hand and
crashed down the hillside, snorting. Something was threshing about the
trail and coughing horribly. Pete would have run if he had known which
way to run. He had seen two lambent green dots glowing above him and
had fired with that quick instinct of placing his shot--the result of
long practice. The flopping and coughing ceased. Pete, with cocked
gun poked ahead of him, struck a match. In its pale flare he saw the
long gray shape of a mountain lien stretched across the trail.
Evidently the lion had smelled the blood of the deer, or the odor of
the sweating horses--a mountain lion likes horse-flesh better than
anything else--and had padded down the trail in the darkness, following
as close as he dared. The match flamed and spluttered out. Pete
wisely backed away a few paces and listened. A little wind whispered
in the pines and a branch creaked, but there came no sound of movement
from the lion. "I reckon I plugged him right!" muttered Pete. "Wonder
what made Jim light out in sech a hurry?" And, "Hey, Jim!" he called.

From far below came a faint _Whoo_! _Halloo_! Then the words separate
and distinct: "I--got--your--horse."

"I--got--a--lion," called Pete shrilly.

"Who--is lyin'--?" came from the depths below.

Pete grinned despite his agitation. "Come--on--back!" shouted Pete.
He thought he heard Bailey say something like "damn," but it may have
been, "I am." Pete struck another match and stepped nearer the lion
this time. The great, lithe beast was dead. The blunt-nose forty-five
at close range had torn away a part of its skull. "I done spiled the
head," complained Pete. In the succeeding darkness he heard the faint
tinkle of shod feet on the trail.

Presently he could distinctly hear the heavy breathing of the horse and
the gentle creak of the saddle. Within speaking distance he told the
foreman that he had shot a whopper of a lion and it looked as though
they would need another pack-horse. Bailey said nothing until he had
arrived at the angle of the switchback, when he lighted a match and
gazed at the great gray cat of the rocks.

"You get twenty dollars bounty," he told Pete. "And you sure stampeded
me into the worst piece of down timber I've rode for a long time.
Gosh! but you're quick with that smoke-wagon of yours! Lost my hat and
liked to broke my leg ag'in' a tree, but I run plumb onto your horse
draggin' a rope. I tied him down there on the flat. I figure you've
saved