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 lion’s neck and Moze buried his teeth in a flank.  Then the three rolled on the rock dangerously near the verge.

Bellowing, Jones grasped the lasso and pulled.  Still holding my revolver, I leaped to his assistance, and together we pulled and jerked.  Don got away from the lion with remarkable quickness.  But Moze, slow and dogged, could not elude the outstretched paws, which fastened in his side and leg.  We pulled so hard we slowly raised the lion.  Moze, never whimpering, clawed and scratched at the rock in his efforts to escape.  The lion’s red tongue protruded from his dripping jaws.  We heard the rend of hide as our efforts, combined with those of Moze, loosed him from the great yellow claws.

The lion, whirling and wrestling, rolled over the precipice.  When the rope straightened with a twang, had it not been fastened to the rock, Jones and I would have jerked over the wall.  The shock threw us to our knees.

For a moment we did not realize the situation.  Emett’s yells awakened us.

“Pull!  Pull!  Pull!” roared he.

Then, knowing that old Sultan would hang himself in a few moments, we attempted to lift him.  Jones pulled till his back cracked; I pulled till I saw red before my eyes.  Again and again we tried.  We could lift him only a few feet.  Soon exhausted, we had to desist altogether.  How Emett roared and raged from his vantage-point above!  He could see the lion in death throes.

Suddenly he quieted down with the words:  “All over; all over!” Then he sat still, looking into space.  Jones sat mopping his brow.  And I, all my hot resentment vanished, lay on the rock, with eyes on the distant mesas.

Presently Jones leaned over the verge with my lasso.

“There,” he said, “I’ve roped one of his hind legs.  Now we’ll pull him up a little, then we’ll fasten this rope, and pull on the other.”

So, foot by foot, we worked the heavy lion up over the wall.  He must have been dead, though his sides heaved.  Don sniffed at him in disdain.  Moze, dusty and bloody, with a large strip of hide hanging from his flank, came up growling low and deep, and gave the lion a last vengeful bite.