Then the pack lost a good hour on several lion tracks that were a day old, and for such trails we had no time.  We reached the cedars however at seven o’clock, and as the sky was overcast with low dun-colored clouds and the air cool, we were sure it was not too late.

One of the capes of the plateau between Middle and Left Canyon was a narrow strip of rock, covered with a dense cedar growth and cut up into smaller canyons, all running down inevitably toward the great canyon.  With but a single bark to warn us, Don got out of our sight and hearing; and while we split to look and call for him the remainder of the pack found the lion trail that he had gone on, and they left us trying to find a way out as well as to find each other.  I kept the hounds in hearing for some time and meanwhile I signalled to Emett who was on my right flank.  Jones and Jim might as well have vanished off the globe for all I could see or hear of them.  A deep, narrow gully into which I had to lead Foxie and carefully coax him out took so much time that when I once more reached a level I could not hear the hounds or get an answer to my signal cry.

“Waa-hoo!” I called again.

Away on the dry rarified air pealed the cry, piercing the cedar forest, splitting sharp in the vaulted canyons, rolling loud and long, to lose power, to die away in muffling echo.  But the silence returned no answer.

I rode on under the cedars, through a dark, gloomy forest, silent, almost spectral, which brought irresistibly to my mind the words “I found me in a gloomy wood astray.”  I was lost though I knew the direction of the camp.  This section of cedar forest was all but impenetrable.  Dead cedars were massed in gray tangles, live cedars, branches touching the ground, grew close together.  In this labyrinth I lost my bearings.  I turned and turned, crossed my own back trail, which in desperation I followed, coming out of the cedars at the deep and narrow canyon.

Here I fired my revolver.  The echo boomed out like the report of heavy artillery, but no answering shot rewarded me.  There was no alternative save to wander along the canyon and through the cedars until I found my companions.  This I began to do, disgusted with my awkwardness in losing them.  Turning Foxie westward I had scarcely gotten under way when Don came trotting toward me.

“Hello, old boy!” I called.  Don appeared as happy to see me as I was to see him.  He flopped down on the ground; his dripping tongue rolled as he panted; covered with dust and flecked with light froth he surely looked to be a tired hound.

“All in, eh Don!” I said dismounting.  “Well, we’ll rest awhile.”  Then I discovered blood on his nose, which I found to have come from a deep scratch.  “A—­ah! been pushing a lion too hard this morning?  Got your nose scratched, didn’t you?  You great, crazy hound, don’t you know some day you’ll chase your last lion?”

Don wagged his tail as if to say he knew it all very well.  I wet my handkerchief from my canteen and started to wash the blood and dust from his nose, when he whined and licked my fingers.