The speed at which we traveled, however, fast as it was, availed not to keep up with the pack.  In a short half mile, just as the hollow sloped and merged into level ground, they left us behind and disappeared so quickly as almost to frighten me.  My mustang plunged out of the forest to the rim and dashed along, apparently unmindful of the chasm.  The red and yellow surface blurred in a blinding glare.  I heard the chorus of hounds, but as its direction baffled me I trusted to my horse and I did well, for soon he came to a dead halt on the rim.

Then I heard the hounds below me.  I had but time to see the character of the place—­long, yellow promontories running out and slopes of weathered stone reaching up between to a level with the rim—­when in a dwarf pine growing just over the edge I caught sight of a long, red, pantherish body.

I whooped to my followers now close upon me and leaping off hauled out my Remington and ran to the cliff.  The lion’s long, slender body, of a rare golden-red color, bright, clean, black-tipped and white-bellied, proclaimed it a female of exceeding beauty.  I could have touched her with a fishing rod and saw how easily she could be roped from where I stood.  The tree in which she had taken refuge grew from the head of a weathered slope and rose close to the wall.  At that point it was merely a parapet of crumbling yellow rock.  No doubt she had lain concealed under the shelving wall and had not had time to get away before the hounds were right upon her.

“She’s going to jump,” yelled Jones, in my rear, as he dismounted.

I saw a golden-red streak flash downward, heard a mad medley from the hounds, a cloud of dust rose, then something bright shone for a second to the right along the wall.  I ran with all my might to a headland of rock upon which I scrambled and saw with joy that I could command the situation.

The lioness was not in sight, nor were the hounds.  The latter, however, were hot on the trail.  I knew the lioness had taken to another tree or a hole under the wall, and would soon be routed out.  This time I felt sure she would run down and I took a rapid glance below.  The slope inclined at a steep angle and was one long slide of bits of yellow stone with many bunches of scrub oak and manzanita.  Those latter I saw with satisfaction, because in case I had to go down they would stop the little avalanches.  The slope reached down perhaps five hundred yards and ended in a thicket and jumble of rocks from which rose on the right a bare yellow slide.  This ran up to a low cliff.  I hoped the lion would not go that way, for it led to great broken battlements of rim.  Left of the slide was a patch of cedars.

Jim’s yell pealed out, followed by the familiar penetrating howl of the pack when it sighted game.  With that I saw the lioness leaping down the slope and close behind her a yellow hound.

“Go it, Don, old boy!” I yelled, wild with delight.