!" I gasped to Jones.

A wide, bare strip of stone lay a few yards beneath us; and in the
center of this last step sat the great lion on his haunches with his
long tail lashing out over the precipice. Back to the canyon, he
confronted the furious hounds; his demeanor had changed to one of
savage apprehension.

When Jones and I appeared, old Sultan abruptly turned his back to the
hounds and looked down into the canyon. He walked the whole length of
the bare rock with his head stretched over. He was looking for a niche
or a step whereby he might again elude his foes.

Faster lashed his tail; farther and farther stretched his neck. He
stopped, and with head bent so far over the abyss that it seemed he
must fall, he looked and looked.

How grandly he fitted the savage sublimity of that place! The
tremendous purple canyon depths lay beneath him. He stood on the last
step of his mighty throne. The great downward slopes had failed him.
Majestically and slowly he turned from the deep that offered no hope.

As he turned, Jones cast the noose of his lasso perfectly round the
burly neck. Sultan roared and worked his jaws, but he did not leap.
Jones must have expected such a move, for he fastened his rope to a
spur of rock. Standing there, revolver gripped, hearing the baying
hounds, the roaring lion, and Jones' yells mingled with Emett's, I had
no idea what to do. I was in a trance of sensations.

Old Sultan ran rather than leaped at us. Jones evaded the rush by
falling behind a stone, but still did not get out of danger. Don flew
at the li