“I let the dogs loose,” Nance explained, noting the eager, questioning glances.  “The dogs have got track of something.  Hustle your breakfasts!  We’ll get away with speed.”

Breakfast was disposed of in a hurry that morning.  Then the boys hustled to get ready for the day’s sport.  When, a few minutes later, they set off on their ponies, with rifles thrust in saddle boots, revolvers bristling from their belts, ropes looped over the pommels of their saddles, the Pony Rider Boys presented quite a warlike appearance.

“If you were half as fierce as you look I’d run,” declared Dad, with a grin.

“Which way do we go?” questioned the Professor.

“We’ll all hike up into the Mystic Canyon.  There we’ll spread out, each man for himself.  One of us can’t help but fall to the trail of a beast if he is careful.”

After reaching the Mystic they heard the dogs in a canyon some distance away.  Ned and Walter were sent off to the left, Tad to the north, while the rest remained in the Mystic Canyon to wait there, where the chase should lead at some time during the day.

“Three shots are a signal to come in, or to come to the fellow who shoots,” announced the guide.  “Look out for yourselves.”

Silence soon settled down over Mystic Canyon.  Chunky was disappointed that he had not been assigned to go out with one of his companions, he found time hanging heavily on his hands with Nance and the Professor, but he uttered no complaint.

The Professor and guide had dismounted from their ponies and were seated on a rock busily engaged in conversation.  Chunky, after glancing at them narrowly, shouldered his rifle and strolled off, leaving his pony tethered to a sapling.

He walked further than he had intended, making his way to a rise of ground about a quarter of a mile away, with the hope that he might catch a glimpse of some of his companions.  Once on the rise, which was quite heavily wooded, he seemed to hear the hounds much more plainly than before.  It seemed to Stacy that they were approaching from the other side, opposite to that which the rest were watching.  He glanced down into the canyon, but could see neither of the two older men.

“Most exciting chase I’ve ever been in,” muttered the fat boy in disgust, throwing himself down on the ground with rifle across his knees.  “Lions!  I don’t believe there are any lions in the whole country.  Dad’s been having dreams.  It’s my private opinion that Dad’s got an imagination that works over time once in a while.  I think-----”

The words died on the fat boy’s lips.  His eyes grew wide, the pupils narrowed, the whites giving the appearance of small inverted saucers.

Stacy scarcely breathed.

There, slinking across an open space on the rise, its tail swishing its ears laid flat on its cruel, cat-like head, was a tawny, lithe creature.

Stacy Brown recognized the object at once.  It was a mountain lion, a large one.  It seemed to Chunky that he never had seen a beast as large in all his life.  The lion was alternately listening to the baying of the hounds and peering about for a suitable tree in which to hide itself.